Human Rights (Colombia)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) on securing the debate. It is timely not only because of the visit of President Santos: it is important that the House should constantly remind itself of the human rights problems in Colombia and, for that matter, other countries in Latin America. One of the sadnesses for many hon. Members who have had dealings with Latin America is the fact that it is still one of the continents most plagued by violence of many kinds, and that it is also plagued by phenomenal poverty and extraordinary wealth. Many of us hope that it will be a continent where the wealth of the land is more evenly distributed between everyone.

My hon. Friend has already outlined some specific problems of Colombia, which include the fact that 5.2 million people have been displaced, more than in any other country, and despite the fact that the population is not enormous compared with many others. The process of displacement goes on. In 2010, according to many NGOs, another 280,000 people were displaced from their land.

There is a hideous degree of corruption in many parts of the state in Colombia, including the judiciary. That is one of the problems that has led to a significant degree of impunity, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North alluded, particularly for paramilitary groups of many different shapes, sizes and kinds. Indeed, Vice President Angelino Garzon said in November 2010 that

“the immense majority of crimes [against] trade unionists remain in impunity…there have been advances in the investigations…but we still have not”—

I apologise for the American English that I am about to use—

“gotten to 200 court rulings, and there are thousands of workers and union leaders killed and disappeared.”

That is absolutely true.

There are many reasons for that impunity. In particular, under previous dispensations, it was in part because the Government did not want to deal with it or punish the people responsible. In some cases, that was, as I said, due to corruption in parts of the judiciary, but in other cases, it was due to intimidation of the judiciary.

I think that the Attorney-General’s office would admit that although the sub-unit that has been dealing with specific issues regarding trade unionists since 2007 has had some success, a large amount of that success has been because of the confessions that some people made under the justice and peace process that was started back then. In fact, since 2007, there have been only six convictions in 195 cases regarding trade unionists. Lest people think that the situation is markedly better today, in 2010, within everyone’s accepted definition, there were at least 51 cases of trade unionists being murdered, and so far, only one case has been opened by the Attorney-General’s office. The process of impunity continues, not least because often, while the actual murderers may be prosecuted, the authors—those who have started, promoted and enabled the process and allowed it to continue—have rarely been touched by the Attorney-General’s sub-unit. That is a major issue that needs to be addressed. Many candidates were killed in the run-up to last year’s local elections, and still we see complete impunity regarding those cases.

When I was the Minister who had responsibility for this area, I spoke clearly to the then Attorney-General, to various Ministers in the Uribe Government and to President Uribe himself and outlined one of my concerns, regarding the nature of the law of rebellion. If we had a law against rebellion in the United Kingdom, I think my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) would be permanently in jail. The way that law is used in Colombia in many cases brings its criminal justice system into disrepute. Many people will say, “But it is just an additional law. Someone must already have been found guilty of another criminal offence”, but that is one area in Colombia’s statute book that needs reform.

I have met President Santos on several occasions. He spoke fine words in his inauguration speech and I think he intends them, but the question is whether he can see them through to a conclusion. It is great that one of the first things he did was to achieve some kind of resolution on the relationship with Venezuela. The Uribe-Chavez mutual hatred appreciation society did no favours for either Venezuela or Colombia, in particular for the poorest people living on the border between the two countries.

I am delighted at the change in the mood music, especially regarding human rights defenders and workers. However, in the first six months of 2011, there was a 129% increase on the previous year in the number of attacks on human rights defenders. While I wholeheartedly support President Santos’s declared intentions, I want to see them pursued in reality.

[Jim McGovern]

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) seemed to be saying that President Santos’s visit is primarily about trade, industry and the economy, and that human rights may possibly be discussed. Does my hon. Friend agree that human rights should be very high on the agenda, rather than an aside or an afterthought?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend predicts what I am going to say. Yes, I have always believed that UK foreign policy needs to be pursued on parallel tracks. Of course we want to promote greater trade, but that trade must be based on fairness and freedom. It cannot be based just on our freedom to trade with people; it must be based on the freedom of people to live their lives with dignity and liberty. In Colombia, that has been difficult to achieve in many cases.

That is why I want to raise the issue of the European Union free trade agreement. Originally, the agreement was meant to be with several central American countries, but some wanted to pull out. Now, it is envisaged as just being with Colombia and Peru. I passionately believe that the agreement has to be a mixed one. It should not just be about trade, and so should not just be the sole responsibility of the European Commission. It is vital that when Europe pursues FTAs, they include human rights issues and issues about weapons of mass destruction—not because I think Colombia has a WMD, but because we cannot have one form of FTA in one part of the world and a completely different form in another part. It is therefore important that the Commission does not deal with the issue on its own, and that the agreement is ratified in the Parliaments of each EU member state.

For instance, in our Parliament, we could have a united position to say, “Yes, we want greater and better trade with Colombia.” I know that the Scotch whisky industry has long been keen to have an improved relationship with Colombia and, for that matter, Peru, but it cannot ignore the human rights abuses that are self-evident in Colombia and, increasingly, in Peru. I hope that the Minister will reply that that is the process we are going to adopt, although I note that the Commission keeps trying to squirm its way out, so that it ends up in a position where it decides just on its own.

I want to pay a little tribute to the British ambassador and his staff in Colombia. I will spare his blushes, but Mr John Dew is, I think, one of the finest diplomats employed by the Foreign Office. Colombia is a phenomenally difficult environment to work in, where difficult security measures have to be adopted, but he has carried that off with aplomb. I also pay tribute to the many other British people who have worked in extremely difficult circumstances in our embassy in Colombia.

I very much hope that we will not say that our foreign policy is just about trying to sell more things to foreigners. It also has to be about trying to achieve a fair world, not least because British businesses cannot do business in other countries if the rights of indigenous people are trampled on, if violence is a daily transaction that people have to make to survive, and if people do not have enough to live on.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) for securing the debate and for his persistent campaigning. He clearly feels deeply about the tragedies that are taking place, and have been for decades now, in Colombia. He is absolutely right to continue to draw them to the attention of the House.

A low point was when we saw a British Foreign Office Minister posing and smiling among a group—

[Chris Bryant]

Not me.

[Paul Flynn]

Not my hon. Friend. That Minister was smiling with an army unit that was notorious for murdering trade unionists. We have a record of plenty of indignation and horror at the atrocities that are going on, but little practical progress that we can see.

I agree with those who say that we should seize the opportunity offered by the words of Santos and give him the benefit of the doubt—there are many reasons for doubting his sincerity, due to his past. However, he is now speaking a language that no one else has spoken for a long time in Colombia. The President of Mexico has made a similar plea to the one made by Santos the other day—Mexico has lost 40,000 people in the past five years due to drug trafficking and the drug wars—to address the core of the problem, which started not last year or 10 years ago, but in 1961, when the world decided, through the United Nations, that all illegal drug use throughout the world should be eliminated. It was a simple matter: we had only to increase the punishments and the surveillance and, within a decade or two, there would be no use of illegal drugs. In Britain, we passed the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We had fewer than 1,000 people addicted to heroin and cocaine then; now we have 320,000. That pattern has gone on throughout the world. Santos is right to say that the divisions in his country, the armies that are funded entirely by money from drugs and the chaos that exists in many other South American countries are problems that we in the west, and particularly in the United Kingdom, have created.

Last week, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction published a report that identified the United Kingdom as the second largest consumer of cocaine in our continent. The other countries that use drugs in similar record amounts are the United States and Spain. The reason for the chaos in South American countries is the demand that is coming from this country. We have mistaken the use of coca and cocaine. Coca has been used for centuries, particularly in Bolivia, as an appetite suppressant and to guard against altitude sickness. The way it was ingested ensured that there was no narcotic effect. In the west, however, cocaine is ingested in a manner that produces the narcotic effect. To a great extent, therefore, the problem is ours. If we are looking for some way to reduce this, we should listen to what Santos is saying now. He is bravely calling for a new look at drugs, perhaps including the legalisation of the use of cocaine and other drugs. He realises that he is taking a great risk and that he will be mocked and denounced, particularly by the United States.

Sir Keith Morris, former British ambassador to Colombia, said:

“Those of us who have campaigned for serious debate on the issue have been frustrated by the number of senior politicians who have agreed with us but said they could not take a public stand for fear of committing political suicide due to a hostile reaction from the US administration or public opinion or, in the UK, from the Daily Mail.”

How true that is. When we talk to one another and discuss these things—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) want me to give way? He does not. We know from private discussions among consenting MPs that there is general agreement that the drug laws are disastrous and that prohibition is increasing the problem. We must take a fresh look at the problem, which is what Santos is calling for. Sir Keith Morris went on :

“The fact that the president of Colombia, the country that has paid the highest price and fought hardest in the war on drugs, should have been prepared to speak out so courageously should inspire the many in American and European political circles who share his view about the failure of the war on drugs at last to make their voices heard.”

The problem and the bloodshed in Colombia would be best undermined if there was an act of courage by European and world politicians. We must face up to the awful fact that it is prohibition that is killing people in South America and on the streets of our cities.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

Thank you, Mrs Brooke, for giving me this first opportunity to serve under your chairmanship. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) for securing the debate and for his ongoing interest in the subject.

We all agree that we want to do whatever we can to reduce human rights abuses in Colombia. I do not think that I have ever met anybody who believes that British foreign policy should solely be about selling things to foreigners, so let us start with the assumption that we all have greater ambitions than that. The question is how to achieve them.

In his Canning House lecture a year ago, the Foreign Secretary set out his vision for a step change in our engagement with Latin America, and we are working to broaden and deepen our relationship with Colombia in a range of areas, including human rights, trade, education, science, innovation and environmental growth. In our bilateral co-operation, respect for human rights remains a core value. I have raised the issue on numerous occasions with the President of Colombia and many Colombian Ministers. Although, inevitably, our meeting was not as long as many would have liked, it is important that the president was willing to have discussions in the Foreign Office this morning with non-governmental organisations, members of which are attending this debate.

The debate has highlighted some of the human rights problems in Colombia, but it is important to remember the historical context. In the 1990s, Colombia was a country on the brink of complete disintegration. Guerrillas, paramilitary groups and the armed forces were all responsible for widespread abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law. Improvements have been made since that time. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) asked how we have tried to contribute in terms of the military. We have programmes specifically designed to use our expertise and insight to normalise and modernise the Colombian military’s behaviour and conduct, but that is inevitably a process. Progress is being made, and a new Colombia is emerging.

Drugs are clearly a problem. I respect the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn); he made a point about parliamentarians in Britain not daring to raise the issue. I remember the Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election. Given the behaviour of the Labour party, he might choose to reflect on why Labour did not wish to raise the issue after that election.

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister lets himself down by those last comments. He referred to co-operation between the British military and the Colombian military. Exactly what shape does that take? It is a new policy under his Government. How much is it costing?

[Mr Browne]

It is not a new policy. We are completely committed to strong human rights in Colombia. We want a normalised military that observes and protects human rights rather than risking or, on occasion, abusing them. We are trying to ensure that the Colombian military has the characteristics that we recognise in our own military rather than those that we do not wish it to have. It is as simple as that. I stand by my previous point. I am in favour of mature debate about drug consumption in the west, but all politicians and all parties must approach that debate with equal maturity.