Myanmar: Rohingya Minority

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I apologise for joining the debate late; I have been in the Chamber for the statement on Syria. However, I wanted to contribute— as you will know, Mr Hanson, I presented one of the petitions here for debate on behalf of my constituents. I must tell the House that there is strong feeling in my constituency about the plight of the Rohingya Muslims and that my constituents, across all communities and all faiths, have been keen to present their concerns. They will be appreciative of the decision to hold this debate.

I want to make a few points of particular concern on behalf of my constituents. First, I support my hon. Friends in urging the Government to do all they can to bring these matters to the attention of the International Criminal Court and international mechanisms for judgment and justice. It is not enough to say that because Burma will not wish to do that and is not a signatory, we cannot find a mechanism to ensure that those who perpetrate such appalling war crimes are held to account.

Secondly, the situation that obtains in the camps is of considerable concern. My constituents are aware of the appalling conditions that the refugees are living in and of the violence—in particular, the threat of sexual violence —and trafficking taking place in the camps. The horror for those refugees of being forced to flee their land has been compounded by the vulnerability and atrocities they experience there.

While the Government of Bangladesh are to be commended for welcoming and accommodating people fleeing the abhorrent atrocities in Myanmar, they must do more to facilitate international aid agencies to come into the camps to offer support to those there. It is also not right that we should leave the Bangladesh Government in a position where they now seek either to repatriate or to place elsewhere some of those refugees in conditions that would be no more humane or safe for them. We as an international community have a particular obligation to provide support to the Bangladesh Government properly to look after those refugees in Bangladesh on the understanding that it is not in any way possible for them to be repatriated to Myanmar in the circumstances that obtain now and that, as far as we can see, will do so for a long period to come.

My hon. Friends have talked of the appalling atrocities that have been suffered: the massacre—genocide, as many seek to characterise it—experienced by the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. As has been mentioned, they are appalled and outraged by the treatment of babies and children who have been tortured and murdered, and the horror as parents have been forced to stand by and watch the slaughter of their children. They call on Parliament, at the very least, to continue to bear witness and speak out to condemn such atrocities and to ensure that, in an appalling, complicated world where we are dealing with more and more challenging conflicts, the one we are considering is not forgotten and lost. There is a fear that that is what may happen.

I apologise for arriving late to the debate and for being able to make only a brief speech on behalf of my constituents, who, I know, regard the situation as extremely distressing and appalling, and who have strong fellow feeling for the Rohingya Muslims; but I am grateful for the opportunity to bring their concerns before the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

I am sorry, but I do not think it is acceptable to send four people. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North pointed out that 13 women’s centres have been set out and that the British effort can help 10,000 people. We have that resource for a purpose; let us now deploy it in significant numbers, because it will make a significant difference not just in helping people to cope with this trauma, but in bringing to justice those who perpetrated the crimes and those who ordered them. It is central to that. My hon. Friend said that we should learn the lessons, but we will not get people in other wars to learn the lessons unless, on previous occasions, those responsible have been brought to book. We can bring them to book only by putting in the resource to secure the testimony. I could not urge the Minister more strongly than I do now to increase that resource.

[Kate Green]

One of the lessons of previous conflicts is the very long-tail implications for people’s mental health. The trauma does not end with the crisis, but sits with them for decades afterwards. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be useful to know whether our Government can help to train partners on the ground to provide that long-term mental health and psychotherapeutic support as well?

[Helen Goodman]

I think that is what the Government are doing, but given that we have the resource, we should deploy it on a much greater scale.

My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) spoke about the CHOGM conference this week. CHOGM is an opportunity for Ministers to do two things: encourage our Commonwealth partners to put money toward the $951 million and build support for stronger action in the UN. I would like to know what is going to happen at CHOGM this week to strengthen that process.

Last week, the shadow Foreign Secretary and I went to New York and had some meetings at the UN. We saw the person on the Myanmar desk, and I understood from her that the UN Security Council itself intends a visit to the region. That should be useful, because it should be an opportunity to build, among a wider group of nations, some sense of the enormity and seriousness of the crisis and the reasons we want it to go up the UN agenda. The UN secretariat also explained to us that the UN is trying to appoint a special envoy.

One block to progress has been the fact that the Chinese have regarded this as an internal matter in Myanmar, not an international crisis. That seems somewhat incredible to me, when almost 1 million people have been forced over the border into Bangladesh. I hope the British Government are challenging the Chinese at both ministerial and official level on that interpretation of what is going on. It is not really a credible posture.

[Phil Wilson in the Chair]

Another opportunity for multilateral action is represented by the European Union. My understanding is that, while we are having this debate, there is a meeting of European Union Foreign Ministers in Brussels. I do not know which of the Minister’s colleagues is in Brussels, but it would be interesting to know whether this matter is on the agenda and what progress he anticipates in strengthening the will to take action among European colleagues. Of course, Europe has imposed sanctions, but we need the support of our European colleagues in the United Nations to raise this to a new level.

Turning to what else we can do multilaterally with our colleagues, we have debated the use of sanctions. My hon. Friend the Member for Tower Hamlets—