Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Berry]

The reports by Freedom from Torture, whose No. 1 referral group is Tamils in Sri Lanka, are shocking. I know that the Government of Sri Lanka dispute what Freedom from Torture says, but even if we do not necessarily consider that, we must consider the recent report by the UN special rapporteur on torture, which was critical of how the Sri Lankan Government handle torture and the fact that the impunity of the security services allows it to continue. I hope that the UN special rapporteur’s report will be considered at this session.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

As somebody who has been part of a post-conflict society, I remind hon. Members that building a peace process is incredibly difficult, slow and arduous. Significant progress has been made—admittedly not as much as some Members would like, but we should recognise that slow progress has been made towards a new, changed and beneficial society.

[James Berry]

As I just outlined, the all-party parliamentary group for Tamils has indeed recognised the progress that has been made, but it is right to scrutinise the areas in which there has been a lack of progress and, as I will explain, a clear policy by the Government of Sri Lanka to undermine one of the key tenets of the resolution. I will come to that in a moment.

We also highlighted areas in which there had not been progress, including the demilitarisation of the north and east and the torture on which the UN special rapporteur has reported in the last few months, but of most concern was the lack of progress on truth-seeking, justice and reparations. In resolution 30/1, the Government of Sri Lanka agreed to a clause that included the words

“the importance of participation in a Sri Lankan judicial mechanism, including the Special Counsel’s office, of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers, and authorised prosecutors and investigators”.

There been scant progress towards the establishment of that tribunal—the judicial mechanism. I take the point made by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) that these things take time. Our own child sex abuse inquiry took two years from announcement to set-up. I accept that it takes time to set up a tribunal, and I do not necessarily criticise the Sri Lankan Government for not yet having started to hold hearings; what I criticise them for is not having a timetable for setting up the judicial mechanism. Most importantly, the Government of Sri Lanka—the President, the Prime Minister and other senior Ministers—have made clear comments that they do not intend to involve foreign and Commonwealth judges, prosecutors and defence counsel. They want it to be a purely domestic tribunal. Senior Ministers have also commented that the military will be protected.

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[James Berry]

I entirely agree. The last pronouncement made on the issue by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), when he held the ministerial brief that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West now holds, was that Sri Lanka had not yet met its commitments to the international community. Not only does that remain the case, but we are concerned that the Sri Lankan Government have demonstrated a clear intention to defy their commitments to the international community. That cannot be allowed to happen.

[Ian Paisley]

On international oversight, we in this country have to be careful not to be accused of hypocrisy. The Government rightly resisted all calls to make the Bloody Sunday and Iraq inquiries international in any way, because they were domestic inquiries into events that had an international impact. We need to be careful not to tell another country that it must now have an international inquiry on a domestic issue.

[James Berry]

I would agree with the hon. Gentleman, were it not that in this case we are not demanding anything of the Sri Lankan Government that the UN Human Rights Council has not already demanded and that they have not already agreed to. We are only trying to get them to deliver what they have already agreed to.

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[James Berry]

I entirely agree. As I have already outlined, resolution 30/1 was very much a consensual resolution. It fell well short of what many members of the Tamil community, who undoubtedly suffered terribly throughout the civil war, actually wanted—a fully independent international inquiry. The limited element of international involvement that the Sri Lankan Government have agreed to must be fulfilled.

The UN’s 2011 panel of inquiry—not a Tamil rights group, but the UN’s own commission of inquiry—found credible allegations that, if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law were committed by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, the prosecution of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity during war and peace. There can be no question but that violations of that kind, of which evidence was found by the UN, must be investigated in a thorough, impartial and timely way.

Resolution 30/1 does not provide the independent international inquiry that many called for and that I think there was a watertight case for, but it does provide a mechanism that could enjoy the confidence both of survivors and of alleged perpetrators if set up and run in the right way to give people the confidence that justice will be done.

[Ian Paisley]

The atrocities that the hon. Gentleman has outlined are almost legend now, in terms of how serious those allegations are, but does he accept that there are equally serious allegations, which also have to be investigated, that Tamils used the people of Sri Lanka as human shields in that war, especially in its closing days?

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[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I have listened with care to what my hon. Friend the Member for, Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) has said, and I find myself mostly in agreement. I thank him for reminding me of what I said when I was the Minister.

I have read again, with interest, the remarks made by the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, at the Royal Institute of International Affairs—Chatham House—back in January. He ended his comments by saying:

“Festina lente; slowly but surely Sri Lanka is making haste towards a new beginning.”

Having been to the UN Human Rights Council, spoken on Sri Lanka a number of times, worked closely with Prince Zeid al-Hussein on the matter, and witnessed and argued for and against the postponements we had, I look upon this as something that now needs to be driven forward. I repeat my earlier remarks: we must pay tribute to the progress that has been made in Sri Lanka. It is a delicate political balance between the two parties: the Sri Lanka Freedom party, headed by President Sirisena, and the United National party, headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. It is worth remembering that if the two parties are not in coalition the alternative is probably a return to the days of former President Rajapaksa, under whose presidency many of the atrocities were committed, on both sides.

Regarding what the Sri Lankan Government have achieved, they are quick to point out that they have reintroduced a two-term limit to the presidency, reduced the term itself from six to five years, established a constitutional council, restored independent commissions, recognised the right to information as a fundamental right and recognised the promotion of national reconciliation and integration as duties of the President. All those things are good, but they are not good enough.

On land restitution, I am aware that much of the land, particularly in the north, has been returned to the local community, but a lot of it has not been and we need to see greater progress on that. The Government have said that they are setting up an office of missing persons, which is absolutely key, but to date there is no evidence that it has been done. I hope that, in Geneva, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), will congratulate the Sri Lankan Government on what they have achieved to date but also point out that the commitments they have made on which, by and large, they are falling short. They still have tremendous good will from the international community.

[Ian Paisley]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

I would be really grateful if we did not prolong this speech because the Minister has just a few minutes left to respond. Although Sir Hugo has permission to speak, he is not speaking on behalf of the Government. I want the Government to have the opportunity to speak and I would therefore be grateful if there were no interventions and we came to the Minister as soon as possible.