Rohingya Communities

Roger Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

It is always a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I look forward to the debate you will be leading later, although I doubt whether I will be able to take part.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who has done a great service by enabling the House to show itself in its finest tradition by speaking up for a minority in a distant part of the world that finds itself greatly persecuted and its human rights violated. I also thank hon. Members who, through other parliamentary processes such as parliamentary questions, have enabled Ministers to put on record their approach to this problem.

I was not aware of the extent of the issue until recently, but, unfortunately, the pattern with the Rohingya in Burma can be seen across the world. Minorities often find themselves isolated in their own country. Where a minority has a different ethnicity, sometimes visibly so, from the majority, where a minority follows a different religion or religious practices from the majority or where a minority has a different language from the majority, the majority, feeling under pressure, often exhibits frustration that manifests through oppression and violence against the minority, even though the minority might not be the cause of the problems perceived by the majority.

Through hon. Members’ efforts, Ministers have put on record the approaches that they have made to the Burmese and Bangladeshi Governments. Although those overtures are on record, what have been the Governments’ responses? To reinforce the questions asked by other hon. Members, how can the United Nations best use its influence to enable peace and reconciliation in that part of the world? What can be done about the refugee status of the Rohingya in Bangladesh? Can the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development do anything more to support those people in difficult circumstances?

The Rohingya community has historically and effectively been made stateless by the actions of the Burmese and Bangladeshi Governments. They are now being persecuted without redress, save for the efforts of the United Kingdom Government and international agencies such as the United Nations. I congratulate the Minister on his new position and urge him to use it to make the most of the channels available to the Government to resolve the problem.