Queen’s Speech

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Howell was so right to raise the question of the Commonwealth, particularly with the forthcoming conference in Colombo of the heads of state. Sri Lanka is a proud founder member of the Commonwealth. After nearly 30 years of civil war, it seems absolutely appropriate that the members of the Commonwealth should go to Colombo and see that country. I certainly know that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will have an enormously warm welcome from the people of Sri Lanka.

I place on record my thanks to the present Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for taking the lead in going to Colombo. He is only the second Prime Minister to do so. The late Mrs Thatcher went in 1984, soon after what was probably the worst experience of Sri Lanka since independence, which followed on from the riots in 1983 when six soldiers were killed in Jaffna. Frankly, the Government of the time there reacted too slowly to those riots and many Tamils suffered as a result. Mrs Thatcher made a brave decision to go, and in going she helped that country to move forward and heal some of those wounds. This meeting comes, in my judgment, at a good time. Terrorism has been defeated and our Prime Minister and the other leaders can see for themselves what has happened in the three years following the war. I think many good things have happened, but they should go and have a look for themselves.

It is not news that one of the key issues in Sri Lanka is human rights. I thank the Commonwealth Secretary-General and his staff for taking the initiative in leading a review of what is happening on the ground. There are two signals that I take heart from. First, a large number of Tamils left Sri Lanka through those years of the great difficulty of the civil war. More recently, more than 1,000 have come back from Australia of their own free will and, to the best of my knowledge, only one has had any difficulty. Several hundred have come back from the UK and substantial numbers from New Zealand. The one country where not too many have come back from is Canada. My analysis is that that is basically because a number of Tamils have become MPs in Canada and are deeply involved in Canadian politics. I hope that Canada will think again and come to Colombo.

The second good point that has happened is that President Rajapaksa is the first leader since independence to insist that it must be a trilingual country. There is very real progress in the Civil Service, in teaching, in the schools and in the road signs of a trilingual approach, which brings the Tamil community into becoming real members of Sri Lanka.

I have just received a letter from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Alistair Burt, and I place on record my thanks to him for his diligence, time and patience and the even-handedness with which he has juggled the varying points of view that have been presented to him on Sri Lanka. His letter raised three points that the Foreign Secretary is going to look at when he goes to Colombo. First, he highlights free and fair provincial council elections in the north on 7 September. The portents are quite good. The electoral register has only just been compiled by Tamil teachers, which is healthy. I pray that those elections go reasonably smoothly. Secondly, he highlights the freedom of the press. We all believe that is important, but we have to reflect a little on Leveson. There is no Leveson problem, or certainly nothing of the scale of Leveson, in Sri Lanka. As someone who knows much of south Asia, in my judgment there is far more freedom of the press in Sri Lanka than in Malaysia or Singapore.

Thirdly, and this is perhaps one of the key points, the Foreign Secretary says he is going to go to the north. I hope by that he means Jaffna. It is the place to go. It is the key part of the Tamil community in the north. I am told he is going to meet civil society, NGOs and political representatives. That is a good start, but he must not exclude the military, in particular the CO at Palali base. Palali defends the northern shores of Sri Lanka and—I am sorry to say this, but it is true—within Tamil Nadu, the Indian state adjacent to Sri Lanka, it appears that the LTTE—the Tamil Tigers—is still welcome today As your Lordships may know, Tamil Nadu is a key component of the coalition in India, which perhaps accounts for some of India’s recent reactions. If it were me, I would also meet the religious leaders—you cannot divorce religion as it is far more powerful there than it is here—the government agent, which is the equivalent of our county councillor, and business leaders, because we want to get that economy going.

The letter also says that the Foreign Secretary is going to meet NGOs. There are some wonderful NGOs across the world. I highlight the International Red Cross as one of the most wonderful. I went out at the time of the tsunami. Much good work was done by many NGOs, but I am afraid that there was also much less good work done by some NGOs. Tragically, some containers came from the UK containing arms for the Tamil Tigers. There are all sorts of NGOs. Some do great work, some do less great work.

Finally, I look at Sri Lankans’ understanding of what happens elsewhere in the world. They look with some amazement at the USA leading this rights issue in the light of Guantanamo Bay, people being kidnapped for 10 years and shootings on campuses. Many in Sri Lanka say, “There’s nothing like that in Sri Lanka. We may have our difficulties and abuses, but there is nothing like that”.

My message is to all leaders in the Commonwealth and, in particular, to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. It is that they should go and see for themselves but should bear in mind that there was nearly 30 years of war. Near the end of World War 2, Herbert Morrison said:

“One of the lessons I hope they”—

that is, people—

“will have learned is that there are no shorts cut and no easy solutions. Nothing is made better by pronouncing curses on the older generation or the Government, or any other cheap and easy scapegoat”.

What was true of the UK in 1945 is equally true in Sri Lanka today after more than 27 years of civil war.