Burma

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) on securing this important debate. The last time we met in Westminster Hall, we were on different sides of the debate about the Government’s threshold for the tier 2 visas, but it is clear that there is a lot of consensus today. I pay tribute to the passion and commitment that he has brought to this issue, which was reflected in his speech.

This is an important and timely debate. The National League for Democracy is preparing to take power in Burma on 1 April, following the elections last November. I will be brief, because other Members, including the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who has joined us, want to speak. I want to reflect on a few issues that have already been mentioned: the opportunities following the election, the issues facing the Rohingya people and the use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war, which the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) spoke about.

I, too, pay tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi. I remember as a youngster learning about the situation in Burma on “Newsround”. My parents had to explain the concept of house arrest to me. At the time, getting to hang around the house and not having to go to school seemed like quite a good idea. In reality, it is a very difficult situation. Aung San Suu Kyi lived with it for 15 years and remained a champion for justice and democracy throughout that time, so she deserves our respect and the tributes that have been paid to her.

In 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi was the first non-head of state to address Parliament in Westminster Hall. Mr Speaker, in his own lyrical way, described her as

“the conscience of a country and a heroine for humanity”.

That is a good way of encapsulating the fact that peaceful protest can eventually make progress to where we are today, with an elected Parliament in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi herself as an elected Member, and a new President. That should be an inspiration to others fighting for democracy and freedom under repressive regimes elsewhere.

I pay tribute, too, to others who have fought for justice in Burma, not least the Burma Campaign, which provided useful background information for the debate. The Burma Campaign was supported by my former employers, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, which has also provided support to the people of Burma. It is now providing support to refugee children in the border areas, with the Jesuit Refugee Service. Mention has been made of Cardinal Bo, and I am looking forward to meeting and hearing from him when he visits Parliament later this year, in May.

The elections are, of course, the beginning and not the end of the story. The newly elected Government now have to live up to the promise. There is a role for the military, which must respect the dismantlement of the junta and not seek to overrule the elected Government, ensuring a clear separation between the military and the state. A lot of the challenges, as we have heard, can be seen in the challenges facing the Rohingya community. The measure of a democracy is how well minorities are treated and respected, and the Rohingya people are a minority whose religion is not recognised, let alone their citizenship.

I attended an Adjournment debate led by the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) that highlighted the migration crisis—not something that is restricted to Europe, because there is a migration and refugee crisis in that part of Asia as well, of which the Rohingya community forms a substantial part. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch has stated that human rights violations against the Rohingya meet, in its reckoning, the legal definitions of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In the Scottish National party, therefore, we support the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK in its call for action against hate speech and the extremists, the removal of restrictions on international aid in Rakhine state, the reform of the 1982 citizenship law, and a credible independent investigation, with international experts, into the charges of ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and possible genocide.

Related to that is the broader need to tackle sexual and gender-based violence, especially the use of rape as a weapon. The continuing reports of increasing rape and sexual violence by the military are deeply concerning. Sexual violence seems to have been used as a weapon of the Burmese army for decades as part of its warfare against minority groups in the country. It has to be tackled.

I pay tribute to the campaign in which 110, or 111, women, including my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), made a declaration on International Women’s Day calling for an investigation into rape and sexual violence by the Burmese military; an end to the impunity with which it seems to be carried out; support for the victims; the inclusion of women at every political level in Burma, including the peace negotiations between the Burmese Government and the ethnic armed groups; and for Burma’s rape law to be brought into line with international human rights standards that outlaw rape in marriage.

As part of the UK Government’s preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative, many countries around the world have signed up to that declaration to end rape and sexual violence in conflict. The declaration contains practical and political commitments to end impunity and promote accountability. We call on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to consider how that programme can be extended in Burma and to provide more support to the Government there to ensure that the PSVI principles make progress.

To allow time for others to speak, I will leave it at that. I echo the positive tone of optimism that we heard from the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam and other speakers. Progress towards democracy is clearly being made in Burma, but it needs support. I hope that today’s debate demonstrates some of that support and that, when we hear from the Minister, he will demonstrate what support the UK Government will provide.