Burma
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of ethnic tensions and progress towards democracy in Burma.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)
My Lords, we have seen positive steps to end ethnic conflict and strengthen democracy. We welcome the agreement in Kachin to work to end hostilities and to establish political dialogue. However, concerns remain, including recent attacks against minority religions, especially in Rakhine state, where we support humanitarian work, and have called for accountability for the violence there and for citizenship for the Rohingya.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, having seen for myself quite recently the spread of violence against the Rohingya to other parts of Burma and following last week’s violence in Lashio, in Shan state, and this week’s reports of the escalating exodus of people from the Rakhine state into neighbouring countries, what pressure is being put on the authorities in Burma to prevent such violence, to bring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice, to ensure the rule of law and to resolve the Rohingya’s demands for full citizenship and constitutional rights, which after all lie at the heart of the problem?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord always comes to these matters hugely informed, usually having just travelled back from the place that we are speaking about, and I am grateful for that. I think the noble Lord is aware that the United Kingdom has been one of the most front-footed and vocal critics of the violence within Rakhine state. Concerns have been raised by the Prime Minister to the President and by the Foreign Secretary to the Foreign Minister; and Huge Swire, the Minister with responsibility for Burma, and I raised these issues specifically with two Ministers, the Minister responsible for ethnic reconciliation in the President’s office and the Minister with specific responsibility for Rakhine state. We discussed, among other issues, the long-term settlement of citizenship. There has been some progress, but I completely share my noble friend’s concerns about the violence that is spreading beyond Rakhine state.
Burma
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the progress being made in Burma to end ethnic tensions and to secure democracy.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, just over a year ago on 21 June, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi addressed both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. There was an understandable sense of euphoria and a sense of “problem solved”. Daw Suu now sits in the Burmese Parliament rather than under house arrest. Hundreds of political prisoners have been released and ceasefires have been agreed with most of the country’s ethnic groups. Space for media, civil society and political actors has increased significantly, and in two years’ time Burma will have elections. Sanctions have been lifted, and Burma’s President, Thein Sein, is travelling the world, feted by world leaders. Only this week the BBC World Service became the first international media organisation to deliver news on a mobile platform in Burma, where it has some 8.4 million listeners. Does this not imply that the problem is solved? Is it not time to move on and focus on the world’s other problems?
During a recent visit to Burma it became clear to me that the euphoria is premature, misplaced and profoundly dangerous, a point I made at Question Time earlier today. During that visit, Daw Suu told me—I shall quote her exact words—that some countries are,
“going overboard with optimism, making the government think that it is getting everything right”.
She said that we must be less euphoric and more realistic, and that nations such as ours must get their response right. This should include a rather better and sympathetic understanding of the constraints which are still being placed upon Daw Suu herself.
To explore those issues, I tabled today’s Oral Question and this Question for Short Debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who are participating tonight. The focus is on ethnic tensions and the limitations of recent developments. The immediacy of those challenges was underlined by the anti-Muslim violence last week in Lashio in Shan state, which also involved attacks on journalists trying to document what occurred. Mosques, schools and shops had been burnt down, and violence took place in more than 18 townships hundreds of kilometres apart from one another.
As I saw during my visit, partly facilitated by Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and from its reports and those of Human Rights Watch, if the challenges posed by ethnic violence are not addressed, they have the capacity to derail Burma’s evolution from military dictatorship into a plural, federal democracy. I met representatives of the Rohingya and the Kachin, whose home states are the two of the bloodiest theatres of ethnic violence. Over the past year, some 192 people have been killed and 140,000 displaced in Arakan state.
The plight of the Muslim Rohingya people is well documented, most recently by Human Rights Watch in its chilling 150-page report, All You Can Do is Pray. It details mass graves from violence that swept Arakan state in June and October last year. At a meeting on 21 May, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Burma considered that report, along with the first-hand account of Rushanara Ali, the Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, who had recently been in Arakan state.
The Rohingya are among the most persecuted and marginalised people in the world, and they are now facing an intensified campaign of ethnic cleansing. This week, Channel 4 highlighted the plight of thousands of displaced Rohingya who have been forced to flee to Thailand, where they are held in deplorable conditions in detention centres. When the Minister comes to reply, I would be grateful if she could tell us what representations have been made specifically arising out of that report by Channel 4.
I first raised the plight of the Rohingya in your Lordships’ House on 17 July 2006, when I urged the Government to co-ordinate an approach to the United Nations, and I asked that that should be done particularly with Islamic countries to raise the plight of the Rohingya and the deplorable conditions in the refugee camps. They are the perfect breeding ground for nurturing a generation of alienated and hostile jihadists. I have repeatedly urged the Government to take action: five parliamentary interventions in 2010, twice more in 2011, again in 2012—and on 28 February this year, I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, whether she would,
“confirm that since 2012, around 5,000 Rohingya Muslim people have been murdered and that many thousands have disappeared”.—[Official Report, 28/2/13; col. 1157.]
I also urged her to mediate a visit by the United Nations special rapporteur on religious liberty to Arakan state. She and I agreed that the Rohingya are living in a system of 21st century apartheid with their citizenship rights having been formally stripped from the constitution. The years, the months and the weeks have passed by, but there has been very little sense of urgency among or a coherent, determined response from the international community.
Six weeks ago, through five further Parliamentary Questions, I again raised the conditions in the camps. I asked about the core issue, the question of the Rohingya claim to citizenship. The Government of Burma need to repeal the 1982 citizenship laws which stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship, rendering them stateless. They need to introduce a new citizenship law in line with international norms. They should also be challenged for trying to impose a two-child policy on the Rohingya, which in the past seven days Daw Suu has described as, “illegal and against human rights”. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the Government would be willing to encourage the establishment of two independent inquiries: one through the United Nations to investigate the violence in Arakan state last year and to assess whether crimes against humanity have been committed, a phrase that was used in your Lordships’ Chamber earlier today by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock; and the other perhaps consisting of independent academics and other experts to assess the historical basis for the claims of the Rohingya in order fully and conclusively to address the claims of the Government of Burma and many in Burmese society that the Rohingya are, as they put it, illegal Bengali immigrants. Years of misinformation about the Rohingya in Burma need to be countered with a full, comprehensive and independent assessment of the history and the facts, if the suffering of the Rohingya is ever to end.
Similarly, as part of a serious peace process, Thein Sein’s Government must end the Burmese army’s offensive against the Kachin people. While it is to be welcomed that the Government of Burma have agreed ceasefires with many of the ethnic armed groups, over the past two years they have inflicted a very serious offensive against the Kachin people in north Burma. Last week, Ban Ki-Moon welcomed the agreement reached between the Government of Myanmar and the Kachin Independence Organisation, calling it a first step towards reconciliation in the country. Perhaps the Minister can share with us the details of the seven-point agreement and her assessment of its durability.
Over the past 18 months, a number of fragile preliminary ceasefires have been agreed. However, there is a need not only for a ceasefire, but for a peace process. As one Karen put it, “A ceasefire is simply pressing the pause button, and we need to find a way to press the stop button”. That can be achieved only through a peace process that involves a meaningful political dialogue with the ethnic nationalities to find a political solution to decades of war.
The military campaign which began two years ago has led to the displacement of 100,000 Kachin civilians, at least 200 villages being burnt to the ground, and 66 churches destroyed. Grave human rights violations have included rape, torture and killings. A recent report by Christian Solidarity Worldwide detailed the story of one Kachin who had been jailed for a year. During his interrogation, he was hung upside down for a day and a night, beaten severely, mutilated with hot knives, and a grenade was shoved into his mouth, his torturers threatening to pull the pin. One Kachin has said that, “The impact of the war this time has been enormous. Many have lost land, plantations, livelihoods ... people are living in the middle of nowhere, hopeless, desperate, suffering”. What are the Government doing to encourage the Government of Burma to develop a serious political dialogue with the ethnic minorities? Those nationalities comprise 40% of the population, inhabit 60% of the land, and live predominantly along the country’s borders in some of the most resource-rich areas that lie along the major trade routes. It is therefore in Burma’s own interests, and those of the international community, to see decades of war end and peace and stability established. That can be achieved only through real political dialogue. So far, the changes on the ground in Burma, welcome though they are, amount primarily to a change of atmosphere rather than a change of system.
I want to end by returning to the recent and shocking rise in religious intolerance, hatred and violence. During my recent visit, I visited a Muslim community in a village called Ayela, two miles from Naypyidaw, which is the new capital. I arrived just three days after a large mob of Buddhists from another area had attacked the village. In this particular case no one was injured or killed, but only because they were able to escape. In many other places, notably Meiktila and Oakkan, there has been appalling loss of life. The tragedy is that, previously, the Buddhists and Muslims had lived together for 200 years. However, someone said to me, “We don’t even dare greet each other in the street”. There are various theories about why this wave of anti-Muslim violence has erupted. I would be interested to know what role the Minister thinks that the militant group known as “969” has played.
I end by saying this. I have made three earlier visits to Burma, the first 15 years ago, illegally into Karen state. I am honorary president of the charity, Karenaid. That I can now visit legally and meet ethnic leaders and democracy activists is a small but welcome harbinger of change. However, the international community has a responsibility to do all it can to help in the effort to bring about fundamental change.
Pakistan: Religious Violence
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the combination of inadequate religious freedom protections and an entrenched climate of impunity has strengthened the position of the more violent groups in Pakistani society, described by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, which have long been allowed to promote their own interpretation of Islam, narrowing the space for difference. What begins as an anti-minority sentiment can later divide the majority.
The noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Desai, rightly referenced the alarming growth of anti-Shia violence in Pakistan. In 2012, at least 325 members of the Shia Muslim population were killed in targeted attacks. In this context, counterextremism discussions with Pakistan are clearly incomplete without measures intended to bolster the protection and promotion of religious freedom or belief. Pursuant to the Written Answer that the Minister gave me on 17 May, I would be keen to know when we will raise these questions with the new Government.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and anti-Ahmadi provisions remain key concerns. The blasphemy laws lack any definition of terms and ignore the question of intent. False accusations can be easily registered, as evidential requirements are inadequate. Dozens were charged in 2012 and at least 16 people remain on death row for blasphemy, while another 20 have been given life sentences. In 2010, Asia Bibi, a Christian from Punjab province, became the first woman in Pakistan’s history to be sentenced to death for blasphemy, and continues to languish in prison. Can the Minister tell us when we last raised her case with the authorities in Pakistan? The resolution of last year’s case against the Christian teenager Rimsha Masih was cited by Pakistan as an illustration that the situation is improving, but the subsequent blasphemy-related attacks on hundreds of Christian homes in Badami Bagh in Lahore in March this year suggests otherwise.
Access to justice is problematic for all vulnerable communities in Pakistan, including minorities. Perpetrators are rarely brought to justice, which means that minorities are often viewed as easy targets. Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, Shias, Sufis and Sikhs have all been badly affected, with Shia communities suffering by far the most casualties. Hate speech and the propagation of inflammatory messages is a standard precursor to religiously motivated violence, but it is rarely punished in Pakistan, despite the fact that relevant legislation already exists. Even government officials inciting violence have not been held accountable for their actions.
The police and members of the judiciary need to be made far more aware of human rights and the unacceptability of impunity. In the aftermath of the Badami Bagh violence, many commented that it would not have taken place if the perpetrators of previous mob incidents—Gojra in 2009, Sangla Hill in 2005, Shanti Nagar in 1997—had been adequately dealt with. Official investigation reports exist for at least the high-profile cases. Will the Minister be pressing the incoming Government to make these public, or indeed to shed light on the murder of the federal Minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, whose killers have never been identified? If the case of an assassinated Cabinet Minister remains unsolved, how can ordinary citizens have faith in the justice system and why should potential attackers fear the law?
Knowing that he was likely to be assassinated, Shahbaz Bhatti once said that he hoped his stand would send,
“a message of hope to the people living a life of disappointment, disillusionment and despair”,
adding that his life was dedicated to the “oppressed, downtrodden and marginalised” and to,
“struggle for human equality, social justice, religious freedom, and to uplift and empower the religious minorities’ communities”.
Will we be pressing for an end to impunity and the repeal of the anti-Ahmadi provisions in the constitution, which legitimise violence and social prejudice? What will we be saying about gender-based violence, the abduction, forced marriage and forcible conversion of Christian and Hindu women and girls, which has increased in frequency in the past couple of years, with perpetrators emboldened by the relatively low likelihood of conviction? We have heard about the increase in aid provision this year from £267 million to £446 million, with Pakistan about to become the largest recipient of UK aid. What are we going to do in using that aid to press for the removal of hate-driven material from schools and emphasising the importance of forming teachers who nurture respect and tolerance? Donors such as the UK need to be sure that they are not inadvertently funding materials that bolster messages of religious intolerance and violence in Pakistan.
In 1947, at the time of partition, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, gave a speech to the New Delhi Press Club, setting out the basis on which the new state of Pakistan was to be founded. In it, he forcefully defended the rights of minorities to be protected and to have their beliefs respected. He said:
“Minorities, to whichever community they may belong, will be safeguarded. Their religion, faith or belief will be secure. There will be no interference of any kind with their freedom of worship. They will have their protection with regard to their religion, faith, their life and their culture. They will be, in all respects, the citizens of Pakistan without any distinction of caste and creed”.
Pakistan’s new Government owe it to his memory, and to the memory of men such as Shahbaz Bhatti, and to girls such as Malala Yousufzai, the 15 year-old who was shot by the Taliban for pressing for the right of women to an education, and to the millions who bravely defied the Taliban to vote in recent elections in Pakistan, to make those sentiments a reality.
Burma
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Warsi
I simply repeat what I said earlier. On every occasion, whether it is the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, Hugo Swire or, indeed, Francis Maude, who was there only last year, we have taken the opportunity to raise the issue of minority groups. All communities must deserve rights as Burma moves forward on its democratic journey.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, would the Minister confirm that since 2012, around 5,000 Rohingya Muslim people have been murdered and that many thousands have disappeared? As she has rightly described, they are living in a system of 21st century apartheid, their citizenship rights having been formally stripped from the constitution. Will she urge the government authorities in Burma to revisit this question and inquire of the UN special rapporteur on religious liberty whether he would be willing to make a visit to the Rohingya people in Arakan state?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord makes an important point. I will be meeting the UN special rapporteur on religious freedom in the next two months. This is certainly a matter that I can raise with him. Ethnic reconciliation is a central part of all discussions that we have with the Burmese Government.
Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I join the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter and other noble Lords in paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Cox for her indomitable persistence and courage, and her determination to open the eyes of the world to things that we do not always want to see. I also join the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in his remarks about the letter being sent to the United Nations Security Council to which I am also a signatory. I hope that when the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, comes to reply, she will say what Her Majesty’s Government’s formal response will be to that important letter, which is being signed by representatives from jurisdictions all around the world.
I first visited South Sudan during the civil war. More than 2 million people died during that conflict. In areas like Torit which I visited, I saw at first hand the terrible carnage that was being inflicted as the result of Antonov bombers simply pounding away at communities day in and day out. As we have heard, it is now 10 years since the violence erupted in Darfur. Since my own visit to Darfur in 2004, and the report which I then published, If This Isn’t Genocide, What Is?, some 2 million people have been displaced. Between 200,000 and 300,000 people have been killed and 90% of the villages have been razed to the ground. Ten years later, the systematic genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing is continuing; those responsible have not been brought to justice; and the violence for which they are responsible has become the order of the day in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. This represents an appalling repetition of history, making these regions dangerous and lawless places. The Khartoum regime must accept the lion’s share of the responsibility for unleashing a torrent of violence on its own people.
In 2013 alone, a further 100,000 Darfuris have been displaced. HIV is rampant, children are malnourished, and even at the height of the violence, when Darfur was in the headlines, aid did not reach two-thirds of the population. The international community claimed that its aid programme was a success because the aim was to help those people who had fled to the camps. But what of the families struggling to survive in the villages in rural areas? More than half the population of Darfur has no water source. Almost a quarter of the population, including children, walk more than six miles to reach water in winter. In the summer “hungry” months, many walk more than 20 miles. Walking for water continues to be dangerous, with frequent reports of attacks.
Perhaps the Minister will comment on the report in the Guardian on 21 February that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, the aid watchdog, had criticised DfID for a water supply project that it said was poorly designed and brought limited benefit to the people whom it was supposed to help. The commission said:
“DfID needs to rethink its approach to engaging in chronic emergencies”.
It criticised it for,
“neglecting the political and institutional challenges involved in improving … water supply”.
It went on to say that DfID should work with partners with a proven track record rather than use interventions that risked,
“diminishing returns and aid dependence”.
I wonder what lessons have been learnt from that experience.
Meanwhile, the killing continues unabated. At the weekend, Reuters reported that recent fighting had caused the deaths of 51 people and wounded 62 more. Simultaneously, it reported that the Sudanese Government had put out a statement claiming that their forces had killed scores of insurgents in the border areas of Kordofan and Blue Nile. Aerial bombardment there was sustained and unremitting, with up to 60 bombs a day—and 400 bombs in Blue Nile in a month.
In Kordofan and Blue Nile, it is once again civilians—mainly women and children—who are caught in the crossfire of the violence. Some have been attacked from the air and the ground and have been denied access to humanitarian assistance for more than 20 months. I raised these crimes against humanity in your Lordships’ House in June and July 2011. The then Minister told me that the Government were “very concerned” about the 11,000 internally displaced people at the time. I drew attention to UN Security Council Resolution 1590, which required,
“protection of vulnerable groups including internally displaced persons”,
and,
“necessary action to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence”.
I asked if the resolution had been put into effect in South Kordofan. It was not worth the paper it was written on.
Through the remainder of 2011 and again in the first months of 2012, as thousands more people were displaced, I questioned Ministers about the failure of the international community and about what Dr Mukesh Kapila said about the second genocide of the 21st century unfolding—Darfur was the first. Dr Kapila is a former British and United Nations official who presumably knew what he was talking about when he said that more than 1 million people were now affected. Given that the ICC has indicted the head of state in Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, and the governor of South Kordofan, Ahmed Mohammed Haroun, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, how can we justify full diplomatic relations with mass murderers and fugitives from justice? Have we not considered at least downgrading those relationships? What is being done to help the ICC enforce arrest warrants in those cases? I ask those questions again.
In 2012 I criticised the paralysis of the international community. Two years ago, Ministers stated:
“Reports of such atrocities will … be investigated and, if they prove to be true, those responsible will need to be brought to account”.—[Official Report, 21/6/11; col. WA 294.]
Nine months later, they stated:
“We continue … to seek urgent access to those most affected by the conflict”.—[Official Report, 9/11/11; col. WA 66.]
On 17 May 2012, I asked again how it was that the second genocide of the 21st century was unfolding in South Kordofan. I asked how the Government could continue to do business as usual with a regime that was led by someone who has been indicted for war crimes. I might add, how can Germany—an ally of ours in the European Union—justify recently holding a business conference encouraging people to invest money in Sudan?
The United Nations now estimates that close to 1 million people have been displaced or severely affected by violence in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. How many more have to be displaced? Independent experts now warn that parts of South Kordofan and Blue Nile face the very real prospect of a man-made famine by April 2013. How many more people have to be malnourished or starve to death? On 25 January the African Union demanded an end to hostilities, the granting of humanitarian access and a commitment to adhere to a clear timeline for direct political talks. Now is not the time for combat or war weariness.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)
My Lords, as all noble Lords are present, we may resume.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, before the Division, I was about to end. I would like to complete my remarks by simply referring to a note I received recently from the courageous bishop of El Obeid, Bishop Macram Gassis. He wrote:
“The suffering of my flock torments me. The aerial bombardment is incessant. … I plead with the international community to save the Nuba people from extermination”.
He concluded:
“The barrel of the gun will never bring peace; on the contrary it will simply create more hatred and violence”.
Surely those are sentiments with which we can all agree.
Tibet
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have held with the Government of China about self-immolations in Tibet and China’s approach to human rights in that region.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)
My Lords, I am sure the whole House will join me in welcoming the most reverend Primate to the House in his new role. We all look forward to working with him on some extremely important issues, on which he has great expertise.
We are deeply concerned about the large number of self-immolations in Tibet. We regularly raise our concerns with the Chinese authorities. My right honourable friend Hugo Swire issued a statement on 17 December. Tibet was discussed at the last round of the annual UK-China human rights dialogue in January 2012. We encourage all parties to work for a resumption of substantive dialogue as a means to address Tibetan concerns and to relieve tensions. We believe that long-term solutions depend on respect for human rights and genuine autonomy for Tibetans within the framework of the Chinese constitution. Our position on Tibet is clear and long-standing. We regard Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, with 105 self-immolations and 88 deaths, including three more in the past two days, many of them young people, the Dalai Lama has said that this futile waste of people’s lives brings tears to his eyes. As the noble Baroness considers how best to respond to these events, would she undertake to read the report Tibet: Breaking the Deadlock, which the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and I published following our visit to Tibet, and which focused on the need to create dialogue, to end attempts to discredit the Dalai Lama, to examine human rights issues and constitutional arrangements, and to address the reasons why these extreme actions are occurring, leading to this heartbreaking and tragic waste of people’s lives?
Baroness Warsi
I know that the noble Lord has a long-standing interest in this matter. Indeed, I have had an opportunity to look at the recommendations of the report that he mentions. I am sure he will be heartened by the fact that we agree, at least in part, with some of its recommendations about the People’s Republic of China and the Dalai Lama returning to dialogue to take these matters forward bilaterally. Of course, I have real concern about the tragic cases of self-immolation. I have had an opportunity to read the casework on some of them. Tragically, those who die do so at great loss to their communities and families, but those who survive end up suffering for many years with very little treatment. It is a matter that we continue to raise.
Egypt: Elections
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Warsi
I am always cautious when I stand at the Dispatch Box and say that I have absolute confidence that something will happen in another country over which I do not have any control, so I probably cannot give my noble friend that assurance. We were hopeful that those elections would take place within about two months of the constitution, which should have been around the end of February possibly. However, some concerns about electoral law have been raised, which have been passed to the judiciary. We hope that elections for the Majlis Al-Chaab will take place this summer. In relation to the upper house, that is functional.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
Will the Minister agree to meet a delegation of the UK Copts, of which I am honorary president, to consider especially the question of the outright, institutionalised discrimination in the constitution against Egyptian Copts, who have faced executions and the burning of their churches?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord is aware that this is a subject that is close to my heart. In relation to my human rights brief, I have made it a priority. I hosted a ministerial conference earlier this week that focused specifically on the freedom of religion and belief. This sought to build consensus around the arising issue of religious intolerance. I will meet members of the Coptic church when I visit Egypt and will raise these matters.
Korean Peninsula
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the security, humanitarian, and human rights situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I thank noble Lords from all parts of the House for taking part in today’s short debate. I know that the retiming of the debate will deprive us of several contributions, notably that of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, who has to chair a Select Committee.
The Motion before us focuses, as I will, on three things: security, humanitarian needs and human rights concerns in North Korea. Since 2003, when, with my noble friend Lady Cox, I made the first of four visits to North Korea, I have served as chairman of the All-Party Group on North Korea. Last September, while in China, I visited the River Tumen, where many trying to leave the DPRK have lost their lives.
The continuing security challenges posed by North Korea were underlined by its rocket launch in December and reports a week ago that it may be about to conduct its third nuclear test. Last Friday, the Russian ambassador to the UN Security Council, Vitaly Churkin, said:
“Our position is that the North Korean rocket launch is a violation of a UN Security Council resolution, so the council should react”.
Even more significantly, China is also likely to support a new resolution this week—a significant diplomatic blow to Pyongyang, about which the Minister will doubtless say more. We are talking about the most militarised country on earth, with the world’s fourth largest army and biggest special forces. North Korea’s arsenal includes the full array of weapons of mass destruction: a plutonium-based nuclear weapons programme now supplemented by uranium enrichment; the world’s third largest chemical weapons arsenal; possible biological weapons; and a range of ballistic missiles.
A failure to hammer out a long-term political settlement and a conflict triggered by a Sarajevo moment would replicate the horrendous haemorrhaging loss of life that saw the catastrophic deaths of around 3 million people in the Korean War. The 2010 sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island underline North Korea’s capacity to initiate hostility, and, in the cyber domain, interference with the GPS systems of planes using Seoul’s busy airports, all indicate North Korea’s ability to inflict harm, short of invasion.
An isolated rogue state has the power to inflict other miseries, too, including drug trafficking, currency counterfeiting, crimes of abduction and the transfer of nuclear technology, which can be sold to terrorists or to countries such as Iran, and which I hope the Minister will comment upon. Since 1953, North Korea has promoted an ideology based on “military first”. For both sides, it has largely been a case of military first, second and third. In this context, Kim Jong-un was right in his New Year’s Day assertion that,
“past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war”.
In a similar vein, the Republic of Korea’s new President, Park Geun-hye, has called for deeper engagement. She said:
“While we cannot allow the North to develop nuclear weapons ... we must keep open the possibility of dialogue, including humanitarian aid”.
Britain has diplomatic relations with both sides and should build on the successful 2011 visit of Choe Tae Bok, the Speaker of the North Korean Supreme Assembly, who expressed interest in both our Northern Ireland peace process and the Hong Kong formula of two systems in one country. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan clearly understood, advocating the use of soft power should not be confused with being a soft touch.
President Park made reference to the dire humanitarian situation—my second point. Two million died during the 1990s North Korean famine. Our previous two excellent ambassadors in Pyongyang both issued warnings about the reappearance of malnutrition, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, when she spoke to our all-party group last year. In July in the House I warned of the unacceptable use of food as a “weapon of war”. Food deprivation and malnutrition lead to physical frailty and stunting, long-term intellectual impairment and increased vulnerability to disease. North Korea’s leaders might reflect that the cost of their missile launch—more than £500 million—could have bought 2.5 million tonnes of corn and 1.4 million tonnes of rice. I hope that the Minister will give her assessment of the current food situation and Kim Jong-un’s recent announcements of Chinese-style agricultural reform, as well as her assessment of the welcome brokering by Jang Song-taek—Kim Jong-un’s uncle—of two new joint economic zones with China.
Thirdly, on human rights, according to the United Nations, 200,000 people are languishing in festering prison camps—the kwan-li-so—where 400,000 people have died in the past 30 years. In an evidence session here, Shin Dong Hyok described how he was born and spent 23 years in Camp 14 and was tortured and subjected to forced labour. At 14, he was made to watch the execution of his mother and brother. BBC Radio 4 has broadcast extracts of his harrowing story The evidence given to our committee and described in a House of Commons debate initiated by Mrs Fiona Bruce MP include accounts of executions, torture, detention, forced labour, trafficking, religious persecution and the “guilt by association” policy, which leads to the arrest, imprisonment and punishment of detainees’ families for up to three generations. We have also heard of women impregnated by Chinese men facing forced abortions or infanticide following deportation by China.
When did the British Government last raise with the Government of China the issues of forced repatriation, the absence of a refugee adjudication process, the denial of access by the UNHCR and the other matters to which I referred? A few months ago, I raised in your Lordships’ House the use of capital punishment. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said that officials from the Foreign Office would reply to me on that point, but I still have not received a reply.
Just a week ago, describing what she called a “beleaguered, subjugated population”, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called for an international inquiry into serious crimes, a proposal supported by around 50 human rights organisations. She said that security questions,
“should not be allowed to overshadow the deplorable human rights situation … which in one way or another affects almost the entire population and has no parallel anywhere … in the world”.
North Korea has never allowed United Nations special rapporteurs on human rights to enter the country, but with 25,000 North Koreans living in the south and an estimated 100,000 living illegally in China, there would be no shortage of evidence for such an inquiry to assess.
Straightforwardly, do Her Majesty’s Government support the creation of a United Nations-sponsored commission of inquiry, and will we vote for it if it comes to a vote? Historians will surely question our generation’s extraordinary indifference to North Korea’s gulag archipelago.
Looking to the future, an approach based on Helsinki-style engagement would surely seek to build on the small advances of recent years. One is in education. Here I make reference to the remarkable story of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, to the first Chevening scholars at Cambridge, and to the use of English as the north’s second official language. This should encourage the BBC World Service to respond positively to the 18 Korean organisations which have requested broadcasts to the Korean peninsula—an issue which Peter Horrocks, the director of BBC Global News, will address at the all-party group on Wednesday of this week.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
“Everyone has the right … to receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
The World Service’s 80th anniversary—and its role in places such as the former Soviet Union and Burma—is a timely reminder of the power of ideas. We know that 14% of defectors say they listened to foreign broadcasts, and 44% of those questioned said that they admired foreign societies. Two weeks ago Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, were in North Korea urging internet freedom.
Not to encourage reform, not to invest in promoting progress and not to break the information blockade would render pointless Britain’s millennium decision to forge diplomatic relations with the DPRK. We owe it to the coming generation, to the Koreans who perish during their hazardous escapes, to those who suffer from a lack of food or medicine, and to those who are the victims of an ideology that has become prisoner of its own rhetoric, to do better than simply offer Cassandra-like predictions of thermonuclear war—predictions which, if they came to pass, would reduce the whole peninsula to an irradiated cemetery.
As today we assess the security, humanitarian and human rights challenges on the Korean peninsula, with the new leadership in the north and south and in China, too, and with today’s second-term inauguration of a United States President, surely there is a moment for change: a time to end the war and to replace it with long overdue peace and prosperity.
Syria
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Warsi
The noble Baroness asks a very important question. She will be familiar with the initiative to prevent sexual violence, to which the Foreign Secretary has given a huge amount of time and energy. Too often, as in the case of Syria and, as we saw, across the Arab world during the Arab uprising, sexual violence is used as a tool of war—sadly not just against women but against men as well. I do not have specific numbers for reports of sexual violence during the Syria conflict. If the office has those numbers, I will write to the noble Baroness and send her those details.
She also asks an important question about the participation of women. Again, the answer is not immediately obvious from the brief that I have here but I will make those inquiries for my own information as well as to ensure that I can send the noble Baroness a detailed response.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, there is widespread concern at what might appear to be unconditional support for the so-called opposition forces, not least because of the treatment of minorities that has been referred to already. Did the Minister see the report in the Sunday Times recently about how a group of Jihadists beheaded a Syrian Christian and literally fed him to the dogs? Did she also see reports concerning links with family members of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda? Therefore, as my noble friend Lord Wright and the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said earlier, should we not be prudent and cautious before feeding a situation where we could simply make bad matters worse? Would the Minister not agree that, in the list of priorities that she mentioned earlier, the treatment of minorities and the upholding of their human rights should be an unconditional issue as far as our support for any opposition group is concerned?
May I also ask her to revisit a reply that her noble friend Lady Northover gave me on 18 December when I asked about support for Hand in Hand for Syria, a British medical charity? She replied that there were no current plans to fund its work. In view of the massive humanitarian needs in Syria at present, will she undertake to look again at that reply?
Baroness Warsi
I will look again that reply and I will certainly make inquiries of the Department for International Development. I know that we are currently using international NGOs for the specific work within Syria but if this is an option that could be looked at, and one that DfID feels is appropriate, I will certainly feed that information back to the noble Lord.
I can assure the noble Lord that our support for the opposition is not unconditional. It is very clearly conditional upon the fact that we require reform, we require a plan and we require them to sign up to basic requirements such as the need for equality and non-discrimination towards minorities. We must also be careful since when we make this argument, which has been made before on a number of occasions, it surely cannot be right that we sit here in Britain and feel that the only way that the rights of minorities, including Christians, across the Arab world can be protected is if they are being ruled by a dictator. There surely has to be another way in which Christians and other minorities are protected as part of a democratically elected Government under which all communities feel part of that nation.
Older People: Their Place and Contribution in Society
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I begin, as others have done, by paying tribute to the most revered Primate, not simply for choosing this important topic for debate here in your Lordships’ House today but also to say how grateful many of us are—perhaps especially those of us who are not Anglicans—for the spiritual leadership that he has provided during his time at Canterbury. I hope that, as he returns to academic life, he will continue to challenge us—as he has done again today—to think beyond our narrow material concerns and to be an apostle of faith and reason.
Many of us were particularly moved by the speech that followed that of the most reverend Primate when we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. That brought to mind that when I was a young Member of another place there was a proposal to build a new geriatric unit in the heart of Liverpool. I was very concerned when I saw where it was to be situated and wrote to the Department of Health to ask whether a Minister could come and see the location. I received a reply that the Minister in the House of Lords—the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington—would come to Liverpool to see the site. That was not quite what I had had in mind at first, but when I met the noble Baroness I immediately revised my views. I took her to the place where they wanted to build a new geriatric unit and pointed out what people in that unit would see: they would look over the neighbouring cemetery in Smithdown Road. In a good example to anyone aspiring to ministerial office, the noble Baroness at this point picked up the plans and tore them up, telling the officials, “It will be over my dead body”. I am glad to say that, all these years later, the noble Baroness has lost none of her mettle. I would not want to be an official on the receiving end of a visitation by her, even at this time.
I was most grateful that the most reverend Primate amusingly drew a line at the age of 62, a threshold which, in my case, is not far off. Having arrived at Westminster in 1979, as the then baby of the House, in another place, I am conscious that it would be something of an understatement to say that I am preaching to the converted by giving a speech in a debate on the place and contribution of older people in society in your Lordships’ House, but I have always been reassured by something that Robert Kennedy once said about age and youth. He said that youth is,
“not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination”.
A great hero of mine is William Ewart Gladstone, who was born in the city of Liverpool. He became Prime Minister two years before the most reverend Primate’s threshold. He went on to be Prime Minister three more times and finally resigned from office at the age of 84, so there may be hope for a number of Members of your Lordships’ House if they have aspirations in that direction.
On arriving in your Lordships’ House in 1997—I was thinking about this as the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, spoke to us earlier—I was struck by the wisdom and experience of so many who participated in the debates here. I got to know the late Lord Longford at that time and I recall wonderful conversations as he talked about his experiences during the interwar years and Cabinet meetings that he had attended with great figures from the past. It was sometimes like talking to the pharaohs when you talked to him. He was an active participant in your Lordships’ House right up until he died at the age of 95. That is a salutary lesson to all those who belittle the contribution that people are able to make right until the end of their lives.
By contrast, our attitude to older people has become a national disgrace. Increasingly, we tend to regard older people as an unwanted burden. The time when families looked after one another, lived close to each other and gave support when needed is long gone. Age and wisdom are no longer generally revered. In its place, we have a media-driven cult of worshipping youth, casting the elderly aside and sending them off out of sight and out of mind to nursing or residential homes where, increasingly, the level of care is deplorable.
I was struck by the speech of my noble friend Lady Masham. It brought to mind a young woman who came to Liverpool to study geriatric care some years ago. She came from west Africa. After six months, she said to me: “David, I am returning to my homeland. I am not going to bother finishing my studies because I do not believe you have anything to teach us about respect or care for the elderly in this country”. That also brought to mind the story about Mother Teresa, who once asked why residents at a home that she visited were all sitting facing the door. She was told: “It is in the hope that someone will visit them”. Mother Teresa said that the tragedy of loneliness, a point made by my noble friend Lord Crisp, and a sense of being unloved, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, is the “most terrible poverty”. That came from someone who ministered to the poor in the city of Calcutta.
It is said that in Britain 1 million people do not see a friend or neighbour during the course of an average week. What does that say about the rest of us? What does it say about our sharp-elbowed, uncaring society when an 80 year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer was beaten repeatedly by a male member of staff at a residential care home in Kentish Town last year; or that a disabled grandmother in Wakefield recently said that she was afraid to return to hospital after what her family described as “absolutely atrocious” care; or the 89 year-old woman exposed to “sickening” mistreatment in a residential care home in Pontefract? As your Lordships know, the list goes on.
Nearly half a million people over the age of 65 are now living in residential care homes, but as the number of older people increases, so the elderly are struggling to find and pay for care to help with everyday needs. Care costs, whether residential or in a person’s home, have risen dramatically in recent years, and successive British Governments have spent less on this provision than almost any other country in Europe. A survey by the Saga Group last year found that Italy and France spent twice as much on their pensioners as we do in the United Kingdom and both those countries have the longest life expectancy for women in Europe. Britain came 17th out of the 20 major European countries surveyed—behind not only Germany but former communist countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic.
Each year an estimated 40,000 people are now forced to sell their homes to pay for care in their old age. Only the poorest, with total assets worth less than £23,000, qualify for any state support. Meanwhile, there are instances of local authorities cutting home care services to such an extent that charging for meals on wheels, which pensioners cannot then afford, has led to the NHS reporting that the number of admissions for malnutrition among the elderly has soared since 2007.
Sadly, some of the austerity measures have made matters worse, disproportionately hitting older people the hardest. In his Autumn Statement the Chancellor, the right honourable George Osborne, announced his second tax raid on pensions in less than three years, while the Government’s quantitative easing programme is penalising savers the most, many of whom are pensioners.
I welcome the fact that the Government have decided to put policies in place to enable those older people who wish to do so to continue working, a point made so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens. These policies match an increasing willingness to work beyond state pension age but, at the same time, a recent ruling allowed companies to dismiss older workers at 65 on the grounds of the “public interest”, to make way for younger staff climbing the career ladder. With the average life expectancy for men now at 78, and 82 for women, can that really be right?
We need to learn again to value the elderly, cherish their contribution to society and respect their human dignity. Older people, too, need to try to value themselves more and resist the myth that, because they are less able, they are of less worth. The most reverend Primate recently met Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. Last year, visiting an old people’s home in Rome, the 85 year-old pontiff reminded those present that it is “beautiful to be elderly” and said:
“It is necessary to discover in every age the presence and blessing of the Lord and the riches it contains”.
In the same month, speaking at a reception in Westminster, Archbishop Vincent Nichols put it well when he said that how we care for older and disabled people is a crucial test of any civilised society. Benedict noted, as the most reverend Primate has done again today:
“In the Bible longevity is considered a blessing of God; today this blessing is widespread and must be seen as a gift to appreciate and to make the most of”.
He added:
“There can be no true human growth and education without fruitful contact with the elderly”.
Children learn so much from their grandparents, who at times of stress and crisis often hold families together with wisdom and love. That contact is crucial. With something like 800,000 children in the country today having no contact with their fathers, the role of grandparents becomes particularly important. My own children’s grandfather died a year ago, aged in his early 90s. He had been an Anglican priest for 60 years. I can say that he and his wife gave a great deal to my children. I think that the link between parenting, grandparenting and the needs of children is massively underestimated.
Even when older people are unable to physically contribute to the good of society, their dignity must be respected. Elderly people should never be discouraged; they are a richness for society, also in suffering and in sickness.
So what could the Government do in practical policy terms to improve the situation? First of all, they could consider learning from current care provision policies abroad. France, Germany and Japan all had a starting point for reform similar to that now existing in England. Today, all three now have implemented state-run social insurance arrangements for long-term care. Under those arrangements, all people covered by the system—often the whole adult population—are required to pay regular contributions either as taxes or as mandatory insurance premiums. In return, should the insured person develop a care need, they become entitled to support from the system, either as services or cash allowances, regardless of their need.
Younger people need to look less at what older people cannot physically do and instead learn from them by listening to their stories of growing older, transformation, self-transcendence, humility and wisdom. We need communities capable of hearing these stories, viewing the elderly not as aliens and strangers or unwanted burdens but as people who enrich us in so many unexpected ways. Surely, therefore, it is high time, and in all our interests, that elderly people are given the recognition, esteem and dignity that they deserve.
Not for the first time, and I am certain it will not be for the last, the most reverend Primate has focused our attention on a central and defining question of our times. Sometimes it is only when someone has left office that their true value is fully appreciated. In the case of the most reverend Primate, I think that we already know that to be so.