Iraq: Nimrud

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is not entirely easy to communicate with the leadership of ISIL and it is a question of Muslim heritage and pre-Muslim sites which it is concerned about. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, has a great deal of expertise in all this and I also know that for all those engaged in the study of ancient history this is an extremely painful experience. We are doing what we can.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, is not the bulldozing of the ancient city of Nimrud, the Assyrian city that stands for so much of Mesopotamia’s history, as the noble Lord said, on a par with the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001 and the Sufi monuments in Mali in 2011? Is not this destruction of the collective memory of humankind that has just been referred to, and the murder by ISIL of so many of the people who live in that part of Iraq and in Syria, what Ban Ki-moon called earlier this week crimes against humanity? Will the noble Lord tell us what will be done to bring those responsible before the International Criminal Court where they may be tried? What is being done to stop the artefacts that have been acquired now being sold on international markets? What is being done to retake the plain of Nineveh?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises a number of questions. Part of what is going on is the deliberate destruction of these sites, including by heavy explosives, and part of what is happening is the smuggling of antiquities. They are parallel, rather different, activities. We are working with all our partners in the European Union and through UNESCO to stop that trade, which of course provides a means of financing these radical movements. In the Middle East, there are allegations that some of the antiquities are being sold in Lebanon and Turkey.

Georgia

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Venice Commission and others are also engaged in discussions with the Georgian Government about human rights and judicial rights. The ODIHR report was absolutely about prosecutions of members of the former Government and the processes by which prosecutions are carried out, court procedures and so on. We are in very active dialogue with the Georgian Government, as are other EU ambassadors—and, of course, Georgia, through its association relationship with the European Union, has a constant dialogue with that and other international organisations.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, given that this is a 116-page report, is my noble friend not right to use the term “systematic” when he describes the violations of human rights and the undermining of natural justice that is alleged within the context of the report? Will the Minister therefore look again at whether or not those violations should be classified as systematic? Will he also say whether British or EU diplomats are able to attend some of the trials of former officials to ensure that due process is conducted?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Yes, British officials are engaged in that sort of extremely active dialogue, and British officials have gone out to advise the Georgian Government. I stress the word “failings”. Georgia is a country in transition and has not yet entirely established what we regard as western European standards. I remember visiting Poland and Hungary in the mid-1990s, and they had not reached that stage yet either. We are doing all we can to make sure that Georgia follows the same path—but it is rather behind them.

South Sudan

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 28th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely agree that the churches are among the strongest and most widespread civil organisations in that deeply embattled country. Of course, many of the civil society organisations are now in refugee camps outside Sudan. I pay a particular compliment to those aid workers who are helping in South Sudan, in conditions of very considerable insecurity. Many of them come from British NGOs. We all recognise how difficult the situation is and we are certainly working with the churches as far as we can.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that too much time in South Sudan has been focused on state building rather than nation building, and that that is reflected in the 38% of revenue that has been spent on armaments in South Sudan compared with the 7% spent on education? As we approach the peace process, will he ensure, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, argued, and as the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, has just said, that the representative nature of the peace process becomes more apparent, including not only warlords but many of those who have suffered, not least the women in South Sudan?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is, of course, a very new country and there has not been very much time for either state or nation building so far. We are certainly working through IGAD to pull in as many civil society organisations as we can in order to ensure that we do not have warlord-dominated negotiations of the sort the noble Lord suggested.

Iran: Human Rights

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely agree with that. We have to remember that there is something of a civil society in Iran, in spite of the current regime. Iran has an ancient civilisation and much pride in that ancient civilisation. The persecution of minorities—both religious minorities such as the Baha’i and ethnic minorities such as the Ahwazi Arabs—is also a stain on the current Iranian regime. We know that there are many people in Tehran and elsewhere who likewise disapprove of that. We continue to make our case.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, has the Minister had a chance to look at the letter sent to him at the Foreign Office by his noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew last weekend? It concerns not just the death of Mr Savadjani, but a number of members of the Iranian resistance who are currently scheduled for execution. In the light of what the Minister has just said about the plight of the Baha’is, would he like to make some further comment about the execution of Baha’i believers in Iran?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have condemned extremely strongly the persecution of the Baha’i. There are still, as the noble Lord knows, a large number in prison. I have not seen my noble friend Lord Carlile’s letter; I will look at it and will write to the noble Lord.

Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are doing our best to carry the P5 with us as we go. That is an important part of where we are going. It is extremely important that we got the first resolution on Syria for some time agreed unanimously by all participants. That is a significant step forward and we should not underrate it.

I agree that the situation is appalling. I am told that somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 people are trapped in Aleppo at the moment. Part of the expectation of what will happen is that there may be another surge of refugees across the frontiers in the next six months if some of these sieges are lifted, as, of course, we very much hope they will be.

The fact that this is not a chapter 7 resolution does not necessarily mean that attitudes—including the Russian attitude and, perhaps with it, the Chinese attitude—will evolve. The behaviour of the regime in killing and starving its own people is losing the sympathy of the whole international community.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister answered the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, by talking about the role which the United Nations Security Council might play in the future. One of the things we should be doing is looking at the role of the International Criminal Court and the ability of the Security Council to make a referral—not least because Ban Ki-Moon only this week said that unspeakable suffering was being experienced by the children in Syria, with some 10,000 of those killed so far being children. In the Foreign Secretary’s Statement we heard about the barrel bombs that are continuing to rain down on Aleppo; the sieges being undertaken in places such as Homs, where people are being starved to death; and, in previous times, the use of Sarin gas and the fact that only 11% of chemical weapons have been removed thus far. Surely it is time for us to start thinking about collecting the evidence against those who have been responsible for these deeds, whether they come from extremist militant groups or the regime, to ensure that one day they will face their day of trial.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, a number of groups, both governmental and non-governmental, are collecting evidence of atrocities in Syria as we go forward. We are committed to a transition regime rather than a destruction regime because we are well aware of the lessons of Iraq where, under American leadership, most of the institutions of Saddam Hussein’s state were dismantled, leaving us with an ungoverned and ungovernable country. We are also very clear that in any transition there is no place for the core members of the Assad regime, and that is what we intend to negotiate through the Geneva II talks.

Human Rights: Burma

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I would agree that history shows that one of the most difficult periods in a country’s history is when it is attempting to move away from a highly authoritarian regime. The question whether it can move from that without a bloody conflict is, of course, always one of the difficult ones. We have taken the choice to encourage the moves currently under way in Burma; things are improving a good deal there but, of course, they have a long way to go. The opposition, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, have very much encouraged the move that the British have taken.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, is it not crucial that we take our lead from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, as the noble Lord has just said? I met her just before Easter, when she said that we must engage in dialogue—but also that we must be realistic. During the discussions with Thein Sein, were limits placed on the new military relationship that has been announced by the Prime Minister? In particular, have we raised the Burmese army’s use of child soldiers, forced labour, sexual violence and land mines? Can he confirm that it is not our intention to sell arms to Burma?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I can confirm that the first thing that Aung San Suu Kyi asked the British Government to do was to appoint a defence attaché to Burma some months ago. We are now offering military training to a number of Burmese officers in this country to help them through the transition. Requests have also been made to assist in retraining the Burmese police. These are all things that we think will help through a transition—not, of course, towards full democracy and a perfect resolution of all these problems, but we see the situation as improving. We are doing our best not only to help it to improve but to monitor how far it goes.

Sudan: War Crimes

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by Amnesty International, We had no time to bury him: War crimes in Sudan’s Blue Nile State.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are deeply concerned about the suffering caused by the conflict in Blue Nile state. Accounts presented in Amnesty’s report underline our serious concern about the impact on civilians of the military tactics used. Our priority is a cessation of hostilities and full access to the area for life-saving humanitarian assistance. We continue to press both the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North—the SPLM-N—to enter into talks to achieve this.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in addition to this shocking report, new satellite imagery compiled by Amnesty International shows the sheer extent of the purging of the Nuba people from these areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, as well as the scorched-earth policies being pursued by the Sudanese military—unabated, uncondemned and unobstructed by the West? Can the Minister tell us when this situation was last raised in the United Nations Security Council and whether we support the extension of the current arms embargo on Darfur to the rest of Sudan? Rather than locking out refugees from camps such as Yida, why are we still not collecting first-hand accounts from witnesses that detail the genocide and war crimes against humanity which are carried out on a day-by-day basis?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord asked about six questions, and I am not sure that I can answer all of them. The UN is extremely heavily engaged both in Sudan and in South Sudan, with three UN missions and a number of other UN operations. We and other Governments make entirely clear to the Government of Sudan our horror at what is taking place. However, as the noble Lord knows, access to the areas of conflict is extremely difficult for diplomats at present.

Sudan

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as I have already said, the two presidents meet and say that they have agreed and that matters will now be implemented—and then too little has happened. We are fully engaged with the Government of Sudan and with the Government of South Sudan and are working with others to bring as much pressure to bear as we can.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Although the Minister is anxious about using words such as genocide, does he recall that it is exactly year ago when Dr Mukesh Kapila, who is one of our senior officials in Sudan—indeed, he was an official at the United Nations—used precisely that word to describe what is happening in South Kordofan and Abyei? Having listened to my noble friend a few moments ago describing what is happening now, a year later, in a regime headed by Omar al-Bashir, who is a war criminal indicted by the International Criminal Court, surely we should be stepping up the pressure for at least the ICC investigations, to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred earlier, to be extended to cover Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have already stepped up the pressure and are very much engaged. We are working with the African Union and the high-level group, with Mr Mbeki as the co-ordinator, to see what pressure we can bring to bear on all concerned. We are all conscious that this conflict is taking place across the great dividing line between the Arab world and the black African world—a situation that we see also in Mali—and this is an area where we have to engage actively but carefully.

European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Republic of Korea Framework Agreement) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I express the Opposition’s support for the approval of this statutory instrument. One of the real privileges of becoming a Member of the House of Lords, which I did last year, is to listen to people such as the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who have expertise, wisdom and judgment to offer on things that one knows very little about. I hope that the points that he has raised today, although they are tangential to the thrust of the EU framework agreement, will be taken very seriously and that we will have further opportunities to debate the position in North Korea, about which he spoke so movingly. I thank him on behalf of the Opposition for his work there.

The agreement itself is what they call in EU jargon a strategic partnership, and it is one that is directly linked to the conclusion of the free trade agreement in 2010 between the EU and the Republic of Korea, which I think Europe took about a year to ratify from when it was actually signed. That was not bad when one looks at the position in relation to the United States and its free trade agreements with Korea, which are deeply enmeshed in the problems in the US Congress. Perhaps many people in Britain forget that the EU can be effective and that it still is an important pole of attraction for a very rapidly growing country like the Republic of Korea. The deal on the free trade agreement with the accompanying strategic partnership was negotiated in two years. It arose out of the global initiative that my noble friend Lord Mandelson launched when he was trade commissioner which, given the difficulties of completing the Doha round, was a switch away to bilateral trading agreements with our major trading partners.

The Republic of Korea is extremely significant for us in economic terms. It is the most important trading partner for Europe behind the United States, Japan and China. I discovered that fact when I was Googling away before the debate, but it is a remarkable fact none the less. We on this side welcome the deepening of relations with the Republic of Korea. We think it is right that a trade agreement should have a parallel political agreement, as it were, which sets out a broad range of areas for co-operation and dialogue and we very much wish that co-operation and dialogue to be effective. I am sure that this agreement will play an important role in deepening relationships between Europe and the Republic of Korea, which I hope will assist in a solution being found to the terrible problems that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, described in North Korea. I support the approval of this statutory instrument.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I happily yield to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, as an expert in EU jargon. It is a very erudite subject with which we have both struggled for many years. I feel I am slightly in the same position as I was in last night, when being asked to defend Britain's approach to the OSCE, to which the answer is: we are not entirely sure how this works or what its potential is, but we think it is worth doing. The framework agreements are a new element in EU relations with other countries beyond the European region. They have very wide potential, including on human rights, and provide a formal structure for member states collectively to raise such issues.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his, as always, fascinating and well-informed speech. While nothing in this framework agreement specifically refers to North Korea, relations with North Korea are of course always likely to be an important part of the agenda when we discuss political and human rights issues with our Korean colleagues. All those of us who have been to Seoul know that when you are in Seoul you feel close to the border. The sense of insecurity is not that much less than it used to be when one visited Berlin during the Cold War, so one cannot get away from the North Korean dimension in this relationship. The absence of specific reference to North Korea or to human rights in the framework agreement does not imply that these are outside its structure.

The noble Lord asked a number of specific questions, including one about information on the news of a potential North Korean amnesty for political prisoners. I will inquire further within the Foreign Office and report back. Although I am fully briefed on what is happening in southern Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and Iran, as one jumps from one country to another I have unfortunately not kept up with exactly what is happening in North Korea.

There are problems in developing among the EU 27 a common position on North Korea. Smaller EU member states see North Korea as a distant country, even further away from Europe than Burma. We are therefore talking about the larger EU member states attempting to reconcile their positions, which fits in with their relations with China and their position on nuclear proliferation. Finding common EU positions on distant problems with which not all the smaller member states are directly concerned is not always easy.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Can the Minister tell us about the position of France? As I recall, France does not even have diplomatic relations with North Korea and since it is not one of the smaller member states, getting a common position would be a pretty good start.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will ensure that I give the noble Lord a more expert reply on the French position than I could off the cuff. As he remarked, the British took a very balanced decision to reopen relations with North Korea. The Americans and the French did not support it at the time. I think that most of us here think that it was worth doing, in spite of the intense difficulties which our representatives have often had in North Korea since then. We therefore have an advantage over some of our EU colleagues in having a more direct understanding of what is going on in the country.

I will also need to come back to the noble Lord on questions of energy supply. I thank him for the information on the proposals for a direct pipeline and I appreciate its implications. Similarly, in the case of the industrial zone, I am tempted to say that the import into Britain of goods which are partly put together in extremely poorly paid factories and then assembled in higher wage countries is, as we all know, not unique to relations between South Korea and North Korea.

On education, I have heard some fascinating stuff before from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the university of which he spoke. We are doing our best to provide some support there. It is a very interesting experiment and is one of the things which suggest that chinks of light are possibly opening up. At this precise moment, with a change in leadership in North Korea, it is difficult for any of us to read exactly how the situation is going to develop. We have to follow what is happening, to intervene when we think that we can make a difference—as we are beginning to do on the educational front—and to see how much more we can manage. The Government share his concerns about the possibility of a local incident moving up the escalation ladder into accidental war. We are all concerned about that, and not only between North Korea and the Republic of Korea. Although not within this framework agreement, it is absolutely part of the multilateral diplomatic process on North Korea—which includes the Chinese, the Americans and others—to try to build those contacts and confidence-building measures which will prevent such an escalation happening.

The comparisons with Burma are not exact. North Korea has remained much more closed than Burma, even through the worst points of the Burmese military Government. We can hope for similar shifts with North Korea but it will take longer and it is much more difficult, precisely because North Korea has been so much more cut off from the world. This framework agreement offers us the prospect to widen the relationship with Korea. We will be pursuing this through a whole range of activities.

Perhaps I may be allowed on a personal note to remark that some noble Lords may not be aware that the Korean parliamentary choir will be coming to sing with the British parliamentary choir and has invited the British parliamentary choir to go out and sing in Seoul in exchange. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on the language point. We are singing Mendelssohn with them and the Korean parliamentary choir has insisted that we sing it in the original German and not in English. I am glad to hear that it is particularly correct in this way.

I conclude by reassuring noble Lords that the Government believe our European partners and Europe institutionally have a role to play in strengthening co-operation between Britain and the Republic of Korea. This agreement will allow for more work to be done in expanding a long-term relationship on a number of very important issues such as the promotion of human rights, international peace and security, energy and climate change, on which the Koreans are particularly active, and global economic co-operation.

Congo: International Crisis Group Report

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the report is indeed very depressing. The Government are not under any illusions about the enormous task there is to try to create order in the Kivus. Perhaps I might help Members by pointing out that North and South Kivu together have a population of about 11 million. It is estimated that there are nearly 2 million displaced people in the DRC, many of them in the Kivus, and there are about 20 militia groups operating outside the Congolese armed forces in the Kivu—and the Congolese armed forces leave something to be desired in terms of discipline and order. We do not underestimate the tasks ahead.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister said in terms of the practical help that is being given in the Kivus. Does he recognise the disarming of the militia to which he has just referred, in particular the Interahamwe genocidaires, who have used rape as a weapon of war throughout the Kivus, as well as the impunity that the right reverend Prelate mentioned? Will he say more about the flow of arms into that area and what we can do to halt it, and what we are doing to disarm these militia, especially the child soldiers who are involved in these depredations?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, again I must stress the sheer size of the DRC. There are 20,000 troops in MONUSCO. They operate across the entire DRC, which is roughly the same size as western Europe. At present, they have 24 helicopters. Unfortunately, the Indians withdrew their dozen helicopters some time ago. There are limits to what the international community is able to do in this area. As the noble Lord knows, some of the unofficial forces come from Rwanda and others from Uganda. Nevertheless, we are working with other members of the international community as actively as we can to try to build an effective administration in the area, which it currently lacks.

Human Rights

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, perhaps I may first thank my noble friends on the Cross Benches for providing time today for this debate, which focuses on human rights abuses worldwide and looks at the thoughtful recommendations put forward on this important question by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

It is self-evident from the list of speakers that our debate will be enriched by huge and varied experience. In particular, I know that we will await with eager anticipation the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Hollins.

It is also self-evident that, in too many countries around the world, people are denied basic human rights to which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts they are entitled. From Burma and North Korea to Iran and Saudi Arabia, from Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Cuba, Colombia and many other parts of the world, people face the risk of imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, forced labour—which is modern day slavery—displacement or disappearance if they attempt to express their views openly or to practise their religion freely, or even, in some cases, if they mistakenly say or wear the wrong thing or are in the wrong place.

Terror, ideology, caste, ethnic superiority, systematic abuse of women and children and the brutal violation of minority rights in countless situations and places disfigure humanity. For Jews and Christians, with a belief that each person is made in the image of God, imago Dei, and for secular humanists, who insist on upholding the innate dignity of every human being, there is common ground.

At this time of Chanukah, the festival of lights—we will greatly look forward to hearing later from my noble friend Lord Sacks—it is worth remarking that, earlier this year, 52 rabbis, as part of the Yom HaShoah, the annual commemoration of the Holocaust, wrote that continuing atrocities and conflict in the Congo,

“has produced a terrible humanitarian crisis … This is a moral outrage which the international community must act to help put right”.

An estimated 6 million people have died in the DRC, a country which I have visited. The situation in neighbouring Southern Sudan, where last year more people died even than in Darfur, is equally perilous.

Two nights ago, in a Committee Room of your Lordships’ House, I hosted a meeting attended by Mende Nazer, a young Sudanese woman abducted from her home in the Nuba Mountains and turned into a slave. Her story was movingly re-enacted by Feelgood Theatre Productions. After seven years, she was passed to a London family and escaped, only to face a new struggle for political asylum. Women like Mende Nazer look to us, who enjoy democratic liberties and freedom of speech, to ensure that their stories are told and their rights defended.

Modern human rights discourse is rooted in our fearsome experiences of the 20th century. The horrors and degradations of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen gave birth to the rich language of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which asserts that,

“disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want”.

The first three articles of the declaration make it clear that human rights are not subject to territoriality. Article 1 unequivocally states that:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.

Article 2 states that:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction ... or … any other limitation of sovereignty”.

Article 3 insists that:

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

These articles and the 27 articles that follow remain the basis for our discourse on human rights today.

During the Cold War years which followed that declaration, it would once again be the plight of European Jews—Russia's refuseniks—and the Helsinki Final Act, promulgated in 1975, which began to challenge consciences and rouse nations. Points 7 and 8 of the Act bound the 35 states that signed it to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, and equal rights and self-determination of peoples. According to the Cold War scholar John Lewis Gaddis, the Helsinki accords,

“gradually became a manifesto of the dissident and liberal movement ... What this meant was that the people who lived under these systems—at least the more courageous—could claim official permission to say what they thought”.

In every generation, the challenge is to consider how best to turn those great declarations into policies and initiatives and to give hope to benighted people whose human rights are violated daily, to create as William Hague, our Foreign Secretary, has put it, a foreign policy with a conscience, an approach one might anticipate from the biographer of William Wilberforce.

In opening this debate, I want to explore some principles and practices that should commend themselves to the Government and to give two examples of countries where those principles and practices might be applied—North Korea and Sudan—both of which I have visited in the past three months. Let me refer to the excellent proposals developed during the five years preceding the 2010 general election by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission. My noble friend Lord Hannay of Chiswick, who cannot be present today, has particularly asked me to commend the United Nations Association of the UK for the work which it undertook in assisting that commission. It produced some incisive reports, complete with recommendations for policies to address sexual violence as a weapon of war, the implementation of the United Nations’ “responsibility to protect” mechanism, child soldiers, press freedom, religious freedom and reform of the United Nations. The reports contain practical and worthwhile mechanisms for putting an aspiration into effect. I am conscious that many members of the previous Government, not least the former Africa Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, have a long and distinguished record of championing human rights, and it seems to me that this is therefore an approach around which political consensus can be created.

Let me illustrate this by highlighting the commission's recommendations for how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's institutional capability to address human rights can be strengthened and, in doing so, I ask the Minister to share with the House the stage of implementation or consideration that these proposals have reached. The most important recommendation made by the commission was for the appointment of a Minister of State for International Human Rights within the FCO with an ability to focus solely or primarily on human rights. Currently, the Minister responsible also has several other responsibilities besides human rights, including south-east Asia, the Far East, the Caribbean, Central/South America, Australasia and Pacific, consular, migration, drugs and international crime, public diplomacy and the Olympics. The commission proposed that a Minister of State for International Human Rights would be able to give human rights concerns greater attention if they could focus solely, or at least primarily, on human rights.

The commission also suggested that a Minister for Human Rights should be invited to attend relevant Cabinet meetings and security and foreign policy Cabinet committees to co-ordinate policy with other appropriate Ministers and departments. The commission proposed that the Minister could be supported by an ambassador-at-large for international human rights, with responsibility for co-ordinating the work of embassies and the Diplomatic Service on human rights issues. This could either be an experienced diplomat with a proven commitment to human rights or a human rights expert with an understanding of international foreign policy and diplomacy. In turn, the ambassador-at-large could oversee a number of thematic portfolios—special representatives or special envoys responsible for issues such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, religious freedom and women’s rights. The United States has an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom and several special envoys for thematic human rights issues. France and the Netherlands have made similar appointments.

The commission proposed that the ambassador-at-large and the special envoys could work in a strengthened human rights and democracy unit, which would oversee the continued publication of the annual report on human rights, which I hope the Government will today assure the House will continue. Interest in today’s debate underlines the appetite for this, as do repeated all-party calls for the establishment of a House of Lords Foreign Affairs Committee, a proposal supported, I know, by the Minister. Simply shining a light into dark places and reminding perpetrators that one day they may be made to answer for their actions, as in the case of Liberia’s Charles Taylor, or Slobodan Milosevic, challenges a culture of impunity.

The commission also recommended that the Government provide time in both Chambers for an annual debate on the international human rights situation and the findings of the FCO annual report. Religious freedom is one such vital basic human right, enshrined in Article 18, which underpins and intersects with other freedoms: freedom of speech and assembly, to name just two. It is estimated that more than 200 million Christians in over 60 countries face some degree of restriction, discrimination or persecution while Baha’is in Iran, Rohingya Muslims in Burma, the Ahmadi Muslim community in Pakistan, Sufi Muslims from the Sunni tradition in Somalia and Tibetan Buddhists, among many others, all face serious violations of human rights.

The commission recommends, and I endorse this proposal, that the current FCO freedom of religion panel should be expanded, made permanent, and convened regularly, and that reporting of religious freedom violations be given greater prominence, either in the annual human rights report or indeed, as in the United States, in a separate report. I commended this recommendation during the debate on the Queen’s Speech in May and I wonder whether we are any closer to doing it. I also wonder whether it is still the case that the FCO, which the Minister inherited in May, with its vast team of officials, has only one person in its human rights team who is responsible for religious liberties issues. While in some parts of the globe religious liberty is suppressed, elsewhere—in a country such as Iran, for instance—theocracy executes, amputates, tortures and imprisons. The struggle for religious freedom and democratic freedoms are stable-mates, and contempt for either can have calamitous consequences.

The final set of recommendations to which I draw the attention of the Minister and the House are these proposals: that Foreign Office staff receive training in understanding the key human rights issues in countries on which they are working; that a code of conduct should be drafted setting out the expectations and requirements with regard to human rights promotion for each ambassador, for all key embassy staff, including consular staff and visa application officials, and for London-based heads of section and country desk officials; and that diplomats who display outstanding commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights should be recognised and rewarded. By championing in-country the cause of brave dissidents as, for instance, we have consistently done in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, and by marking key anniversaries, such as the international Human Rights Day on 10 December, we can make it clear that British foreign policy truly has a conscience.

In the few moments that remain, perhaps I may refer to two countries which I have visited recently: North Korea and Sudan. I declare a non-financial interest as chairman of the All Party-Group on North Korea and as an officer of the All-Party Group on Sudan. During my visit to North Korea with my noble friend Lady Cox, who at the moment is returning from the Burma border, we were accompanied by Mr Ben Rogers, who is vice-chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission and kindly acted as secretariat. We have documented our visit and recommendations in a report, Building Bridges, Not Walls: The Case for Constructive, Critical Engagement with North Korea, which is available on the web. In that report, we suggest that, as well as raising security issues, which has been a one-track approach during the six-party talks, it is imperative that we adopt, as it were, Helsinki but with a Korean face. We also put firmly on to the agenda human rights questions in North Korea, where the United Nations estimates that as many as 300,000 people are currently languishing in its camps. We desperately need a new peace conference to bring an end to a 60-year war which is neither a war nor a peace, merely an armistice. The events on the Korean peninsula last week underlined how often we are simply waiting for a Sarajevo moment to occur, sucking us all into the vortex which 60 years ago this year claimed nearly 3 million lives. We have to engage constructively but critically with North Korea, and the approach adopted during the Helsinki years—the Cold War—is the one that we should be adopting in North Korea today. The Minister has seen the report and I hope that, when he comes to reply, he will be able to respond to that.

Perhaps I may also briefly mention the situation in Sudan. In just a few weeks’ time, in January, there will be a referendum there to determine its future. I was surprised to find that Mr Henry Bellingham, the Minister from the Foreign Office who led a trade delegation to Khartoum, recently said:

“We want to see more UK banks taking a positive view towards Sudan”,

adding that it would be “wrong” for Britain,

“not to encourage the trade”.

Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, is indicted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges. Anyone who has visited Darfur, as I have, where 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced, will wonder why we would be conducting business as usual.

All of this points, as do many situations in other parts of the world, to the need for Britain to have a clearer policy and approach to human rights. One size never fits all but over-reaching principles are crucial: adumbrating our own nation’s belief in the articles that form the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and attempting to live up to them; patiently engaging, cajoling and constructively criticising where necessary; and linking development and key foreign policy objectives to human rights goals. These are the things that we must do. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is a very popular debate with 19 speakers in two and a half hours. I ask noble Lords to bear in mind that, when the clock says six minutes, they are into their seventh minute.

Africa: Post-conflict Stabilisation

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 8th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Chidgey for opening this fascinating debate in which I have learnt a lot. I have spent my professional career much more on a broader Europe than on a broader Africa. We have certainly spread our debate across Africa, from Zimbabwe to Somalia.

I particularly welcome the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. My namesake and good friend wishes me to say, in particular, that he apologises very much that he is unable to be here today. He had indeed sent me the article from Scotland on Sunday on the virtues of a coalition Government, and I hope that the noble Lord will ensure that it is circulated on all Labour Benches. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote another short section of the article, where the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, asks,

“can a pragmatic deal between two previously warring tribes really work for the benefit of the country?”.

His answer is:

“I would argue that, if managed properly, coalition can produce strong, stable government and deliver transformative public policy”.

I thank him for that constructive remark.

I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Avebury is not able to be with us. I have always regarded him as the one person on the Liberal Democrat Benches who knows even more about Africa than my noble friend Lord Chidgey. I very much hope that he will be back with us soon.

This is an area where there is a huge amount of cross-party consensus. The coalition Government have been in office now for almost two months. We have taken up and hope to build on the contributions and achievements of our predecessors. The United Kingdom is one of the largest donors to all the countries in eastern and central Africa, a record that we are proud to inherit from our predecessors and intend to maintain. This Government have committed themselves to fulfilling our commitments in the millennium goals and to reaching 0.7 per cent of GNP as development assistance in difficult circumstances. I trust that even the most tribalist of Labour’s haters of the new coalition Government will grant us credit for that.

Having said all that, we note that some other Governments have fallen far short and that, sadly, a number of other members of the G8 and beyond do not share Britain’s sense of global responsibility. We also note that British NGOs are among the most active and constructive all the way across this troubled region. There are of course limits to what the United Kingdom can achieve on its own, so we have to work as closely as we can with others both bilaterally and within multilateral groups. We are working in the DRC with two EU missions to train the army and to improve the quality of the police. We are providing finance for the various UN missions in the area. We recognise that co-ordination between those UN missions across frontiers has not always been entirely effective. These are separate missions, which are separately constituted, but we are doing our best to consult our EU partners about how that co-ordination can be improved. We are working as a member of the international contact group on the Great Lakes of Africa, a grouping of donor countries and organisations, which includes, apart from the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, France, Netherlands, the UN and the European Union. We are doing our best in this immensely complicated area.

As has been mentioned, we need to co-opt others as well, including the Arab League, the Indians, who are, after all, one of the largest providers of UN peacekeeping forces in the area, and, even as far as we can, the Chinese, who are themselves beginning to discover the difficulties of working in the area, the risks to their citizens and the dangers of corruption to Chinese economic interests in the field.

The emphasis that my noble friend Lord Chidgey made in his speech was very much on stabilisation. We all of us recognise the links between security, good governance—or indeed government as such—human rights and social and economic development. However, we also all recognise the obstacles to effective delivery. The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, asked if we could ensure that no aid falls into the wrong hands. I regret to say—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, would agree—that no British Government can ensure that no aid falls into the wrong hands. We can put in the best monitoring efforts possible in the hope of minimising how much goes astray, and work with Transparency International, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and others to try to prevent leakage out to accounts in offshore financial centres, which we are all well aware goes on. The despoiling of the mineral riches of the region, in particular of the DRC, is something against which we all have to operate. That has to be done on an active multilateral international organisation level.

Whether our priorities are for direct budget support, as we have done in the DRC, or in micropolicies at the local level, we run into some difficulties. Some time ago my son was teaching at a school in south-western Uganda. Money to pay the teachers at the school had simply not come through for several months. One can work at the microlevel but things occasionally break down.

How far does security need to come first? The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, suggested that we need to be very careful about involving the military, although the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester remarked that security is the absolute key to development in the DRC. There are some real tensions here which, again, the new Government are exploring and discussing how one provides security as the basis for economic and political development. Again on a personal level, last year, while one of my nieces was in southern Darfur working with a British charity, my wife and I developed an extremely active interest in local security, kidnapping and all the other problems. If there is no security on the ground, one cannot begin to provide either emergency aid or the other dimensions, such as education and assistance in economic development, which are necessary.

Delivering effective stabilisation across the region is an extremely complex task. The quality of governance across the region is also very mixed. It is a sad reflection on the quality of government across Africa, but the Mo Ibrahim prize for heads of government who have stepped down in Africa has not been awarded this year because too many are managing to fix their elections so that they can stay on.

We all of us recognise, and we have to inform our public, that this is not just a matter of idealism. There is strong British self-interest in the stabilisation of the region. We have a Somali population in this country which is somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000. It has arrived in Britain partly because of the collapse of that country. We have somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 Congolese refugees. We are conscious that if the security situation in some other countries in the region were to deteriorate further, there would be strong pressure from the educated, from those across the region with links to this country, to come to Britain as well. We therefore have strong interests in providing stability, security and effective government across the region. I share the right reverend Prelate’s fears that, while we have to work hard to improve matters, we risk conflict reappearing across the region as Southern Sudan moves towards independence and as the situation in the eastern DRC appears not yet to be improving.

Perhaps I may say a little about the Lord’s Resistance Army and the about the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that we really should have caught Joseph Kony before now. The noble Lord will be aware that it has taken a great deal of time to apprehend a number of war criminals in the western Balkans in rather more open country and a rather smaller space. These things are not entirely easy. The LRA has been operating across the borders of four countries in which the level of security, information and intelligence is very low. While we may work to encourage closer co-operation among the armed forces of Uganda, Congo and Southern Sudan, this is a necessarily difficult task.

Mention has been made of what is happening in Somalia. We recognise that while Somaliland is, relatively speaking, a haven of stability within this very troubled country, southern Somalia is a source of active concern to all of us. Her Majesty’s Government are providing support to the African Union for its force there. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked what will happen if Sudan does vote for independence—and indeed that is the great question of conflict prevention for all of us at the present time. Her Majesty’s Government are providing the region with emergency aid and assistance so far as we can, and I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, that the UK is providing about half of its £140 million development assistance for 2010 to Southern Sudan to build governmental capacity and that we are also doing our best to assist in the remote regions of east Sudan and the Abyei area. But she will know better than me that none of this is easy in the troubled circumstances and in some of those extremely remote areas. Sudan is the largest country in Africa, even larger than the DRC. We are working with the Government of Southern Sudan to improve the quality and capability of both the police force and the army, and we are consulting other EU Governments on how we can better work with them to manage to catch up with the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Other noble Lords mentioned the situation in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, while one or two even touched on the question of Kenya. We were troubled about the presidential elections in Burundi, which appear to have been blocked by the withdrawal of the opposition and by fears as to how fair those elections would be. Noble Lords will know that the British Government are represented on the ground more strongly in Rwanda than in Burundi, but we do have a liaison mission in Burundi, along with an aid programme. Again, we are working with partners to see what we can do to help.

The situation in Kenya also raises concerns. As Members of this House will know, for a long period the British High Commission has brought to the attention of the Kenyan Government allegations of corruption, and concerns about the extent to which the elite are living off the country and on occasion promoting intertribal rivalries in order to further their own case. We remain actively concerned and engaged in a constant dialogue with the Government of Kenya. So the British Government’s response is clear. I should say that this is not a collection of new initiatives by the coalition Government rather, that we have inherited from our predecessors a worthwhile set of policies. Naturally we are reviewing them, but we do not intend fundamentally to alter them. We hope that the Government’s new National Security Council will provide for a greater coherence of effort.

The Foreign Secretary, in a speech last week, talked about the closer integration of the international departments, in particular the efforts of the Foreign Office and DfID and, where necessary, the Ministry of Defence. The MoD has only a few personnel in these various countries in training roles. Where we can, we want to work with local forces bilaterally and with the African Union to improve the quality of those local forces, but on occasion the UN and others will have to assist. The Government’s Stabilisation Unit, owned by the three departments, is an invaluable source of expertise and is actively engaged with this area. So Her Majesty’s Government are addressing all these difficult issues.

Somalia remains an enormous concern. Perhaps we should recognise that we wish to involve countries that have not shared responsibilities in Africa. The Chinese Government are taking an active part in anti-piracy operations off Somalia and are now co-operating with the multilateral command, so others are being called in. The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia remain sadly weak. We are doing what we can to assist, both financially and in helping them to build a broader coalition for peace and stability. We will remain a significant bilateral donor in Sudan, and that will continue to require immense resources, particularly in Southern Sudan, for the foreseeable future.

We contribute approximately £207 million a year to the Democratic Republic of Congo both bilaterally and through multilateral UN and EU commitments. DfID is now conducting a careful review of both bilateral and multilateral programmes, including which partners we should prefer to work with, as any new Government should, and we expect to have the outcome of that review later this year. There is a parallel review across departments on how best to ensure that sufficient emphasis is given to violence against women, and we hope that that will come to a review later in the year.

Over the next four years, the United Kingdom will provide £1 billion for regional programming across this area. We are of course concerned that weak governance and corruption in all of these countries hampers development and increases longer-term threats to stability. We recognise that NGOs, British and others, have a useful role to play in all this, but we are also painfully aware from experience on the ground that some NGOs get across each other and that when too many different organisations compete with each other, that can add to the problems, as on occasion they have in Darfur. So far as any Government can, we have to encourage NGOs in the field to work together.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester remarked that religion can be a force for reconciliation, as sadly it has proved so often to be a force for division across the region. We are immensely grateful for the useful role played by the Church of England and other churches in the area. Incidentally, as part of my briefing I was told that Muslim Aid is one of the most effective and positive NGOs in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Interfaith operations are precisely the sort of thing we need to be encouraging.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, could I remind the noble Lord of the question I put to him about the re-export of arms Bill sponsored by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and what he has to say about the flow of arms? I would be grateful if he could write to us about that question, as well as about the culture of impunity. I ask this because, unlike Joseph Kony, others have been caught and arrested, but not brought to trial. I mentioned some specific cases, including the recent killing of a human rights activist in the DRC.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I would be happy to write to the noble Lord about those issues. Indeed, I was briefed on some of them but within the period it is not possible to cover all these areas.

On the question of the arms trade, legal and illegal, the AK 47s that he mentioned do not come from Britain. As the noble Lord knows, they are actively traded across the region and are in sufficient surplus to be relatively cheap. So it is not simply a question of arms re-exports and arms controls, but of how we manage to gain some sort of handle on the illegal trade which goes on across the region.

I would like to thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I recognise the valuable work done by a number of Members of this Chamber in and across the region, and by encouraging others to contribute and NGOs to work together. I look forward to continuing debates in this House, but I hope not with a deteriorating security problem across the region.