Burma: Rohingya

Lord Williams of Baglan Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Baglan (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, commend the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, on securing this important debate. I first visited Myanmar nearly 30 years ago, in 1988, shortly after the putsch that brought the military to power. At the time I was a correspondent for BBC World Service, which to this day has a reach in Burma unequalled by any in the contemporary world. In the past few years there have been many changes in the country, especially after the 2015 elections, the first democratic elections in decades, which brought Aung San Suu Kyi to power as Prime Minister. There is a freedom of the press now which would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.

In September 2015 I chaired a conference for Chatham House in Rangoon, the first held by any international think tank there. But substantial and wide ranging though the reform programme has been, there is still much to be done, nowhere more so than in the treatment of minorities, especially the Rohingya. Historically, minorities have always found difficulties in south-east Asia, as states too often have been defined by majority faiths, whether Buddhist, Islamic or Christian. An exception in that regard is Indonesia, whose 1945 constitution guarantees all faiths. It is fair to say that none of these minorities in recent years have faced problems as great as the Rohingya of Rakhine state have faced.

The present Government have taken some steps, notably the commission headed by my former boss, Kofi Annan. The suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, of inviting Mr Annan here when his report is concluded is helpful. The establishment of that commission was a step forward, but I remind the House that it is an advisory commission and is not scheduled to report for six months. I am not sure we have that much time and the danger of a new exodus of boat people from Rakhine state is all too real.

With the appointment of António Guterres as UN Secretary-General on 1 January I believe we have a new opportunity. No one has come to the post of Secretary-General of the UN as well qualified as he, not least because he is a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He has visited Burma/Myanmar several times. In his address to the Security Council on 10 January he asked the Council to make greater use of chapter 6 of the charter, which allows the body to investigate and recommend procedures to resolve disputes that could endanger international peace and security. I urge the Minister to look at those possibilities. As a permanent member of the Security Council and as the former colonial Government in Burma, we have a particular duty and responsibility on our shoulders. Rakhine state is an issue that threatens not only regional peace but potentially international peace. It is a threat to peace that could all too easily feed into the mythology and ideology of global jihad. That is the last thing we need to see.

Finally, we are a substantial aid donor to Burma. Can the Minister clarify how much aid is actually going to Rakhine state—if she cannot say now, perhaps she will write to me—and whether some of our aid is specifically earmarked to bolster the fragile peace process there? An escalation of present tensions, which is all too possible, could pose very substantial dangers to the wider achievements that have taken place in Burma in recent years.