GARETH EVANS, the former Foreign Minister of Australia and the Chief Executive of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said that a democratic government had a legitimate right to eradicate terrorism.
"I have no doubt the LTTE are terrorists and that Prabhakaran is a thug", he noted.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the Royal Commonwealth Society titled "Sri Lanka : What Role for Global Actors", in London last week, he said that however, the Sri Lankan government had to abide by UN Conventions and Humanitarian issues. If a government failed to do that then the R2P principle would have to be enforced by the International Community.
"More than 50,000 civilians were being held by the LTTE as a human shield", Evans said. "The Sri Lankan government is determined to bring terrorism to an end."
Evans was one of Australia's longest serving Foreign Ministers, best known internationally for his roles in developing the UN peace plan for Cambodia, bringing to a conclusion the international Chemical Weapons Convention, founding the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and initiating the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
The British Prime Minister's special envoy to Sri Lanka, Rt. Hon. Des Browne MP, delivering a speech at the same seminar gave details of his recent visit to Sri Lanka with the all party parliamentary group and said he had nothing but praise for the people he met including politicians, officials and ordinary civilians.
He said that he believed when he asked some IDPs "why did you stay?" and their reply was "Tigers held us".
He said he has accepted an invitation from a Government Minister to return to Sri Lanka to see the progress of the IDPs.
Both speakers stressed the fact that the government and LTTE have a responsibility to stop the carnage.
A participant who identified himself as Dr. Raj accused Evans of being a propagandist for the Sri Lanka government for branding the LTTE as a terrorist group.
Douglas Wickramaratne, a key anti-LTTE activist in London said the West must not try ‘James Bond type of politics’, but appreciated the balanced presentations.
The meeting was chaired by Dr. Dhananjayam Sriskadarajah, Director, Royal Commonwealth Society.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democratic MP, Rt. Hon. Malcom Bruce, who visited Sri Lankan IDP camps last week said in the British Parliament that the Internally Displaced People in the camps are very grateful to the Sri Lanka army for giving them the opportunity to escape.
Malcom Bruce MP said, "I can and should report what people said. They were grateful to the Sri Lankan army for giving them the opportunity to escape and were glad to be out of the conflict zone. In response to direct questions, they said they had not left earlier because the LTTE had basically said, "If you try to leave, you will be shot." They had evidence of people who had tried and who had been shot at. That is an objective fact."
Answering a question about the food situation, Bruce said, "It is not true to say that nothing was there, but the supplies were not arriving fast enough and not on the scale that was needed."
(Courtesy: Sunday Island)
