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Sri Lanka

Like the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), I have sought to support the Tamil community for a quarter of a century, and wished and hoped and prayed that it would never come to this. Like other colleagues, I share the anger, frustration, despair and desperation of the Tamils in the country. I join Members in all parts of the House in paying tribute to the people who, with courtesy but out of desperation, have sought to come to Parliament and to the Government and say, "You are the people we rely on; you must do more to help our families and friends." I also give thanks to those who have received us when we have gone with members of the Tamil community to see the Government, the American Government—at the State Department and the White House—the UN, the EU at Strasbourg, and the Commonwealth. The community has put its case more effectively than we ever could and those people have listened, but the action that it needs and that we call for has not been taken. As the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said, the situation has become worse in its implications every day. I repeat my request to the Minister for the public release of the aerial and satellite photography, which would give us—now—the independent evidence, which I know exists, because I have seen some of it, and would make clear what is going on. I repeat the call for both sides to stop fighting now—we must keep repeating that. I also wish to put on the record what specifically has to happen—this follows on from comments made by hon. Members from across the House. There ought to be an attempt by our Government to secure an agreement within the next few hours, or within the next day, for a coalition of countries to say to the Sri Lankan Government, "Within one or two days we are going in with the relief, the aid, the food, the water and the medical aid. We are going to land and we challenge you to stop us." The international community cannot say that sovereignty takes precedence over international responsibility. We have passed that point, as the UN has accepted; the right to protect has been accepted. We have to say that we are going to implement that; we cannot wait for more diplomatic negotiations to take place. My call to Ministers is to respond to that. Of course we can seek a resolution in the UN Security Council and we can ask the United Nations Committee on Human Rights to take action. My Liberal colleagues say that the international communities—the Commonwealth, the EU and the UN—are good because we are stronger together, but it is no good if being stronger together does not deliver any action. I ask that that now be taken. I ask that the Commonwealth take some action, because so far it has not done so and for those of us who believe in the Commonwealth, that is unsatisfactory.