Queen’s Speech

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox]

My Lords, I will focus on recent developments in Sudan and South Sudan and in Burma. I return to the former having already raised it in Oral Questions today because a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent, the statistics should be compelling and the need for a response is so urgent.

First, in Sudan, half a million people are displaced from Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile by Khartoum’s ground and aerial offensives, with many sheltering in caves with deadly snakes or in forests, many dying from hunger as they cannot harvest crops and many killed and injured by bombs. In Blue Nile, on 11 May, Sudan Armed Forces—SAF—bombed a mountainous area crowded with internally displaced people near Baw with missiles fired from east and west of the county. Last week, over 3,000 IDPs fled from south-west Baw county and were trapped at the border without transport or food. More than 240 IDPs had already died in the first week of May, including Chief Haj Jabir Dafalla and his family. Many more lives will soon be lost unless humanitarian assistance reaches the area within days, but the Khartoum Government have denied access by aid organisations to those in need.

Secondly, 250,000 refugees have been forced to flee into South Sudan by Khartoum’s offensives. I recently visited Yida camp, where there are now at least 30,000 refugees, with 700 arriving in a single day, many ill, having walked for seven days without adequate food or water. With the imminent rainy season, there will be no access for food supplies. In Jamam camp, with nearly 37,000 refugees from Blue Nile, Oxfam’s director of emergency response calls the situation desperate, saying:

“There is simply not enough water and we are running out of options and we are running out of time”.

We have also met refugees from Abyei who fled last year’s fighting. Khartoum’s forces have defied a UN Security Council requirement to withdraw, thereby preventing people from returning home for fear of atrocities perpetrated by SAF last year, including murder, rape and torture. We visited camps in Bahr el Ghazal without clean water, food or other essential supplies.

Thirdly, tens of thousands of people are suffering from al-Bashir’s commitment to turn Sudan into an Arabic, Islamic state and to evict those deemed “southerners”. The BBC estimates that there are more than 500,000 ethnic South Sudanese in the north. Following an 8 April deadline from Khartoum to formalise their status or leave the country, many fled to South Sudan. Some 15,000 were stranded in Kosti, unable to take boats to South Sudan because of restrictions from Khartoum. They are now being airlifted to Juba, to an unknown fate. Others who have previously fled include thousands in camps near Renk. When we visited them last month, they were living in makeshift shelters, which will never withstand the imminent rains.

Fourthly, Khartoum is also bombing targets across the border in South Sudan. On 23 April, while we were still there, two MiGs bombed a market in Bentiu. On 7 and 8 May, locations in Unity, Upper Nile, and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states were bombed.

When independence was achieved in South Sudan, the war had left a dire humanitarian situation. Now this new nation also has to cope with the massive influx of refugees and forced returnees and the aerial bombardment of people by its northern neighbour. I ask the Minister whether a more robust response to Khartoum’s aerial bombardment is not now needed, such as targeted sanctions, including, for example, the refusal of diplomatic visas to government members. At the moment, they are carrying on their policies with impunity.

Too often there is a response that implies moral equivalence between the policies of the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan. There is no such equivalence. As my noble friend Lord Alton has highlighted, Sudan’s President is indicted by the ICC. He has dismissed the elected governor of South Kordofan and replaced him with another ICC-indicted war criminal. As has been highlighted time and again, he is also carrying out constant aerial bombardment of civilians in his own country and transgressing an international border to bomb civilians in South Sudan. He is pursuing a ruthless racist policy of intimidation, with the expulsion of citizens deemed to be “southerners”.

In contrast, the Government of South Sudan have many problems and inevitable weaknesses but they are not guilty of any such abhorrent policies. South Sudan was fiercely criticised for taking the town of Heglig. However, it was being used by Khartoum as a base for attacks on the South. President Salva Kiir has withdrawn his troops, unlike Khartoum, which has refused to withdraw its troops from Abyei. South Sudan has also been criticised for closing the oil pipeline, but this can be seen as a desperate response to Khartoum’s imposition of extortionate prices. This morning the Minister confirmed that DfID has withdrawn or reduced its development aid for South Sudan in response to the closure of the pipeline. Will the Government rethink this harsh policy? The humanitarian needs of South Sudan are legion and have been detailed in previous debates, so I will not repeat them. However, it cannot be acceptable for DfID to reduce development aid to a nation that is trying, albeit with many problems and fallibilities, to develop democracy and civil society in face of massive challenges, many inflicted by its northern neighbour with impunity.

I turn briefly to Burma, and especially to the plight of ethnic nationals, whom I have visited twice this year. There is much to commend and celebrate in today’s Burma, including the freedom and political engagement of the heroic Aung San Suu Kyi and the release of hundreds of political prisoners. However, the plight of ethnic national peoples, such as the Shan, Kachin and Rohingya, is still cause for great concern. We were in Shan state when the brief ceasefire was broken by intense fighting, and Kachin state is experiencing some of the most intense conflict and violations of human rights in Burma’s recent history. The oppression of the Rohingya people remains as brutal as ever.

Deep concern was graphically expressed by one of the leaders of Shan state, who said that when the light went on in Rangoon, everyone ran to the spotlight and did not wait to see them hiding in the darkness. The ethnic national peoples fear that, as the Burmese Government gain credibility, the country will be open to massive aid and investment, which may be used to exploit further the ethnic national people’s resource-rich lands. For example, the plans for 25 new dams could force tens of thousands from their previous homes with no compensation and destroy the environment. Many voices express caution about premature optimism and lifting of sanctions—rightly so.

Therefore, I ask the Minister whether the Government will reassure the ethnic national peoples that they will be fully included in all discussions about the future of Burma, so that they no longer feel marginalised, vulnerable to exploitation and left in the darkness. Only then will we all be able to celebrate with genuine joy and integrity the new-found freedoms of the beautiful, but in many places still tragic, land of Burma.