Colombia

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Mrs Miller. I am glad to serve under your chairmanship. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for securing this important debate.

The right to protest is a fundamental right that must always be respected. It is therefore extremely alarming that Colombian security forces continue to use lethal force against unarmed protesters. Although we have witnessed widespread human rights violations since April this year, violent repression of public protest has been a constant theme under the Government of Iván Duque. Security forces have regularly attacked and killed protesters, but there have been few visible attempts to curtail their actions, and most abuses remain unpunished.

Last week’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report found that there was disproportionate use of force by the public security forces. The commission had warned in 2019 that the use of force must be guided by

“legality, strict necessity and proportionality.”

Yet just four days later, ESMAD riot police killed 16-year-old Dilan Cruz as he ran from their attacks.

It is so worrying that the Colombian Government have already said that they will not implement the latest recommendations from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on how to improve the policing of protests. Will the Minister tell us what assessment the British Government have made of that report and of the disproportionate force used during the recent protests?

In September last year, police killed up to 13 unarmed people during protests following the killing of a man in police custody. Shortly afterwards, the Colombian Supreme Court referenced those killings and others when it was declared that the ESMAD riot police systematically violate citizens’ democratic right to peaceful protest, due process and freedom of expression.

The army has also been responsible for the deaths of unarmed civilians in protests. In March 2020, 20-year-old peasant farmer Alejandro Carvajal was killed during protests over the army forcibly removing coca crops in operations that appear to contravene the 2016 peace agreement’s prioritisation of mutually agreed substitution. Several other peasant farmers have been killed in recent years while protesting against military operations in their communities.

In 2019, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the Colombian state to stop using the military in situations of public protest, while recommending an in-depth transformation of the Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios riot police and independent investigations into its conduct towards public protest. Sadly, these recommendations are far from being met.

Instead, Colombia’s inspector general recently opened investigations against Opposition Congress Members over their attempts to protect citizens from police violence, after they had criticised the Duque Government’s response to the protest. Last year, Transparency International warned of a concentration of power across Colombian institutions that blurred the separation of powers and threatened the democratic process. Can the Minister say what the British Government will do to promote greater respect for the rights of people to protest in Colombia?

Finally, I am concerned about the continuing targeting of trade unionists and environmental defenders. Historically, Colombia has been the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists, with 3,200 killed since the 1970s. Since the peace deal was signed, 35 members of FENSUAGRO—the Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria—the agricultural workers’ union, have been killed. We must start to see justice for those crimes. Rather than seeking to crush protests, silence the demands around human rights and peace, and target critical politicians, the Colombian Government should respect their citizens’ rights to mobilise and protest peacefully.

Belarus: Presidential Elections

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is right, and not just in relation to the UK monitors, but in relation to the OSCE election monitors. It is important that the light we are shining on Belarus via the OSCE is there, because it provides an independent, very credible basis on which to make exactly the points that he has raised.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Since 2010, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has seen resources dedicated to human rights cut, due in no small part to the Government’s short-sighted austerity programme. While I welcome the announcement today to restore a small part of that funding, does the Foreign Secretary agree that the events in Belarus demonstrate that this approach has been a failure?

[Dominic Raab]

No.

Official Development Assistance

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

When the Prime Minister announced his decision to scrap the Department for International Development, he explicitly told me from the Dispatch Box that

“there has been a massive consultation over a long period.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 678.]

Since then, more than 200 leading aid organisations have disputed that statement. That is summed up by the CEO of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development stating clearly:

“This proposal did not come as a result of a consultation with those who want to focus on the poorest.”

That is a damning indictment of this decision.

I realise that this is embarrassing for the Prime Minister, but his own Secretary of State for International Development said that the announcement was first made to Parliament, making it clear that there was no consultation, despite what the Prime Minister said to this House. The only conclusion we can draw is that the Prime Minister has misled the House, and not for the first time. That is more than disappointing. It is shameful that we cannot trust what the Prime Minister says from the Dispatch Box.

At a time of global crisis, the public must be able to trust what is being said in this House, especially by senior Government Ministers. The Prime Minister’s sloppy attention to detail and his disregard for accountability makes a bit of a mockery of Parliament. If the Prime Minister expects the public to trust what he says, as a minimum, he must come before this House at the earliest opportunity and clarify what he said. If there was no consultation, let him say so. The demise of the Department for International Development will have a massive impact, not just in Westminster but across the world. It cannot just be dismissed as if the Prime Minister’s words were a slip of the tongue.

It is not just the way the decision was announced that is the problem. As an internationalist and a passionate campaigner for equality, I am appalled by the Government’s decision to dissolve DFID, one of the most important Departments in the Government. It is accountable in its spending and uses its resources to help those most in need. Although Government Members might not like to admit it, I think every Member of the House can see that the decision to merge DFID with the Foreign Office was nakedly political. The Government have rejected the idea of foreign aid as a humanitarian endeavour and turned it into a branch of foreign policy.

Put bluntly, at a time of global crisis, this Government have abandoned support for the world’s most vulnerable communities. The Secretary of State for International Development has said that the coronavirus pandemic could undo decades of international development work, while the International Development Committee has been clear that stability in UK aid is needed now, at this time. This merger does exactly the opposite.

Under DFID, official development assistance goes to eradicating poverty and improving conditions for the most vulnerable people in our world. In 2018, the three aid sectors that DFID spent most of its budget on were humanitarian aid, health and economic infrastructure. For the Foreign Office, it was administrative costs. The Prime Minister says he wants to refocus the aid budget to “safeguard British interests.” For me, eradicating world poverty is a British interest.

International development was one of the few areas where the Government could claim that they were world-leading. Had the Prime Minister bothered to conduct the consultation he claims to have, he would have been informed of the damage that this decision would cause. In the aid and development sector, the decision has been greeted with dismay. Bond, a UK network for organisations working in international development, published a letter signed by almost 200 UK aid and development leaders, calling the decision an “unnecessary and expensive distraction”—