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Human Rights Annual Report 2005

I thank the Minister for that. Every three years there will be a half-day review on each country’s human rights situation. That is important, because it means that everybody is then under the microscope. Some countries used to claim that they were regularly under the microscope and that others were never put under it. The Chairman of the Committee made a point about the horse-trading that went on around resolutions. I do not think that it will be avoided in the Human Rights Council any more than it was in the Human Rights Commission. However, such a review process would mean that the whole thing was more open and, I hope, that there was more focus on what went on there. I hope that the Minister will give me some good news in that regard. My next point concerns extraordinary rendition flights, the Council of Europe report and Guantanamo Bay. I am pleased that that human rights report and the Foreign Affairs Committee report specifically mention Guantanamo Bay. There can be no defence for its existence as a centre of detention. Anyone who is held there cannot get a fair trial any more, anywhere in the world, because they have been held incommunicado, because of the treatment that they have suffered and because of the way they were taken there in the first place. One must think about the way in which suspects—as far as the United States was concerned—were picked up in Pakistan. In some cases, the prison authorities and others were bribed to hand over individuals, who were then flown by a circuitous route before somehow ending up in Guantanamo Bay. The British nationals were finally released and were interviewed by police at Paddington Green, but it is interesting that they were interviewed for quite a short time and released without charge, with no further action being taken against them. It is highly significant that, even under British terrorist law, they were released very quickly indeed. I ask the Minister to consider the situation of those who have a different nationality, but who were ordinarily resident in Britain, who had indefinite leave to remain and who were therefore eligible to apply for British nationality, but who are still in Guantanamo Bay. What action is he prepared to take to pressurise the US to release them, and everyone else from Guantanamo Bay? There is a further aspect that needs to be cleared up. The US base on Diego Garcia is in the British Indian Ocean Territory. It is a UK possession, but there is a renewable lease to the US for the base to be sited there. I would like to know whether the base on Diego Garcia has ever been used as a staging post for flights from Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else, through which prisoners on rendition flights have eventually ended up in Guantanamo Bay. If that were the case and there had been human rights abuses as a result, the British Government—just like any other Government who have condoned human rights abuses through inaction and allowing those flights to take place—would be liable for investigation. We need to know exactly what happened on Diego Garcia. Like the Chairman of the Committee, I have read the Marty report on extraordinary rendition flights. Although the report does not add an awful lot to the information that is already available, what was interesting was the chorus of condemnation from every European Government as soon as it appeared. The Marty report is a serious document, about a serious investigation. Mr. Marty makes the point, as have others, that there is a legal obligation on countries that are signatories to the European convention on human rights to do something about human rights abuses that are brought to their attention. If such flights are unrecorded and carry unknown persons, the Governments concerned ought to know about them or find out about them. We need to know what happened in Poland and Romania, what happened with the flights that went to Morocco and what the purpose was. We cannot accept the idea that another country—the USA—can take people from point A to points B and C, before they finally end up in Guantanamo Bay or somewhere else, but that that is somehow not our responsibility. I suspect that many member states have simply not been told what is going on with the CIA flights. The Marty report deserves serious consideration and Mr. Marty deserves recognition for his work in trying to bring the matter to our attention. It is now up to parliamentarians in every member state to ask legitimate questions of our Governments about what they are doing about rendition flights. It is difficult in a human rights debate not to focus on individual countries, and most hon. Members who have spoken have done just that. I, too, want to raise one or two countries, but first I make a general point about migrants. The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) spoke about the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in Europe at the end of the second world war, and about the residual numbers who remained in this country, particularly Jewish Polish refugees and others who remained in places throughout Europe. It is true that there was an excellent and commendable effort to ensure that they were properly treated and housed, and where possible allowed to return home after the end of the second world war. What needs to be drawn to the world’s attention, however, is the plight of migrants now. Every day, open boats carry people from west Africa to the Canary islands, which they try to reach because they are part of the European Union. If people can gain asylum in a European Union country, they have a place of safety and some possibility of a decent standard of living, but hundreds of people have died in those open boats in the sea. Hundreds have died in the Mediterranean and in other places around the world. It is not good enough to blame people traffickers for the trade, and just to say that it is all illegal and should not happen. Of course, it should not happen, but if people are driven by poverty and desperation, that is the result and those are the circumstances in which they die. We rightly condemned everything that happened under the Nazis and others before the second world war, and the way in which Jewish people, fleeing to a place of safety, died in the most terrible circumstances. That is not a parallel—there are different times and different circumstances. Nevertheless, many thousands of people have lost their lives trying to get to a place of security and safety. We cannot solve all those problems, but we can uphold the principles of the 1951 Geneva convention in relation to political, religious or social reasons for seeking asylum. We can also consider the rights of migrant people fleeing from famine or environmental disaster and trying to reach a place of safety. Attitudes are beginning to change slightly. The US economy has boomed, as has the British economy, on the backs of many people living a shadow existence and working without legal papers. The Mexican migrants in the United States have now started to demonstrate for their rights. It is interesting that they have received quite a lot of support there, because people recognise the huge contribution that they have made and the treatment that they suffered. We must consider the rights of migrant people and what happens on some of the borders, particularly the border between Mexico and the United States, where many people have died and where George Bush has now deployed the national guard, for purposes that I can only imagine. Migrants have rights as well. We prosper from the work of migrants in our society and we should recognise that. I want quickly to raise some questions about specific countries, so that the Minister can reply and, if not, so that he can write to me. My constituency includes people from all over the world, but one community that concerns me a great deal is the Congolese community, which has been in north London for a long time. The original Congolese arrivals were the family of the murdered former Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, but many others have come since then, over the past 40-odd years. Many of those from the Democratic Republic of the Congo have come from the most awful, violent situation to seek a place of safety in this country. I should like to be assured that there will be no removals to the DRC, because I do not believe it to be a safe place to which people may be removed. I recognise that the Government support the transitional Government in the DRC, and want the elections that are due at the end of July to be successful. However, there are serious concerns about the funding of irregular armies in the eastern Congo by neighbouring countries—principally Rwanda and Uganda at present—and about the export of the DRC’s mineral riches through those countries, neither of which has enormous mineral riches of its own. I know that the Government take the issue seriously—indeed, much more so than many other European countries or the United States. However, the elections alone will not solve the DRC’s problems. They will be solved when a genuine peace is reached and there is real transparency on the exploitation and export of minerals from the DRC, which there certainly is not now. There is a ghastly war there, in which 3 million people have died. Those are first world war levels of casualties, which are far higher than the horrors that have been described in Iraq and other places, but there is no obvious end in sight. However, we know that many people are making a great deal of money out of the conflict, because of the DRC’s mineral riches. The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling described well what is happening in Iraq. My view, which is on the record, is that the war was illegal. That issue has been the subject of huge debate, but we cannot ignore the fact that the massive death rate amounts to recorded deaths in Iraq—by assassination, murder or whatever else—of 20,000 people a year that we know of, and many others as a result of that. The experience of Iraq and its horrors will be with us all for a very long time to come. It would be far better if the occupying forces withdrew. That would be more likely to bring about a long-term political settlement that brought about a degree of hope. I mentioned Somalia in an intervention on the Chairman of the Committee. Again, my constituency has a substantial number of people from Somalia and from Somaliland living in the community. Indeed, there has been a Somali community in Britain, principally in Sheffield and in Cardiff, for a long time. Obviously, Somalia is a place of enormous problems at present. I would be grateful if the Minister outlined the British Government’s political strategy in respect of the situation there. In Hargeisa in Somaliland, there is an elected Government who represent that part of the former colonies of Britain, Italy and France, and who attempt to administer, develop and run the country in a normal way. In Mogadishu, in the southern part of Somalia, there is no normal functioning Government in the sense that we would understand it. There is a transitional Government, who are attempting to represent the entire country and, as I understand it, they are supported and recognised by the African Union. There have been enormous upsurges of activity between the warlords and what are loosely described as Islamic forces in the south. I am obviously worried about the present situation, but I am also very worried about what the future will bring. Are we seeing the seeds of another huge war in that region in which there is foreign intervention, or are we prepared to be involved and negotiate to try to bring about some kind of Government covering the whole region, which would prevent further death and bloodshed? I am constantly shocked by the degree of violence that young people who have sought asylum in this country have seen and suffered in Somalia. Obviously, they have a right to asylum in this country. My final point is also on a collective issue: caste-based discrimination around the world. That issue was raised at the Johannesburg summit some years ago, it has been raised at the Human Rights Commission and no doubt it will be raised at the Human Rights Council. It is discrimination based on caste and descent and it affects principally the Dalit peoples of India, although it exists in other countries, too. I know that the Foreign Office takes the issue seriously. I should declare that I am a trustee of the Dalit Solidarity Network. We have had numerous meetings with Ministers on the issue, and I thank those Ministers for the meetings. I hope that their preparedness to push for the Ambedkar principles to be included in any foreign investment that takes place in India or other places will produce results, because the degree of discrimination that is practised against 200 million people around the world, who suffer higher infant mortality, lower life expectancy and violent discrimination in some parts, is very serious indeed. Although it is not up to us to run the affairs of every country around the world, that is not the point. It is up to us to do what we can to ensure that basic standards and the basic principles of the UN are understood and upheld. I hope that the Minister can give us some cause for hope in that respect.