House of Commons Hansard Debates for 28 Feb 1997 (pt 20)

Several hon. Members rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. I understand that those hon. Members standing have the permission of the hon. Member whose debate it is, but do they have the Minister's permission to speak?

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Jeremy Hanley): If they are brief, yes.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call Mr. Harry Cohen.

2.45 pm

Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton): I am grateful to both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), whom I congratulate on getting this Adjournment debate. He will know that I tried for my own debate on Iraq.

Mr. Phillipe Heffinck, UNICEF's representative in Iraq, said:

"4,500 children under the age of five are dying every month from hunger and disease".

That is deeply shocking.

Three days after my parliamentary questions in December, the "oil for food" ban was lifted, but the main sanctions regime continues.

I pay tribute to UNICEF for its relief operations. In a briefing, UNICEF's UK committee says that there is a "great need countrywide" in Iraq. It goes on:

"The health and nutrition situation remains critical.

Deteriorating living standards coupled with lack of immunity to the diphtheria toxin, in a large spread of the population over the age of five, are likely to result in a spread of the disease.

Hospitals suffer from lack of disinfectants, in addition to the shortage of essential drugs and blankets needed for the cold winter.

Deterioration in the quality of drinking water"--

which UNICEF describes as "critical"--

"has resulted in an increase of diseases such as typhoid and hepatitis."

UNICEF says that 6,900 severely malnourished children under the age of five were admitted to its 14 nutrition rehabilitation centres in the space of just one month, and that that is exacerbated by high food prices. In 1995, UNICEF adopted an "anti-war agenda",

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which insists on protecting the rights of children from the impact of wars, and demands that every effort be made to minimise the conflict's impact on the young. That is plainly not happening in Iraq.

On 19 December 1996, Mr. Shevlin, managing director of Sterling Fluid Systems Ltd. of Reading, wrote to me:

"We have recently visited Baghdad and were shocked to see the impact that the UN sanctions are having. The lack of food and basic medicines are hurting the citizens of Baghdad. Those in power appear somewhat protected. I was left with the impression of those who are least able to influence events are suffering most."

It is shocking that the west has used the blunt sanctions weapon, with its consequences on children and the vulnerable. Other measures could have been put in place, such as suspending air links and foreign travel or freezing overseas bank accounts, targeted at the regime and the ruling elite rather than the citizenry and children. The effect of the sanctions has been barbarous.

Last week, the New Statesman referred to Madeleine Albright's campaign for the US Secretary of State's job. She responded on American television to a question about the sanctions-related deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children by saying:

"We think the price is worth it."

That is what she said about the death of half a million children. It is revolting thinking, which should not be embraced by our Government.

It is time--indeed, it is long overdue--to lift those cruel sanctions.

2.48 pm

Mr. John Austin-Walker (Woolwich): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and the Minister for allowing me to make a brief intervention.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), I want to speak about Iraq, but may I first add one comment to what my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow said about the possibility of trial in a third country for those accused of the Lockerbie bombing? Although I agree with all the points that President Mandela made in his letter to the Prime Minister, there is another argument for holding a trial in a third country at the earliest opportunity: the interests of the families of the victims of Lockerbie.

I shall speak on the situation in Iraq on the same lines as my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton. I received a letter only this week from a constituent, Mrs. Laura Ann Sawyer, whose family has had a long association with Iraq and whose father was involved many years ago with the design and building of the bridge at Basra. Her teenage son has been staying for the past 18 months in Iraq with his grandparents, and became ill while he was there. That has brought home to his family in Thamesmead the implications of the sanctions.

In her letter, my constituent points to the lack of drugs, medical supplies and equipment, which she says is unforgivable. She states that that

"is hurting not the government but the person in the street. It is nearly seven years since the finish of the gulf war, and the people are still being penalised for it".

She adds:

"To my mind my son has had to suffer purely for political reasons, purely for the United Nations and the Western world to appear as the saviours keeping down the arch enemy Iraq. Just spare a thought

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for the likes of my son and the thousands of children who have suffered and died within Iraq--can you imagine what it has been like in the hospitals trying to treat desperately ill or malnourished children caused by the blockade, without adequate medical facilities and medicines?"

My constituent cites the facts that have been enunciated by my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton about the number of children who have died. Mrs. Sawyer calls that the "massacre of the innocents". She asks in her letter--I put this point to the Minister--

"how many countries are there in the world where the leadership is not only doubtful but tyrannical and corrupt, have they sanctions imposed on them? How many military dictatorships and juntas are there in the world where the high street travel companies send out package holiday makers to their shores?"

I can tell the Minister one such country: Turkey. I have been to Turkey, to Diyarbakir and to south-east Turkey. I have seen the destruction of the villages and the massacre of the Kurdish population. There is nothing that Saddam Hussein has done against his Kurdish population that has not been done by the Turkish Government against their Kurdish population. Why do we have sanctions against Iraq, but supply the arms to Turkey to persecute its Kurdish population?

Let us have an end to the hypocrisy, and let us stop the massacre of the innocents in Iraq.

2.51 pm

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Jeremy Hanley): I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) on securing the Adjournment debate--his 10th on the same subject, I believe. He asked whether sanctions against Libya are justified, in view of the doubts that he expressed about Libyan responsibility for Lockerbie.

I am grateful to the hon. Members for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker) for their contributions. I shall try to respond in the time available.

What are the hon. Gentleman's doubts? Do they really undermine the position that has been taken consistently by the Government since my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate issued the petition warrants against two alleged Libyan intelligence officers on 14 November 1991?

I begin by reminding the House that those warrants were issued after the biggest criminal investigation in British history. Two hundred and seventy innocent people from 22 countries died at Lockerbie. The evidence was gathered painstakingly by investigators from the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary and the United States. It led the prosecuting authorities in Scotland and the US to conclude that there were charges to be answered before a Scottish or US court.

It is not the job of the Government to prejudge the outcome of any trial, so I will not be drawn into making assumptions about whether the evidence will be enough to secure a guilty verdict. In order not to prejudice the outcome of any trial, I shall not make any comment of substance on the evidence. I am reassured that three successive Lord Advocates, who have had access to the evidence against the accused Libyans, concluded that the evidence justified, and continues to justify, the proceedings against them. It remains the Government's position that the accused Libyans should stand trial in Scotland or the US.

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The hon. Member for Linlithgow mentioned Mr. Thurman, an FBI forensic scientist. The Prime Minister told the House on 20 February that the charges against the accused Libyans did not depend on any evidence that Mr. Thurman might give.

The United States authorities have told us that the FBI has transferred Mr. Thurman to other duties while the activities of the FBI laboratory are investigated by the Department of Justice's Inspector General. His report is yet to be published. There is nothing to suggest that it will reflect in any way on the Lockerbie case, but, if anything relevant emerges from it, I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will evaluate the implications most carefully.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of the acquittal of Juval Aviv on charges relating to an allegedly fabricated security survey. I refer hon. Members to the answer given in the Official Report of 27 January 1997, column 70, and add that the Crown Office statement released in relation to the Maltese double cross in May 1995 did no more than set out certain matters of public record as they existed at the time.

In the meantime, the hon. Gentleman asks whether we are right to maintain United Nations sanctions against the Libyan Government. The answer is unequivocally yes. The petition warrants in respect of the two accused assert that the accused, while acting as Libyan Government intelligence officers, conspired to blow up a civil airliner, and caused the Lockerbie bomb to be placed on PA103.

It is entirely correct that the Government should look to the Libyan Government to assist with the investigation--in particular, to arrange for the two accused to be made available for trial in Scotland or the United States, and to pay appropriate compensation. Sanctions were imposed by the international community in 1992 and 1993 as a mark of its condemnation of Libya's failure to co-operate with the United Kingdom, United States and French authorities over Lockerbie, and the murderous bombing, allegedly also by Libyans, of a UTA aircraft in September 1989.

Libya's record of state sponsorship of terrorism is, rightly, a matter of deep and abiding concern. I freely acknowledge that Libya has provided some answers to our questions about its help to the Provisional IRA in the 1970s and 1980s. Libya at least offered France some belated assistance over the UTA bombing when it allowed the French examining magistrate, Judge Bruguiere, to visit Libya last summer--and not before time. As a result of his investigations, the judge issued two further warrants against Libyan intelligence officers, bringing to a total of six the Libyan officials accused in connection with the UTA bombing. The French authorities have yet to declare their satisfaction with the Libyan co-operation.

I also remind the House that, in October 1996, the German authorities issued arrest warrants against four former Libyan intelligence officers in the case of the bombing of the La Belle discotheque in Berlin in 1986, in which two people were killed and many were seriously injured.