Lord Naseby lauds Marapana’s statement at UNHCR

• I wish to congratulate Foreign Affairs Minister and delegation leader Tilak Marapana on Sri Lanka’s statement

Lord Naseby said the UN for its part will have to submit proposals of how to get persons like Adele Balasingham and other senior LTTE officers settled in UK, Canada, USA or elsewhere to fully co-operate if a Truth and Reconciliation mechanism is to happen.  

 He said he carefully observed every stage of this year’s meeting of the UNHCR.   

“I wish to congratulate Foreign Affairs Minister and delegation leader Tilak Marapana on Sri Lanka’s statement. I have read meticulously all the pages of the full statement. It is balanced, authoritative, measured, challenging and utterly professional - backed up by irrefutable facts and figures.  

“I was particularly proud that the Foreign Minister decided to include as one of three important annexes the ‘House of Lords debate’ I initiated and led in The House of Lords on 12th October 2017. I now feel totally vindicated about persevering for over two years to extract under a ‘Freedom of Information’ Inquiry the dispatches of Lt Colonel Gash, the UK’s Military attaché in Colombo who saw the war at first hand. It is these dispatches that prove beyond any doubt that there never was a policy to kill Tamil civilians and that the Civilian Casualties were only around 5,500 at most.  

“I just highlight three important issues: From the UN the Report 40/L.1, the consensus Resolution on Sri Lanka that was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council without a vote: On page 2, I quote, ‘Noting with appreciation the return of some private land’. The Foreign Minister stated in his report that it was 92.16% - hardly ‘some’ - realistically ‘most’. From the same Resolution document on page 3 reference is made to a Truth & Reconciliation Commission: surely The UN for its part will have to put forward proposals of how to get persons like Mrs Adele Balasingham and other senior LTTE officers settled in UK, Canada, USA or elsewhere to fully co-operate if a Truth & Reconciliation mechanism is to happen,” Lord Naseby said.   
He said from the Sri Lanka Foreign Minister’s statement reference is made to ‘the considerable unevenness in the standards of proof applied to the Sri Lankan Government compared to those applied to the unsubstantiated allegations made by Sri Lanka’s detractors’. How right he was to raise this issue. It really is high time that the claim of 40,000 civilians killed was expunged from the records.