Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-07-Speech-4-163"
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"en.20060907.23.4-163"2
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"Mr President, the Sinhalese and the Tamils have lived together in Sri Lanka – also known as Ceylon – for over two thousand years. Before the rise of Rome, before the Caesars, before the birth of Christ, there were Sinhalese kingdoms in Sri Lanka, along with colonies of Tamil kingdoms in southern India, and that is what makes it all the more tragic that, in the twenty-first century in which we are living, the situation there should be so explosive, although it has to be said that we Europeans, in colonial days, made our own contribution to making matters worse through our settlement policy, through the interests of the plantation owners, and much else.
Today, the most vital thing is that we should help to bring matters to a peaceful resolution, and that will be possible only if a distinction is drawn between the terrorists and what actually matters. The terrorists do not want a solution, any more than do the extremists and the people in positions of power, since they derive their power from the ethnic conflict, which is, in itself, perfectly capable of being resolved.
I would like to use the opportunity afforded by our sitting under an Italian president to say that one tremendous model for this is what has been achieved by the Italians and the people of the South Tyrol working together, which has turned out to be beneficial to both sides. Such a model of autonomy benefits not only the minority, but also the majority.
It is, I believe, high time that we start working towards a similar model of autonomy for Sri Lanka, where the situation is so dangerous, and it is for that reason that I welcome this very even-handed resolution, while of course supporting our group's amendment to it. I do, however, think it regrettable that we are, to some extent, giving ourselves over to inter-group ideological warfare instead of this House coming together to present a united front in dealing with this thorny political issue, which would enable us to carry a great deal more weight in our dealings with the participants in the civil war in Sri Lanka."@en1
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