Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

Debate between Joan Ryan and James Berry

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered human rights in Sri Lanka and the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, not only because it will be wonderfully fair and impartial but because I know that you take an interest in the issue. It is also a pleasure to be joined by so many members of the all-party parliamentary group for Tamils, in which I have seen, since my election, genuinely cross-party work on an issue of importance to many of our constituents.

It is timely that we are holding this debate the day after the opening of the 34th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. In fact, our first debate on this subject, in October 2015, was on the day before the start of the session. I hope that we can make our views clear as our Ministers go in to represent the UK at the Human Rights Council. The Minister with responsibility for Sri Lanka, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), is not here today; I understand that he is in Geneva and was at the opening of the session, which is welcome. However, I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood)—not the B-team—is here to respond for the Government.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing what I agree is a timely debate. Many of the key promises made by the Government of Sri Lanka in 2015—justice, accountability, human rights protections, reconciliation—have not been fulfilled. Does he agree that the UK Government must support a follow-up resolution in Geneva calling on Sri Lanka to provide a clear timetable for the implementation of all outstanding commitments?

[James Berry]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Lady. I am sure that the Minister will listen to the all-party group’s concerns about human rights in Sri Lanka. I have not just my own concerns as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group but concerns that my Tamil constituents have raised with me. They are concerned that UN Human Rights Council resolution 30/1 should not be just one more in a long catalogue of unfulfilled promises of justice for the atrocities suffered in the 2009 civil war.

Resolution 30/1 was a consensual resolution reached in October 2015, and the Government of Sri Lanka agreed to it. It was something of a watershed moment: before the United Nations and the international community, the Government of Sri Lanka, under a new President, made a series of solemn commitments on human rights in Sri Lanka, effectively in return for being brought in from the cold in diplomatic circles. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) was there, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) and me.

We were all clear that the resolution did not go as far as the Tamil community wanted but that without consensus, there would have been no resolution at all. It was accepted with good grace that it was a compromise, but we were clear at the time and remain clear that as a compromise, it should be delivered in full, without equivocation and without backsliding, to answer the point made by the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan).

Ahead of the June session of the Human Rights Council, our all-party parliamentary group produced a report, which I hope was fair and balanced, on the progress against the various clauses in resolution 30/1. We acknowledged that progress had been made on the return of land seized by the military and on the ratification of the international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance, albeit at the last minute before the session in Geneva.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Berry]

The then Government—the Minister quite rightly corrects me. There is evidence that a UN food distribution hub in a no-fire zone was systematically shelled by the then Government’s forces after UN field workers provided the co-ordinates to the Government. There is also evidence that a field hospital in an abandoned school was shelled 65 times by Government forces—so consistently that the doctors there actually asked the International Committee of the Red Cross not to provide their GPS co-ordinates to the Government, contrary to usual procedure. I make no case for the LTTE, which is a banned terrorist organisation, but there is evidence of LTTE fighters being shot while holding the white flag of surrender. There are videos of men, hog-tied, blindfolded and on their knees, being shot in the back of the head. Most disgustingly, there is video evidence, which members of the all-party group have seen, of female Tamil civilians being sexually abused and raped before being shot.

The world turned its back in 2009. It is incumbent on us not to do so now.

[Joan Ryan]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful case. Given everything that was suffered by the Tamil community—others as well, but predominantly the Tamil community—and the huge loss of life, I think it is amazing that the Tamils managed to come together in a Government of national unity, but that is absolutely dependent on keeping the promises about transparency and accountability. The national unity Government are at risk if those promises are not fulfilled.

[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.

Tamils Rights: Sri Lanka

Debate between Joan Ryan and James Berry

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[James Berry]

Peace is certainly part of the value in the twinning process that we are planning in Kingston. Whether my hon. Friend is in place in Richmond Park in north Kingston or in the wider London area, I am sure that the scrutiny he will bring to bear on the issue will be of great benefit to those involved in the twinning process.

Other examples of economic progress that could be made to improve the situation in the north and east include: repairing infrastructure damaged by the years of war, including opening Jaffna airport to international flights, and giving the go-ahead to India’s proposal for a bridge over the short gap between India and the island of Sri Lanka, which would boost trade between the two countries.

President Sirisena has spoken warm words on some of these topics, and I do not dispute that some progress has been made, but progress since his election in January has not been quick enough, and some measurable benchmarks need to be put in place. Warm words are not enough.

In conclusion, the international community failed to act in 2009 when 40,000 Sri Lankan citizens, mainly Tamil, were slaughtered. Now is not the time for the world to look away again simply because there are other crises, such as that in Syria, and because the new President of Sri Lanka is making more positive noises about reconciliation.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the international community substantially looked the other way, but we were also proud that our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was the first Prime Minister to go to the Dispatch Box and call for a ceasefire, and that our Foreign Secretary at the time, David Miliband, visited Sri Lanka. That was a dangerous situation to walk into. Although we did not get a ceasefire from that, it did bear witness and let the world know about the slaughter that was happening.

[James Berry]

I certainly was not trying to make a party political point. My experience of our APG so far is that this is one issue on which our two parties are ad idem, and long may that continue.

The Tamil people in Sri Lanka want reconciliation, but reconciliation cannot take place without proper accountability. I close with a quote from the Prime Minister at the time of the 2014 UNHRC session. He said:

“Ultimately all of this is about reconciliation…It is about bringing justice and closure and healing to this country which now has a chance of a much brighter future. That will only happen by dealing with these issues and not ignoring them.”

I call on our Government once again to lead the world in seeking proper accountability for human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.