I refer the Rt Hon Member to the answer provided on 21 April in response to Question 126571.

I refer the Rt Hon Member to the answer provided on 21 April in response to Question 126571.

I refer the Rt Hon Member to the answer provided on 21 April in response to Question 126571.

I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided in the House of Lords on 12 November in response to Question HL11464, which has been reproduced below for ease of reference:

The UK acknowledges the report and shares its concerns regarding human rights violations in Myanmar. We condemn the Myanmar military's airstrikes on civilian infrastructure. The UK is clear that no country should provide arms, funds, or fuel to the Myanmar military. We have implemented 19 sanctions packages since 2021, including 10 targeting aviation fuel imports.

We are clear that there must be accountability for the atrocities committed in Myanmar. The UK has provided £900,000 to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar since 2021 and established the Myanmar Witness program to collect evidence of human rights violations. As penholder on Myanmar at the UN Security Council, we have convened four meetings this year to maintain international focus and press for accountability. We co-sponsored a Human Rights Council resolution in April and coordinated a joint statement in May calling for an end to violence.

I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided in the House of Lords on 12 November in response to Question HL11464, which has been reproduced below for ease of reference:

The UK acknowledges the report and shares its concerns regarding human rights violations in Myanmar. We condemn the Myanmar military's airstrikes on civilian infrastructure. The UK is clear that no country should provide arms, funds, or fuel to the Myanmar military. We have implemented 19 sanctions packages since 2021, including 10 targeting aviation fuel imports.

We are clear that there must be accountability for the atrocities committed in Myanmar. The UK has provided £900,000 to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar since 2021 and established the Myanmar Witness program to collect evidence of human rights violations. As penholder on Myanmar at the UN Security Council, we have convened four meetings this year to maintain international focus and press for accountability. We co-sponsored a Human Rights Council resolution in April and coordinated a joint statement in May calling for an end to violence.

I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided in the House of Lords on 12 November in response to Question HL11464, which has been reproduced below for ease of reference:

The UK acknowledges the report and shares its concerns regarding human rights violations in Myanmar. We condemn the Myanmar military's airstrikes on civilian infrastructure. The UK is clear that no country should provide arms, funds, or fuel to the Myanmar military. We have implemented 19 sanctions packages since 2021, including 10 targeting aviation fuel imports.

We are clear that there must be accountability for the atrocities committed in Myanmar. The UK has provided £900,000 to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar since 2021 and established the Myanmar Witness program to collect evidence of human rights violations. As penholder on Myanmar at the UN Security Council, we have convened four meetings this year to maintain international focus and press for accountability. We co-sponsored a Human Rights Council resolution in April and coordinated a joint statement in May calling for an end to violence.

In October 2024, the UK issued its nineteenth round of sanctions, targeting companies involved in the procurement of aviation fuel and equipment to the Myanmar military. In total we have imposed sanctions on 25 individuals and 39 entities under the Myanmar Sanctions regime and designated the military regime's two key conglomerates and their 111 subsidiaries under the Global Human Rights regime. The UK is committed to targeted sanctions, which directly impact the military without harming the wider population.

We condemn the arbitrary detention of Aung San Suu Kyi. The charges against her are politically motivated. On 31 January, to mark the fourth anniversary since the coup, the Foreign Secretary called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, and all those arbitrarily detained. We will continue to call for her release, and the release of all those arbitrarily detained.

The UK played a leading role in securing the UN Human Rights Council Resolution of 27 September that established a mechanism to collect and preserve evidence of human rights violations in Burma for use in future prosecutions. The UK also ensured that the Chair of the UN Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar was invited to brief the UN Security Council on 24 October on its damning report on human rights violations and abuses in Rakhine, Shan and Kachin since 2011. The UK co-sponsored the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee Resolution which was passed on 15 November and called for a full and independent investigation of human rights violations and abuses committed in Burma including against persons belonging to minority groups to ensure that those responsible for such crimes are held accountable.

The UK played a leading role in securing the UN Human Rights Council Resolution on Burma of 27 September that called for immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access, including to areas controlled by ethnic armed groups, in particular in Kachin and Shan states. I raised concerns about the Burmese military’s conduct in Kachin and Shan states to the Burmese Minister for International Cooperation on 11 July. Our Ambassador raised the importance of ensuring humanitarian access in his meeting with the Chief Minister of Kachin State on 3 December.

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I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments and commend him for the leadership he showed on many humanitarian issues as International Development

Secretary. He is absolutely right: the report said that in Rakhine, Shan and Kachin states there was gang rape, assaults on children, villages razed, and, in northern Rakhine, mass extermination and mass deportations. This is the kind of issue where countries that believe in civilised values have to take a stand and make sure that justice is done.

The Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) discussed Burma with the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator following the Secretary of State's visit to Rakhine State and Kachin State, Burma, on 10 December.

DFID announced in December 2012 an additional £1.5 million of humanitarian support for people displaced by the conflict in Kachin, including in hard to reach areas and neighbouring states, bringing our total humanitarian aid contribution to the conflict in Kachin to £3.5 million. This makes the UK the largest bilateral contributor. We are monitoring the situation in Kachin closely, including the work of others providing humanitarian support. This will help inform any consideration of further UK assistance.

We continue to call for unhindered humanitarian access to conflict-affected areas at all every opportunity. The British ambassador to Burma last met senior members of the Burmese Government on Wednesday 16 January to raise our concerns about aid access.

In response to increased need, the Department for International Development announced in December 2012 an additional £1.5 million of humanitarian support for people displaced by the conflict in Kachin, including in areas that are hard to reach and in neighbouring states, bringing our total humanitarian aid contribution to the conflict in Kachin to £3.5 million.

We continue to call for unhindered humanitarian access to conflict-affected areas at every opportunity. During my visit to Burma in December, I urged the Burmese authorities to allow free and unhindered humanitarian access in Kachin and Northern Shan States. The British ambassador to Burma also met with senior members of the Burmese Government on Wednesday 16 January to raise our concerns about aid access.

In response to the increased need, the Department for International Development announced in December 2012 an additional £1.5 million of humanitarian support for people displaced by the conflict in Kachin, including

in hard to reach areas and neighbouring states, bringing our total humanitarian aid contribution to the conflict in Kachin to £3.5 million.

We continue to call for the cessation of violence in Kachin State at every opportunity. I raised these concerns with the Burmese authorities during my visit to Burma in December and our ambassador raised them again with senior members of the Burmese Government on 16 January 2013.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council will next review sanctions on Burma in April. The outcome of this review will depend on the progress that the Burmese Government has made against the benchmarks that were set out in the conclusions of the Council in January 2012. These included the need to see meaningful progress in the process of reconciliation with armed ethnic groups.

We welcome the progress made by the Government and 10 of 11 armed groups in agreeing ceasefires. However, as I said on 3 January, we remain deeply concerned by the ongoing conflict between the Burmese Army and Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Burma's Kachin State, including recent reports of air strikes in the state. An escalation in hostilities would put at risk the chance of a lasting peace in Burma. It is imperative that military commanders in Burma heed their President's calls for an end to hostilities. It is important that all sides, including the KIA, come to the negotiating table and make renewed efforts to work towards lasting peace.

The British Government has made clear that all remaining political prisoners in Burma should be released. This was one of the three key conditions underpinning the suspension of EU sanctions in April 2012. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), raised the issue of political prisoners in his meeting with the Burmese Foreign Minister at the UN General Assembly in September 2012, and I raised our concerns again with the Burmese Foreign Minister during my visit to Burma in December 2012.

The Burmese Government has made progress on this issue. Several hundred political prisoners from Burma's jails were released in 2012, including prominent civil society and ethnic leaders, in a continuation of the trend from 2011. Independent reports indicate that around 200 political prisoners could remain in Burma's jails.

Following President Obama's visit to Burma in November 2012, the Burmese Government agreed to establish an independent political prisoner review mechanism to look at these remaining cases. We are in contact with them about this and are urging quick implementation. The Burmese Government also agreed with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that it would have access to Burmese jails, including full access to visit and assess prisoners, for the first time. British Government officials are in contact with the ICRC and with local prisoner networks to ascertain numbers of remaining political prisoner cases, most recently in January 2013, by meeting representatives of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), discussed the situation in Burma with Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Le Luong Minh on 13 December 2012. The situation in Kachin state was discussed on 15 January by UK, French, German, Italian and United States political directors, and representatives from the EU's External Action Service. This discussion included agreement on the importance of an enduring political solution to Burma's ethnic conflict. Official level discussions between the UK and US, and within the EU, cover the ethnic conflict in Burma on a regular basis.

The British ambassador to Burma, to whom I spoke on 21 January, is in regular contact with his US counterpart on a range of issues. They last discussed the situation in Kachin on 16 January.

Our embassy in Rangoon discussed the situation in Kachin State with counterparts from the Chinese embassy on 16 January 2013. Our embassy emphasised our concern about the air strikes and urged a common message from the international community that the attacks should stop.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Director for Asia Pacific, raised the prospect of further discussion with the MFA concerning the situation in Burma, during a meeting with officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Beijing on 15 January 2013.

I visited Burma, including Rakhine State, from 12 to 15 December 2012. During my discussions with the Burmese Government, both at the state and national level, I emphasised the British Government's position that, in the short term, the Burmese Government should ensure that humanitarian access and coordination are improved and that security is maintained. I also emphasised the British Government's position that, in the longer term, those responsible for the violence should be held accountable and that a solution should be found to the issue of Rohingya citizenship. These positions are also regularly made clear by the ambassador and British officials in Burma.

British officials in Burma have been liaising with the UN High Commission for Refugees, which is currently conducting a review into Burma's 1982 citizenship law and its conformity with international standards. We are also liaising with members of the Rakhine Investigative Commission set up by the Burmese Government, which is due to publish its final report in March 2013. We continue to urge the Burmese Government to reach a satisfactory solution to the issue of Rohingya citizenship through these efforts.