The Rohingya and the Myanmar Government

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: Oral evidence taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on 10 October 2017, on violence in Rakhine State, HC 435; and correspondence received by the Foreign Affairs Committee from the Foreign Secretary, dated 26 September 2017, and from the Ambassador of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, dated 6 October 2017, on violence in Rakhine State, reported to the House on 10 October 2017.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I warn Back Benchers that to give everybody a fair chance of being heard, there will be a four-minute limit on contributions after the opening speeches. Front Benchers winding up will have 10 minutes each. If we keep to that, we should be able to accommodate everybody.

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[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her speech, with which everybody in the House will agree. I hope she will be encouraged by a statement put out at last week’s plenary session of the Council of Europe by the Political Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, condemning the action and calling on all 47 Council of Europe member states to help with the humanitarian relief effort and to support Burma and Bangladesh. It shows that concern goes much wider than this House and that there is a huge international effort going on.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I remind the House that we need short interventions if everyone is to have a fair chance to speak in this important debate.

[Rushanara Ali]

I am grateful for that intervention and hope that other Governments will add their support to the humanitarian effort. The UN has stated that more than £440 million is required, but only a fraction of that has been raised. I hope that our Government will encourage other Governments, in the EU and the wider international community, to provide more assistance to the humanitarian effort in Rakhine, Bangladesh and other neighbouring states dealing with the more than 1 million refugees.

Much of the forced segregation stems from the Citizenship Law of 1982, which sets out that full citizenship in Myanmar is based on membership of one of the national races, a category awarded only to those considered to have settled in Myanmar prior to 1824, the date of the first occupation by the British. In Myanmar’s national census of 2014, the Muslim minority group was initially allowed to self-identify as Rohingya, but the Government later reversed this freedom and deemed that they could be identified only as Bengali, which they do not accept because they are not Bengali.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I remind the House that there is a four-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. I call Anne Main.

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[Sir Hugo Swire]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. She has talked of a tide of misery. Alas, the tide of misery does not just flow across the Bay of Bengal from Rakhine to Cox’s Bazar; it also flows from Rakhine down to Malaysia and other countries, where we have seen horrific evidence of the trafficking of the Rohingya people. People come down from the Bay of Bengal and pick them up in Rakhine—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I know that the former Minister has a lot to add to this, but I want to get everyone in. Interventions must be very short. Do not take advantage of other Members, please.

[Mrs Main]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Time is very short, and I wish to keep within my limit so that others can make their points.

I must emphasise that the stories we heard were consistent. Any claims in the newspapers that the Rohingya are doing this to themselves are lies, fabrications and absolute fantasy. That is not true. No woman wants to trek with eight small children after one of her sons has been stabbed through the chest, her breasts dried up because she cannot feed her child, and with only some semolina to keep her going for days. The Rohingya are not doing this to themselves. If the world sucks up that nonsense, that lie, that fabrication, we are complicit; and we cannot be complicit.

We saw where those people were stranded in no man’s land, within yards of the border. We heard too many stories that were consistent: people were being machine-gunned from behind to drive them across, and the landmines were to stop them going back. These people have been brutalised. There are thousands of unaccompanied children. It has been said that there are 80,000, although it is hard to give an accurate figure because the number increases every day. Apparently there were 11,000 last Monday.

When we were last told, there were 80,000 pregnant women and 13,000 unaccompanied children. There are real issues of safeguarding and trafficking, and of disease. We used the latrines on the site; believe me, it was a relief to go back and wash off the slop and stench we had experienced those days—only to go back and see the people the next day, sitting there with no more than a piece of plastic over their heads. Some of them did not even have that: some had an umbrella, some had nothing.

We cannot turn a blind eye. We cannot pretend it is not happening. It is so easy once we are back to forget the sheer horror of it, but for them this is not just about now; it has been happening for years. As the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, who so eloquently opened the debate, said, this has a very long history. But for those babies and children we saw, who are at any moment liable to be taken away with typhoid or one of the other diseases just waiting to rampage through that camp, we have got to say the world must join with Bangladesh on this.

I cannot say any more than that: the Bangladeshis have done their utmost, with a third of their own country underwater, and with rice harvests being lost. One should go there and look at the poor quality of the site; when we were there, an elephant trampled down the camp and there were landslides. This site is so fragile, yet Bangladesh has extended its arms to be as welcoming as it possibly can be. So I will not hear a word said against what they have been doing, but the rest of the world could do so much more. As the hon. Lady said, we must encourage our neighbours who feel this is someone else’s problem, because it very much is our problem.

I did not hear any anger from these people; they want to go back, but they do not want to go back to be driven across the border again and again and again. They want some degree of resolution to their plight, and I hope by talking about it on the Floor of this House today we can ensure their voice is heard by the world, because that is what I pledge. That is all I could say to the people I met: “We will make sure your stories get back.” And today I know the two colleagues who joined me are making sure their stories have got back, and the hon. Lady who opened the debate has spoken eloquently, and I know she is summing up—and I am sure that across the House today we will show that we will not accept this any longer.