Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I do not want to beat about the bush: Britain should not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka later this month. It is disgraceful that our Government are heaping credibility on the Sri Lankan regime by doing so.

In just nine days, the Prime Minister and the heir to the throne will effectively bestow their blessing on the regime when they are photographed alongside President Rajapaksa, who is widely considered to be a war criminal. The images of a king-to-be and a Prime Minister with such a person will cause enormous distress to his victims. Worse, they will give succour to other potential war criminals and show just how easy it is to get away with it. As Amnesty said,

“By hosting CHOGM in Colombo, the Commonwealth is giving an extraordinary and ill-deserved seal of approval to impunity for human rights violations in Sri Lanka.”

President Rajapaksa is head of a regime that cluster-bombed its own people, many in the laughably titled “no-fire zone”. It killed at least 40,000 of its own citizens. Even now, nearly 150,000 Tamils remain unaccounted for. Yes, the Tamil Tigers were a cruel terrorist organisation, but according to the United Nations, the large majority of civilian killings were

“the result of Government shelling and aerial bombardment”.

There was systematic shelling of hospitals and civilian areas by Government forces, as well as restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Channel 4’s documentary “Killing Fields” drew the world’s attention to what the UN panel of experts called a

“grave assault on the entire regime of international law”.

The channel’s latest documentary, screened on Sunday, was almost too harrowing to watch. Mobile phone footage, authenticated by the metadata in each file, showed further evidence of what reporter Jonathan Miller called

“the worst…crimes committed this century…that is saying something, given what is going on in Syria.”

Sri Lanka’s own so-called Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission has totally failed to provide accountability. The UN panel of experts said that it was “deeply flawed” and called for an independent, international investigation into war crimes. Yet Sri Lanka continues to ignore even the most minor allegations, describing them as unsubstantiated or biased.

In the absence of accountability or reconciliation, the situation is getting worse. As the UN human rights commissioner, Navi Pillay, said just weeks ago,

“although the fighting is over, the suffering is not.”

For her, Sri Lanka is

“showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction”,

with

“curtailment or denial of personal freedoms and human rights...and the failure of the rule of law.”

Amnesty also described

“a deterioration of human rights...violations continue, with the…Government cracking down on critics through threats, harassment, imprisonment and violent attacks.”

Journalists, the judiciary, human rights activists and opposition politicians are all targets of what Amnesty calls a

“disturbing pattern of Government-sanctioned abuse.”

Sri Lanka is now the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to meet Sandhya, the wife of Prageeth Eknaligoda, a satirist and journalist who disappeared in 2010. Earlier this week, the BBC screened an excellent documentary, “The Disappeared”, which was about the impact of abductions and secret murders in Ireland during the troubles. Even 40 years on, victims’ families are haunted by what happened, and their emotions are still raw. Mrs Eknaligoda’s husband disappeared just three years ago. The paramilitaries responsible for his disappearance cannot be dismissed easily as terrorists, as might have been the case with the IRA; they are agents of the Sri Lankan establishment.

The state of Sri Lanka has done next to nothing to help Mrs Eknaligoda to find her husband. When she reported his disappearance, the case was not investigated. Instead, she was locked up. Police officers called to court to account for what happened to her husband routinely fail to appear. Ministers refuse to answer letters about the case, other than to acknowledge receipt. Sri Lanka’s chief justice, Mohan Peiris, blithely told the UN human rights commission that Mr Eknaligoda had gone abroad, with absolutely no evidence to back up the claim.

Mr Eknaligoda is not the only one of Sri Lanka’s disappeared. Amnesty reckons that there have been thousands of disappearances, including at least 39 critics of Sri Lanka’s Government, since 2010. Many are not even Tamil; Mr Eknaligoda is Sinhalese. Every one of those disappearances is a tragedy, in a country that is well used to brutality.

What was so shocking about meeting Mrs Eknaligoda and hearing her story was how unsurprised I felt about it. Our Government’s complete failure to hold the Government of Sri Lanka to account is also no surprise. Indeed, although this was Mrs Eknaligoda’s first visit to Britain and hers is a cause célèbre around the world, the British Government refused to meet her.

Freedom from Torture says that Sri Lanka has replaced Iran at the top of the table of torture cases referred to it in the UK. Tamils continue to suffer owing to military controls in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The Foreign Affairs Committee has concluded that holding the Commonwealth meeting in Colombo was “wrong”. It told the Prime Minister not to go unless he received

“convincing and independently verified evidence of substantial and sustainable improvements in human and political rights.”

No such improvements have been seen, yet still the Prime Minister and the heir to the throne will go.

Our Government claim to be concerned about

“disappearances, political violence and reports of torture in custody”,

but for the next two years, Sri Lanka will chair every important committee of the Commonwealth, and President Rajapaksa will pose alongside our Prime Minister. If our Prime Minister seriously thinks that his presence alongside Rajapaksa will help the victims of disappearances or cluster-bombings, he clearly knows nothing about Sri Lanka.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful case. She is a strong champion of human rights in Sri Lanka. Does she share the sense of betrayal felt by British Tamils living in my constituency, hers and elsewhere in the country that our Government are lending credence to the Sri Lankan regime by insisting on attending the meeting?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

As my hon. Friend suggests, I find it unfathomable that a British Government of any political hue would choose to go to Sri Lanka for the conference.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

As far as I am aware, the hon. Lady was in this House in 2009, when the decision was taken in Trinidad and Tobago, under a Labour Government, to go to Sri Lanka. Will she tell the House how many times since then she has spoken out on the subject?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I cannot, but hon. Members on both sides in the debate will know that at every possible opportunity—every debate, every event and every early-day motion—I have been making this point. I would be making it if the Government were Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Social Democratic and Labour or Democratic Unionist. It is of the utmost disinterest to me who is in power; what is of interest to me is the fact that this is happening. Although no one would regard me as the best friend of our former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), he assured me that his Government would not go to Sri Lanka for CHOGM, and he respected that promise.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Did not the then Labour Foreign Office Ministers argue in 2009 that Sri Lanka was not ready to host the 2011 CHOGM, so it was put forward to 2013 and should have been kept under review in the light of the evolving circumstances?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct.

[Mike Gapes]

My hon. Friend is probably aware that the Foreign Affairs Committee report “The FCO’s human rights work in 2012” stated:

“The FCO objected to a proposal that Sri Lanka might host the 2011 CHOGM on human rights grounds but did not obstruct a proposal that it might do so in 2013… That approach now appears timid. The UK could and should have taken a more principled stand in 2009, and should have taken a more robust stand after the 2011 CHOGM in the light of the continuing serious human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.”

[Siobhain McDonagh]

If the British delegation is silly enough to go on the sanitised, Government-approved visits that are almost certainly lined up, how will that help the victims? The propaganda machine will go into overdrive, presenting Britain’s participation as giving credence to the regime. No doubt, the Government will claim that their attendance at CHOGM is an opportunity to raise dissidents’ concerns, but I hope that the Minister can assure us that the Government will not put anyone in danger by meeting them. After the UN met critics of the Sri Lankan regime earlier this year, there were terrible reprisals. I hope that the Prime Minister will not seek to assuage his guilt about CHOGM by putting the lives of those whom he meets at risk, and I hope that the Minister will guarantee those people’s safety long after the summit has ended.

The Government will not even guarantee the safety of Tamils whom they deport from Britain, however. According to Freedom from Torture, at least 15 Tamils whom Britain deported to Sri Lanka were tortured on their return, and they are only the ones who have managed to escape back to Britain to claim asylum again. Many others remain.

The truth is that Britain should not be going to Sri Lanka next week, because to do so will be seen as an endorsement of a Government who fired cluster bombs, white phosphorus and rockets on their own people. The Government may think that justice will be served by having President Rajapaksa pictured, all smiles, alongside our Prime Minister, but what will dictators such as President Assad think when they look at those pictures? Will they be put off? No, they will be smiling, just as President Rajapaksa will be smiling. That will send the message that human rights can be breached, people can be murdered, journalists can be disappeared and the Commonwealth and Britain will do nothing. For the sake of every future victim of a murderous regime, nothing but a boycott of this despicable summit will suffice.

[Mr David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. Obviously, interventions lengthen speeches, but I am now beginning to worry about the time.