Lord Naseby at the Photo exhibition depicting LTTE atrocities; He is seen with Sri Lanka High Commissioner in London, Nihal Jayasinghe (Photo by: Sudath Silva)

Lord Naseby, senior member of the House of Lords said in London today(Oct 22) that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) should immediately lay down arms and start negotiations with the government without causing further bloodshed.

He made this statement to this correspondent after visiting a photo exhibition organized by the Sri Lankans Against Terrorism with the help of the Presidential Media Unit and the Sri Lanka High Commission in London.

He said, "My message to them is there is nothing to fight; seeking peace is the most wanted thing for all the people in Sri Lanka at the moment.. So, lay down your arms and go to peace negotiations with the Sri Lanka government."

He said he was glad and impressed about the photo exhibition and wanted to thank the London High Commissioner, Nihal Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka for putting together an exhibition of "true photos" and he hoped and wished the British public would visit it and have a true picture of what is happening in this country as a result of terrorism.

He said exhibitions of this nature would help erase the wrong picture created in the minds of some people that it was the Tamils who were being harassed when in reality it is the other way about. The truth is everybody opposed to the LTTE is harassed, he said.

Speaking earlier at the inaugural ceremony of the exhibition Lord Naseby said he knows in and out of Sri Lanka so well that even some Sri Lankans have not gone to places where he had traveled. He said he first went to the country in 1953.

He said the exhibition opened at Center One Hall on Chadwick Hall depicting the atrocities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was "timely" and "moving."

Lord Naseby said in the past there had been some discrimination regarding language and economic opportunities in Sri Lanka but now all those wrongs have been put to right and there be no need to fight.

Lord Naseby said in the United Kingdom as well as in other parts of the world LTTE is banned. Therefore, he said, there shouldn't be funds collected for them openly or by underhand methods. No rallies also should be held for them since they are illegal, he added.

He said by liberating the Eastern Province where all three communities live in equal ratios and where the problems could have become very complex the Sri Lanka government has devolved power to a provincial council that runs well.

Lord Naseby said when he makes the next trip to Sri Lanka he hoped everything could come to normalcy and the same level of development equal to that of the Eastern Province would have started in the now war ravaged North.

More than 230 photos and video films depicting atrocities carried out by the LTTE including political killings as well as killing of civilians, damage to properties, suicide attacks, and recruitment of child soldiers were exhibited at the exhibition.

Two more photo exhibitions followed by this are scheduled in Hague on 27 and 28 October and in Paris on 30 and 31.

London's Sri Lanka's High Commissioner, Nihal Jayasinhe speaking at the ceremony said, the island nation's development process has been turned back by twenty years due to terrorism. When Singapore became independent they wanted to emulate Colombo. But today, one should see how far Singapore has gone, he said.