In a debate she called in Parliament about the UN's response to Sri Lanka's human rights abuses against Tamils, Siobhain has told MPs Sri Lanka should not be allowed to stage the next Commonwealth summit.
The full speech is here:
Tamils – the UN’s Responsibility to Protect
Mister Chairman, I called this debate in response to last November’s publication of the UN’s investigation into its own handling of war crimes in Sri Lanka.
This concluded that the response from the international community to the tragedy of the Tamils in Sri Lanka was inadequate.
According to the Internal Review, UN staff in Colombo and New York simply “did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility”.
Despite the International Red Cross reporting an "unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe", the UN suppressed information on casualty figures and hid the Government’s responsibility for the lives lost.
Following intimidation and threats from the Government of Sri Lanka, they unquestioningly relocated UN staff away from the fighting.
Rather than try to stop the atrocities, the international community turned a blind eye.
Tens of thousands of people were massacred, yet at the time the international community pretended it wasn’t happening.
Yet oppression on a barely imaginable scale really did take place.
Thanks to the fearless reporting of a small number of journalists, the truth is out.
Channel 4’s documentary, ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’, deserves special praise.
Anyone who doubts why we need justice should watch that astonishing documentary.
The images broadcast by Channel 4 were among the most harrowing ever to appear on TV.
They showed what the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings concluded was evidence of “definitive war crimes”,
and what the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts admitted was a “grave assault on the entire regime of international law”.
Last year, I nominated Channel 4 News for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In my nomination letter, I said “By bringing to light the breaches of international conventions by the Government of Sri Lanka in a bold manner and by piecing together numerous forms of evidence in a coherent way, the value of independent journalism to the building of a peaceful global order in the century ahead has been amply demonstrated.”
But I also want to pay my respects to the amazing Marie Colvin, one of the most astonishing people I have ever had the privilege to meet.
Marie was a veteran war correspondent for the Sunday Times and won numerous awards, including Best Foreign Correspondent.
She was fearless in her reporting of Sri Lanka’s troubles.
In fact, she was so unafraid to get close enough to find out the truth, that in 2001 she sustained shrapnel wounds to her eye, head, chest and arms while reporting from Sri Lanka.
In March 2009, I invited her to speak at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils, which I then Chaired, and she was hypnotic.
She explained how the Sri Lankan Government tried to prevent prevent reporting of what was going on.
They would not allow independent journalists in.
Yet thanks to her persistence and courage, Marie presented evidence that the Sri Lanka government was firing cluster-bombs, white phosphorous and rockets on civilian areas, including hospitals and so-called "safe zones".
She was a trailblazer, and a wonderful woman.
I was fortunate to meet her on several occasions after that, and she made a lasting impression, not just on me but on everyone who met her.
Unfortunately, she was killed last year while reporting from Syria, where there are many parallels with Sri Lanka.
Her death was not only a terrible loss for journalism but a real blow to those of us who want to know the truth about conflicts that the rest of the international community are happy to keep under wraps.
As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, her bravery contrasts with the cowardice of the international community.
As the Internal Review proves, the international community knew about the abuses that Marie Colvin put herself in danger to uncover, but still they failed to protect tens of thousands of innocent people.
The international community’s weakness shames us all.
We now need to deal with that shame.
Human Rights Watch have said: “While Ban [Ki-Moon] deserves credit for starting a process he knew could tarnish his office, he will now be judged on his willingness to implement the report’s recommendations and push for justice for Sri Lanka’s victims.”
The international community was weak in its handling of this tragedy as it was unfolding.
We should not be weak when it comes to imposing justice after it has happened.
No regime in the world should think that if they commit the most heinous of crimes they will be untouched.
The UN has an over-riding Responsibility to Protectthat supersedes sovereignty.
We should have used that Responsibility to Protectduring the conflict. If we had, thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils would still be alive.
We now surely have a Responsibility to hold to account a Government that treated its citizens in such an appalling way.
As Amnesty International have said: “This [UN] report is a wake-up call for member states that have not pushed hard enough for an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes... The report
clearly illustrates the Sri Lankan government’s lack of
will to protect civilians or account for very serious
violations. There is no evidence that has changed.”
Responsibility to Protect is a concept that is at the heart of modern international relations. It has three core elements:
First, States are responsible for protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and from their incitement.
But second, the international community has a responsibility to ensure States fulfil that requirement.
And third, the international community has a responsibility to use diplomatic, humanitarian and other means to protect populations from these crimes.
If a State is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take collective action to do so.
All three pillars of the Responsibility to Protect were broken in Sri Lanka.
Even though the UN’s Internal Review proved that war crimes and human rights violations took place, it admitted that UN staff did not think that preventing these killings was their responsibility, and that they deliberately suppressed casualty figures.
According to the Review, when the UN began collating information on casualties the “reports pointed to the large majority of civilian killings as being the result of Government shelling and aerial bombardment, with a smaller proportion of killings resulting from the LTTE actions.”
However, the UN played down evidence about the scale of what was happening, and the truth was portrayed as propaganda from Tamil Tiger terrorists.
In fact, as the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka of 2011 outlined, and Marie Colvin had told us in 2009, there was systematic shelling of hospitals and civilian areas by Government forces, as well as restrictions on humanitarian aid and assistance.
The Panel of Experts speaks of “tens of thousands” of casualties, perhaps up to 40,000, but even worse figures are now emerging.
The Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, has stated that over 146,000 remain unaccounted for, and the former BBC journalist Frances Harrison, quotes a World Bank estimate of 100,000 people still missing.
All of this only emphasises the importance of an independent, international inquiry into the conduct of both sides during the conflict.
Credible investigations into war crimes allegations and human rights abuses are a duty under domestic and international law.
However Sri Lanka’s own inquiry, the so-called Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission has failed completely to provide the accountability required. It has been described as “deeply flawed” by the Panel of Experts.
The UN’s Panel of Experts called for an independent, international investigation into war crimes.
The LLRC was not independent or international, and our fears about it have been shown to be well-founded.
Government forces were largely exonerated of culpability.
Only military, rather than independent, courts of inquiry have been established to look into the few cases of abuses deemed worthy of further consideration by the LLRC.
And Sri Lanka’s authorities have rejected both UN reports, describing the allegations as “unsubstantiated, erroneous and replete with conjecture and bias”.
All of this leads me to ask: If our international duties and responsibilities mean anything, should we allow a government accused of war crimes to investigate itself?
As the UN itself has stressed “not to hold accountable those who committed serious crimes... is a clear violation.”
Reconciliation and sustainable peace can only be built if there is truth about, and accountability for, the crimes that might have been committed.
Britain should be first among those demanding international action.
Because, since there is no justice or accountability, what we see instead is a culture of impunity – cases of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, gender based violence, as well as the recent trumped up impeachment proceedings against the Chief Justice.
This is testament to the breakdown of the rule of law in Sri Lanka.
So, just as we had a Responsibility to Protect at the time of the killings, we have a responsibility also to protect civilians now, by ensuring that accountability does take place.
Without accountability, we are seeing torture, disappearances and killings.
And yet, despite that, a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is still scheduled to take place in Colombo in November.
What sort of message does that send out?
The Commonwealth was right a couple of years ago when it took away the honour of hosting a Summit from Sri Lanka.
But if we were right to take away that honour back then, how can it be right to let Sri Lanka have that honour now, when our worst fears about that Government have been confirmed?
Canada has bravely held the view that it will not attend the 2013 summit unless significant progress is made on human rights and accountability provision.
Why can’t Britain show the same leadership?
Why is Britain so determined to brush the issue of accountability under the carpet just as the UN brushed evidence of atrocities under the carpet four years ago.
In November, I wrote to the Prime Minister, imploring him to do the responsible thing.
I pointed out that the number of people killed in the space of just five months was roughly the same as the entire population of the major towns in his constituency, of Witney, Carterton and Chipping Norton.
Those poor people were herded into an area smaller than the Prime Minister’s constituency, tricked that it was a safe zone. And then they were relentlessly targeted, while the institutions of the international community made a deliberate choice not to help, even though they knew what was happening.
I pointed out that Britain’s Tamil community, which numbers more than a quarter of a million people, are still grieving.
I therefore asked what the British Government was doing to ensure there is justice for Tamils now.
In particular, I said it would send a terrible message if Sri Lanka was permitted the honour of hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit.
I said: “If a nation had systematically killed every single person you knew in Witney, Carterton and Chipping Norton, raping and murdering in cold blood, I do not think that you would find it acceptable for that Government to host an event as prestigious as a Commonwealth summit, or for our Government to attend...
“The international community has admitted it failed to help Tamils before, and cancelling the summit will ensure that mistake is not compounded. I believe it is in the international community’s best interests – and the best interests of the United Kingdom, as well as of Sri Lanka – for there to be an independent international investigation into war crimes in order to bring a lasting peace in Sri Lanka after such a long period of ethnic conflict. However, while this continues not to take place, Sri Lanka should not be hosting the Commonwealth summit.”
I have to say that the response I received was weak.
The Prime Minister himself would not answer.
He passed it on to the Foreign Secretary.
And his reply was very disappointing.
First, instead of supporting an international inquiry into Sri Lanka’s behaviour, he said the Government “believe that the process of reconciliation has a greater chance of success if investigations are Sri Lankan-led rather than externally imposed.”
He said that the British Government were concerned about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka such as “disappearances, political violence and reports of torture in custody”.
But what will the British Government do about that?
We haven’t even stopped deporting Tamils who are claiming asylum –
even though most reasonable people would think that any Tamil who had made a big deal about hating the Sri Lankan Government when they were in the UK might be the sort of person who was most at risk of disappearance, violence and torture.
No, the Foreign Secretary says “We seek to promote progress through direct lobbying, working with international partners, and funding human rights projects.”
I have to say, Mister Chairman, that it is not very reassuring to learn that the Government’s approach to getting Sri Lanka to behave is to give it more money.
And finally, he fails to offer any support to the idea of a boycott of the Commonwealth summit, although he does say the UK Government “believe that the host of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting should uphold the Commonwealth values of good governance and respect for human rights.”
He says “We will look to Sri Lanka to demonstrate its commitment to these values, both now and in the run up to the meeting in 2013.”
I would be grateful if the Minister could expand a little upon this in his speech.
In what possible way does he think that Sri Lanka currently is demonstrating its commitment to those values?
I note that he is going to Sri Lanka later this year, where no doubt his presence will be portrayed by the Government there as yet another vindication of their murderous approach.
If he wants to ensure his visit is not another PR victory for a regime that feels it is immune from accountability for war crimes, will he use his visit as an opportunity to warn his hosts that Britain and the Queen will not be attending a summit that is built on blood?
When my rt hon Friend the Member for South Shields visited Sri Lanka in 2009, he was not afraid to confront the Rajapaksa regime.
When he visits later this month, will the new Minister do the same, or will he have meetings about trade?
Because the last thing the international community needs right now, after all the failings of the past few years, is for Governments like ours to put the pursuit of profit ahead of the Responsibility to Protect.
The on-going humanitarian crisis in Syria and the developing situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo both show why we need to be strong.
A credible and robust approach to international relations by the UK, and more widely by the international community through the UN, is vital.
When the UN Internal Review of last November was published, Ban Ki-Moon said: “Our obligation to all humanity is to overcome our setbacks, learn from our mistakes, strengthen our responses, and act meaningfully and effectively for the future.”
I am very much afraid that the international community would rather move on and pretend Sri Lanka never happened, just as it turned a blind eye while the atrocities were taking place.
If we are not strong now, we will have abdicated our moral authority over Sri Lanka.
Regimes like those in Syria and DR Congo see that there is nothing to lose. Justice will not be served.
We have a responsibility to ensure that the international community’s failures in Sri Lanka are addressed. Accountability and reconciliation must take place.
When the 22nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council commence next month, our Government should take a lead.
The issue of whether Sri Lanka has complied with previous resolutions on accountability and reconciliation should be a priority.
The UNHRC, with Britain to the fore, must be prepared to take urgent action to initiate credible, independent investigations in Sri Lanka.
For the sake of other civilians around the world who are under threat from their Governments, we have a Responsibility to be strong.
We should tell Sri Lanka in no uncertain terms that we cannot support them hosting the Commonwealth summit while their reputation sits under this cloud.
We have a Duty to Protect, and we cannot fulfil that Responsibility by continuing to be Weak, Weak, Weak.
Ends