Human Rights

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate. He promised us an interesting and engaging debate and it has been both of those thus far. On the subject of interesting, engaging and educative, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on her maiden speech and I look forward to her contributions in future. It is perfectly clear that a substantial part of our community now has a very eloquent advocate in the House. I am sure that she will talk knowledgably and interestingly on many other subjects.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, on using his comparatively short time in a characteristically valuable way. I have had recent experience of the organisation that he speaks of and I share a lot of his observations in practice, particularly in relation to Sri Lanka. While I am addressing contributions, because I found them all valuable, I shall express a prejudice to the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, put before your Lordships’ House. From my experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I might find some opportunity in future to show where the international community has failed in doing just what the noble Lord described in conflict resolution.

I do not envy the Minister in responding to this debate, given its diversity and the interesting nature of the speeches that have been made so far. There are more to come and while I have no intention of adding to his challenges, I intend to draw him on the coalition Government’s policy and proposed actions on the continuing human rights challenges faced by the people of Sri Lanka in particular.

I do not think that this is a declaration of interest but I remind the House that I was the special envoy of the previous Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to Sri Lanka. I was privileged to hold that job from early 2009, when more than 100,000 people were trapped at the height of the end of the conflict, until the general election. I suppose that I do not need also to remind the House that, as has been recorded, my appointment, although initially agreed to by the Government of Sri Lanka, shortly became an issue of division within their coalition Government, resulting in a lamentable lack of public co-operation with me in that role. Privately, however, I had numerous meetings with representatives of the Government and their emissaries. I do not consider the public posture that they adopted to me to be in any sense personal, because they have adopted that posture to a significant number of emissaries, including most recently the three-person panel of experts appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General.

Despite the vanquishing of the LTTE and the apparent end to 30 years of the most atrocious violence and abuses by all sides to the conflict in that beautiful island of Sri Lanka, despite the renewed and increased electoral mandate that the Government of President Rajapaksa enjoys, which was gained on a manifesto of reconciliation and respect for minority rights, among many other arguments that he put forward, despite a personal commitment that he gave to the United Nations Secretary-General in May 2009 that he would take measures to address possible violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and, despite the repeated but often rebuffed efforts of the international community to support an agenda of reconciliation and respect, there are in Sri Lanka, as Alistair Burt, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, told the other place on 16 June:

“widespread and persistent allegations of”,

continuing,

“human rights abuses by both state and non-state actors”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/6/10; col. 166WH.]

My observation on the pervasive propaganda of the media in Sri Lanka is that there are, as the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, identified, the beginnings if not the developing evidence of a culture of hate there against the Tamil minority, which will lead inevitably to just the sort of consequences that we have seen all too often around the world.

Reports of the Government of Sri Lanka and their agents committing arbitrary and unlawful killings, including credible reports of the police and other security forces killing detained suspects, are all-pervasive. I remind the House that successive commissions of inquiry under the warrant of the President have all run into the sand and lack credibility. There have been disappearances, many of which can be brought to the door of paramilitary groups operating on behalf of government military forces. Civil society groups and former prisoners report several torture cases, involving beatings with bars or bats, electric shocks, suspending victims in contorted positions, asphyxiation and many other horrible acts. Yet because of restricted access for humanitarian organisations, the evidence of that sort of behaviour is very difficult to find.

I could go on but I am conscious of the time. The point I wish to make is that there has been no lack of engagement by the international community or by successive Governments, including this Government, in trying to deal with the issues on that island which is, I remind your Lordships, a holiday island for many of our fellow citizens. There have been many assurances and substantial rhetoric from the Government of Sri Lanka but very little evidence of any improvement. In the debate that I referred to in the other place the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, a Minister for whom I have the enormous respect, assured that House that this Government were convinced that the present Government of Sri Lanka intend to deal with those issues. That assertion, in my view, is denied by the facts that are known more broadly.

On a note which is slightly inconsistent with the rest of this debate, I say to the Minister that I regret the fact that during the visit of the President of that country over the past few days, the Secretary of State for Defence chose to meet him in a private capacity. I anticipated that the meeting would be used for propaganda purposes and, this morning, I see on the front page of the Government of Sri Lanka’s website them doing just that. I encourage Ministers to meet members of the Government of Sri Lanka but I would much prefer that it was done openly and reported in a very transparent fashion. I thank noble Lords for listening with respect to my observations.