Sri Lanka

A FORMER asylum seeker is calling for MPs' help in ending violence in Sri Lanka after losing contact with a friend. Lux Anandarajah, is calling on Bexley's MPs to raise the plight of Sri Lanka's Tamil community in Parliament.

A civil war has raged in the country - a British colony until 1948 - between the ruling Sinhalese government and the Tamils for more 20 years.

Mr Anandarajah, who fled Sri Lanka for London in 1990 with his wife and two children said "I have lost contact with so many friends now; I have no idea if they are dead or alive and it's time the fighting came to an end."

Mr Anandarajah says the Sinhalese government discriminates against the Tamil community and has broken a convention put in place by the British in 1946 before the handover. He added: "The convention says the ruling party must behave equally to all communities and religions, but this is not the case.

"The Buddhist Sinhalese are given priority, especially in jobs and education, and Britain could help to put this right." "I am appealing for this issue to come up in Parliament and for the UK to take measures to stop human rights violations from continuing."

History of Conflict

The island, 18 miles off the southern coast of India, was a British colony until 1948. It has a population of 18 million, made up of Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims. The Buddhist Sinhalese community is in the majority and Tamils - either Hindu or Roman Catholic - in the minority. For the past 20 years, a civil war has raged between the Sinhalese government and Tamil Tiger rebels who want an independent homeland in the north and east of the country. The Tamil community says it has been discriminated against. The government claims it is giving the Sinhalese what was taken from them during Britain's rule.

An estimated 67,000 people have been killed and more than one million have sought refuge in the UK and America. Both sides signed a peace treaty in 2002 but the unofficial war still rages.