Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for giving me an opportunity to speak about an issue that bothers me hugely. The genocide of the Armenians in Turkey happened some time ago in 1914. Everybody’s attention was focused on the war in Europe. Nobody’s attention was focused on the Armenians in Turkey, who had lived there for generations. It was not like they had just arrived there; they were part and parcel of the community.

What is so sad is that a number of Governments have recognised the genocide but our Government have not. It was horrendous. I am sure that your Lordships know about it and would agree that it was pretty appalling. The younger men who could have done anything were mostly killed and the older men, women and children were pushed into the desert where most of them perished. If that is not genocide I do not know what amounts to it.

We have to recognise the huge amount of contemporary evidence. It is not like we can say, “Oh, we didn’t know what was happening, we don’t have any evidence”. Every newspaper around the world had headlines four inches high about the genocide happening in Turkey. There are photographs of doctors being hanged, some of whom were Turkish and had been seen to try to help the Armenians. It was an appalling situation. Women, children and older people were pushed into the desert and perished because they were there. That is a very horrible part of that genocide. I do not want us to forget that.

I have been to Armenia three times. I have looked at its memorial to the genocide and all the photographs and newspaper headlines. They were not made up. They are real newspapers with real headlines. We in this country refuse to recognise it. To me that is a matter of great shame. We do not want to upset Turkey. Why? It is all right: it can do whatever it likes, but we have to be honest to ourselves.

[A noble Lord]

Hear, hear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Flather]

Thank you. If something like that was done, which it was, we should not put it aside and say, “No, we cannot do that”. We ought to recognise that genocide. The first time the term “genocide” was used was in that connection. It was the first time that a genocide in the traditional sense—the sense in which we use it now—happened but we do not recognise it in this country. Maybe if your Lordships make the effort we might get it recognised in the UK. It is not right for this country, which stands by being at least somewhat moral, to let it go.

The second thing I want to mention is something that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has quite rightly spoken about: the Rohingya issue. However, I wish he had said something about Aung San Suu Kyi as well. I have never valued her. I have been to Burma and seen what went on there. I do not think that she was quite as great a person as everybody made her out to be. If she had been she would not be saying that the Muslims attacked the military. How can the Muslims, who have nothing, attack the Burmese military, which is probably the most properly funded military in that part of the world? She has said recently, as I am sure your Lordships have read, that it is up to the Bangladeshis when the Rohingya go back. What are they going back to? All their homes have been not just emptied but razed to the ground. There is nothing there; there is nothing where they came from. Aung San Suu Kyi says that it is up to Bangladesh when they go back, but it is nothing to do with Bangladesh. It is do with her and Myanmar. In 1995, the generals offered her the opportunity to become Prime Minister. At that time, she refused, saying that she would get no power. Nobody gives power to anybody. Those who have the power hang on to it, and that is what will happen in Myanmar as well. Let us not think that anything will get better any time soon.

Let us do what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said and make an effort to see that those who commit such atrocities are not forgotten and that, in whatever way we can, we try to get to them.