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Sri Lanka

My Lords, as the Foreign Secretary made clear in the Statement, the LTTE is a terrorist organisation that has held up to 200,000 civilians as human shields. He said that plenty of evidence was confirmed to him directly in his interviews in the transit camp that he visited that people who had tried to escape had been shot at and, in many cases, killed. There is no condoning, excusing, apologising for or defending the behaviour of the LTTE. Given that, fortunately and to the great relief of everyone, the democratic Government of Sri Lanka have the upper hand and are on the verge of finishing this conflict, it is perfectly proper for us as allies of that Government to expect from them the standards of a democratic Government: that they allow access and ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches the victims of the conflict; and that, in their military operations, they act prudently to protect civilians—on the simple principle, if no other, that two wrongs do not make a right. On the noble Lord’s suggestion that we commit more resources for the resettlement of Tamils and others, I have no doubt that the time for that will come and that the UK will be a generous donor, but let me again say that at the moment the issue is not resources, which are available for this phase, but access for that humanitarian assistance which is in-country but cannot reach the victims. Most critical in future will be the willingness of the Government to live up to their pledge to resettle 80 per cent of those in camps by the end of this year. Then there will be something that we can support in long-term rehabilitation. At the moment, the people remain in camps.