NEWS UPDATED : Defence Secretary Liam Fox has called off a controversial trip to Sri Lanka to give a lecture following criticism of the planned visit in the wake of the country's bloody civil war.
Dr Fox has cancelled his planned visit to Sri Lanka at the last minute but in a statement to Channel 4 News the defence secretary said it is not because of criticism of the country's human rights record.
The statement reads: "Dr Fox has postponed his private visit to Sri Lanka due to an extension to his scheduled official visit to the Gulf. He intends to carry out an official visit to Sri Lanka next year during which he proposes to fulfil the speaking engagement that he had planned."
Both the government and the Tamil Tigers are accused of war crimes and a UN panel has been gathering evidence on what happened, to assess whether a full international investigation should be held.
Sources told The Guardian newspaper that the trip had made the Foreign Office furious, and it was considering appealing to the Prime Minister to stop the visit. - Report from Mike Tilley
Dr Fox has cancelled his planned visit to Sri Lanka at the last minute but in a statement to Channel 4 News the defence secretary said it is not because of criticism of the country's human rights record.
The statement reads: "Dr Fox has postponed his private visit to Sri Lanka due to an extension to his scheduled official visit to the Gulf. He intends to carry out an official visit to Sri Lanka next year during which he proposes to fulfil the speaking engagement that he had planned."
Both the government and the Tamil Tigers are accused of war crimes and a UN panel has been gathering evidence on what happened, to assess whether a full international investigation should be held.
Sources told The Guardian newspaper that the trip had made the Foreign Office furious, and it was considering appealing to the Prime Minister to stop the visit. - Report from Mike Tilley
British involvement to bring about a bipartisan approach with the Liam Fox initiative in 1996-97, created much hope that acrimonious politics between the government and opposition will progress towards mutual understanding and agreement to a calmer and responsible politics in Sri Lanka.
It is over thirteen years, the bipartisan politics is a forgotten and a foregone chapter and the opposition remain savaged and reduced to semi-impotence in an unprecedented scale with the heavy-handed actions of the government.
Failure of Dr Liam Fox’s bipartisan effort is a lesson that reflects the degenerating and the dangerous politics in Sri Lanka. Despite his battered effort in the 1990’s, he remains untroubled and is maintaining his cosy relationship with the GoSL. It is unclear what his long term stand on Sri Lanka and is said to be progressing further in a worrying way, ignoring the general foreign policy stand of the British government.
Dr Fox has maintained his strong relationship with the Sri Lankan government without engaging with the diverse political views in the island nation. He has proved him a mouthpiece of the GoSL, ignoring the serious negativity of the governance in the country.
Despite the presence of over 250,000 Tamils in the United Kingdom, he will not entertain any engagement with them. He will not even accommodate the views of the moderate Tamils who are opposed to the LTTE. His resentment to engage with the Tamils confirms that he will only speak for the GoSL at any cost and that he will not address the wider views and issues of the Sri Lankan people. Any attempts to arrange a meeting with him will be rubbished by his office and his staff will ask persons contacting to get in touch with the Sri Lanka High Commission instead.
Dr Fox’s latest visit comes at the time when accusations are being published qoting the Sri Lanka High Commission in London that the neighbouring Maldives is involved in the illegal transfer of funds on behalf of Sri Lanka to Lord Nesby, Senior Member of House of Lord and Co- Chairman of all party parliamentary group for Sri Lanka. Funds were said to be illegally transferred through the former Maldivian President Maumum Abdul Gayum. These payments are not recorded in the member’s disclosure records in the British parliament nor denied by Lord Nesby.
If Dr Fox fails to reflect the official stand of the British government on Sri Lanka during his visit or spell out his stand in his speech, it will only lead to strengthen the argument of his compromising relationship with the GoSL.
His private engagement with the President when he was in London and his latest visit to Sri Lanka are unhelpful, whatever comfort he may take to claim they are his personal business.
 The controversial British Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox is undertaking another provoking visit to...){kind=link}
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