Sudan

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

I will be the first to extend thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Hussain. I also declare an interest as a long-standing member of the All-Party Group for Sudan and South Sudan. I have come to respect the Sudanese people over many years, since working with NGOs back in the 1970s, mainly visiting refugee camps and health projects. I have also been on formal parliamentary visits.

Sadly, the country has been torn into pieces by three civil wars for most of its independent life. As a group, we get regular information from intrepid travellers, including our own noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and many other contacts in Sudan, on the tragic effects of aerial bombing and attacks on civilians. We are currently preparing a report on the UK’s relations with Sudan, and I propose to touch on one aspect of this relationship.

Although I am a critic of some of the policies of the Government of Sudan—the GOS—I am also encouraged that the GOS can take criticism, and on occasion even listen to it. We should not judge other nations too much, because they too have to follow their own traditions. I recognise that Sudan has to defend itself from enemies, but at the same time there are international rules prohibiting human rights abuses and violence against people who correctly choose to follow those rules. Clergy, students, journalists, activists and individuals who speak out are always at risk of imprisonment and even torture.

I have long worked with NGOs, and I feel it almost personally when Sudanese or any other NGOs are persecuted. They are part of the fabric of civil society, and to me they belong to the future of any nation, working to promote the rights of women, the role of students and improved conditions for the poor and the oppressed. Every religion understands this as charitable work, and in Sudan there are many voluntary agencies and faith organisations.

To their credit, in the last three years the GOS have made a new attempt—for the benefit of the outside world as much as that of Sudan—to set up a national dialogue, theoretically to draw in the many groups that might be termed the opposition. Even four neighbouring heads of state, with varying experiences of democracy, were invited to a recent conference. But the dialogue has consistently failed to attract key opposition parties such as the National Umma Party, which, along with the international community, insists that any dialogue must depend on a peace settlement in Darfur and the Two States.

The Government of Sudan’s disregard for the work of the United Nations over many years is astonishing—witness the most recent report from the UN panel of experts, which conducted 10 missions but was unable to obtain visas to enter Sudan. The panel complained about aerial bombardment in Jebel Marra, which is primarily against the Abdul Wahid branch of the SLA, but it was unable to investigate allegations of crimes against civilians and displaced persons.

Washington may be softening its approach to Sudan, but it still maintains economic sanctions and insists on progress with peace negotiations. The EU takes a similar stand, and the UK can hardly do less. In their own strategic dialogue with the GOS, we all expect Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that standards of human rights are maintained, and the views of civil society are fully taken into account. I am sure we will hear about that in the reply to the debate.

The Khartoum process, on which we intend to report fully in two weeks’ time, is a labyrinthine EU exercise, which the Brexiting UK may ultimately prefer to avoid. Intended to rein in so-called terrorism and migration towards the Mediterranean, it may have the unexpected consequence that our country will be more closely identified with police, border guards and soldiers than with the Sudanese people, or the migrants.