A good debate but failed in its purpose

British parliament debated on Sri Lanka on Tuesday at Westminster Hall for one and half hours. This is the fourth debate on Sri Lanka in recent times. Member for Mitcham and Morden, Siobhain McDonagh secured the time for the debate and lead the debate. The salient feature of the debate is, irrespective of party differences members across the bench were critical on Sri Lankan government for its ignorance on humanitarian crisis and the refusal to accept Tamil grievances.

At the debate, parliament members expressed the frustration of Tamil Diaspora and the inability of the international community to bring a redress to them. Siobhain McDonagh asked, ‘what are we saying to those young people if the British political system cannot take their concerns on board and democracy cannot work for them, as it does for other groups in our society?’ She was also critical on the international media for its poor coverage on Sri Lanka. She was referring to a British media and asked ‘what is going on with a paper’s sense of proportion when it prints stories about flags, but not about thousands of people being killed or displaced every month?’. She further lamented Amnesty is right to say that this is a conflict without witnesses, and it is our role, as Members of Parliament, to provide a testimony. John Ryan reflected the same comment in her speech. Most members agreed SL government’s publicity machine is working very well to cover up what’s going on in SL.

According to Siobhain McDonagh, the purpose of the debate is to call on the British Government to exert all diplomatic efforts into ending the conflict. If the Sri Lankan Government is not willing to end the conflict, she proposed British Government to call for their suspension from the Commonwealth. The members emphasized on two actions against Sri Lanka; suspending Sri Lanka from Commonwealth and taking the issue to UN Security Council.

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