Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-05-Speech-4-187"
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"en.20090205.20.4-187"2
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"− Madam President, the Socialist Group in this Parliament is formally refusing to take part in this vote on Sri Lanka. Last month, Parliament held a full debate, with Council and Commission statements, on the situation in Gaza. On this side of the House, we attach the same importance to Sri Lanka and believe it deserved equal and proper discussion, but I regret that not one other group supported us in this stand.
A short debate this afternoon with a handful of people on a Thursday is an insult to the thousands of people under attack and dying in the north of Sri Lanka. We wanted to call, as in the joint USA and UK declaration from Washington earlier this week, for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire by both sides, but the PPE refused to include that in the text.
We wanted to condemn, unreservedly, the bombing of hospitals and aid workers, but Mr Van Orden, negotiating for the PPE, refused to condemn it. That is why it is not in the resolution before you. To him – and presumably to Dr Tannock as well – everything the Government of Sri Lanka says is a fact and just about every aid organisation on the ground, from the Red Cross to the UN, can be dismissed. Amnesty International today suggests the Sri Lankan army could be guilty of war crimes for its use of cluster bombs on a hospital – a 16-hour bombardment, according to Amnesty International.
The PSE also wanted to condemn the murders of journalists and other media workers by government agents. Paragraph 4 of the resolution asks the Government – the very same Sri Lankan Government – to investigate their own serious human rights violations.
Colleagues, some of you may want to associate yourselves and your groups with those kinds of sentiments, but we do not. Vote for this text and you are condoning attacks on hospitals and ignoring allegations of war crimes. I note that Mr Van Orden has not even had the courage to stand here and defend his bloody handiwork, but I am hardly surprised. In our negotiations, he just dismissed and laughed off as propaganda allegations of rape by Sri Lankan soldiers, so what you can expect?
In the Middle East, millions of people – including many Jews – were outraged at what Israel did to Gaza, but that did not make them supporters of Hamas. Sadly, anyone who does not support the Sri Lankan Government is labelled an apologist for terrorism and a supporter of the LTTE.
However, our motion was critical of the LTTE and their tactics. We do condemn their attacks and we do want them, the Tamil Tigers, to sit round the negotiating table, but this war must be stopped immediately. The Government must end its military campaign that has brought – as others have said – humanitarian disaster to hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in the north of the island.
Sadly, this resolution does not call for an immediate end to the fighting, so we will not endorse that approach by taking part in today’s vote. We dissociate ourselves, President and colleagues, from this motion and I urge anyone else with the same views to do likewise."@en1
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