Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent

Lee Scott Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the issue of Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent.

I am extremely grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for making this debate possible. My predecessor, Paul Goodman, took this issue extremely seriously and I am sure that had this mechanism been available he would have called such a debate. I am also extremely grateful to the Members who turned out to support me at the Committee: my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) who spoke about Sri Lanka, the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin).

The origin of this debate was my request for a debate on human rights in Kashmir and the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North for a debate on Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, some commentators mistakenly thought that we sought to conflate the two issues. That is not the case. It suited the Backbench Business Committee to bring the issues together under the heading of “Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent”.

I have a simple purpose: to give a voice to the thousands of British Kashmiri constituents who demand and are entitled to representation in this place, their Parliament. I am aware that many Members wish to speak about Sri Lanka, so for the sake of time I will rely on my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North to cover that issue. I will say only that I support my Tamil constituents’ demand for an independent international investigation.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend rightly said, I will speak more about the issues relating to the Tamil community later. Does he agree that what is needed is justice for the Tamil people?

[Steve Baker]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. When I come on to my later remarks, I think he will share my view that this issue is part of the legacy of the British empire and its withdrawal from the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and the others who have secured this joint debate. I also assure my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) that I intend to ask for justice for all in Sri Lanka.

[Mr Binley]

I am delighted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Scott]

I knew that he would be pleased to hear that.

As we have heard from the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), it seems that we are not allowed to debate in our House of Commons issues that affect our constituents. Well I can assure the authorities in India and Sri Lanka that we are perfectly at liberty to discuss items that affect our constituents, their lives and their families.

I want to focus today on Sri Lanka. We have seen reports from the United Nations that 40,000 innocent women and children were massacred at the end of the conflict. When I raised the matter with the Sri Lankan authorities, I was told that I was wrong and that the Channel 4 programme “Sri Lanka’s Killing Field”, for which I pay tribute to Channel 4, was also wrong. I have said that there should be an independent international inquiry—if I am wrong, such an inquiry would surely show that the Sri Lankan authorities were innocent and I would apologise—but that has been turned down. There must be justice for all in Sri Lanka—I totally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South about that—but that must include justice for the Tamil people, who must receive answers to some important questions.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful speech and for co-authoring today’s motion. Does he recognise that as well as the thousands and thousands of Tamils who were killed by the Sri Lankan regime, 17,000 Tamils are still caged behind barbed wire and another nearly 200,000 in transit camps have been refused permission to return to their homes?

[Mr Scott]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it surely cannot take two years—it is now some two years since the conflict ended—to decide whether somebody is a terrorist or whether they should stand trial; nor should it take two years for those trials to take place. That certainly should have happened by now. I would add that there are still children in some of the camps who are four or five years old, and I have yet to meet an 18-month-old terrorist.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for the passion that he brings to this issue. Does he agree that our constituents have a right to know who was responsible for the deaths of their family members in Sri Lanka and that the record of the Sri Lankan Government to date suggests that they will not get that answer from the Sri Lankan authorities?

[Mr Scott]

My hon. Friend is perfectly correct: there should be answers to those questions.

[Mr Binley]

As ever, my hon. Friend is most generous in giving way. I have visited the Puttalam camp on the west coast of Sri Lanka, which holds 160,000 Tamils who were driven out from the north mainly through fear of the actions of the Tamil Tigers, and I know that because I talked to those people without any regard to the Sri Lankan authorities and that is what they told me. Does my hon. Friend accept that?

[Mr Scott]

I obviously accept what my hon. Friend says; equally, however, we saw on our TV screens only recently that people in Libya said one thing when they were interviewed at first and something quite separate a few weeks later.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is very generous in giving way. I have listened to the recent exchanges, but does he not agree that the most important thing that should come out of today’s debate is the need not to lose sight of justice for all?

[Mr Scott]

I totally agree and reiterate that there must be justice for all. I would never say that there should not be.

In the short time left to me—that is, in this debate, not beyond that—I would like to raise a number of issues. I have said in the past that, when the conflict ended, a number of babies and children below the age of 12 were not accounted for. I have asked the Sri Lankan high commission to share with me what happened to those babies and young children. To this day I have not received an answer. I will continue to follow that up, but I would also ask the Minister to look into the matter, just as I have asked our high commissioner in Colombo.

We are also getting sad reports of what are called “grease devils”. These are men who attack people after applying grease to their bodies so as not to be captured by the authorities. They then run into military camps or police stations, having attacked their victims—normally women—in their homes. I am not casting any aspersions against anyone as to who they might be, but I would like to see the practice stopped and the perpetrators caught. I would also like to ask what has happened to the elderly and disabled people who were left behind at the end of the conflict, on 18 May 2009, because they are still unaccounted for.

I have here a list of various things I could run through, but I shall not do that because of the time. What I want to say, to everyone in the House, is that we have a duty. We have a duty to represent not only our constituents, but those who have no voice, wherever they are in the world. We have a duty to stand up for innocent people, whether they be Tamil or Sinhalese, and to get justice.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Amnesty International’s country report on Sri Lanka this year will be of equal concern to both the Tamil and Sinhalese communities? The report says that in the immediate aftermath of the elections, the Rajapaksa family,

“which controlled five key ministries and more than 90 state institutions,”

introduced a constitutional amendment in September that

“removed the two-term limit on the presidency”.

[Mr Scott]

Yes, that is a great concern. Again, individual action is needed on all these items.

Today, however, we are here to speak about human rights on the Indian subcontinent. We have to speak about human rights in Sri Lanka; we have to get justice for the Tamil people. If we do not get it, we will all have let those people down. I, for one, will continue to do everything in my power—whoever I upset, whether they be colleagues or not—to continue to try to get that justice for the Tamil people. We have said that we will look at the situation in November to see whether the Sri Lanka Government have failed to take action. It is now mid-September, so it is not long till November. I hope that, for everyone’s benefit, the Sri Lanka Government will allow an independent international investigation into what happened. I believe that that is what we must go for. I know that the Minister stands up for the rights of all in this area, so I hope that will happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Wharton]

I agree that we, as the inheritors of the legacy of the British empire, have a duty to acknowledge our role in many of the problems that were created throughout the world by the way in which the empire ceased to be and by the legacies that we left behind. That is one reason why it is perfectly valid and right for this House to debate these issues today and for us as a nation to do what we can to set others on the right path by applying pressure and giving assistance where we can, so that where there are troubles and problems in the world we can make a small but, I hope, significant contribution to resolving them. In Sri Lanka, that legacy is part of its history, but its more recent history is that terrible civil war, which after years of negotiations had not been brought to an end and was continuing to hold back and drag down a country that has so much potential and could do so much for its own people and on the international stage.

In 2006, the Sri Lankan Government launched a campaign to bring the civil war to an end. It was an effective but ruthless military campaign of the sort necessary to put down an organisation such as the LTTE using military means. We have heard much discussion of some of the atrocities that are alleged to have been committed during that campaign, but in the context in which it happened we must all understand that the LTTE was one of the worst oppressors of the Tamil people during and before the conflict. That context must be understood and appreciated: the LTTE fought using civilian clothes, used civilians as human shields and had thousands of child soldiers in the field.

[Mr Scott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, whatever might have happened during what was a terrible conflict, which nobody can deny, it still does not change the fact that civilians were massacred after the event?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is of course right, and that is why I started my speech by talking about the value of human rights and their importance objectively, but that does not mean that the context in which we comment on other countries is not important, and that is what I want to discuss in my closing remarks.

That campaign having ended, we must acknowledge where Sri Lanka is and where it is going; where it is today and where it is going tomorrow. It is all too easy to be consistently critical of others who fall short of the standards that we may choose to set for them ourselves, but we should not do so without acknowledging where progress is being made. The end of the campaign has brought great benefits to Sri Lanka. We have seen the eradication of terrorism on the island, and elections are taking place in the north and east, as those areas join what is becoming a mature democracy throughout the rest of Sri Lanka.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

May I first declare that I have an interest? I am the secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on Sri Lanka and I visited that country with the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) at the behest of the Sri Lankan Government to review the reparations resulting from the tsunami.

Sri Lanka is a country that is coming to terms with the consequences of considerable strife and conflict. It takes time to overcome the horrors of conflict. We should therefore tread carefully and be cautious of making judgments without very clear facts and evidence. We should be especially careful not to give fuel to the most blatant of propaganda, not least because we experienced that in a part of our nation and should understand a little more.

[Mr Scott]

Does my hon. Friend believe that the Channel 4 programme and the UN report were both propaganda?

[Mr Binley]

I think that the Channel 4 programme is open to question and that those questions have not been answered. However, the United Nations report is credible and we should be cognisant of that fact. The British Government have also recognised that, and it is right to call for an independent, thorough and credible investigation into the allegations of violations of human rights laws. I totally support such an investigation, but it should be into the violations on both sides of the conflict. I fear that point has been missed a little today.

The roots of the conflict run very deep. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fought a separatist campaign for the best part of 30 years and we have heard some of the horrors of that campaign from my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott). The Channel 4 documentary painted a truly horrendous picture, but we are not sure that it told the whole story. Images were brutal, horrific and degrading and if they were true that was totally unacceptable and intolerable, but nothing in the broadcast showed direct evidence of the Sri Lankan Government’s culpability and we must be sure of that before we start talking about it.

[Mr Scott]

rose—

[Mr Binley]

Before my hon. Friend leaps to his feet, let me say that I think he has seen too many television documentaries to believe everything that he sees on our television programmes.

[Mr Scott]

My hon. Friend is being most generous in giving way again. If he agrees that there should be an independent inquiry, as he has said, does he agree that the Sri Lankan Government should agree to such an inquiry? Obviously, it would show them to be innocent if they are.

[Mr Binley]

I agree with my hon. Friend and I press the Sri Lankan Government to do so.

Contrary to what the broadcast stated, every effort was made by the Sri Lankan Government to extract civilians from the combat zone during the conflict. Local journalists were given access to the front line and members of the Sri Lankan armed forces sacrificed their lives to save about 300,000 civilians trapped by Tamil Tigers. Those are not my words but those of Gordon Weiss, the former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, who has written:

“It remains a credit to many of the front line SLA (Sri Lanka Army) soldiers that, despite odd cruel exceptions, they so often seem to have made the effort to draw civilians out from the morass of fighting ahead of them in an attempt to save lives”—

that from a hostile witness against Sri Lanka.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Binley]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and I have made those concerns known to the Sri Lankan Government.

Sri Lanka needs a chance to heal, but that will not happen in an atmosphere of hiatus and emotive external interventions. We must all be careful because, as has been said, we share responsibility for the situation. That is clear, and we have to do all we can to help the Sri Lankan Government, who are trying to make considerable advances. They are trying to address the alleged crimes and human rights abuses and they are trying to provide a credible process for overcoming the issues facing internally displaced people. They are trying to achieve a sustainable political settlement, including on devolution, and those casting aspersions need to be careful about the statements that they make of what they say are facts but often are not.

As stated, one consequence of the conflict has been the significant numbers of internally displaced persons. I said that I had visited Puttalam, where I saw 160,000 people in the most terrible conditions, and that I talked to many of them. They said that they were displaced by shelling and demolition. Equally, though, some had been displaced by, and were scared of, the Tamil Tigers. That needs to be understood as well, if we are to be balanced in our judgment.

[Mr Scott]

rose—

[Mr Binley]

I cannot afford the time.

The process of reconstruction is taking longer than we would like, but Sri Lanka is a small country and we need to recognise that its resources are limited too. I believe that we should give Sri Lanka every opportunity and support to help them create a united country. I hope that that succeeds, as we must all do, but equally I hope that the independent inquiry will take place, because it will put to rest some of the propaganda that is actually hindering progress in that nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

This is a hugely important debate. As we hope that the Arab spring heralds a new dawn, we must be clear that freedom is a right for people in other continents too. I want to focus on the regime that calls itself the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, because I believe it is neither democratic nor—I am sure that Labour Members would agree—socialist.

The relatively normal relations Sri Lanka enjoys with the west, with little condemnation of its thin democratic credentials or genocide of Tamil civilians, have always mystified me. It is worth looking at the evidence. If we judge a democracy by its rule of law, property rights and religious tolerance, the Sri Lankan Government fails on all three. First, the Sri Lankan military is above the rule of law. As Members have said, 17,000 Tamils are still caged in barbaric camps. We still hear reports of Tamil civilians being summarily executed or disappearing, and that follows the genocide of 40,000 Tamils in the past decade. Secondly, property rights do not exist. Large areas of Tamil land and housing are still occupied by the Sri Lankan military.

[Mr Scott]

My hon. Friend may have seen the document from the Sri Lankan Government saying to their army that it is perfectly acceptable to take Tamil property. Does he agree that that is a disgrace?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The evidence that he has seen shows, as I am pointing out, that Sri Lanka is not a proper democracy.

Thirdly, there is no tolerance of minorities. An estimated 180,000 Tamils are still displaced, either in transit camps or sheltering, and the names of prisoners have still not been published, so families cannot find out if their relatives are alive.

There is a saying that one judges a man by the friends he keeps. In the same way, one can judge a Government by the allies they keep. In the past decade, Sri Lanka’s key allies have been Iran, North Korea and Colonel Gaddafi. Colonel Gaddafi gave Sri Lanka £500 million in financial assistance for so-called development projects. In return, Sri Lanka strongly opposed the no-fly zone in Libya and offered him sanctuary. Even after Gaddafi was threatening Benghazi, Sri Lanka organised mass rallies in his support, protesting against NATO intervention. We all know the story of North Korea, yet Sri Lanka was happy to sign a major weapons contract with it in 2009. We also know the story about Iran, yet Sri Lanka signed business and oil contracts with that country in defiance of international sanctions. Despite that, Sri Lanka continues to be a member of the Commonwealth and the United Nations.

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. As I will say in my concluding remarks, we should also boycott the Commonwealth leaders summit in Sri Lanka in 2013.

As has been highlighted, the genocide of 40,000 Tamils has brought the civil war death toll to 70,000. We must make a distinction between murder and genocide—genocide is scientific, organised killing. Having taught the Sinhalese to hate the Tamil minority, the Sri Lankan Government used the Tamil Tigers, who are opposed by moderate Tamils, and whose systematic killing of civilians we all condemn, as the excuse for a litany of horrific events and actions. Let us take a couple of examples.

In 2008, according to Human Rights Watch, the Sri Lankans used rockets to obliterate entire refugee camps full of women and children. In 2009, the Sri Lankan Government’s tactics evolved again. They declared a 35 sq km “safe zone” for Tamil civilians, and dropped leaflets appealing to civilians to move into the safe zone as soon as possible. Immediately after several thousand people had gathered there, near a United Nations food distribution plant, the Sri Lankan military shelled the area heavily, killing thousands of people in a few hours.

The United Kingdom has financial leverage. We have millions of pounds’ worth of business and tourism with Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka needs the west. But we have seen what happened in “The Killing Fields”, and we must press for a UN resolution and tough economic sanctions to pressurise the Sri Lankan Government to change their ways. As I said a moment ago, we must boycott the leaders’ summit in Sri Lanka in 2013. I welcome the Canadian Prime Minister’s call for a boycott, because symbolism is incredibly important in politics.

There are very few Tamils in my constituency, so many people may ask why I am here today, but I believe that because of my background, it is my duty to try to support nations that have suffered from genocide. That is why I have been involved in Rwanda and have been there, why I have been very involved in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and why I am supporting the Tamils.

[Mr Scott]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I will not, because there is very little time. I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me.

We must be clear about the fact that Sri Lanka is a rogue nation. It has carried out genocide against the Tamil people, and we must do all that we can to stop the persecution of the Tamils once and for all.