Chechnya and the North Caucasus
Debate between Earl Ferrers and Lord Dykes
Lord Dykes
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Jopling, who has experience and knowledge both of the Council of Europe and the North Atlantic Assembly over many years. It is a particular pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on taking the initiative, initiating this debate and putting forward his Motion on Chechnya and the North Caucasus.
My pleasure is augmented by a recollection. My noble friend Lord Jopling talked about 40-plus years ago. I will not go back that far, but I am still entitled to go back to 1973, when I first came across Frank Judd MP, as he was then. He was a junior Minister in the Foreign Office and sat on the Labour Benches. He came on the first historic visit that we made in November 1973 to the People's Republic of China, prior to the Edward Heath visit that followed the Nixon thaw with China. I well recollect the awe and inspiration I felt around Frank Judd. I embarrass him deliberately today with this praise, because it is due and I have been meaning to say it for many years. He has a deep knowledge and passion for human rights, international civic rights, the protection of minorities and new techniques for dealing in a kindly way with the international migration problem that we have in many parts of the world. Frank Judd's links with the UN over the years have also been a tremendous inspiration.
In those days in the People's Republic of China, the cultural revolution was still on, although it was fading away at the edges. We saw China in a totally different guise from how it is now, after its tremendous transformation. That experience showed the need for the democracies of the world, and western democracies in particular, to be very vigilant about how countries change internally. China remains a one-party state. There has been some opening out of the National People's Congress and so on, but the country retains a command economy, despite a huge input now of private enterprise.
One only hopes that the fact that Russia achieved democracy in its own form after the collapse of the Soviet Union will lead—it has not happened yet—to the genuine creation of a lasting and durable democracy, which Russia has never had. Because of that, Russia can continue to be tyrannical and brutal, particularly in the more geographically extreme areas of the federation. I share the dismay of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lord Jopling—and I use his words—at the rage and brutality of the Russian intervention in these areas. The word “overkill” is unfortunate because it can be taken out of context, but we saw almost a deliberate overkill in response to so-called terrorist rebellions—they were immediately classified as terrorism, although some people would say that there were freedom fighters—in Chechnya and elsewhere. There was overkill physically, too. What happened to human beings and to buildings, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, was really disturbing in Russian terms. We know, too, how there was a reaction to some incidents which took place when, tragically, innocent human beings were killed and wounded in Moscow and elsewhere. There was a measured reaction to contain the problem, but when dealing with the human rights aspects either of countries wishing to be autonomous or of regions and provinces seeking more local freedoms within the federation structure, there is the need for Russia to respond to that.
My pleasure is followed by a feeling of great embarrassment on my part about this debate. This is the first time that I have ever pleaded with the House to give me leave, but I have to leave this debate early. I do so with genuine sincerity and I apologise that this is a day of voting on a number of important aspects. The Liberal Democrat Party is particularly concerned with one national aspect, the referendum on AV, and therefore we will all be engaged later on. I am able to go out later than some of my colleagues who have already gone to urge our voters out for the referendum. That is why I have to leave this debate early. I hope that, in future, the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, will continue to speak to me from time to time despite this impertinence on my part. I hope that the Front Benches will grant me leave to leave early today. It was not possible for another of our foreign affairs team to speak in this debate.
Earl Ferrers
Might I just interrupt my noble friend for a moment? I wondered whether he might think that he would serve the national interest best if he remained here to the end of the debate.
Lord Dykes
I will stay in the debate as long as possible. Unfortunately, my embarrassment is augmented by the reality that I also have a lunchtime meeting with an official who is coming from overseas. That was fixed four and a half months ago, whereas I am standing in for a colleague at short notice in this debate. I have to do that at 1 o'clock but I shall stay in this debate as long as I can. My double embarrassment in that respect is then completely transmogrified into pleasure again that, after my few words about these matters, more expertise will come from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, who knows so much more about them than I do. I pay tribute to him, too, and the work that he has done in bringing the Muslim international community together with the Christian and other faith and non-faith communities throughout the world for peace and general international understanding.
Concerning Chechnya, surely it behoves the Government to be deliberate and emphatic today—even if I am not there right at the end, and I apologise in advance to my noble friend Lord Wallace for that reality. I understand completely what my noble friend on the Bench below the Gangway meant in his intervention. I feel very bad about it, as it is the first time I have ever done it, but I have to persist. However, I ask my noble friend Lord Wallace to reassure us that the Government really will, definitely and emphatically, repeat, reiterate and reinforce our determination to make representations to the leaders of the Russian Federation and to those in the Russian Parliament—particularly in the majority party, which is so dominant in their system after the last election—that they must now begin to indicate that there really will be a greater human rights reform in those outlying regions of the federation. It should be not only in the Muslim parts but in Georgia. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, mentioned the south Caucasus countries, but there is also what will happen in the future in places such as Armenia. All those things have some linkage.
It is very important both for the European Union as a whole and the UK Government in particular, with our interests in those matters, to ensure that we make very strong representations to the Russians and do not allow that softening-down process to which the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, referred. It sounds very sinister and disturbing. I hope, too, that the Labour Front Bench—having I hope forgiven me, in the guise of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, for my impertinence in leaving the debate later—will add its support so that it will be a joint Front-Bench effort to persuade the Russians to be very careful and cautious in future about the way that they handle these delicate and tragic matters.