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Sri Lanka

I concur with nearly everything the Minister said. One of the most depressing aspects of this debate is that the war—and it is a war—has been going on since 1983. I suspect that the Sri Lankan Government are probably their own worst enemy, as was suggested earlier. They might believe that this final military campaign will end the war and they will achieve total victory, but our own history is littered with far too many examples to show that, although there will be a military victory and they will occupy the last areas held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, we will then see a new form of war that will probably be conducted in a much more ferocious and violent way. It is up to us, who regard ourselves as friends of the Sri Lankan Government, to persuade them of the undoubted errors of their ways.