Both sides share blame for Sri Lankan troubles: Bob Rae from Toronto.

Both sides share blame for Sri Lankan troubles: Rae

Layton Seeks Ceasefire

Matthew Coutts, National Post Published: Saturday, April 04, 2009
Related Topics
A conference on Sri Lanka's humanitarian crisis that was harshly critical of that country's government heard a somewhat different message yesterday when Liberal MP Bob Rae told delegates the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam must also be held culpable for the decades-long civil war that has led to hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and displacements.

"What I have to say here today will not necessarily make everyone thrilled," Mr. Rae told about 100 Tamil Canadians attending the Human Rights and Sri Lanka Conference yesterday.

"There is irrefutable evidence of breaches of international humanitarian law and breaches of international obligations on the part of both the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and the government of Sri Lanka. It has to be understood that the solution we have seen to conflicts like this around the world have involved ... a commitment from both the parties that a military solution is not the answer," he said.

The conference, organized by the Tamil community's Canadian Human Rights Voice, was intended to spawn discussion into the devastating humanitarian crisis in northeast Sri Lanka and highlight allegations of offences committed against the Tamil minority by the government, although it did little to address those caused by the LTTE, considered a terrorist organization by Canada.

"There are those that say all the blame, all the responsibility for the conflict, all the responsibility for the humanitarian atrocities ... are the fault of only one side," said Mr. Rae, the Liberal opposition's foreign affairs critic. "But that's not true."

Appeals for international pressure for a ceasefire have increased in recent months, as Sri Lankan government forces push into territory held by the Tamil Tigers, which for 26 years has said it is fighting to protect the country's Tamil ethnic minority.

Jack Layton, the NDP leader, who also spoke at the conference, demanded further international pressure for a ceasefire.

"There are very serious actions being taken by both sides that violate the human rights of civilians. What the global community has to do is intervene on behalf of those civilians," he said.

Mr. Layton spend much of the conference touting the success of a recent parliamentary motion that would stop Canada from deporting people to Sri Lanka until there is a safe environment. The motion is expected to receive support from all opposition parties when Parliament resumes in two weeks.

Paul Calandra, a Conservative MP for Oak Ridges-Markham, said he opposed the motion, saying that while it would ensure victims were not returned to the line of fire, it also meant those convicted of war crimes would remain in the country.

"If there are people in this country who are implicated in war crimes ... they will be here," he said. "Under Canadian law, you can't put someone in jail forever. At some point in time, they have to come out of jail. This motion would not allow us to deport this person."