Rohingya Crisis

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) for securing this important debate. It is good to see so many colleagues here, particularly from the CPA delegation, of which I was a member a couple of weeks ago. I have a substantial British Bangladeshi diaspora in my constituency. As the Rohingya crisis has developed at such speed and at such scale during the past couple of months, I have received lots of representations and a lot of concern has been expressed about what was going on, so I felt privileged to take part in the delegation to go and see for myself what was happening. I wanted to understand the nature of the crisis and also the role that the Bangladeshi Government and their people have played in the humanitarian effort, but most importantly what I, we and the Government can and should do in terms of humanitarian support and political international solutions.

I want to reiterate the praise that we have heard today for the Bangladeshi Government, for the Bangladeshi host families in Cox’s Bazar, the NGOs and the generous fund-raising efforts of the British public. On that last point, I want to mention my local councillor, Ali Ahmed and the Bangladesh Association Cardiff, who so far have raised £30,000 for the international relief effort.

What I saw and what I heard directly at the Kutupalong camp will stay with me for a very long time. I saw a mass of humanity, literally as far as the horizon, and that was not the entire camp; it was only a small proportion. There was no space, no water and no sanitation. People were picking up shelter packs. I do not know where they were going to walk to so as to erect these pieces of tarpaulin and bamboo shoots to make some sort of shelter. There was literally no space. As we approach the cyclone season, I really worry that if a cyclone hits that camp, we will see the destruction and death of hundreds of thousands of people.

I have three questions for the Minister. I want to thank him for a frank discussion at the all-party group on Bangladesh last week. I know he visited Myanmar last week. What representations were made and to whom? Can he tell us a little more about the response that he got? What can he tell us about the agreement between Burma and Bangladesh on the return of the Rohingya to Burma, which disturbs me and obviously several other Members greatly? Finally, to take up the point made by the hon. Member for Colchester about China, what diplomatic efforts are being made with the Chinese, who clearly have significant leverage to make the Burmese regime deal with the situation in some way? So far they have done nothing and have been complicit in what I agree has been genocide.

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[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

Thank you, Mr Paisley, for calling me to speak. Having visited Burma last week, for the second time in seven weeks, I welcome the opportunity to update the House on the heartbreakingly appalling situation facing the Rohingya people of Rakhine state and the active work of the UK Government to address it in both Burma and Bangladesh, and in the UN and the international community.

I thank all colleagues for their powerful contributions and testimony, particularly the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods). They should rest assured that their words will be heard not just across the road in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but around the globe, as we make the case about what is happening. I am well aware that in Burma people actively listen to what is happening in the UK Parliament, so these are words that will be listened to far afield.

Since military operations began in Rakhine state on 25 August, more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled across the border into Bangladesh. Many have given heart-wrenching accounts, which I know many have heard, about the human rights abuses, including unspeakable sexual violence, which has been suffered or witnessed in Rakhine. Up to 1,000 people are still crossing that border each and every day. This is a movement of people on a colossal scale, with few parallels in recent times. I accept the point, made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), that this issue with the Rohingya goes back to the formation of the Burmese state, but the sheer scale of it over the past three months has been remarkable.

I pay tribute again to the Government of Bangladesh for the support they have offered the Rohingya. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s decision to open the border and allow the refugees to enter has without doubt saved countless lives. Last Thursday, as has been pointed out, Bangladesh and Burma signed a memorandum of understanding on the return of refugees to Rakhine. We understand that a joint working group will be set up within three weeks, with the aim of commencing the processing of returns within two months.

I want to touch on the UK Government’s position, because I know that there are concerns across the House. We will press for quick progress on the implementation of this bilateral agreement, but we will be absolutely clear that any returns must be safe, voluntary and dignified, and there must be appropriate international oversight. In my view, which I think is shared by many Members here, it is too early even to talk about voluntary returns at this stage. The Rohingya have rightly addressed legitimate concerns about their personal security. The severe restrictions that Amnesty International has described persist. Access to livelihood and humanitarian aid remains insufficient. That was evident to me from the other side of the border when, on my first visit to Burma, I went to a camp in Sittwe that had been set up in 2012, during one of the more recent times of strife.

It is not a life for the people living in that camp; it is barely a subsistence living. They are able to live and eat, they have healthcare and UK aid is able to provide fairly significantly, but it is not a life that anyone can recognise. It was heartbreaking to chat to Rohingya people there who had had businesses and professions, and who were left in limbo for five years, and potentially for many years to come. That option is not satisfactory. It would get people across the border, but the notion of setting up similar sorts of camps for the future for many years to come has to be a non-starter.

[Jo Stevens]

The Minister just said that the working group and implementation would start within two months, and that any scheme must be “safe, voluntary and dignified,” but then I think he said that clearly people are not going to return voluntarily. Will he clarify that point?

[Mark Field]

I am making the point that we want to see people return. I will move on to the important point made by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) a moment ago. Although the Government are not directly criticising the agreement, our position is that we should be telling both Governments that substantial progress on the ground will be necessary, as well as proper engagement with both ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya—if needed—if any Rohingya are to return. We want to see the momentum on this issue. The reason for that—I think it was alluded to earlier—is that if the Rohingya do not return, ruthlessly the Burmese military will have got their way; they will have got what they wanted. That is why, although I accept that we should not dream of forcing Rohingya to return, nor should we do this with such swiftness that they are not secure on the ground.

Equally—this is the slight concern I have with the contribution from the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), who spoke for the Scottish National party—even to talk about resettlement at this stage plays into the hands of the Burmese military, and I think it is something we should avoid. I understand that she is doing it for the best of humanitarian motives, but realistically at the moment we must try to insist that the Rohingya return to their rightful homeland.