It is not the Sri Lankan troops, but the LTTE - the so-called savior of the Tamil people - which is responsible for genocide, said Lord Naseby, Conservative Peer and Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group on Sri Lanka.

Participating in a debate on Press TV's 'Forum' program last Wednesday, Lord Naseby said that LTTE is using innocent Tamil civilians as a human shield in the war and when these people attempt to flee towards the government controlled areas, they are being shot at.

Joining the debate, European Parliament Member Robert Evans argued that the Sri Lankan troops carpet bomb the Tamils in the North and Sri Lanka should be divided into two countries like Kosovo and Montenegro.

 Lord Naseby said it is true that the Sri Lankan Air Force bomb LTTE targets in the North, but to say they "carpet bomb the Tamils" is a LTTE propaganda tactic. He said that he was a former Royal Air Force pilot and modern military aircraft has the hi-tech facility to bomb targets precisely and accurately.

He said that a large number of Tamils live with the Sinhala community in the South in peace and amity and there is no need to divide the country. He also reminded  Evans that the British government did not try to solve the Northern Ireland problem by granting independence.

When Evans said that the International Community should exert pressure on Sri Lanka to bring about a ceasefire, Lord Naseby said that international pressure should be exerted on the LTTE to release the innocent Tamil civilians and to lay down arms.  "It is the duty of a democratically elected government to eradicate terrorism".

President of the Sinhala Association in the UK, Douglas Wickremaratne said a Tamil State cannot be created in Sri Lanka, and instead it should be done in Tamil Nadu where over 60 million Tamils live. It was the LTTE which chased away Sinhalese and Muslims from the North and it was the Tigers that who killed the educated, moderate Tamil politicians. It is a joke to go for a ceasefire as every time there was a ceasefire, what LTTE did was re-arm and re-group. 

A member of the British Tamil Forum, Suren Suthanthiran said the Sri Lankan government is carrying out genocide and the solution to the problem is to carve out a separate state for Tamils. He said that by making Sinhala the official language in Sri Lanka, Tamils were discriminated.

Lord Naseby said the answer to the problem in Sri Lanka is not to give Tamils Independence. If the LTTE lays down arms today, the problem will be over. He also accused the diaspora organizations such as the British Tamil Forum for collecting funds abroad and using the money to buy weapons for the LTTE.

Walter Jayawardane who was in the audience said that both Sinhala and Tamil are official languages in Sri Lanka and accused Suthanthiran of trying to distort the facts.

Suthanthiran could not answer a question put to him from the audience about child soldiers recruited by the LTTE.