Violence in Rakhine State Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateNaz Shah
Main Page: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)Department Debates - View all Naz Shah's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I will not condemn an elected politician who, in my view, is doing her level best in the most incredibly difficult circumstances. I have pointed out that we condemn violence, and we have done our level best to ensure that tensions are defused as far as possible. That is the position that we will put across to all sides in Burma. We want to see the tension reduced, not raised to a higher level as the hon. Gentleman perhaps suggests, in his passionate plea, would be the right way forward. I do not think that it would be.
The Minister may struggle with identifying the situation as genocide, but systematic rape, massacres and the burning of buildings of a minority community amount to ethnic cleansing to try to force it out of the country, if not out of existence. That is genocide. When can we expect an appropriate response to that effect from the Minister or the Government?
As I have said, that is a legal issue that has to go through the United Nations. It is not for the Government to make such a condemnation or to grandstand, either in the Chamber or elsewhere. The issue will need to be dealt with through the United Nations if it is to go to an International Criminal Court action, and at the moment we judge that it would be unlikely to get through the UN because at least one of the permanent five members of the Security Council would look to impose a veto. We will do our best to make the statements that we need to make in the international community, but this is ultimately a legal rather than a political matter. It would be easy for me to say words from the Dispatch Box to satisfy the hon. Lady now, but it makes much more sense to do things in a systematic manner.