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Sri Lanka

I am grateful for that intervention, because we asked that question. The local authorities conceded that several thousand people had been taken out of the camps to a nearby technical college where they were being screened and put through to rehabilitation. Apart from whatever that implies, the problem is that people were not given access or information about what was happening, which was causing more distress. To be honest, some people understood the motivations, but were not satisfied because they could not get in touch with others. One woman was in tears: she had a phone number but no access. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central tried to facilitate that communication. Those are the kinds of things that international agencies can help to achieve and support. The issue one has to consider is that if there is to be a long-term future for Sri Lanka as a successful democratic country, there must be proactive measures to integrate and provide support and rights for every member of the community. A passing observation was that in the north the elements of the police force and army that were visible were entirely Singhalese. There was no significant Tamil representation. Those are the long-term solutions which should be sought, and which we wanted to discuss constructively with the Sri Lankan Government. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun has made it clear that the delegation would be willing to revisit Sri Lanka and engage in such discussions if the Sri Lankan Government were willing for that to happen. But for those who have been engaged in the debate and the conflict for decades, there is a huge legacy of bad faith and bad treatment that prevents the Sri Lankan Government's assertions about their conduct and stance from being credible. The message is simple. If the Sri Lankan Government do not want to end up as a pariah, isolated from the international community, the answer is "Let the international community in, let the observers in, let the media in, stand by your claims in public, and then you might be rehabilitated. Your refusal to take such action will only lead people to draw the obvious conclusions that you so deeply resent."