The Rohingya and the Myanmar Government

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is important to note the history behind this issue. As we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), the Rohingya Muslims have been in that part of Myanmar for many hundreds of years. When the British were controlling Burma, they used people from what is now Bangladesh, moving across what was then a very permeable border, for employment and labour. That started to muddy the waters, because we did not register those people or acknowledge them as Bangladeshi. That has given the Myanmar Government the excuse to set a new year zero and to deny these people, who have been there and had roots there for so many years, the right to citizenship.

When I was in Burma in February 2016, at the time of the transition Government, I was really hopeful. Everyone was incredibly optimistic that, as the country came into the light, we would start to see the desperately needed end to the ethnic conflict throughout the country. I ask all Members present, including the Minister, to acknowledge when they condemn what is going on in Rakhine state that the Burmese people are largely behind it, as shocking as that may sound. There are demonstrations in Yangon at which people say, “We stand with the lady, we stand with the army and we stand with the Burmese people.”

Aung San Suu Kyi was speaking at the same time as we were at Cox’s Bazar airport. We have all said that she needs to be far more forthright in condemning the actions in Rakhine state, but we must concentrate on the man who could stop this tomorrow: Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief. If we whip this up into “the west against a nationalist uprising in Myanmar”, we run a risk, because this is a man who might fancy his chances of presidency in 2020. We might end up with the military getting back into control via the ballot box rather than the gun.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My hon. Friend is making an extraordinarily powerful point. We should all be familiar with the point that during the transition, the military retained 25% of control in the Myanmar Parliament. The commander-in-chief is no fan of Aung San Suu Kyi, so she is in an extraordinarily difficult position. Yes, we would like her to speak out more, but we must also recognise that in the longer term the progress we have seen in Burma could easily go backwards, and that would endanger peace throughout the country, not only in Rakhine.

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[Paul Scully]

Members in the Chamber and people throughout the country are rightly passionate about the atrocities that are taking place and that were witnessed by a number of us who went over to Cox’s Bazar, but we must realise that the situation in the country is complex. Our response must absolutely reflect that so that we do not make the country close in on itself. If we do, the conflicts in Rakhine state will start to reignite in Kachin state, Shan state and all the other areas in which the peace process, under Kofi Annan’s commission, has started to have some sort of traction—although it is taking some time.

The military claims that what is going on in Rakhine state is a response to the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army, and that ARSA is a terrorist group. Let us assume that there are some terrorists there, although if there are, they number a couple of hundred at most—nothing like the 500,000 people who have crossed the border. Along with my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for St Albans (Mrs Main), I met a 60-year-old lady. She came over with her surviving grandchildren—and I mean surviving grandchildren. Her son-in-law had been stabbed in front of her and dragged away, and was assumed dead, and her 12-year-old grandchild was beheaded in front of her.

[Mrs Main]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we were given her words absolutely verbatim? They were translated by people in our party who understood, so we were not being duped in any way.

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely. We picked all of the dozen or so people to whom we spoke over two days and we had our own translators there, so it was absolutely verbatim. Another one of her grandchildren had their genitals mutilated and chopped off. As Members will understand, this woman was dead behind the eyes. There is no way that that woman was a terrorist. The response by the military is clearly disproportionate and needs to be called out. We must absolutely ensure that every time we have dealings with the Burmese Government and the military we call them out for what they do.

We need to plan things regionally, work with our Commonwealth friends, and try to encourage the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to have a regional response. At the moment, there is little movement from Thailand, and the Indian Government are rejecting the Rohingya Muslims who have settled in their country, so, as we have heard, this is not just a Burmese-Bangladesh situation.

The Bangladeshi Government are doing a fantastic job under difficult circumstances. The fact that the situation is not new is clear when I reveal that the Kutupalong camp is 30 years old. This is not a new camp that has just been set up; it is 30 years old. There are two treaties outstanding with Bangladesh and Burma dating back to 1978 for the safe return of Rohingya Muslims to Burma. They have been ignored by the Burmese Government, so we must ensure that a treaty, which is backed up by international support, is put in place to allow the safe return of the Rohingya.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) and the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) for securing this necessary debate. I also thank my hon. Friend for the vital work that she has done in raising awareness of the persecution of the Rohingya. Sadly this abuse is not new. In 1992, a cross-party early-day motion criticised the “systematic extermination” of the Rohingya in Burma. Some 25 years later, the extermination continues.

The most recent UN report contains witness statements detailing shocking acts of violence and humiliation: children and elderly people burned in their homes; mass use of gang-rape, including soldiers gang-raping girls as young as five; victims, including children, forced to watch relatives and loved ones tortured and killed; and a pregnant woman raped, her stomach cut open, her unborn baby killed, and her nipples cut off.

Since August, more than 540,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, taking the total now in Bangladesh to more than 800,000. Sickeningly, Amnesty International and some of our colleagues have said that there are clear indications that the Burmese authorities have been deliberately targeting the Rohingya as they flee, placing landmines at border crossings.

[Paul Scully]

Does the hon. Lady agree that landmines are terrible not just for those in the present, but in 10 or 20 years’ time when, hopefully, this has been solved and children are out playing?

[Sarah Champion]

That is the perversity of the situation, and we have our eyes wide open.

The Secretary of State for International Development has said that children are at risk of “sexual violence and trafficking”. The International Rescue Committee said that there are

“reports of girls in Rohingya camps being raped or abused when going to the toilet or collecting firewood.”

There are those who suggest that there are two sides to this story, and that paramilitary attacks mean that the Rohingya are to blame for the violence. Nothing can ever justify the horrors that innocent Rohingya are suffering. The UN report contains a witness statement of a 12-year-old Rohingya girl. She told the UN team:

“They surrounded our house and started to shoot. It was a situation of panic—they shot my sister in front of me, she was only seven years old. She cried and told me to run. I tried to protect her and care for her, but we had no medical assistance on the hillside and she was bleeding so much that after one day she died. I buried her myself.”

That was a 12-year-old girl. If a proportional response existed, that could never be it. The UN also said that

“security forces targeted teachers, the cultural and religious leadership, and other people of influence of the Rohingya community in an effort to diminish Rohingya history, culture and knowledge.”

This is planned and co-ordinated ethnic cleansing. I am pleased and relieved that the Secretary of State has echoed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in describing it in that way, but we need not only strong language, but strong action. The director of International State Crime Initiative has called ethnic cleansing a “euphemism for genocide”. She adds that genocide is a process that takes place over many years. In 2015, the organisation described the violence towards the Rohingya as

“highly organised and genocidal in intent.”

The Bangladeshi Government have already called this genocide so I ask the Minister, if the UN finds that genocide or other violations of international law have been committed, will the British Government support a referral to the International Criminal Court?

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[Fiona Bruce]

It should be remembered that, yes, she could have done more to prevent this tragedy and to speak out when it began, but she does not control the army.

The article continued:

“The international community must now act to hold the Burmese military to account for its crimes.”

Those warnings were also made many months ago. Now a tragedy is unfolding on a far bigger scale and action is long overdue.

I welcome the action taken by the Government so far: initiating discussions at the UN Security Council, suspending training programmes with the Burmese army, providing £30 million in aid and pledging to match £5 million in donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal.

[Paul Scully]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, while it is absolutely right that we should suspend our military programme with the Burmese military, it is a matter of regret that the people left training the Burmese military at the moment are the Russians?

[Fiona Bruce]

I will come in a moment to the further action I want to challenge the Minister to take with regard to the military.

More surely can and should be done. When the United Nations Secretary-General describes the crisis as “catastrophic” and “a devastating humanitarian situation" and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that it is

“a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”,

there is surely a need for a much more robust response.

So what other measures will the UK take to put pressure on the army and the Government of Burma to stop this appalling ethnic cleansing? What steps are the Government taking to demand that the military in Burma immediately cease operations in Rakhine state and that the Government of Burma allow unhindered access to all affected areas for international humanitarian aid organisations, human rights monitors and the media? What pressure will the Government put on the Government of Burma to ensure that Rohingyas can safely return to their home villages and that homes are rebuilt, livelihoods are secured, security is guaranteed, the recommendations of the Rakhine advisory commission, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, are implemented, a reconciliation process begins, and the military are held to account for their crimes?

Will the Government work at the UN Security Council to secure a global arms embargo on Burma and targeted sanctions to prohibit investment in Burmese military-owned enterprises? Will the UK urge the EU to extend its arms embargo to ban the sale of non-military equipment that could be used for military purposes and to impose a visa ban on senior members of the military? Will the UK work to reintroduce a UN General Assembly resolution on Burma, imposing specific measures to put pressure on the Government and the military in Burma to address this crisis?

I urge the Minister to consider introducing regular meetings at this critical time, either with himself or his officials, so that non-governmental organisations based in London that have much expertise in Burma can discuss the current crisis. I have referred to the expertise of Ben Rogers, but I also have in mind the Burma Campaign UK, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and, in particular, representatives of the exiled Rohingya community.

This tragedy requires our urgent attention and action now. It is time to act to prevent another ethnic cleansing from becoming another genocide.

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[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The Rohingya are the most persecuted minority in the world, and their persecution is not a recent phenomenon; it is of long standing. People are being rendered stateless in their own land. If they are not being beaten, murdered or raped, they are being starved, literally, because of the closure of food markets in Rakhine state.

The scale of what the Rohingya face is unimaginable, and we have heard many moving examples from Members from across the Chamber. This is a textbook example of ethnic cleansing—let there be no doubt about that—with all the horror that that entails. We have heard about the more than 500,000 refugees who have fled in recent months to Bangladesh, and about the more than 200,000 who were already there, having fled violence previously.

I have been reflecting on the fact that we have had so many debates in this House about whether we should take a few thousand unaccompanied child refugees into our nation—one of the most prosperous on earth—from the ravaged land that is Syria, while Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations on earth, is housing 800,000 refugees. I do not know that we would be so generous if we faced the situation that the Bangladeshis face. As other Members have said, not only must we offer every assistance to the Bangladeshi Government—I welcome the efforts that have been made already—but we must strain every sinew to provide humanitarian assistance and use our particular expertise to support the Bangladeshi Government as fully as we possibly can, and we must implore the rest of the world to do the same.

[Paul Scully]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I will not, because of the shortness of time; I apologise.

I agree that we should keep a laser-like focus on the military, and I support Members’ calls for arms bans and visa bans for military personnel and their families in Myanmar. I hear the argument about Min Aung Hlaing, the military leader; as others have said, he could stop this overnight. However, I do not want us to get away from the moral responsibility on Aung San Suu Kyi. I take on board the points about the military leadership—I hear the argument saying that she does not have power, that this country is transitioning to democracy, that she has to tread a fine line and that there is a fear of overthrow by the military leadership—but the compromise of transition to democracy cannot come at the cost of turning a blind eye to ethnic cleansing. That is abhorrent, and a total corruption of democracy and everything that democracy stands for.

There is an idea that Aung San Suu Kyi has no power, but for many years not only did she have no power, but she did not have liberty, yet she used the one power she did have—the power of her voice, the power to speak out—and now she has fallen silent and brought her Nobel peace prize into disrepute. If she has not been utterly silent, all she has done is to act as an apologist for the military regime and to deny the truth of the crisis that has fallen upon the Rohingya in Burma.

The point about Aung San Suu Kyi raising her voice is so important because she must stand up and make the argument for democracy. Democracy is not the tyranny of the majority having a vote and persecuting a minority. It is founded on the principle that human rights are universal, and the universality of human rights must be accepted in Myanmar if it is ever going to be a democracy worthy of the name. That is the argument that Aung San Suu Kyi could and should make, and we in this House must call her out. If we, in the mother of Parliaments, do not stand up for the true nature of democracy, I fear all will be lost.

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[Yasmin Qureshi]

I agree entirely, which was why I said at the start of my speech something that I think no one else has said today. I said, with respect, that our Government have not done enough. We saw what we could achieve when we invaded Iraq and when we intervened in Libya, and I am not even asking for military intervention. We could do more to stop the situation in Burma. Myanmar is not a rich country. I refuse to believe that if members of the international community put their heads together they could not stop what is happening—the ethnic cleansing, systematic genocide and rape.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Lady talks about doing more but says she is not asking for military intervention. What would she like us to do rather than say?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Years ago, when I raised this matter in Westminster Hall, I said that the sanctions should be maintained, that military assistance should be stopped, and that the sale of weapons from across the world to Burma should be stopped. People need to get together and talk. I do not believe for one minute that if the richest countries in the world said to the Burmese generals, “Stop doing this,” they would not stop doing it—they would. If all the money and military aid was pulled out, they would stop. I am sorry to say, however, that the international community is still sitting and watching while genocide and ethnic cleansing take place.

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[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), who is no longer in her place, for enabling us as parliamentarians to bear witness to this atrocity and to hear extremely powerful speeches from Members on both sides of the House; but sadly, speeches are not enough.

Anyone who heard the testimony a few days ago of the mum whose young daughter’s hand slipped out of hers in the raging sea as they tried to reach the sanctuary of Bangladesh on a boat that was barely seaworthy, or who heard the young son who carried his skeletal, disabled mum, barely alive, talk about how he watched the soldiers burn his village—he is unsure where the rest of his family have ended up—or who heard about the three children and their mum who were trampled to death by wild elephants as they slept, having been forced to build their temporary shelter on elephant walkways owing to the unprecedented numbers of refugees huddled in the forested hills of Balukhali, cannot fail to be heartbroken.

These are people—people like all of us in this Chamber. They are women and children, exhausted, injured and traumatised after walking for days. More than half of all new arrivals are children, and one in 10 is a breastfeeding mother. They are human beings who deserve to live in peace. We cannot stand by; we must call it out. The scale of suffering is unimaginable. Over half a million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. They are destitute, scared and hungry. But the Myanmar Government refuse to accept what the world knows to be true: we are witnessing ethnic cleansing. Farah Kabir from ActionAid has said:

“'In nearly 15 years of working on humanitarian disasters I’ve never seen a crisis on this scale. The scale of need is far outweighing the response.”

If anyone saw the recent posting on Twitter of a drone flying over the refugee camp in Bangladesh, they would have seen that the conditions for those who do manage to escape are barely fit for animals, let alone human beings.

Yet it seems as though the world is holding the coat of the oppressor, standing by, wincing when it is all too much, but doing nothing to protect the victims. We need political will. We need to pressure the EU to support a UN-mandated global arms embargo. Yesterday, EU representatives met to discuss the crisis and issued a joint statement suspending invitations to military leaders, reviewing defence co-operation with Myanmar in the light of the disproportionate use of force against the Rohingya minority—

[Paul Scully]

rose—

[Tracy Brabin]

I will keep going. The EU had also placed an embargo on weapons and equipment. That is all good, but it is not enough. We need to ban new investment in and business relationships with military-owned companies and members of the military and their families. We need to reinstate the annual General Assembly resolution on human rights in Myanmar. The international community, including the European Union, has failed the Rohingya, and hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, have paid the price. To do nothing is unacceptable. To speak without taking action is unacceptable. It is time to have courage to do the right thing. The Rohingya are counting on us because we are all they have got.