Democratic Republic of Congo

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Baroness makes important points. I, too, am familiar with the great challenges in the region, especially around the issue of rape and sexual conflict. In fact, the Foreign Secretary’s initiative is to focus on that region as one of his department’s main areas. However, the noble Baroness will also be aware that this matter has been ongoing for many years, despite many initiatives, and continues to be a great challenge for the international community. A United Nations Special Envoy is something we have been calling for.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, the Minister did not answer my noble friend’s question about the mandate of MONUSCO and enabling it to take a proactive role in solving conflicts in eastern DRC. Could she now address that point?

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend is aware that some commentators have been critical of the UN peacekeeping force, which they felt did not fight to protect Goma. However, I go back to MONUSCO’s first priority, which is the protection of civilians. It is mandated to support the DRC army. If the mandate is to change then that is something we will have to go back to, but I will take back the comments that my noble friend makes.

Bahrain

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Avebury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they will make to the Government of Bahrain regarding the deprivation of citizenship imposed on 31 persons on 7 November 2012.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)]

My Lords, we have told the Bahraini Government that revoking citizenship, which leaves individuals stateless, is a negative step and, ultimately, a barrier towards reconciliation. I understand that those affected have the right of appeal, but we regularly express our concerns about human rights abuses in Bahrain.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I noticed that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary had been cosying up to one of the hereditary oligarchs of a regime that regularly kills, tortures and arbitrarily imprisons any of its opponents, and has now taken to depriving them of their citizenship. Would my noble friend agree to meet me with brothers, Jalal and Jawad Fairooz, former MPs of the al-Wefaq Party, who were deprived of their citizenship and are now stranded in London without visible means of support, without any citizenship, and separated permanently—as far as I can see—from their families in Bahrain? Will she also bear in mind that, if you are going to have a dialogue that will solve the constitutional problems of Bahrain, it can be done only if you free the political prisoners who are the leaders of the opposition and who are at present incarcerated for very long periods in prison?

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, I understand that officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are in touch with, and have had some contact with, the two specific cases to which my noble friend refers. I know that he has strong views in relation to this matter, but I would take exception to the description given to my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. Indeed, earlier this week I myself met with Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, who is the Foreign Minister, and indeed the individual to which my noble friend refers. It was a robust and frank exchange, and a conversation in which human rights were openly and frankly discussed.

Rwanda

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord raises important points. He will be aware that the Minister for Africa is visiting Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC. We have strong relationships in the region, not just through our aid programmes, and it is important that we use them to further stability in the region. The noble Lord may not be aware that aid to the Ugandan Government has been temporarily suspended as a result of evidence emerging from an ongoing forensic audit of the Prime Minister’s office.

[Lord Avebury]

Considering that with 20,000 armed men and a budget of $1.4 million MONUSCO has been unable to protect the civilians of Goma from the aggression of M23, does the Minister think that it is time to consider more than just reviewing the mandate of MONUSCO? Has she seen the French proposals to give MONUSCO an aggressive capability? Will she discuss that with it to see whether we could support it in the Security Council accordingly?

[Baroness Warsi]

The MONUSCO mandate, as the noble Lord is aware, is specifically to protect civilians. They do not have, as he says, a more aggressive mandate at this stage but I will take what he has said on board and feed it back.

Burma: Ethnic Nationalities

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I accept that this is a desperate situation for a desperate community which has suffered now for many years. We raise this matter in many of our bilateral discussions both with the European Union and the US and specifically in discussions with Turkey, which has been playing a huge role in humanitarian assistance. The noble Baroness is right that we must continue to press. While we welcome the progress in Burma, I can absolutely assure the House that we continuously raise this matter.

[Lord Avebury]

When my noble friend met Dipu Moni, did she tell her frankly that closing the borders against the Rohingya refugees is contrary to customary international law? If so, what reply did she receive from the Foreign Minister?

[Baroness Warsi]

I had a number of discussions with the Foreign Minister both at the United Nations General Assembly ministerial week in New York and thereafter when she was travelling through London. I specifically raised the concern about the Rohingya community in this country, both in the wider community and among the Bangladeshi diaspora community which is crucial to the Bangladeshi Government. I left her with no illusion about the level of our concern.

Iraq: Camp Liberty

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I looked at this matter in some detail and at the situation in Iraq generally. Sadly, not all the residents in Iraq have 24-hour electricity and not all the residents have running water at all times in the quantities they require. In the backdrop, despite the fact that many individuals living in this particular camp may not be happy with the conditions, they have 24-hour electricity and 24-hour running water. It meets the basic humanitarian needs.

[Lord Avebury]

Although my noble friend says again that the Government are not in a position to judge the outcome or duration of the UNHCR’s verification of the applications for refugee status by the former Ashraf residents, 10 months after the process was agreed in the memorandum of understanding between the UN and Iraq, did not the UNHCR issue a statement on 13 September saying that they were now asylum seekers under international law whose claims required adjudication? Will my noble friend therefore grant the 52, who were formerly refugees here, leave to enter so that the renewal of their status here can be confirmed by the UKBA after any necessary checks for that purpose?

[Baroness Warsi]

I can confirm that five residents have already been readmitted to the United Kingdom. They had refugee status in the United Kingdom and had relevant documentation. A further 52 do not have current regularised documentation but have had refugee status in the United Kingdom before. We are considering those applications, but I am sure that noble Lords would agree that time has passed since these people left the United Kingdom and their coming back in. It is right that we consider what they have been involved in in the mean time to ensure that any concerns that we may have are properly addressed.

Piracy

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, the capture of Kismayo makes it harder for al-Shabaab to generate income and to replenish their weapons and ammunition. However, the military success needs to be followed by the establishment of an interim administration in Kismayo and the province of Jubaland as a whole that balances the interests of the local clans. Can my noble friend say what discussions are going on between regional stakeholders to this end, and whether they might be facilitated by a disinterested chairman from either IGAD or the AU? Although the Kenyan troops were welcomed, they do not want to be seen as an occupation force, and the sooner civilian government can be established with its own police force the better.

Piracy has dropped by half this year compared with last, but there are still 11 ships and 188 hostages held at the latest count. We shall not have solved the problem until the pirate bases, almost entirely in Puntland, are taken out. An operation by Sterling Corporate Services and the Puntland Maritime Police Force to forcibly close down the bases and arrest pirates was already achieving results when it was abruptly curtailed, leaving the police and SCS staff without pay or rations. The UN was hostile to the programme because the PMPF was an armed force not subject to control by the recognised government of Somalia. It was treated as being on a par with terrorists, and its sponsors had violated the terms of the arms embargo on Somalia. But since there are 800 half-trained and well armed police at their well equipped camp, would it not be sensible to legalise them as servants of the Somali Government, or as a component of AMISOM, and allow the UAE to resume their funding and training?

Progress is being made in the region on setting up networks of courts where pirates can be tried and prisons where resultant convicts can serve their custodial sentences. Kenya’s Court of Appeal has ruled that the state’s courts can try pirates arrested in international waters, and I welcome that. In June, Prime Minister David Cameron signed an agreement with the Prime Minister of Mauritius to establish a court there. Subsequently, however, a row erupted between the parties because it appeared to have been agreed that we would enter into talks with them on the future of the Chagos Islands and that turned out to be a misunderstanding. Could we at least say that once the imminent court rulings on the islands are out of the way, the UK will happily enter into discussions with Mauritius on the future of the islands in the hope that good relations between our two countries can be restored and so that setting up the piracy court can be accelerated?

Antarctica: Centenary of Scott Expedition

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I join with the congratulations that have been expressed for my noble friend Lady Hooper on securing this timely debate. It allows us to debate NERC’s plan to sabotage the British Antarctic Survey.

The objective of the merger with NOC is to save money in the longer term by reducing the scientific resources devoted to polar science and oceanography. About 18 BAS posts will go during the CSR period, depending on the salaries of the staff who leave, and this will already impair their ability to achieve their scientific objectives. Beyond that, the expected costs and savings arising from the merger are not identified in the consultation, as has been said, but are due to be revealed to the council in December. Can my noble friend say how many staff are actually in post now in BAS and NOC respectively; how many there will be at the end of the CSR period; and how many on completion of the merger? Without this information, the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which intends to assess the merits of the proposal, will be unable to do so.

Of course, NERC is in some difficulty because of the Treasury’s demands on it. Cutting the resources devoted to the environment is not the act of the greenest Government ever when there are other ways of balancing the books, such as taxes on the rich. Vandalising the nation’s research base should be ruled out altogether in the Government’s search for ways of reducing the deficit.

Will the Government pay attention to the advice against the merger, not only by Martin Holdgate, who was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Jenkin, but also by Jonathan Shanklin, one of the BAS scientists who discovered the hole in the ozone layer, who says it would create a comparable hole in British science? The RSPB, with its million members, deplores the threat of commercial development in the polar regions contrary to the Antarctic Treaty 1991 and the mission statement of the NOC.

With climate change already threatening the survival of millions we should be careful not to do anything that would impair the capacity of science to examine its causes. Recently, an enormous basin has been discovered below the west Antarctic ice sheet, the characteristics of which suggest that the risks of the whole sheet collapsing are greater than was previously thought. In the worst case scenario, the global sea level would rise by several metres, overwhelming the Thames flood barrier as well as many coastal regions. To design a new barrier it would essential to have reliable estimates of the rise in sea level over the following century. If we can no longer afford scientific work of the quality now being done by BAS scientists, how will Governments be able to make decisions that require the spending of tens of billions of pounds?

NERC wants the management of the marine infrastructure and logistics for polar and marine research to be undertaken by its Swindon office. Three ship reviews and one on marine engineering over the past 12 years have shown that merging these operations would generate no savings because the polar ships and their operations are fundamentally different from those of the blue water ships. As has been mentioned, the last review by a respected member of the NERC executive board was completed in the spring and gave detailed reasons against the merger. However, if, contrary to all expert advice, NERC insists on a merger of marine operations, then Cambridge should be the single location because, on its own analysis, the shore side management and engineering support in BAS is more effective than NOC’s, as demonstrated by the relative staffing numbers and the level of satisfaction recorded by scientists using the ships of the two organisations.

As mentioned by my noble friend Lord Willis, in 2011 NERC tried to close down the Signy research station, which is an excellent example of multinational co-operation, and also tried to scrap the polar ship “Ernest Shackleton”. The Government decided that that decision was wrong. They called it in and vetoed it then, and they should do the same for this merger now. If they cannot do that, they should at least tell NERC to do the arithmetic on BAS management of the marine infrastructure and publish it, together with the rest of the missing information, in time for it to be considered by the Select Committee.

Bangladesh: Human Rights

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Hussain on initiating the debate, and in particular on focusing on the horrible catalogue of disappearances and extrajudicial executions, most of which are attributable to the Rapid Action Battalion. I will ask my noble friend, pursuant to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Harris—we have not really had an answer—what the Government have done to persuade Bangladesh to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and what they have done to persuade the Bangladesh Government to issue visitor invitations to the working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, or the special rapporteur on torture. As far as I know, the Bangladesh Government have not issued invitations to any of these groups, so there is no open invitation for these mechanisms to come to Bangladesh.

I will talk about recent attacks on minority communities. I will begin with the mob violence against indigenous Paharis in Rangamati on 22 September, in which an estimated 60 people were injured, eight of whom were admitted to hospital. The three co-chairs of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission—of whom I am one, and declare my interest accordingly—wrote to the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, calling on her to instigate a full and impartial investigation of the event and ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice. The problem is that whenever these attacks occur, the police and army are either nowhere to be seen or, if they are there, stand idly by and allow the violence and destruction to continue.

Another instance was the orgy of destruction of Buddhist temples and houses starting in Ramu on the evening of 29 September and extending to a number of other centres before it was finally brought under control. More than 20 temples and monasteries, including one at Sima Bahar dating from 1706, and at least one Hindu temple, were torched, as well as scores of houses and shops. Muslim houses in the same areas were left untouched, proving that local people were involved. The police officer in charge said that he was unable to stop the rampage because 10,000 marauders arrived from elsewhere in lorries, well armed with gunpowder and petrol, machetes, sticks, iron rods and tomahawks. The following day the mobs descended on Patia in Chittagong and Ukhia in Cox’s Bazar, where again they were able to destroy sacred Buddhist relics, books and temples, and to burn houses to the ground without the police intervening.

These events should be seen in the context of previous attacks on Buddhist monasteries and indigenous people in the CHT, motivated by land grabbing. In this instance, too, the competition for land in a lawless situation may have been a material factor. In the letter to Sheikh Hasina that I mentioned, we reiterated our concern that much of the violence in the CHT is related to the land disputes between Pahari and Bengali settlers. We pointed out that the land commission had failed to rule on a single dispute in the three years of its existence, that it is now without a chairman and that its rules of procedure are still under review.

The Prime Minister assured Buddhist leaders that those responsible for the appalling crimes would be prosecuted, and 300 people were reportedly arrested. However, a general investigation of the facts, covering the failure of the police to act when there were warnings several hours ahead of the impending violence, and the relationship of this attack on a vulnerable minority to others of a similar nature, should be conducted under the chairmanship of someone independent of the police, the political parties and the heavily politicised judiciary.

Finally, there are widespread concerns about the conduct of the war crimes trials. At the request of the All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group, the International Bar Association assessed the legislative framework of the tribunal in 2010 and concluded that it fell short of recognised international standards and that it required reform. The IBA, the US war crimes ambassador Steven Rapp and others have also criticised the court’s procedures and the evident bias of the tribunal chairman. To address these concerns, the Parliamentary Human Rights Group is asking the IBA to conduct a fresh assessment of the tribunal, its procedures and practices to date in relation to international standards, seeking advice from Ambassador Rapp, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and its special procedures mechanisms. These proceedings are no longer a matter for leisurely discussion by legal scholars. The tribunal’s failings, and the looming threat of the death penalty on conviction of the defendants, are a stark reality. For this reason, I hope that the IBA will give this request priority and that when my noble friend the Minister comes to reply, she will give her blessing to the request.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness King of Bow]

My Lords—

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady King, has been trying very hard to get in.

Bangladesh

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

A whole range of concerns have been expressed by my noble friend. I understand his feelings. This is not a good story at all. He asks whether we will press for impartial and transparent investigations into these disappearances. We do so, have done so, and will continue to do so. In some cases, we will be pressing at an open door and there will be investigations, but in other cases we may not be so successful. However, one has to accept that the drive for ending this dark atmosphere over Bangladeshi politics must come from within that nation. We support Bangladesh in its efforts to stabilise its politics, to move towards the best kind of elections at the next appropriate time and to develop and lift its people out of poverty and the appalling environmental challenges that they also face and with which, sadly, we are all too familiar.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, will my noble friend ask the Bangladesh Government whether they will issue an invitation to the United Nations working group on disappearances, which is the proper body to investigate not just the recent disappearances mentioned in the Question but those going back a long way, most of which are attributed to the RAB?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That sounds like a very positive thought. I will certainly consider it and discuss it with my colleagues.