Sri Lanka and the Commonwealth

Unfortunately, nationalism throughout the world has played its part in causing such conflicts. We have to recognise the right of the Tamil people to self-determination, whatever happens, because even if the LTTE is defeated in the traditional military way as part of this campaign it will not go away; it will simply revert to traditional forms of terrorism and we will see more bombings and assassinations, regrettable though that may be, throughout Sri Lanka and possibly further afield. That is no answer. There is no military solution to this problem. There has to be a political recognition of the rights of the Tamil people. Part of that process must involve the calls that my hon. Friends have made for action by the United Nations and the exclusion of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth. Sri Lanka has already lost its place on the UN Human Rights Council—quite rightly so—but that is far less than what is required to try to bring home to it the scale of the problem. Will my hon. Friend the Minister give us an absolute assurance that no armaments from the UK are being supplied to the Sri Lankan Government at all?