The Rohingya and the Myanmar Government

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) and the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate, and I am grateful to be called to make a brief contribution, acknowledging the disaster befalling the Rohingya people, described as ethnic cleansing by the UN.

I endorse many of the comments that colleagues have made this afternoon in their many passionate contributions. I pay tribute to the Government for what they have done so far to help the international aid effort, and I look forward to the Minister updating us on the latest from UK Aid Direct when he winds up. I commend the Disasters Emergency Committee for its efforts to raise awareness and funds to combat the human tragedy that continues to unfold, and I praise the efforts of the Bangladeshi Government, as have many others, to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have descended on their territory. I also want to mention the efforts of two small UK-Bangladeshi charities, the Sreepur Village orphanage, of which I am a patron, and Shishu Polli Plus. Our founder, Pat Kerr, has collected clothes from the garment factories around Gazipur and taken them to Cox’s Bazar to do what she can to help. I am sure that her efforts are replicated by many small likeminded charities, but it is a drop in the ocean compared with the atrocities and the disaster we have heard about this afternoon.

I attended a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on the United Nations global goals for sustainable development last month when it was addressed by Achim Steiner, the new head of the UN Development Programme. When asked about the situation in Myanmar, he described it as “democracy hanging by a thread”. That thread, in my view, is Aung San Suu Kyi. The Lady has been under house arrest or arrest for 15 of the last 21 years, her country has been a democracy for only 18 months, and my understanding is that the military, under a constitution that it drafted, is guaranteed 25% of the places in both legislative houses and therefore has an effective veto in Parliament over every major decision, since every such decision requires a 76% majority to pass. The military controls Parliament and the forces, so it is the military that is carrying out the atrocities. In addition to that distorting effect, allegations of corruption at the highest level of the military, negative influence from foreign interests trying to exploit Myanmar’s natural resources, and armed movements in regions such as Shan and Kachin—which were mentioned earlier—show that the challenges to the country’s fledgling democratic status are huge.

I would be grateful if the Minister told us what we are doing to encourage Aung San Suu Kyi to live up to the promises that she made in her speech in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, on 19 September. She did not go anywhere near as far as all of us would have wanted, and I share the disappointment, confusion and frustration that her words have caused, but what are we doing to press her on the invitations that she did issue to the international community to attend, assist, observe and pronounce on her and her Government’s efforts?

I should be grateful for the Minister’s reassurance, for the Rohingya victims and also for Myanmar’s democracy. If democracy—with all the attendant respect for human rights for every citizen—does not prevail, the atrocities suffered by the Rohingya for so many centuries will continue.