Iraq: Religious and Ethnic Minorities

Lord McInnes of Kilwinning Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, begin by thanking the right reverend Prelate for bringing this issue before the House. It is important not just because of the desperate needs of the minorities in Iraq, but because Britain has a significant strategic interest in a stable and reconstructed Iraq that can in many ways be a beacon to the rest of the Middle East for how to move forward in that troubled region.

Iraq is the ultimate salad bowl. If we look at Iraq on the basis of religion and ethnicity, it is made up entirely of minorities. That is why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, it is important for the state that was created by the Sykes-Picot agreement to avoid any religious or ethnic group being overdominant. Otherwise, we will see a repeat of the unfortunate history of much of the 20th century. It is important to begin by thanking the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples for ensuring that Daesh was defeated in their territories. Three or four years ago, we would have thought that the coalition would face a very tough challenge to achieve that, and it is a testament to all the minorities of Iraq and the KRG that that has happened.

In the important mix of diversity that has existed in Iraq for the last two millennia, the pressures we are discussing this evening are not new. The oppression of Christians, Yazidis and other minority groups has continued for century after century. The most recent campaign against the Yazidis was the 74th in the past 500 years—an incredible figure. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, said, what changed over the past 70 years was that the persecution became far more focused on ending diversity and producing demographic change to favour whichever group was dominant at the time. In many ways, it began 70 years ago with Iraqi Jews, and now Christians, Yazidis and other minorities face the same challenge. Those challenges are compounded by the fact that so many of the minorities of Iraq are in the northern part, on the front line of conflict, in areas the Iraqi state and the KRG have found difficult to police and for which to provide sustainable government and a state apparatus that can command public trust, as the right reverend Prelate said. Constant power vacuums and militias are not conducive to a safe environment for any minority.

The oppressions of the past, the political instability and the ongoing demographic changes have created a situation where emigration is the only option for many people. As we have heard, over the past 20 years the number of Iraqi Christians has declined from around 1.4 million to around 300,000. We should be realistic: many among the non-Muslim minorities now in Iraq intend to emigrate and are still there only because of President Trump’s erratic immigration policy and the deficiencies of our own refugee policy in terms of supporting minorities.

I very much feel that it is the responsibility of the Iraqi Government, supported by Her Majesty’s Government, to focus now on ensuring that all Iraqis have the opportunity to stay and thrive in the current Republic of Iraq. The defeat of Daesh gives us an opportunity to restart that process, and there are a number of measures which I hope Her Majesty’s Government will feel able to support.

The first is reconciliation. Although it is obviously important that we invest aid in infrastructure and bringing back communities to a sustainable way of life, it is also important that we invest significantly in reconciliation, especially when so many millions of people are internally displaced. It is welcome that her Majesty’s Government have already committed £38 million to that, but we need to do more. Too often, the aftermath of being caught in a war zone—along with the looting, the physical destruction and the doubt over changes of ownership of property for returnees—leads to a barrier to people returning. We need to build trust, as the right reverend Prelate said, and that will only be done by investing in new buildings, in tribal religious and ethnic links, and in integration.

We also have to ensure that minorities are able to come together in a critical mass which allows them to continue to exist. Otherwise, we end up in a self-fulfilling cycle of ever-diminishing communities which are no longer self-sufficient. I hope Her Majesty’s Government will make representations. I was very concerned to read at the weekend that some internally displaced people in Iraq are being forced back early to their communities to ensure that the election can take place later this year. It is very important that people return only once they are confident enough to do so, and with their consent.

It is of course vital that there is proper, guaranteed minority representation in government. In both Iraq and the KRG, minorities must feel that they have a direct link with government and are not just subsumed by the majority. These people have often suffered because of the rule of militia and other dominant forces that are seen to be in charge of policing and security. It is vital that they have confidence in the transparency of the police and security forces in the areas they live in, but we also need to be very mindful that security forces cannot follow a policy, as they have sometimes in the past, of divide and rule.

We have witnessed the most awful persecution of Iraqi minorities over the last 70 years. It is in all of our interests that the sustainability of a diverse Iraqi state is supported. We need to do all we can to support the Iraqi Government and the KRG in achieving that.