Sri Lanka and the Commonwealth

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on raising this debate, and on how she put forward her views. Only a few weeks ago, on 5 February, we debated Sri Lanka in one of the aptly named topical debates. The immediate issue that has been brought forward by all hon. Members is how to ensure the safety of the tens of thousands of people caught up in what is effectively a fighting zone—the so-called no-fire zone/safe zone. Both sides have been guilty of the indiscriminate and discriminate use of violence. I say "indiscriminate" because if the Sri Lankan army is using area weapons such as assault from the air and artillery fire, it will kill large numbers of people in a very densely populated zone. I mean discriminate violence in the sense that so-called prisoners are shot by the Sri Lankan armed forces and, equally, the LTTE has ended up shooting people that it has tried to force into fighting units. This is a human tragedy on a vast scale and our immediate problem is how to bring pressure to bear not just on the Sri Lankan Government but on the LTTE to make certain that the civilians are evacuated and protected. As the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden and the right hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) mentioned, the LTTE has come to the table suggesting that it wants a ceasefire, with no conditions attached to it. The sadness is that both sides have played that game over the years. Both sides have tended to propose a ceasefire when they have perhaps been at a point of weakness and want to bring the other side to the table. However, there are powerful arguments now for the Sri Lankan Government to recognise that they have the LTTE on the ropes and that, in terms of not only domestic public opinion but international public opinion, they should show a degree of magnanimity and produce a ceasefire that puts the LTTE on the back foot. It seems to me that, as other hon. Members said, the Sri Lankan Government are determined militarily to destroy the LTTE. There is no doubt that the reason for their refusal to allow in a UN force and most international media and for the constraints that have been placed on the non-governmental organisations is that they believe that if there is one final push, the LTTE will be militarily destroyed. However, as many hon. Members pointed out, that military victory will not produce the lasting settlement that they want. History is littered with examples of that. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) pointed that out. My experience from teaching this to British armed forces over many years is that the tube of toothpaste is squeezed in a different direction. There will be a new generation of Tamil Tigers, who will end up fighting by unconventional warfare against the Sri Lankan Government and, more importantly, their people, not only in Sri Lanka but worldwide, and on a scale that we have not seen so far. They will escalate that on a scale that will be quite frightening. I urge the Sri Lankan Government to think very seriously about that. The irony is that in the next two or three weeks they will undoubtedly achieve that military victory, in that they will capture the final strongholds of the LTTE, but they will actually snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We should be thinking of how we persuade the Sri Lankan Government that they are about to achieve a tactical victory that is in fact a strategic defeat. Let me explain where I disagree with hon. Members. At one level, I am impressed by the fact that the Sri Lankan Government have put out vast amounts of PR and publicity, just as the Tamil Tigers have, but I have not found it very sophisticated. If I were advising the Sri Lankan high commissioner, I would say, "The one way you do not go about influencing the debate in the House of Commons is by defaming hon. Members. You try to produce arguments that will convince them that at the very least you have some arguments on your side." The Sri Lankan Government have damaged their case by refusing entry to the area of combat for journalists and they have an ambivalent attitude towards aid workers. At least the British can speak from experience on this matter. I suspect that if we had decided in the long conflict in Northern Ireland to do just that, we would have lost what in effect was a conflict 20 or 30 years' ago. We would have certainly lost any form of support from within Ireland, southern Ireland, or indeed in the United States of America. In their own interests, I urge the Sri Lankan Government to reconsider. However, we should bear it in mind that it is not exactly easy for a journalist or an aid worker to have operated in the zones controlled by the LTTE, either. Putting aside those moral issues, I have sympathy for any Government who are fighting unconventional warfare when they have to reach a moral bar that is often far higher than that of the unconventional side. I want to give the Minister as much time as possible to respond to the debate, so I shall briefly pull some thoughts together about what is to be done.