Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Judd (Labour). It was answered on Tuesday, 13 November 2007.

West Papua

Question: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, with the historically relatively recent searing experiences of East Timor, we must be very careful lest an institutional complacency overtakes a real objective assessment of what is happening and of what is the real position of the people of this country? Does he also agree that, as permanent members of the Security Council—a privileged position enjoyed by only five nations in the world—we have a special responsibility not just to our bilateral relationships with Indonesia but to the principles of the United Nations, and the application of those principles, for everyone across the world?

Answer: My Lords, as always, my noble friend makes a powerful plea for the proper role of conscience and, indeed, for the ethical foreign policy that falls on our shoulders as a permanent member of the Security Council. I can only assure him that, both through our annual human rights reporting and through our embassy, we believe that we are vigilant in following the situation. In the past few weeks at the Third Committee of the General Assembly, the European presidency, on behalf of the Union’s member states, registered a statement on human rights abuses, which included a reference to Papua. However, again, we insist that it should not be bracketed with major abuses such as Darfur, Zimbabwe or Burma.

Secondary information