Burma

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I assure my noble friend that the discussions in relation to Médecins sans Frontières are ongoing. We have huge concerns about it being probably one of a handful of NGOs that are providing health support in Rakhine. Those discussions are ongoing and I will certainly report to the House once we have made some progress. The quarterly report stated:

“More needs to be done to tackle hate speech, which continues to inspire violence and intolerance across Burma; we continue to lobby the Burmese government to tackle these underlying issues”.

We continue to raise these matters. As to humanitarian access, my noble friend will be aware that there are certain parts of the country which, unfortunately, due to fighting, we cannot access, but we continue to press the Burmese Government to allow us access in those areas where there is no fighting.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, how does the Minister respond to the report of the outgoing UN special rapporteur for human rights in Burma last week, in which he concluded that human rights violations against the Rohingya people could amount to crimes against humanity that should be the subject of an independent international inquiry? Will Her Majesty’s Government support these well founded recommendations?

[Baroness Warsi]

We support a lot of the work that is being done by the special rapporteur. In that report, which he presented to the Human Rights Council, he felt that technical assistance was required from the international community for any investigation to be transparent, credible and acceptable. I know that the noble Baroness does a large amount of work in this area and continues to campaign. Of course, we will continue to press the Human Rights Council for a strong resolution on human rights against Burma.