Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to London Justice Nihal Jayasinghe lodged a protest over the statement made by British Member of Parliament William Hague at the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) as it tantamounts to legitimization of separation of Sri Lanka. In a letter Justice Jayasighe pointed out that Mr Hague’s statement that the resourcefulness and energy of the Tamil expatriates would be crucial to the success of the GTF was a legitimation of separation.

He also questioned the appropriateness of the MP to congratulate the establishment of the GTF which unites the expatriates from around the world, in the context that the disclosed intention of the GTF is among other things is to use all resources available to the Tamil expatriates to establish the right of Tamils' to self determination and their right to establish their nationhood.

Referring to the expression of the MP's 'sadness at the loss of innocent lives' at the final stages of the military operations, the High Commissioner says inter alia that even though various international organisations and NGOs claimed that innocent lives were lost, his Government followed a zero casualty policy.

"The final push against the LTTE was in the larger interest of the 19 and a half million people who have suffered for nearly 30 years and in a society where civilian life was most vulnerable", High Commissioner said.

He had also said that it is common knowledge that civilians were housed in camps when they fled from the LTTE stranglehold with nowhere to go and it was not the Government's seeking that the civilians suffered under LTTE control. He said the remaining 70,000 people will be resettled no sooner the remaining 255 square kilometres is de-mined.

As to the MP's claim that meaningful political reform and reconciliation should be an urgent priority, the High Commissioner said he would like to make it abundantly clear that Tamil and Sinhala people in Sri Lanka live in amity and brotherhood and that Constitutional mechanisms in the form of the 13th amendment has been promulgated and it was the LTTE's intransigence that prevented its implementation.

Today there was a fully functional Provincial Council in the Eastern Province and this political process will be replicated in the North once the situation returns to normal after the de-mining and the resettlement of all the Tamil people are complete.

The Sri Lanka High Commissioner said his Government was somewhat disturbed with the MP associating himself with the EU decision to suspend or deny the GSP plus concession saying its withdrawal would affect the poorest of the poor the international NGOs have been so fervently seeking to protect.

As to his raising the decision of the Commonwealth to deny Sri Lanka's bid to host the Heads of Government meeting in 2011 due to human rights concerns, the MP was referred to the Falkland crisis where Sri Lanka was one of the 11 countries which voted against the resolution moved in the UN General Assembly condemning the invasion.