Yemen

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

I take on board what my hon. Friend says, and I considered that in advance of this debate. I read something said by California Congressman Ted Lieu:

“When its repeated air strikes that have now killed children, doctors, newlyweds, patients, at some point you just have to say: Either Saudi Arabia is not listening to the United States or they just don’t care,”

and I fear the same might be true for the advice we might be given.

A Pentagon spokesperson has said:

“Even as we assist the Saudis regarding their territorial integrity, it does not mean that we will refrain from expressing our concern about the war in Yemen and how it has been waged”.

I will talk later about why I believe there may be a particular reason why, although I hear what my hon. Friend says about advice that may be given in relation to some of the targeting, there may not be advice in relation to all of it, and if he has some patience he will get an answer to part of his question.

My concern is that we are therefore putting our faith entirely in the Saudis’ joint incidents assessment team to give us the truth on these alleged violations. I showed earlier that there had been thousands of documented airstrikes on civilian sites and thousands of civilians killed as a result, so we would expect JIAT at the very least to have published reports on hundreds of these incidents, but it has published just nine. That is less than 0.002% of all airstrikes documented by the Yemen data project up to the end of August.

And how credible are those reports? The United Nations protests that four World Food Programme trucks have been attacked; JIAT blames the officials in charge of the convoy. The UN protests that 73 civilians were killed and injured in a market in Sana’a; JIAT says there have been no direct attacks on civilians and no fault on the part of the coalition forces. The UN protests that another 106 civilians were killed in a market in Hajjah; JIAT disputes that there were civilians and finds no proof of fault. The UN protests that 47 civilians were killed and 58 injured at a wedding in Dhamar; JIAT says no such bombing took place.

In only two of the nine incidents it has reported on, and the thousands more it has not, has JIAT accepted there was any fault on behalf of the Saudi-led coalition: the bombing on a residential complex in July 2015 and the airstrike on the funeral hall in Sana’a this month.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that, despite the frank admissions over the funeral bombing, when we have met representatives of the Saudi Government they have refused to even give a timetable for giving information on these investigations, let alone answers that might be satisfactory? Does she agree that they must come forward as soon as possible and that there should be an independent investigation?

[Emily Thornberry]

I was at the same meeting and heard the Saudi Foreign Minister telling us he was not able to give us a timetable on the investigation and I share my hon. Friend’s grave concern about that.

When asked at the weekend about the latter incident, the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East, called it “a deliberate error”, by which I believe he meant at least one individual within the coalition forces was able to deliberately unleash this terrible attack killing 140 civilians without the authorisation of the coalition command in Riyadh.

This raises major questions. Members on both sides of the House have spoken to experts on this conflict who say that there are essentially two coalition forces operating in Yemen. One is run from the capital and carries out pre-planned operations based on strong intelligence under the direction of the Americans and UK advisers. There is, however, another centre operating out of southern Saudi Arabia, which carries out dynamic reactive operations, often based on sketchy evidence, often without thinking through the so-called collateral damage and inevitably often with significant civilian casualties. I hope that that answers the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) has just raised.

If any coalition forces are acting in a reckless or indiscriminate manner in carrying out airstrikes on civilian areas, that would be a clear violation of international humanitarian law, and it should cause the whole House grave concern. The Minister’s explanation that the Sana’a funeral bombing was a deliberate error raises the prospect that there has also been intentional targeting of civilians by elements of the coalition forces, but he cannot tell us—because he does not know—how many of those thousands of airstrikes against civilian targets have also been deliberate errors.

That brings me to the crucial point of today’s motion: the need for a full independent UN-led investigation into all alleged violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen. There must be an investigation into all the thousands of attacks on civilian sites, not just nine of them, and into all the thousands of civilian deaths, not just a few hundred of them. We need to know whether Yemen’s agriculture sector has been deliberately targeted in breach of international humanitarian law. We need to know whether elements of the coalition air forces are routinely operating in a reckless and indiscriminate way. We need to know whether that deliberate error in Sana’a was a one-off or part of a more systemic problem. Finally, from a UK perspective, if there have been violations of international humanitarian law, we need to know whether UK-manufactured weapons and planes have been used to commit those violations. With all due respect to the individuals who make up Saudi’s JIAT, its output to date—whether in terms of volume, speed or content—gives no confidence that it can carry out this type of comprehensive investigation, let alone an independent one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

I will make a little more progress.

I say to the Houthis and those loyal to former President Saleh who say they want peace—that is what they say—that their actions suggest otherwise. They promised to obey UN resolution 2216, joined the framework for the talks and turned up in Kuwait for the negotiations, but, at the same time, they have taken a series of unilateral steps that have gravely damaged the cause they claim to espouse. The Houthis have announced the creation of a Supreme Political Council and set up a shadow Government to rival the legitimate Administration of President Hadi, which is emphatically not the way forward.

[Stephen Doughty]

I do not find myself in disagreement with much of what the Foreign Secretary has said so far, but does he accept that the issue for many Members on both sides of the House is the conduct of the operation in Yemen by the Saudi coalition, and whether or not UK weapons and ammunition have been used, in violation of our legal obligations? Does he consider that we are acting legally under our obligations under the arms trade treaty, notably article 6?

[Boris Johnson]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s point in a moment.

Let me conclude my point about the Houthis and the Saleh loyalists. It is very important that the matter is solved politically. The single most important thing they can do is withdraw their forces from Sana’a by agreement with the UN special envoy. That is where our diplomatic energies are currently engaged.

I come to the point that the hon. Gentleman raised, which the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury also raised. I know that many Members on both sides of the House and people throughout the country have concerns about UK defence sales to Saudi Arabia. Let me say a few words about the general context. Saudi Arabia has been a key strategic and defence partner of the UK for decades, which is of immense value to this country, as Members on both sides of the House have rightly pointed out in this debate.

In the course of her contribution, the hon. Lady substantially retreated, I thought, from the text of the motion before the House in her name. Under questioning from my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) as to whether she would support the immediate suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces, as is specified in the motion in her name, she refused to say that she would. She was very wise. There is a wide measure of agreement, therefore, between our parties. The hon. Lady spoke very wisely about our export control regime and she was exactly right in what she said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The UK is also in violation—[Interruption.] For those who are clearly not listening, this is legal opinion. The UK is also in violation of article 7 of the arms trade treaty on the basis of a clear risk that future weapons supplies could be used to commit or facilitate serious breaches of international law.

What have this Government done to address and investigate these serious and widespread concerns? By their own admission, they have done nothing. After spending most of 2016 telling Parliament that assessments had been conducted and that they were confident that no breach of international law had occurred, they changed their story to declare that no investigation had been carried out at all, and now appear to have changed their mind again. On 4 January 2016, the then Foreign Secretary told this House—I am glad that I now have the Government’s attention—the following:

“I regularly review the situation with my own advisers and have discussed it on numerous occasions with my Saudi counterpart. Our judgement is that there is no evidence that”

international humanitarian law

“has been breached, but we shall continue to review the situation regularly.”

However, the written statement published by the Government on 21 July this year stated that it was important to note that the Government had not reached a conclusion as to whether the Saudis were guilty of international humanitarian law violations in Yemen. They said:

“This would simply not be possible in conflicts to which the UK is not a party, as is the case in Yemen.”—[Official Report, 21 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 42WS.]

Then last month the current Foreign Secretary, who is in his place today, completely contradicted his own ministerial colleagues—a frequent occurrence—in an interview with “Channel 4 News”. He definitively stated that, after taking evidence from a “very, very wide” range of sources, the UK Government do not believe that Saudi forces have broken humanitarian law, despite the fact that his own Ministers withdrew previous similar statements to Parliament.

Who are we to believe—the previous and current Foreign Secretaries, who say that there has been a UK investigation, or the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is in his place and has been sent out to defend the indefensible once again? Do they really believe the assurances given to them by the Saudis? Have this Government really not properly independently investigated the claims? Do we really have no idea at all, given the close links that clearly exist between our Government and the armed forces, whether our closest ally in the middle east is using our weapons in this conflict, as the Prime Minister herself suggested last week to my right hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson)? This matters, because when the UK is presented with serious and widespread evidence of breaches of international law, we simply cannot take for granted the words of those who are accused of it.

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Lady is right to mention the letter of international law and the question of knowledge and clear risk. Does she agree that it is absolutely incredible, not least in the light of the funeral bombing, that some claim that there is no knowledge or clear risk that actions may be taken against civilians? Does not that get to the heart of the matter?

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Three Committees of this House—the Select Committees on Foreign Affairs, on International Development and on Business, Innovation and Skills—are of the uniform view that we cannot rely on the assurances of the Saudis and that there must be an independent, UN-led inquiry. Why are the Government not listening to the Select Committees of this House?

We agree with the Foreign Affairs Committee, whose recent report, “The use of UK-manufactured arms in Yemen”, concluded, among other things:

“We do not believe that the UK Government can meet its obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions by relying on assurances from the Saudis.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many describe the situation as a forgotten crisis—although I welcome the fact that this is the second debate on Yemen in this House in the space of just a week.

The International Development Committee’s inquiry into the Yemen crisis reached a number of conclusions. The first thing to say is that the evidence is clear that appalling atrocities have been committed by both sides in the conflict. We heard not only that over 62% of the killings have been caused by the Saudi-led coalition, but that Houthis have recruited children to armed groups and have sieged towns such as Taiz, denying basic access to humanitarian aid and medicines. There is no suggestion in the motion or in my Committee’s reports that we are taking sides with the Houthis; this is about a balanced approach.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is right, and we no doubt agree on where the responsibility lies for starting this conflict and for many of the atrocities. Does he agree that we are neither an ally of the Houthis nor selling arms to them?

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is clear that negotiations and a peace process are needed, that we need a lasting ceasefire and that humanitarian work and civilian protection must be prioritised. The International Development Committee started with the view that this was a humanitarian crisis, but as we took evidence it became clear that we simply could not divorce the humanitarian position from the alleged violations of international humanitarian law by both sides. In turn, we could not divorce that position from the fact that we are arming one of those sides.

There are widespread reports of violations of international humanitarian law. The UN documented 119 abuses, and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented substantial numbers more. The Government, however, have been rather dismissive of the evidence from such organisations. Saferworld told the Committee:

“In other contexts, the Government will cite their reports. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty will be cited in Syria; they have been cited in Libya and Sudan in support of the Government position. Here, they are referred to as not good enough to be considered evidence compared with a reassurance from the Saudis, one of the belligerents to the conflict, that there are no violations of international humanitarian law.”

I welcome the fact that at the recent UN Human Rights Council the UK position did shift and we signed up to an EU common position that enabled there to be a greater independent element in the investigation of abuses, but I support what this motion says, which is that there should be a fully independent UN-led investigation into abuses by both sides. My Committee reached agreement that in the meantime we should suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The scale of arms sales—