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Sri Lanka

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) on the measured and balanced speech with which he opened the debate. I was struck by the contrast between today's debate, the tone of which has been rather consensual, and our last debate on the subject. I suspect that in the months since that debate we have learned a great deal more about the situation in Sri Lanka, and so members of all parties can come to similar conclusions on how we will try to make progress. Without wishing to repeat what has been said, I think that we recognise that this is a long, drawn-out conflict. It started in the early 1980s and since then more than 70,000 people have died. However, today, more than at any point over the past five years, we face the prospect of a return to civil war. That is why the debate is apposite. It is important that we should concentrate and try to get the Government to do more to stop that decline to civil war. I do not want to go over the ground that has been covered, but I want to mention three things. Human rights have been a primary concern. Anyone who reads the reports on the subject from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International or any other body will be only too aware that there has been an explosion in the number of human rights violations. Perhaps that is understandable, as there has been a decline in relations between the different communities. Of course, the decision to withdraw from the ceasefire agreement has not helped. The Sri Lankan Government say that they are committed to human rights and they have taken some measures to deliver that commitment; they have set up a commission of inquiry and begun investigations into 17 violation cases. As has been noted, they have also established an eminent persons group, one of whom is an eminent lawyer from this country, but there is still considerable disappointment at the lack of progress. There are also concerns about how the investigations are being conducted. The backdrop is that so far there have been no prosecutions at all for human rights violations, and that has raised anxiety about whether the mechanism that has been adopted is likely to inspire trust—among people on the island of Sri Lanka and in the wider international community—that those guilty of human rights abuses are being brought to justice. Louise Arbour is the UN Commissioner for Human Rights. Last year, the Sri Lankan Government agreed that she should visit the island, and her time there was very productive. We understand that Sri Lanka's Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights has a memorandum of understanding with the UN, but it is widely accepted internationally that that Government's withdrawal from the ceasefire meant that the monitoring mission conducted by Norway and the Scandinavian countries could no longer be effective. That makes it even more urgent that we find a way to monitor human rights and collect the evidence that will bring violators to justice. A representative from Sri Lanka's Muslim community visited me last week to express the considerable concern that exists about what is happening to Muslims, especially in the east of Sri Lanka. In addition, the desperate worries felt by members of the Tamil diaspora in this country for their families and relatives in Sri Lanka have been expressed at meetings in this House over many months. The only way forward is to establish proper human rights monitoring in Sri Lanka, and it has been widely accepted around the Chamber today that the UN is the proper body to carry that out. I therefore hope that the Minister will tell the House what pressure he is exerting to secure the UN's involvement in that respect. People in Sri Lanka and around the world need to be reassured that something is being done.