Aleppo/Syria: International Action

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered international action to protect civilians in Aleppo and more widely across Syria.

The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), with whom I co-chair the friends of Syria all-party group, joins me in thanking you, Mr Speaker, for granting this emergency debate. We are both concerned that on occasions, motions such as this can appear to be hand-wringing and to focus on the concept that something must be done. We are anxious today to encourage the Government to pursue all avenues and options, as I know they are extremely anxious to do.

The House will be particularly grateful to the Foreign Secretary for responding to the debate himself. On the earlier occasion when you granted an emergency debate on these matters, Mr Speaker, he returned to the House and made his first major speech from the Dispatch Box. I believe his presence signifies the concern of Foreign Office Ministers about the tragedy that is Aleppo today.

I wish to cover three points this afternoon. The first is the current situation in Aleppo. Secondly, I have some specific suggestions for the Government to consider together with our allies, and, thirdly, some observations on how this crisis could develop in 2017 and the action that the international community should take.

I start with the position on the ground today. We are able to monitor what is going through Twitter and other social media to some extent, but in particular, the reports of the United Nations and its agencies, and of the International Committee of the Red Cross, are likely to be extremely accurate. They have reported over lunchtime that there is clear evidence of civilians being executed—shot on the spot. There are dead bodies in the street that cannot be reached because of gunfire. In the last couple of hours, we have heard that probably more than 100 children who are unaccompanied or separated from their families are trapped in a building in east Aleppo and under heavy fire.

We learn from totally credible independent sources inside Aleppo that all the hospitals have been deliberately destroyed with barrel bombs and bunker-busting bombs, and that in case the people in those hospitals were not destroyed by those munitions, cluster munitions, which are anti-personnel munitions, have also been used. There are pop-up clinics in underground locations, which are suffering nightmare conditions, with people lying on the floor and pools of blood everywhere. Doctors and nurses are wearing boots because there is so much blood on the floor, and casualties are moved in and out as fast as they possibly can be because there are grave dangers to them from being in those locations. The ambulances of the White Helmets have been specifically targeted, and there is now no fuel available for them.

In the mid-afternoon yesterday, a 10 km by 10 km zone was the centre of the fighting in Aleppo. It is contracting, and at 10 o’clock this morning it was probably less than half that size. There are approximately 150,000 civilians crammed into that area, and very large numbers of them are children. Large numbers are stranded in the open and looking for shelter. The only food available is dates and bulgur wheat. Water has run out, and there is no electricity. Last night, people were flooding into that enclave. As I have said, there are credible reports of executions and the removal of groups of adult males.

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

The right hon. Gentleman paints an absolutely grim picture of the current situation in Aleppo. Two years ago, I travelled to Srebrenica with the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). We visited an exhibition in Sarajevo of pictures from Srebrenica and pictures from Syria, and they were indistinguishable. When we hear of summary executions, disappearances of men and boys, unmarked graves and the types of atrocities that the right hon. Gentleman is describing, does he not believe that we risk this being the Srebrenica of our generation?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which I will come to directly.

The terrified civilians in Aleppo are of course sophisticated, educated people from what was one of the great cities of the world. With 2 million people, it is 6,000 years old and has treasured Islamic civilisation and artefacts within it. A senior Aleppo resident, terrified, said this morning:

“The human corridor needs to happen. If the British Government is serious about fighting terror, they can’t ignore state terror. Doing so creates so many more enemies and if they offer but empty words, nobody will ever believe them in future.”

Ten years ago, this country, along with the entire international community, embraced the responsibility to protect, a doctrine that said that nation states great and small would not allow Srebrenicas, Rwandas and other appalling events such as those in Darfur to take place again. That responsibility was signed up to with great fanfare and embraced by all the international community, great and small. Yet here we are today witnessing—complicit in—what is happening to tens of thousands of Syrians in Aleppo.

That is the situation today. I come to my second point, which is to put specific actions to the Government, which I know they will wish to consider. First, there is an urgent need for humanitarian teams to be deployed and given unfettered access to Aleppo once Government forces there are in control. That is essential if we are to avoid the same circumstances as Srebrenica—the precise point that the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has just made. There is a very serious danger, from the position I have described, that such events are already taking place, so it is essential that those teams are deployed.

We need to get food, medicine, fuel and medical services into east Aleppo immediately. We also need to have independent humanitarian eyes and ears on the ground, not only to give confidence to terrified civilians—who, I remind the House, are caught out in the open in temperatures that are predicted to fall below minus 4° tonight—but to avoid possibly false allegations of war crimes and breaches of international humanitarian law by Government forces and their military associates. It is not easy to see why Russia and Syria would wish to resist that, unless they do not wish the world to know or see the actions that they are now taking in Aleppo.

The second action that I hope the Government will evaluate and support is organising the evacuation to comparative safety, in United Nations buses and lorries, under a white flag and in a permissive environment, of the people who are wounded or have been caught up in this terrible catastrophe. It is clear that the United Nations has the capacity, with available vehicles, to move north up to the Castello road and then west to Bab al-Hawa, near Reyhanli, on the border, which Clare Short, the distinguished former International Development Secretary, and I visited earlier this year. There are hospitals in Bab al-Hawa, and there are significant refugee facilities on the Syrian side of the border. They are easily resupplied via the Reyhanli crossing by international humanitarian actors, and that route out of the nightmare of eastern Aleppo should be made available as fast as possible.

Britain is in a pivotal position at the United Nations to try to convene an acceptance that that action should be taken. We are hugely respected on humanitarian matters at the UN. Matthew Rycroft, the permanent representative to the UN5 on the Security Council, is extremely effective in what he does. The current National Security Adviser, Mark Lyall Grant, a key United Nations operative for many years, has great convening power, and there are senior UK officials at the United Nations. The head of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O’Brien, who worked with me at the Department for International Development, plays a pivotal role. The British foreign service is respected and admired around the world, and, in supporting Staffan de Mistura and Jan Egeland, has an absolutely pivotal role to play in trying to convene the consensus that is now urgently required.

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

I spoke earlier of my experience visiting Sarajevo and Srebrenica two years ago and of the exhibition that I saw, but one thing that will never leave me was entering a musty room in a mortuary where bags full of bodies and skeletons were still being examined 20 years after that crisis. These were people whose graves had been disinterred and attempts had been made to hide the evidence, and their families were still not able to get closure on the atrocities committed at that time, when the world stood by. When I hear the stories of men and boys being disappeared, of summary executions, of mass graves and of attempts to hide the evidence and to kill those who were witnessing the evidence, I have all the same fears that we will be looking in one of those mortuaries 20 years from now, wondering just what on earth we did.

That leads me to reflect on the decisions that we in this House have made. I have to reflect on whether the decision I took in 2013, with other people in this House, was the right one. I sat through that entire debate, and I did not feel that the Government came forward with a comprehensive plan or that they had clarity about where they were going, but I have to accept that our decision may well have been wrong.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) that the real question was: why did we not act in 2011? Why did we not act right at the beginning of this conflict? Why were we trying to make decisions when already hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost and when already this conflict had spiralled out of control? We have to look at not just one decision, but the collectivity of the decisions that we took over time.

[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for the contribution that he is making. I have felt incredibly proud to listen to many of the speeches that colleagues have made during this debate. I hope and pray that the actions that follow this debate are as great as the speeches. Once this two-hour debate is finished, we will have a five-hour debate on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. Does he, like me, have a sense of how ludicrous we will look when we are discussing that?

[Stephen Doughty]

Absolutely. I also fear that many will ask where the rest of the House is today. Where is the Prime Minister? Where is the Leader of the Opposition? [Interruption.] I know that the Leader of the Opposition was here, but in a such a debate, we should have senior people in our country standing up and taking part and taking responsibility for the decisions of this House.

All our hand wringing will do nothing to solve the problems that we face today and that the citizens of Aleppo face right now.

I wish to turn now to Russia. I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said about Russia. We have to end this fetishisation of Russia by both the populist right and the left and make it face up to the consequences of its action. We must stand up against what it is doing and make it recognise that there are consequences for stepping over these lines and that there will be a response. I must ask the Foreign Secretary a sincere question. We have heard the Government say that they have been doing all they can to bring action against Russia, but the EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini, said this week:

“No, we didn’t discuss at all sanctions”—

at the EU Foreign Affairs Council—

“and there was no member state asking for additional work on sanctions”—

against Russia. I would like some clarity from the Foreign Secretary on what efforts have been made on this matter. Those sanctions were having an impact. What other member states support him?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern over the incoming US Administration and some of the individuals’ relationships with Russia? Does it not highlight the need for the UK Government to press seriously on the sanctions issue?

[Stephen Doughty]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, much of what the new President-elect has said about Russia is deeply worrying and should concern us all, not least whether he is willing to stand up for NATO allies and against aggression in the east of Europe.

I wonder why we have not done more to support the efforts of other countries in the United Nations. We talk about the failures of the UN Security Council, but there are other means by which we can authorise action. The “Uniting for Peace” resolution process has been used before, and Canada has been pushing it this week. The General Assembly took a vote and made a decision. Why are we not at the forefront of leading those efforts when the Security Council fails? I fear that if we do not take such action we will see the breakdown of all those systems of international agreement.

Fundamentally, we can make a difference today. I make this appeal to the Foreign Secretary: what are we doing to secure a ceasefire, even a ceasefire of a few hours, to get out the injured, the women and children, the aid workers and those others who are trapped? The UN is there and ready to assist. It can get the people out, but we need the agreement of Russia and others. If the Foreign Secretary is saying that we cannot do airdrops, what can we do with our military assets to provide air cover for UN aid convoys leaving Aleppo? UN convoys have been attacked in the past, so what can we do to provide the assurance that they will not be attacked leaving the scene of this atrocity? What can we do to provide access for neutral humanitarian monitors—those people from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other organisations—to ensure that the evidence is not destroyed and that those who are responsible for these atrocities cannot cover up what they are doing?

What can we do to ensure the evacuation of the White Helmets—people who have been responding and doing amazing work there on the ground? I have read some disgraceful things in recent days about the work of the White Helmets. I can tell Members that they are not true and that those people are helping to save lives. I am proud that we are supporting them, and that Jo Cox supported them and that her foundation supports them now. Any suggestion that those people are doing anything other than a good job is simply unacceptable.

Finally, we must look at the precedent. If we see what is happening in Aleppo today, we can see that it will happen also in Dara, Raqqa and Idlib. If this is the approach that we are going to take and we are not going to stand up at this moment, we will only see these kind of atrocities played out again and again over the weeks and months to come. We must stand up and show that we have some common humanity. We have to do the extraordinary and step outside our natural caution and our fear of these events. People are dying right now and we need to act.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for securing this debate on a matter that the whole House feels so strongly about. I listened very carefully to all the speeches and found myself greatly in agreement with much that has been said by Members on both sides of the House.

After five months of siege and almost a year of bombardment, we are now reaching the end of the siege of Aleppo, and Assad’s forces are doing their utmost to stamp out the last embers of revolt. The dictator’s militias have carved paths of destruction through crowded streets destroying hospitals, severing water supplies and herding thousands of people from their homes. I will come in a minute to what we have tried to do as the UK Government, what we continue to do and what we will do in future. I will also, of course, discuss the tragic limitations that we have faced in our actions so far.

First, it is worth going back and remembering how this tragedy has unfolded. As long ago as July, the regime sealed off eastern Aleppo and then defeated two abortive efforts to break the siege. Notch by notch, Assad tightened the noose. The last UN convoy entered eastern Aleppo on 7 July. The last food rations were handed out on 10 November. The last functioning hospital was targeted by an airstrike and knocked out of action on 19 November. Some 275,000 men, women and children were then trapped in eastern Aleppo without food, medical care, or even, in many cases, electricity and water. In this piteous condition, they endured ceaseless attack from air and ground, notably by barrel bombs dropped from Syrian military helicopters.

I know that time is short, but it is worth reminding the House of exactly what a barrel bomb is and why it makes such a hideous weapon. Imagine a metal drum filled with petrol and explosives, and laced with nails and jagged shards of metal. These objects—[Interruption.] People watching and listening around the world may not know what they are. These objects are loaded on board helicopters, which then hover over civilian areas. The men on the helicopters simply light the fuses of the barrels before rolling them out of the door, leaving them to fall to the ground where they shred and incinerate any human being with range. There is no guidance system or targeting. Barrel bombs have no military purpose; they cannot be dropped near a frontline for fear of striking friendly forces. Their sole purpose is to murder civilians. Scores of these awful weapons have been used against the people of eastern Aleppo by Assad every day.

The collapse of the rebel-held districts began on 26 November and has gathered pace. In the areas recaptured by the dictator, we have already heard reports today of hundreds of young males being separated from their families and marched away to an unknown fate. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights today reported that civilians have been “killed on the spot”.

As this tragedy has unfolded, the Government have sought to reduce the suffering with every diplomatic and humanitarian lever at our command. I must tell the House that we have used every effort at the UN. Even today, we are, along with the French, calling for an emergency meeting of the Security Council. I know that our excellent ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, will be conveying at the UN many of the sentiments expressed in the House.

On 8 October, we tried to secure a UN resolution that would have urged a ceasefire. It demanded that

“all parties immediately end all aerial bombardments of…Aleppo”.

That resolution was vetoed by the Russians. On Monday of last week we tried again, throwing our weight behind a draft resolution co-sponsored by Egypt, Spain and New Zealand that urged a seven-day ceasefire in Aleppo to allow the evacuation of casualties and the delivery of aid. Once again, Russia vetoed the resolution, joined by China. I think that the House will join me in condemning those in Moscow and Beijing who would not allow the people of Aleppo even a seven-day respite. I must say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield that I have had information from Aleppo—I am sure that other Members have, too—that even today the Russians are blocking the evacuation of the injured and of medical staff from the very zones they are attacking.

[Stephen Doughty]

Given what the Foreign Secretary has said about Russia and China’s behaviour and their failures, what will the consequences be for Moscow and Beijing?