Sri Lanka

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I, too, draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Like the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), this time last year, just as the seriousness of the pandemic had become clear in our country and days before formal lockdown was introduced, I was in Geneva, lobbying delegations and missions to the UN Human Rights Council about the need for firm action at UN level as a result of both the failure of the Government of Sri Lanka to honour the existing commitments that had been made and, as we have heard about during the debate, the ongoing human rights abuses in that country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) set out perfectly well both the historical context and the ongoing challenges in the country. I am afraid that it is with a sense of déjà vu that I participate in this afternoon’s debate, because we have been here so many times before, discussing exactly the same issues—the appalling atrocities committed during the civil war; both the literal scars and the emotional scars that survivors of that conflict continue to feel to this very day; the disappearance of families, still unresolved; and the responsibility that rests on the Government of Sri Lanka to promote truth, justice and reconciliation for all the peoples of Sri Lanka.

It had felt that we had begun to make progress. We had seen, through successive UN Human Rights Council resolutions, not just focus from the international community but the Government of Sri Lanka signing up to commitments before the international community. Those included a commitment for international involvement in the investigation and prosecution of allegations of historical war crimes, and a commitment—made before the eyes of the entire international community—to put a stop to ongoing human rights violations.

But what do we see from the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as from a wide a range of independent international NGOs? We see a picture, described by the UN, of the last 12 months fundamentally changing the environment for advancing reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka: the erosion of democratic checks and balances in the civic space; threats to reverse the limited—I emphasise that word as I thought the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) was far too generous in his assessment—gains in recent years; and the risk of the return to policies and practice that gave rise to the grave violations of the past. Indeed, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden, not only do we have a Government who have withdrawn from the commitments that Sri Lanka made to the international community, but we have back in power the same cast of characters who were responsible for perpetrating human rights abuses during the civil war, and resistance to any sense that they should be accountable for their historical actions and for ongoing human rights violations.

I ask the Minister: what is going to change, beyond the resolution, the lived experience of people in Sri Lanka, and the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and around the world, who are seeking accountability and justice for historical crimes? As we have heard, it is not just the international community—I agree with the arguments made about the importance of CHOGM and the G7—that can take action; we can take bilateral action to apply Magnitsky sanctions against the rogues and criminals who perpetrated human rights abuses. At this point, after many years of campaigning for justice, my Tamil constituents are looking not just for warm words but for action and leadership, which has been missing from the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister.