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House of Lords
Thursday, 24 May 2012.
11 am
Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.
International Criminal Court
Question
11.05 am
Asked by
Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in securing the arrest of Joseph Kony, Omar al-Bashir and others indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford):
My Lords, the International Criminal Court relies entirely on state co-operation to ensure enforcement of its arrest warrants. The British Government, together with our EU partners, frequently raise the importance of states fulfilling their international obligations and taking the necessary steps to bring to justice individuals indicted by the court. Those currently fugitive from ICC warrants should be reminded that they, like Radovan Karadzic and General Mladic, cannot evade the international justice system indefinitely.

Lord Alton of Liverpool:

My Lords, given that Kony was indicted in 2005, and that Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted in 2009 for crimes against humanity in Darfur, is now waging a new war against his own people in South Kordofan, does not a failure to bring those indicted to account risk compromising the ICC and bringing it into disrepute? What resources are we committing to the work of the ICC? When a head of state is indicted by it, how is that reflected in the conduct of our economic and diplomatic policies? Either this is genocide or it is not. Either it is crimes against humanity or it is not. Either they are indicted or they are not. Either it is business as usual or it is not.

Lord Howell of Guildford:

It certainly is not business as usual. The noble Lord, who follows these things very closely, is perhaps not taking into account the fact that this system has taken some years to get going. The indictments are out but there are real problems in pinning these people down. He mentioned two cases. We know that Mr Joseph Kony is highly elusive and can slip across borders. At least the Government of Uganda were very successful the other day in capturing his deputy, Caesar Acellam. Uganda is a signatory to the ICC and I am sure that it will fulfil its obligations in accordance with international justice.
As for the leader of Sudan, we know exactly what the position is. We and our EU colleagues seek to keep contact with Khartoum because all the parties—South Sudan, Sudan itself, the opposition parties and, indeed, the Opposition as well—believe that we should do so. However, the problem of fulfilling an ICC charge against Mr Omar al-Bashir is obviously a practical, physical one in that he is not in reach unless he were to leave the country.

Lord Chidgey:

My noble friend will be aware that since April, when Bosco Ntaganda’s rebel troops defected, they have managed forcibly to recruit more than 150 child soldiers and caused 40,000 villagers to flee, thereby causing more chaos in that region. The United Nations Security Council is absolutely clear about MONUSCO’s mandate for its mission in the Congo: it has the authority to assist the Government to arrest indicted war criminals. MONUSCO officials on the ground say that they have not been asked to do anything and are not involved, yet ICC officials have asked the Government to pursue the matter. However, nothing has happened. Overall, this is a case of prevarication.

Lord Howell of Guildford:

It is very difficult to ascertain exactly what is happening on the ground. No one could expect there to be full information, full access or full details. However, we fully support the work of the ICC in bringing Bosco Ntaganda to justice and bringing additional charges against him. I think the implication of my noble friend’s question and the preceding one is that somehow the ICC should have further powers over and above the existing situation in which national Governments have to seek to co-operate and take the initial action. That, of course, would raise fundamental questions about the workings of the ICC and whether we should go back to square one and revise the legislation. I do not believe that we should; I think that we should give the present process more scope and more encouragement. However, I understand what is behind my noble friend’s question.

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead:

My Lords, given that crimes against humanity are defined by the United Nations as,
“a widespread attack on a civilian population”,
does the Minister not agree that Robert Mugabe should be investigated by the prosecutor and subsequently indicted by the ICC? Is it not tragically clear that there is evidence of his responsibility for the Matabeleland massacres in the 1980s that were committed by his army brigade, continued state-sponsored violence against political opponents, and ongoing atrocities in the diamond fields in Zimbabwe? What pressure is Her Majesty’s Government using to ensure that this wicked man faces international criminal justice?

Lord Howell of Guildford:

I do not dispute anything that the noble Baroness has said, with her acute understanding of the situation there. However, the realities are these: Zimbabwe is not a party to the Rome statute and to get an ICC charge against Mr Mugabe would require a UN Security Council resolution. That means getting past all five of the permanent members. We know what the view of some of the permanent members is: they should not take such action. Until we can get past this problem of the permanent five, and particularly the reluctance of China and Russia, to name two, to see these matters taken up by the UN and remitted to the ICC for charges, these people who have committed most unsavoury acts—the noble Baroness mentioned Mr Mugabe as one—are outside the reach of the ICC.

Baroness Cox:

My Lords, is the Minister aware that not only is President al-Bashir indicted by the ICC but he actually deposed the elected governor of Southern Kordofan, replacing him with Ahmad Harun, who is also indicted by the ICC and has since been carrying out systematic slaughter and aerial bombardment of his people, leading to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people? What reassurance can Her Majesty’s Government give to the victims of those policies? I have spoken to people in the refugee camps and—I am afraid this sounds harsh—many have said to me, “Why does Britain not intervene? Our suffering is far worse than that of Libya. Does Britain really only do business with Khartoum and those indicted by the ICC?”. That is the feeling among many people in Sudan.

Lord Howell of Guildford:

With respect to the noble Baroness, that is unfair because she knows better than most of us that the real problem is access. We cannot get access to these very ugly and difficult areas to establish what is happening. She quite rightly mentions that the governor of Southern Kordofan and one other are already indicted by the ICC and need to face justice. The UN has ruled through the Security Council that they should be referred to the ICC, which has issued warrants against them. The question is: how can they be secured and brought to justice in The Hague? That remains a continuous battle. As for the general proposition that we speak only to Khartoum or Djuba, that is not to understand the enormous amount of work we are doing at every level with the international agencies to bring some hope to this very unpleasant and ugly situation.

1.01 pm
Lord Alton of Liverpool:
My Lords, there is an old tradition that the Magi—the wise men from the East—were Zoroastrians. My noble friend Lord Bilimoria demonstrated today, 2,000 years later, that Zoroastrians still have great wisdom and precious gifts to share with the rest of us. However, those gifts are not universally recognised. In the recent report of the United States commission on religious liberty, Zoroastrians were listed among the many religious minorities who face persecution, discrimination and imprisonment, not least in Iran. Many noble Lords heard the exchange at Question Time today about the continued abuses of human rights in that country for a variety of reasons.
Two weeks ago I delivered the annual Tyburn lecture. In penal times, Tyburn—today’s Marble Arch—was where 105 Catholic men and women were executed for their faith. Among them were Edmund Campion, a distinguished Oxford scholar, and the poet Robert Southwell, a cousin of William Shakespeare. I reflected during the lecture that Tyburn’s disturbing and poignant story is one of immense cruelty and barbarism. It is the story of a perverted legal system, and reminds us to what intolerance, mutual persecution, the crushing of conscience and what Thomas More called the breaking of the unity of life inexorably lead. Parliamentarians even brought forward measures to remove children over the age of seven from their families if their Catholic parents did not conform.
The story of Tyburn does not call for revenge and should not be used for the stoking of old hatreds. However, it is instructive and has application today. It reminds us that the struggle for religious freedom is intrinsic to the struggle for democracy and freedom itself. This debate is timely and should remind us that we should appreciate the privileges that we have and be aware of the sacrifices that were made to secure them and committed to speak up for the millions of people who suffered or died for their faith in previous generations so that we could enjoy the freedoms that we have today.
I am a Catholic and am proud of my British and Irish antecedents. My mother was an immigrant from the west of Ireland. Her first language was Irish, not English. She married my late father, who was a Desert Rat from the East End of London. I hold British and Irish passports, as do my children. I have always taught them that you do not hate one country because you love another. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said about holding on to the preciousness of your roots while integrating and playing your part in the nation where you live.
During my time in another place, where I was Irish affairs spokesman for many years—the day after I was elected to the House of Commons, Airey Neave was blown up in its precincts—I heard interminable Statements about tragedies both in Britain and in Ireland. Today, the situation has improved immeasurably.
There are 6.6 million Catholics in this country—10% of our population—and 600,000 people in England were born in Ireland. Ireland has been the largest source of immigrants to this country for more than 200 years. It is estimated that as many as 6 million people in the United Kingdom have at least one Irish grandparent. Surely it is worth reflecting, exactly a year after Her Majesty the Queen visited the Republic of Ireland, that we have made extraordinary progress despite 800 years of history and mutual hatred. It was a moment of healing and reconciliation.
On the economic issues raised by my noble friend Lord Bilimoria and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, it is worth mentioning, especially in these economically troubled times, that last year €13.6 billion-worth of UK goods were sold to Ireland, and that British trade with Ireland is still greater than its business with the huge emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China combined.
Today is a day for celebrating our nation’s diversity—the whole world in one country. It is an important moment to insist that along with respect for difference and minorities must come a commitment by us all to do all we can, using all our energy, to promote the unity, democracy, freedom and justice that we treasure in this nation. They are precious gifts worthy of the Zoroastrian Magi.
1.06 pm

By courageously exposing egregious violations, coercion, and eugenics this remarkable Shawshank has caught the public imagination. What an irony that it has taken a man with no sight to see that to which we have shamefully closed our eyes.

The contributing speakers were Mrs.Park Sun-Young, a member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, who spoke about security and human rights issues and Mr.Mark Fitzpatrick, Director of the non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and who addressed the issue of North Korea’s nuclear programme and other security questions. Lord Alton is Chairman of the Parliamentary Group.

North Korean Security Challenges  – Post Kim Jong-il

16 May 2012, All-Party Group on North Korea

Mark Fitzpatrick, International Institute for Strategic Studies

I wish to thank Lord Alton for this opportunity to meet with the All Party Group on North Korea

Last year when IISS wrote a dossier on North Korean Security Challenges, we were pessimistic about the security situation on the Korean Peninsula.  We discussed a broad spectrum of security challenges posed by North Korea:  wide-ranging in geographic impact and multifaceted in nature.

The immediate security challenges posed by North Korea are formidable.  These include nearly the full array of weapons of mass destruction:

• a plutonium-based nuclear weapons program now supplemented by uranium enrichment;
• the world’s third largest chemical weapons arsenal, possibly biological weapons and
• a range of ballistic missiles that may be able to deliver these weapons to South Korea and Japan, if not today, then later, after more development and testing.

North Korea’s most direct threats are to its immediate neighbours, firstly, of course, to the ROK, by manner of conventional and asymmetric capabilities, including nuclear, CW, possibly BW, ballistic missiles, long-range artillery, special operations forces, and cyber warfare.   North Korea remains the most militarised country on earth, with the world’s fourth largest army and biggest special forces.   The threat is enhanced, and real, by virtue of North Korea’s propensity to initiate hostility as it did twice in 2010.  In the cyber domain, it is on-going, including interference with GPS systems of planes using Seoul’s busy airports.   Although its economic decline and enhanced capabilities in South Korea make any option to invade seem less credible today than in the past, the North has many ways to inflict harm without invading.

China is not directly threatened, but is deeply concerned about any eventually that could cause a refugee flow and tension in one of its sensitive border areas.   North Korea’s human rights violations, inability to feed its people, and inherent systematic flaws could lead to implosion that produces China’s nightmare scenario, however much Chinese deny that such a thing could happen.

All countries, whether in Asia or Europe or elsewhere face a threat from North Korea’s drug trafficking, currency counterfeiting, money laundering, endangered species trafficking, smuggling of counterfeit cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, insurance fraud and other forms of state crime, not to mention the still unsettled crimes of abductions.

Countries around the world are also threatened by North Korea’s willingness to transfer nuclear and missile technologies to any would-be buyer, including, possibly to terrorist groups, as threatened twice by North Korean negotiators.    The evidence is clear that in the past ten years, North Korea provided assistance to both Libya and Syria in efforts to develop nuclear weapons programs. There is also some evidence, albeit unconfirmed, that North Korea may also have been engaged in nuclear cooperation with Iran and Myanmar.  Among these countries, Libya is no longer a customer.  The Assad regime in Syria may also be on the way out.   And Myanmar appears to be coming in from the cold.  This leaves Iran as North Korea’s only reliable partner, but a very important one.

Some observers have alleged that the extensive cooperation between North Korea and Iran in the missile field also extends to their nuclear programs.  Such cooperation would seem to have a compelling logic: North Korea has weapons-related technology in both plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment and building, and testing nuclear explosive devices, while Iran has the money and oil that North Korea needs.  However, allegations of Iranian–North Korean nuclear cooperation have not been substantiated.

The IISS dossier saw no evidence that North Korea might trade away its nuclear arsenal for any diplomatic or economic gain.  Rather, Pyongyang now speaks in terms of the US dealing with the DPRK as an equal nuclear state, even stating hopes of concluding a deal in the same way that the US did with India.  Pyongyang now says that it is ‘unimaginable’ to expect it to return to the NPT as a ‘non-nuclear state’. It has also said that it will only feel no need to retain its nuclear weapons once the American ‘nuclear threat is removed and South Korea is cleared of its nuclear umbrella’. The first of these conditions is highly subjective and the second is very unlikely, as it would require the end of the US–South Korea alliance. It thus appears that Pyongyang perceives its nuclear weapons as a permanent feature.   These themes were repeated by North Korean participants at an IISS seminar in late March.

Dynastic succession

In our dossier we argued that the dynastic succession that was beginning to unfold in Pyongyang and the uncertainties this entails exacerbate the potential for conflict. We said the designated successor will face severe disadvantages because of his lack of experience, his fragile power base, the political constraints on economic reform and the military’s role in politics.  In almost all respects, the external and internal conditions are less favourable for this second generation succession than for the first dynastic transfer after the death of regime founder Kim Il-sung in 1994.

This could make North Korea an even more dangerous nation, more inclined to engage in further military provocations, to cling to its weapons of mass destruction and to offer them for sale to any would-be buyer. In pursuit of the goal of becoming a ‘strong and prosperous great nation’ by this year, such military capabilities are all that the regime can summon.

We also predicted that the death of Kim Jong-il will be a Moment of Truth and that he probably was in the last decade of his life.  Well, that turned out to be true.  We said : “ If Kim Jong-il dies in the next few years, there is no guarantee that without paternal protection his son will be successful in taking over, or even that the North Korean elite and system will hold together.”  So far, so good, from Kim Jong-un’s point of view.  Not that we predicted collapse; but we said collapse and ensuing Korean unification was a more distinct possibility.

It is too early to judge the succession a success. The fundamental crises that could cause a tipping point remain acute.  North Korea’s moribund economy remains beset by contradictions.  The leadership is fearful of introducing the market reforms that are necessary to escape their poverty trap.  The nation is unable to feed its people, and is falling further behind all its neighbours every year.  Moreover, the population increasingly realizes this, through various channels to the outside.

Leap Day Deal

On the foreign policy front, Kim Jong-un began his tenure with a massive miscalculation compounded by a humiliating technical failure.  First there was a Leap Day agreement that appeared to auger well for the new leader’s foreign policy vision.  Pyongyang agreed to a moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile launches and uranium enrichment activities at Yongbyon, with monitoring by the IAEA.  In exchange, the US agreed to provide 240,000 tonnes of nutritional assistance, delivered over the course of 12 months.

The nuclear moratorium was incomplete in that North Korea did not undertake to stop work at other enrichment facilities outside Yongbyon.  At least two such undeclared facilities must exist.  There is suspicion that North Korea has produced highly enriched uranium at a secret site.  Yet in other ways the agreement was too good to be true: 240,000 tonnes of food aid, worth about $200m, which the US might normally provide under humanitarian grounds in any case in exchange for a freeze of activities in both the nuclear and missile areas that provoked so much concern.

We did not predict North Korea would be willing to make such a deal.  I am on record as saying after the death that Kim Jong-un would not be able to say no to veteran military officials who would want to conduct additional tests of both their nuclear devices and of missile systems.  The military officers would want to ensure that strategic weapons reliably work.  The last two nuclear tests were significantly smaller than the first tests of other nuclear states, which probably means they were a fizzle.

North Korea’s tests of medium-range missiles were also only partially successful, and it has two or more intermediate-range missile systems that it hasn’t tested at all:  the Musudan and Nodong variants that were that was paraded in October 2010 and the prototype missile displayed in the 15 April parade.

So why did North Korea agree to a moratorium on further nuclear tests and long-range missile tests?   When speaking at a seminar in London on Marcy 15, I said one answer may lie in the definition of “long-range missile launches.”  I predicted trouble over this issue because North Korea does not consider space-launch rockets to be missiles. This was the case in April 2009, when North Korea launched the Unha-2, which was a slap in the face to the new Obama administration.

Space launches differ from ballistic-missile tests in their purpose and trajectory. But because satellite-launch rockets and ballistic missiles share the same bodies, engines, launch sites and other development processes, they are intricately linked. The satellite launch also provides missile-development information regarding propulsion, guidance and operational aspects. When I predicted trouble last Thursday, I didn’t it to happen so quickly.  I thought at least North Korea would wait until after it received the 240,000 tons of nutritional assistance from the US.   It was more honest that North Korea broke the deal before it received any of the aid.

Although the agreed language of the Leap Day Deal was ambiguous in saying only that the moratorium covered long-range missile launches, the United States “made clear unequivocally that they considered that any satellite launch would be a deal-breaker.

It is puzzling why North Korea carried out the space launch despite the obvious incongruity with the Leap Day deal.  The answer seemed to be that Kim Jong-il had given the go-ahead for a launch before he died.  In any weighing of policy priorities the nation’s ‘military first’ policy ensures that generals have the upper hand.

The greater mystery is why North Korea agreed to a deal to suspend long range missile launches, knowing one would soon take place is.  If Kim Jong-un believed he could have both the deal and the launch because Obama would forgive the deceit, he was badly advised. And with the break-up of the rocket he got neither, demonstrating both inexperience and ineptitude.

It is easy to see events now playing out as they did three years ago, with a further escalation.  In early April, satellite photos showed growing piles of dirt next to a previously used nuclear test shaft and the South Korean media speculated that North Korea was preparing to test a bomb using highly enriched uranium.  The humiliation of the failed space launch seemingly added to the reasons for a third nuclear test: to it would be some means of demonstrating power.  As of today, however, no test has taken place and there has been no further observable work at the test site for about a month.

Ending on a slightly optimistic note, it may just be possible that China’s diplomatic pressure may have helped dissuade North Korea from taking the further step of testing another nuclear weapon.  Maybe it’s too much to ask for, but is it possible that Kim Jong-up has learned from his previous mistake?

————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Park Sun Young Speech- May 16th>

The Honourable Chair of this meeting, David Alton, and Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mark Fitzpatrick who have spared no efforts in organizing today’s meaningful seminar, and all our friends who have convened here, I am very glad to meet with all of you.

My name is Sun-Young Park, an assemblywoman in Liberty Forward Party of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea.

1. An abrupt death of Kim Jong-Il and the power succession

Since the abrupt death of Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean leader, on December 17th, 2011, the world has begun to focus on how it would affect the North Korean power structure and security in Northeast Asia.

His death was certainly one of the most significant issues to take place on the Korean peninsula last year.

It was a historical issue because the dictator had ruled North Korea with an iron fist for more than 37 years which is quite unprecedented in modern history.

His death attracted global attention even more because the Jasmine revolution, was sweeping through the Middle East at the time. It was spreading from Tunisia to other countries such as Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, and eventually resulting in the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the dictator of 42 years in Libya.

From the perspective of its southern neighbor and the country which is still technically at war with North Korea, the death of Kim Jong-Il has been a critical issue in South Korea.

It was a matter of great interest whether it would turn out to be a stepping stone for reunification on the Korean peninsula or it would lead to another military clash due to the power struggle in the North.

At the same time, his death and its aftermath pose one of the most daunting challenges to the international community and Northeast Asian nations.

It is more so because Russia, the US, China and South Korea are facing a presidential election.

Therefore, neighboring countries of North Korea are keeping their eyes on the Korean peninsula after Kim Jong-Il’s death.

Suffering from a long illness, he was able to officially nominate Kim Jung-un, his third son, as his successor at North Korea’s  Labor Party representatives meeting in September, 2010, one year before his death.

Then, concerned about his young successor, he prepared a double-protection structure. In order to hold the military, which has grown extremely powerful under the military-first policy, in check he completely restructured the North Korean Labor Party to restore some authorities back to the party.

At the same time, in order to check Jang Sung-Taek, who is a faithful guardian, but who has a highly concentrated power, Kim Jong-Il strategically positioned his loyal officials,  Lee Young-Ho, Kim Jung-Gak, Kim Won-Hong, Woo Dong-Chun, Kim Young-Chun, Kim Ki-Nam, Choi Hae-Ryong, Joo Kyu-Chang,

and Choi Tae-Bok, within the military and the party.

Under such a double-protection structure,  Kim Jung-un rapidly took control of the military and the intelligence agency. And when Kim Jong-Il died, he rose to power as planned.

As the young and inexperienced leader has recently taken the top post of military, the chief of Korean People’s Army, he has become the leader of the party, the military, and the state.

Kim Jung-un, out of necessity, continues to treat the military with respect. But, he seems to be implementing strategic measures to fundamentally change the power structure so the military could be controlled through the party as his father had envisioned for him.

After death of Kim Jong-Il, the list of a national funeral committee showed us that some military figures ranked high not because of their military posts, but because of their party posts, which analysts say is more evidence that Kim Jung-un is trying to alter the balance between the party and the military.

Some South Korean officials were concerned that any internal power struggle could lead to discord or turmoil in the ruling class  but it does not appear to be happening, at least so far.

Surely, the North Korean authorities had tried to prevent the social unrest during the process of power succession by issuing a terrifying decree.

It stated that anyone who was caught during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-IL would be considered as traitors and his family members of three generations would be executed.

Consequently, for now, the Kim Jung-un regime is believed to have stabilized safely.

In other words, Kim Jung-un, the third generation of the Kim family, seems to have succeeded in solidifying his power by emphasizing the greatness and divineness of the family.

It was possible due to its unique isolation and a tight control over its people.

Each evening, every citizen is required to attend a meeting which forces them to criticize themselves under the pretext of learning. They also have to keep a close eye on each other five households grouped into a unit. If one shows any strange sign, they are placed in what is called “correctional facility” or a labour camp and suffer horrible punishment.

However, North Korea is showing signs of change, different from its past.

As the rationing system and public education started to collapse in the late 1990s, North Koreans began to learn capitalism at the market.

In particular, people who conducts business across the borders with China or who have their family members or relatives defected from North Korea, are emerging as a big hand in the market. Now, they have come to possess their own cell phones.

Through that, information began to flow into North Korea which had been a perfectly isolated community.

To strengthen this phenomenon, South Korean politicians, North Korean defectors, and NGOs have provided radios and flown balloons with leaflets containing various information on them.

Thanks to their efforts, North Koreans were able to shift their eyes and ears toward the outside world. A growing influx of information from the outside will eventually help bring a transition to a society.

That encouraged people to defect from their nation more than ever. North Korea, stunned at this sudden turnabout, began to carry out executions at public places instead of political prisoner camps.

Against this backdrop, North Korean human rights issue began to rise around the world.

2. the Transition of North Korea from “a Gigantic Prison” and the Changes with China

In a nutshell, we can say that North Korea itself is a huge prison.

I think that such a condition that created numerous North Korean defectors despite its heinous decrees.

More over, their defecting style has changed from the past. In the past most of them defected alone due to hunger.

But now they defect in a family unit to improve the quality of their lives. North Korea began to be embarrassed of this change and as a result, they ended up issuing such terrible decrees. In spite of those efforts, it brought about many more defectors. They exposed the dismal conditions and the inhumane treatments they experienced during the escape from North Korea and the repatriation from China. The severe violations of human rights have prompted controversies in the international community.

In this situation China is faced with a dilemma.

At first China tried to help the North Korean authorities, hoping its power succession goes well. However, it seems to have shifted its position toward North Korea facing pressure from the international community.

It cannot stand by North Korea blindly as it has in the past.

China maintained a silence when the UN Resolution on the Situation of Human Rights in the DPRK was adopted in the UN Human Rights Council in May. It demanded neither opponent discussion or a vote at the meeting. It was surprising!

In addition, when the Chinese president, Hu Jin-tao visited Sout Korea in late March, he publicly criticized saying that North Korea should take a responsibility for its people. Such a strong remark was not seen  before.

And then, it sent some defectors, who had been detained in the Korean embassy, along with the families of prisoners of war to South Korea.

The decision was made quickly.

Once China’s attitude seemed to have changed, North Korea pulled out the nuclear card again.

3. the Kim Jung-un Regime and Nuclear Capability

Nuclear capability meant everything for North Korea even  during the regimes of its founder Kim Il-Seung and his son Kim Jong-Il.

The nuclear card was the only thing when it comes to threatening the U.S. or the international community.

For that nuclear capability, North Korea left millions of their people to starve to death.

Unfortunately, it is the most useful tool for the Kim Jung-un regime as well.

If the U.S. brought the issue of human rights to the  negotiation table with North Korea, North Korea would have collapsed a long time ago. However, the nations of the six-party talk including the U.S., Russia, Japan were not able to grasp the true nature of North Korea. They assumed incorrectly that it is a nation ruled by a reasonable and rational dictator.

Many times they were taken advantage of by North Korea, but they were only able to identify its tactics such as Salami tactics or brinkmanship but they did not understand its true character.

Anyway, North Korea launched rockets toward the world  as soon as Kim Jung-un took power.

The fact that it failed does not diminish its threat.

North Korea has succeeded in making its presence felt in the world.

And now the talk of the third nuclear test is in the air again.

No one at this point believes that Kim Jung-un would give up its nuclear ambitions and dismantle the current nuclear facilities.

Officially, the U.S. does not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state but the internal documents from the Pentagon suggest otherwise. Experts speak with one voice that North Korea has acquired both plutonium and enriched uranium.

The amount of cost that DPRK spent on its rocket launched last April is approximately equivalent to the amount of money it would take to feed its entire population for one and a half year.

Then, why does North Korea obsess with nuclear weapons at the cost of starving its own people?

It is because it believes the only and the last measure left for North Korea to ensure the survival of its regime.

Hoping that North Korea would reform and open up to the outside is  a sheer fantasy.

In order to reform, it has to give up the nuclear capability.

However, the North Korean regime simply cannot discard its nuclear card.

No matter how many people starve, the Kim’s regime would never abandon it. It is because the moment it does, the dictatorship would collapse.

For the same reason, the Lee Myong-Bak administration’s policy, which has demanded reforms and the opening-up of North Korea as the preconditions, was doomed to fail from the beginning.

Economic crisis causes alienation from its people but it can still rule the nation as if running a huge prison. However, the North Korean authorities are well aware of the fact that if it goes ahead with economic and political reforms, the foundation of the dictatorship would break down.

At the same time the abandonment of nuclear capabilities could result in its citizens demanding more political rights. And that would spell the end of the Kim Jung-un regime as it has been in the case of Qaddafi of Libya.

Consequently North Korea will never give up its nuclear ambition.

4. the Future of the Kim Jung-un Regime

At this point, despite the seeming stability of regime succession in North Korea, one should focus on largely two different aspects in order to judge whether Kim’s grip on power will last in a long-run.

One is nuclear capabilities and the other is the economic hardship.

The problem is that they are both unfavorable factors for the Kim Jong-un regime.

For the success of the Kim Jong-un regime, it should break away from the military-first policies and turn to the economy-first policies. But since this political line is contradictory to the dying instructions of Kim Jong-Il, North Korea cannot adopt the economy-first policies.

It is only possible when Kim Jung-un denies the legitimacy of his father’s instructions. Therefore, it is highly likely that the military-first politics will continue to be its governing ideology for the time being.

Consequently South Korea will constantly face military threats.

If those military threats cause uneasiness within South Korea, the length of Kim Jong-un regime will be extended a little longer.

South Korea experienced democratization and industrialization within the short time period of fifty years and has joined the ranks of the world’s top 20 economic powers. But it is very vulnerable to military tensions.

Moreover, as the system of dictatorship and the military-first policies are well implemented so far, it is not likely that the Kim Jong-un regime will get involved in power struggles in a short term.

However, possibilities of power struggles always exist due to the diverse interests and the imbalance of power distribution among the ruling coalition. In particular, since North Korean power group consists of inner circle, the possibility of power struggles is relatively high. Therefore, the result will be visible in two or three years.

For the young leader, Kim Jong-un, he has no choice but to follow the instructions of his predecessors, Kim Il-Seung and Kim Jong-Il.

Since he lacks the experience in governing and his power consolidation yet incomplete, he cannot suggest policies independently. From his position, following his father’s policies is more advantageous rather than taking an unnecessary risk by fundamentally changing nuclear and economic policies. Of course there is no one among the ruling elites who has the power to suggest fundamental changes or who could handle the fallouts when those attempts fail.

Therefore, it is highly likely that Kim Jong-un would maintain the Kim Jong-Il-style control and the planned economy and seek ways to solve the economic crisis by attracting foreign investment and exclusive industrial zones.

Consequently, Kim Jung-un will stick to its nuclear ambitions  and maintain its current economic policies to the end. In the meantime, human rights will be violated in North Korea more seriously than before.

And North Korea will carry out the third nuclear test within this year.

The North Korean authorities carried out the first nuclear test on October 9th, 2006 and the second nuclear test on May 26th, 2009 while the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718 was in act. North Korea has no respect for the international society and its opinion.

No, the more the international community tries to discourage North Korea from advancing its nuclear ambitions, the more North Korea tends to gamble with the survival of its regime on the line.

In 2012, five nations from the nuclear talks including South Korea, the U.S., China, and Russia are facing presidential elections and general elections. It can be a high time for North Korea to carry out another nuclear test, because its neighboring nations will be focusing on domestic politics before the elections. In other words, the security in Northeast Asia can be particularly vulnerable this year. The North Korean leadership will never miss this chance.

The U.N. Security Council resolution 1874, adopted after the second nuclear test, will also fail to deter North Korea’s desire to conduct its next nuclear test.

What is more worrisome is that there are not that many additional sanctions left to deter North Korea should it test again.

Moreover, North Korea, having been isolated from the outside world for more than two decades, has come up with its own survival skills. It is to force its citizens to beg in the outside world.

Against this survival strategy, there is no reasonable and legal means for the international community to enforce sanctions.

In conclusion, North Korean national affairs will be affected by how stable the Kim Jung-un regime is and the overall direction its policies take.

From the perspective of behavior level, the instable  condition of the power will continue until Kim Jung-un’s power consolidation succeeds to the extent that he can remove members of the  ruling coalition.

In addition, even after Kim Jung-un stabilizes his grip on  power, his regime would face regime instability due to the nuclear issue.

Therefore, the question depends on how accurately the western community understands North Korea’s internal affairs and how we can find the measures to put pressure on North Korea, lastly how we can speak with one voice.

Now we have to realize the fact that the only key we have is to raise human rights issues with North Korea.

North Korea is a member of the United Nations. As a member of the U.N., we should continue to ask North Korea to comply with duties in accordance with the U.N. constitution and various UN conventions on human rights. That will be the only sure way to improve the lives of North Koreans and to encourage North Korea to be a normal state again.

Thank you.

Sudan and South Sudan

Debate on the Queens Speech – Foreign Affairs – Thursday May 17th 2012.

3.29 pm
Lord Alton of Liverpool:
My Lords, my brief remarks today will urge Her Majesty’s Government to do all they possibly can to engage with China, especially in Africa, on the Korean peninsula and on questions of human rights.
Yesterday, with my noble friend Lady Cox, I met Bishop Macram Gassis, whose whole life has been spent working with the Dinka and Nuba people in Sudan. I subsequently spoke by telephone with the Minister for Africa, Mr Henry Bellingham MP, and relayed Bishop Gassis’s description of the murder and mutilation of children and the rape of women in South Kordofan.
Earlier today, along with my noble friend, I drew the attention of the House to the recent assessment of Dr Mukesh Kapila CBE that the second genocide of the 21st century is now unfolding. More than 1 million people have been affected as a regime, led by a president indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, systematically kills its own people. In parenthesis, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who responded to the Question earlier today, that what makes Sudan unique is that President Omar al-Bashir is the only head of state anywhere in the world to be indicted by the International Criminal Court. To have business as usual, including the visits of parliamentarians and business leaders to Sudan promoting business interests in Sudan, cannot be right when in Darfur 200,000 people were killed, in South Sudan 2 million people were killed and now, today, the second genocide of the 21st century is being played out in South Kordofan.
On 26 March I described the paralysis of the international community in addressing this issue, and nothing has changed. It is now a year since I told the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, about the situation there. He said in response:
“Reports of such atrocities will have to be investigated and, if they prove to be true, those responsible will need to be brought to account”.—[Official Report, 21/6/11; col. WA 294.]
Nine months later, he said that,
“we continue … to seek urgent access to those most affected by the conflict”.—[Official Report, 9/11/11; col. WA 66.]
However, no one has been brought to justice, the bombs continue to rain down, a genocide is unfolding, an aid plane last tried to take in November last and was pursued for 50 miles by Sudanese war planes.
So what can we do? Seventy per cent of Sudan’s oil is in the south and most of it is bought by China. While the killing continues, the oil will not flow. More than any other country, China is in a position to insist that the bombing stops, that humanitarian relief is allowed in, and that all sides participate in peace talks, which China should broker.
North Sudan is also considerably indebted to China. It has external debts of around $38 billion. Both China and the United Kingdom should use the leverage of debt relief to insist on an end to aerial bombardment and access for humanitarian aid. It is unconscionable that Britain should write off Sudanese debt while it kills with impunity, and I hope that when the Minister responds he will tell us that he concurs with that view.
China is in Africa because it has a scarcity of oil, minerals and food. Africa provides a solution. The big question will be: can China avoid the age-old temptation to exercise hegemony and, instead, use its statecraft to resolve conflict? Short of the arms trade treaty, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, a few moments ago, it would make a dramatic difference if China and the United Kingdom stopped the flow of arms—many made in China—into Africa. However, if we need to engage with China in Africa, we must also encourage it to use its diplomacy and genius elsewhere too.
Last night, at a meeting of the North Korea All-Party Parliamentary Group, which I chair, we heard from Mark Fitzpatrick, the director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Mrs Sun-young Park, a member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. I have sent the Minister a copy of their papers. Three million people died in the last Korean War, including an estimated 400,000 Chinese soldiers and, I might add, 1,000 British servicemen, more than in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Falklands combined. We need to engage with China to encourage the United States formally to end the state of war with North Korea. This does not imply appeasement—quite the reverse. It is what we did with great effect during the Helsinki process. There are some welcome harbingers.
China’s recent decision to repatriate North Koreans to Seoul is to be welcomed; so is their admonition to North Korea to look after the welfare of their own citizens rather than to promote nuclear ambitions; China’s decision not to obstruct the recent United Nations Human Rights Council’s statement on human rights issues in North Korea; and the Security Council statement on the recent rocket launch. What is really needed is a Beijing peace conference where old hatreds are set aside and constructive, but critical, engagement seeks ways to achieve a lasting peace, prosperity, reconciliation and the reunification of the Korean peninsula.
In addition to China’s role in the world, I want to mention one other question concerning human rights. The world’s attention has recently been focused on the plight of Chen Guangcheng, the blind civil and human rights activist, jailed for four years after challenging China’s one-child policy. I have raised this case in your Lordships’ House many times. Having taken sanctuary in the US Embassy in Beijing, Chen is now held in a hospital unit. The Economist, in its editorial last week, said:
“At rare moments, the future of a nation, even one teeming with 1.3 billion souls, can be bound up in the fate of a single person”.
It said that what happened to Chen,
“matters enormously to China’s future”.
It also matters to the United States. If they have removed Chen from safety but failed to secure safe passage for him and his family, it will cast serious doubts on American diplomacy. Have they let a brave man down? Have they been taken for fools? If Chen is punished and the US humiliated it will signal a troubling shift in super power relations.
Chen’s case also matters to countries like our own. We have aided and abetted the very policies that led to Chen’s imprisonment in the first place. It has taken a blind man to see that to which we have shamefully closed our eyes. This remarkable Shawshank has caught the public imagination and blown open a policy of coercion and eugenics, a policy which I sought to outlaw the last time we had a Bill on development aid before your Lordships’ House. Over three decades, British aid given to UNFPA and IPPF has gone to the China Population Association. The CPA, in turn, has implemented a one-child policy that makes it a criminal offence to be pregnant and illegal to have a brother or a sister. It is a policy which has led to an estimated 400 million babies being aborted or killed through infanticide; a gendercide policy which favours the birth of male children so that one out of every six girls is aborted or abandoned. China is a country where 500 women take their own lives every single day. China has the highest suicide rate for women anywhere in the world.
China is a great nation, but it does itself no credit with something like the one-child policy. Clearly, we must engage with China both on human rights questions and on its role in the world, not least on the Korean peninsula and in countries like Sudan.
4.27 pm
Baroness Cox:
My Lords, I will focus on recent developments in Sudan and South Sudan and in Burma. I return to the former having already raised it in Oral Questions today because a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent, the statistics should be compelling and the need for a response is so urgent.
First, in Sudan, half a million people are displaced from Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile by Khartoum’s ground and aerial offensives, with many sheltering in caves with deadly snakes or in forests, many dying from hunger as they cannot harvest crops and many killed and injured by bombs. In Blue Nile, on 11 May, Sudan Armed Forces—SAF—bombed a mountainous area crowded with internally displaced people near Baw, with missiles fired from east and west of the county. Last week, over 3,000 IDPs fled from south-west Baw county and were trapped at the border without transport or food. More than 240 IDPs had already died in the first week of May, including Chief Haj Jabir Dafalla and his family. Many more lives will soon be lost unless humanitarian assistance reaches the area within days, but the Khartoum Government have denied access by aid organisations to those in need.
Secondly, 250,000 refugees have been forced to flee into South Sudan by Khartoum’s offensives. I recently visited Yida camp, where there are now at least 30,000 refugees, with 700 arriving in a single day, many ill, having walked for seven days without adequate food or water. With the imminent rainy season, there will be no access for food supplies. In Jamam camp, with nearly 37,000 refugees from Blue Nile, Oxfam’s director of emergency response calls the situation desperate, saying:
“There is simply not enough water and we are running out of options and we are running out of time”.
We have also met refugees from Abyei who fled last year’s fighting. Khartoum’s forces have defied a UN Security Council requirement to withdraw, thereby preventing people from returning home for fear of atrocities perpetrated by SAF last year, including murder, rape and torture. We visited camps in Bahr el Ghazal without clean water, food or other essential supplies.
Thirdly, tens of thousands of people are suffering from al Bashir’s commitment to turn Sudan into an Arabic, Islamic state and to evict those deemed “southerners”. The BBC estimates that there are more than 500,000 ethnic South Sudanese in the north. Following an 8 April deadline from Khartoum to formalise their status or leave the country, many fled to South Sudan. Some 15,000 were stranded in Kosti, unable to take boats to South Sudan because of restrictions from Khartoum. They are now being airlifted to Juba, to an unknown fate. Others who have previously fled include thousands in camps near Renk. When we visited them last month, they were living in makeshift shelters, which will never withstand the imminent rains.
Fourthly, Khartoum is also bombing targets across the border in South Sudan. On 23 April, while we were still there, two MiGs bombed a market in Bentiu. On 7 and 8 May, locations in Unity, Upper Nile, and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states were bombed.
When independence was achieved in South Sudan, the war had left a dire humanitarian situation. Now this new nation also has to cope with the massive influx of refugees and forced returnees and the aerial bombardment of people by its northern neighbour. I ask the Minister whether a more robust response to Khartoum’s aerial bombardment is not now needed, such as targeted sanctions, including, for example, the refusal of diplomatic visas to government members. At the moment, they are carrying on their policies with impunity.
Too often there is a response that implies moral equivalence between the policies of the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan. There is no such equivalence. As my noble friend Lord Alton has highlighted, Sudan’s President is indicted by the ICC. He has dismissed the elected governor of South Kordofan and replaced him with another ICC-indicted war criminal. As has been highlighted time and again, he is also carrying out constant aerial bombardment of civilians in his own country and transgressing an international border to bomb civilians in South Sudan. He is pursuing a ruthless racist policy of intimidation, with the expulsion of citizens deemed to be “southerners”.
In contrast, the Government of South Sudan have many problems and inevitable weaknesses but they are not guilty of any such abhorrent policies. South Sudan was fiercely criticised for taking the town of Heglig. However, it was being used by Khartoum as a base for attacks on the South. President Salva Kiir has withdrawn his troops, unlike Khartoum, which has refused to withdraw its troops from Abyei. South Sudan has also been criticised for closing the oil pipeline, but this can be seen as a desperate response to Khartoum’s imposition of extortionate prices. This morning the Minister confirmed that DfID has withdrawn or reduced its development aid for South Sudan in response to the closure of the pipeline. Will the Government rethink this harsh policy? The humanitarian needs of South Sudan are legion and have been detailed in previous debates, so I will not repeat them. However, it cannot be acceptable for DfID to reduce development aid to a nation that is trying, albeit with many problems and fallibilities, to develop democracy and civil society in face of massive challenges, many inflicted by its northern neighbour with impunity.
I turn briefly to Burma, and especially to the plight of ethnic nationals, whom I have visited twice this year. There is much to commend and celebrate in today’s Burma, including the freedom and political engagement of the heroic Aung San Suu Kyi and the release of hundreds of political prisoners. However, the plight of ethnic national peoples, such as the Shan, Kachin and Rohingya, is still cause for great concern. We were in Shan state when the brief ceasefire was broken by intense fighting, and Kachin state is experiencing some of the most intense conflict and violations of human rights in Burma’s recent history. The oppression of the Rohingya people remains as brutal as ever.
Deep concern was graphically expressed by one of the leaders of Shan state, who said that when the light went on in Rangoon, everyone ran to the spotlight and did not wait to see them hiding in the darkness. The ethnic national peoples fear that, as the Burmese Government gain credibility, the country will be open to massive aid and investment, which may be used to exploit further the ethnic national people’s resource-rich lands. For example, the plans for 25 new dams could force tens of thousands from their previous homes with no compensation and destroy the environment. Many voices express caution about premature optimism and lifting of sanctions—rightly so.
Therefore, I ask the Minister whether the Government will reassure the ethnic national peoples that they will be fully included in all discussions about the future of Burma, so that they no longer feel marginalised, vulnerable to exploitation and left in the darkness. Only then will we all be able to celebrate with genuine joy and integrity the new-found freedoms of the beautiful, but in many places still tragic, land of Burma.
4.34 pm
Lord Flight:
My Lords, towards the end of the gracious Speech there are the somewhat opaque words:
“My Government will build strategic partnerships with the emerging powers”.
I would have liked that to refer specifically to our friends in the Commonwealth, but I was very heartened by what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, had to say in his excellent opening speech. To me it is particularly relevant in the face of the likely impending break-up of the eurozone and the impact that that is likely to have on European economies and our relations. The immediate and most important foreign affairs issue is what is happening on the continent. There is the obvious fight to the death between economic and market forces and political commitment, where the lessons of history tell us that major economic forces tend to prevail. There is the obvious point that many have made before—that for disparate economies to share a currency is extremely difficult at the best of times. Indeed, I was surprised to see an article arguing that the Commonwealth was likely to be a more successful group of economies to share a currency than the EU countries.
Everyone knows that if you are going to share a currency you have to have transfer payments from the more successful to the less successful. It boils to whether Germany is willing to make the necessary transfer payments on a regular basis to the uncompetitive economies, which would amount to some 35% per annum of German GDP. That seems pretty unlikely. We live at present with the likely impending default and exit from the euro of Greece. I expect that a firewall will probably prevail in the near term to protect Spain, Portugal and Italy, but that does not address the fundamental problem of lack of competitiveness. These economies cannot recover and grow, and they cannot put their public finances right, if they are 35% uncompetitive against the successful parts of Europe. The issue is whether the break-up will be chaotic or orderly. We all hope that it will be orderly but, whatever, there would be economic pain in the short term, although once the necessary devaluations have occurred and these currencies are competitive again, do not understate their ability to bounce back within two or three years.
What British foreign policy needs to focus on right now is what our attitude is towards the EU in the wake of these likely events. What will be happening is centrifugal forces. The nation states of Europe with their own currencies and central banks returned will need to follow economic policies appropriate to their circumstances. Some may even need to impose capital controls. The EU, which has been centralising for 40 years and trying to move towards a single political unit, is suddenly going to be pulled in the other direction. What is our view towards this? What would be our view if there were an attempt to leap towards political union? I very much doubt it, but that obviously could be one reaction.
What the UK has always wanted to see is an area of free trade and co-operation, achieving consensus, not enforcing policies but moulding more and more European co-operation together over time—but naturally and not coming by command from the centre. It will also need a much cheaper EU. I checked with the Treasury, because I could not believe a report in the newspapers that in 2013-14 Britain’s net contributions to the EU would be £31.3 billion. The Treasury confirmed that figure to me. I thought that it was still only £12 billion or £13 billion. It is not a sum of money that this country can afford. But, more than that, I cannot see that Italy and Spain, the countries that are going to be experiencing problems with the euro, will be willing to make large financial contributions to a massive EU structure. We may not necessarily say it in public, but this country needs to think about the political implications of the euro imploding and what policies it will adopt in that event.
For some time the EU clearly has not been the engine of growth that people thought it would be when we first applied to join it way back in the 1960s and 1970s. It has turned out to be a relatively failed economic region. I go back to where I started. We need quickly to develop effective commercial and investment relations with the emerging BRIC economies, in particular with the Commonwealth economies. As I have pointed out before, my particular plea is for a much closer relationship between this country and India—politically, economically and potentially even defence-wise. The University of Cambridge will tell you that the only two countries that matter in terms of our universities and their quality of students are America and India. The Prime Minister of India has virtually indicated that he would like to see a special relationship being established for top postgraduate students coming to this country, which would enable a lot of the hassle of the visa process to be handled in a friendlier fashion.
I can think of other areas where there is considerable scope for special relationships between this country and India. We are all aware that certain problems need to be resolved but I do not think that they are insoluble. The Indian community is a successful and dynamic part of this country and there is a great deal of sympathy between the people of India and the people of Britain. It is time to galvanise that while not ignoring the other members of the Commonwealth. Important things are going on in Africa and in the older members of the Commonwealth, particularly Canada, where there is much scope for this country to find commercial partners.
There is a nice commitment in the gracious Speech. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Green, is travelling the world doing his best to generate trade deals on the ground, but more needs to be done in terms of political initiatives. We need to face up to the fact that the Europe that will emerge on the back of what is likely to happen to the euro will not be a great economic engine for this country.
4.42 pm

 The Charity Aid To The Church In Need  presented parliamentarians with copies of their new report: Christians and the Struggle for Religious Freedom  looking at persecution of Christians in 13 countries, with an introduction asserting the importance of religious freedom; and with copies of  Christian Women in Pakistan and Egypt: A Briefing. The speakers included Mrs.Asiya Nasir, a Christian woman who is a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly. The meeting also heard from a Pakistani Catholic woman and two Archbishops.  

Archbishop Joannes Zakaria

Joannes Zakaria is the Coptic Catholic Archbishop of Luxor. At nearly 63, he has been a bishop for 19 years.

Before coming to Luxor, he was chaplain to the Coptic Catholic disapora in the US, based in Beverly Hills, California. It came at a time when the diaspora community started to grow and after becoming bishop his pastoral priority has been to encourage the Coptic faithful to stay in the country.

Leading a vast diocese, stretching down to Aswan and beyond, Christians in the Luxor region number 18,000 in a total population of four million. Problems of discrimination and oppression against Christians are uniquely serious in the diocese. Arson attacks on churches have taken place. Over the past four years, at least three church buildings in his diocese have caught fire in suspicious circumstances. 

He states: “In 2011, from the final days under Moubarak through the post-Mubarak days of the so-called Arab Spring, it seemed to many like the clock was being turned back again to the days of the Early Church’s suffering. Now, the situation of Christians in Egypt, is so difficult [regarding] schools, universities, and getting a job. Christians in Egypt have lost hope and they leave their country if they can.

“As a Coptic Catholic bishop, I am concerned about Christian women who face physical and sexual violence, captivity, exploitation in forced domestic servitude or commercial sexual exploitation, and financial benefit to the individuals who secure forced conversions

Thomsena Anjum

Thomsena Anjum has seen first hand many of the problems which affect Christians in Pakistan. She has experience of situations in which Christian women were denied access to drinking wells – because local Muslims claimed that the wells would be contaminated if they were used by Christians. This echoes the situation of Asia Bibi – Muslim women refused to drink the water she had fetched – when she was accused of making the blasphemous remarks for which she was sentenced to death in November 2010.

Mrs Anjum and her family suffered persecution first hand after her youngest son Reshayl was falsely accused by Muslim students at Lahore Grammar School of insulting the Muslim prophet Mohammad in March 2009. In May 2009, the family received threatening letters demanding they pay sums of more than 1 million rupees or accept the consequences. Mrs Anjum and a driver were shot at by an Islamic cleric when they were driving to deliver books to 50 Non-Formal and Adult Literacy Centres.  The bullets passed close to Mrs Anjum’s neck but neither she nor the driver were injured. Police refused to let them register a report after they said that they were working for a Christian NGO and had been fired on by an Islamic cleric.

“For the past 16 years, I have been engaged in several projects run by my charity www.tamir.org.pk in the district of Faisalabad. Because of my work with disabled people, I was awarded the ‘Good Citizen’ title by the Army Monitoring Cell and city Mayor in 2000.

“The same year, I was selected as District Council Member of ‘Pakistan Bait-Ul-Mall’ for Minorities in Faisalabad. My role was to work with Christian families, assess their need, recommend and process their financial application under the ‘Food Support Programme’. I was able to help more than 4,000 Christian families in four years.  

“In 2004, I was responsible for Literacy project run by Tamir and District Literacy Department. I extensively visited villages and opened Adult Literacy centres in 50 villages. These programmes connected me with my Christian community and I have experience of their plight and pain of discrimination they suffered on daily basis as second class citizens.”

Archbishop Joseph Coutts

Joseph Coutts is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Karachi. The most populous city in the country, Karachi is the financial centre and previous capital of Pakistan. He is involved in inter-faith dialogue with Muslims in a bid to bring stability to the small and frequently persecuted Christian community in Pakistan. Bishop Coutts is the National Director of Caritas Pakistan.

Born in Amritsar, India, on 21July 1945, he studied for the priesthood at Christ the King Seminary, Karachi and was ordained on 9January 1971. On 5 May 1988, he became co-adjutor Bishop of Hyderabad in Pakistan serving a diocese serving 150,000 Catholics. On 27 June 1998, he was appointed Bishop of Faisalabad following the suicide of Bishop John Joseph. Bishop Joseph shot himself as a final protest against the death sentence handed out to Christian Ayub Massih, after he was convicted of committing blasphemy in a public place and sentenced to death on April 27 under Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws. 

Between December 2006 and February 2007, Bishop Coutts and two senior Muslim leaders received death threats after attending an inter-faith programme in a local Islamic school.  On 26 June 2007, he was awarded the Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt’s Shalom Prize for justice and peace for his inter-faith work in the country, building relations with the Muslim community. On 25 January 2012 he was appointed Archbishop of Karachi.

Bishop Coutts states: “In my country, the rise of extremism and growing problems relating to governance and law enforcement have fundamentally compromised the place of religious freedom in society. Hence, individual religious communities are at risk from verbal abuse, physical violence and a denial of basic rights, most especially legal justice. The breakdown of law and order has put Christian communities at particular risk… Christians and their faith have been mocked and disparaged in schools and other state institutions, their churches have been targeted, their homes destroyed, they have been accused of crimes they have not committed, punished without fair trial – and often without any trial at all. Their livelihoods have been destroyed and their very lives endangered… Who will listen? Who will act?

Follow this link to the power point presentation used with the Blackburn Cathedral talk – or click on the word powerpoints in the box above:

Human Trafficking powerpoint presentation

Trafficking in human beings, particularly in women and children, is a modern day slave trade. Most people assume that the slave trade was long since consigned to the dustbin of history by William Wilberforce.

In reality the trade in human beings is a rapidly growing scourge hat affects countries and families on every continent.

Those trafficked may be forced into prostitution or to work as domestics, as labourers, or market traders and in a variety of other jobs. Recent research suggests that, at an absolute minimum, hundreds of women and children are being trafficked into the UK each year.

Trafficking is a form of coercion. Victims of trafficking  are unable to cut all ties with those who brought them here.

Victims come from Albania, Kosovo, Russia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, China, South East Asia and West Africa.

Some may be forcibly abducted and brought into the UK, but many victims put themselves or their children in the hands of traffickers to escape poverty and discrimination. Promised well paid jobs, education, marriage, many believe  they will be able to send money back to their families. In reality  they often end up  exploited as sex slaves in London and our other major cities.

Escape for these victims is impossible. The traffickers often pay for the cost of their victims’ passage into the UK.

Travel costs are then inflated by charges for food, accommodation, and interest on money borrowed from their traffickers. Burdened with debt and unable to secure legitimate employment, the victims are  extremely vulnerable.

Should they refuse to submit to the traffickers’ demands or attempt to escape, they can have their passports confiscated or are subject to intimidation, violence, torture or rape. Traffickers also make threats of violence against friends and family as a way of ensuring their victims keep working and do not try to escape.

Girls from countries where trafficking is common arrive into the UK unaccompanied. Told to apply for asylum at the port of entry, the girls are placed into the care of the local social services department. These girls subsequently disappear when their traffickers make contact with them and are never seen by the authorities or their families again.  Since 1995, 66 children who arrived unaccompanied in the UK have gone missing from West Sussex Social Services alone, over a two year period.

The Head of London’s Vice Squad complained that his officers are unable to tackle this scourge because of a lack of guidance and legislation. In the unlikely event of traffickers being caught, they often receive prison sentences of no more than two years.

The popular myth is that slavery is a thing of the past, but more people are trafficked today than were enslaved in the entire history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The UN believes it is the second largest criminal activity in the world, second only to drug smuggling; that it nets $36 billion a year to the traffickers; and that 100,000 Modern Day Slaves are trafficked around the EU each year.

Trafficking is about deception. It is about misleading and dishonest information. Trafficking is about people believing they are going somewhere to do something entirely different to what they are asked to do. Or the children who are pawns in debt bondage whose alcoholic or drug dependent parents get a lump sum payment from traffickers to take their children to London or other cities to ‘educate them’Then there is sex trafficking. Girls mostly, with threats of violence to themselves and their families if they try to escape or keep money from their ‘clients’ (2,200 brothels in London alone).

The number of rescued victims in the Government’s victim support scheme run by the Salvation Army gives you some indication of the scale and range: 246 in the last 6 months alone, just under half of them men.

Of the 15,000 domestic workers coming to Britain a year, approaching 700 are likely to have been abused in some way. Many of these would have been trafficked, many working for diplomatic staff and beyond the reach of the law.

Successful convictions are appallingly few: no more than two dozen a year, and as few as 16 in 2010.

Members of Parliamentary need to keep calling Government to account, and keeping trafficking on the agenda.

Victims need small sums to get them up on their feet, and survive.

The Human Trafficking Foundation, which chaired by Anthony Steen  wants to establish a small Victim Fund which can – without undue bureaucracy – pay for cookers, clothes, text books and the like.

All of us can do something practical. In particular we can help raise awareness on Anti-Slavery Day (October 18^th).

We can’t help everyone, but we can help someone. The man or woman who saves a single life saves the world.

Earlier this year he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and in 2010 was a Rafto Human Rights Prize Laureate. He has been a fierce critic of criminality and corruption and is a defender of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. The coalition’s campaign statement can be found at http://tinyurl.com/cu2jjdra href=”http://http://tinyurl.com/cu2jjd”> 

Bishop Vera and Miss Brewer were in Europe to raise awareness about the plight of migrants who enter Mexico from Central America – desperate people hoping to get across the border of Mexico into the USA. The migrants’ journey all too frequently becomes a journey into a world of extortion, ransom, exploitation, violence and the shadowy gangland world of drugs and weapons. It is one of the most desperate and dangerous journeys in the world.  I met the bishop with Jeremy Corbyn MP, who chairs the Parliamentary Group on Mexico and who has raised these depredations in the House of Commons.

Bishop Vera, whose diocese adjoins Mexico’s border with Texas, has been directly involved in the network of migrants’ shelters established to give help to illegal migrants fleeing destitution in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He is a passionate man deeply disturbed by the vicious circle into which so many people have been sucked and then trapped. Their crime? – to seek a better life for themselves and for their families.

The bishop described how migrants cross into Mexico using routes which are often over-looked by Mexican Government agencies.

Once inside the country they are then liable to be kidnapped by mafia-style gangs. In particular, freight trains on which migrants seek transport are targeted by the gangs and the migrants are abducted.   With complete impunity the gangs then load people into trucks – just like cattle – and transport them to hideaways. Next, they contact relatives whom migrants were hoping to reach in the United States. Then they demand a ransom of thousands of dollars. Unable to pay, the required ransom money is provided by loan sharks – money lenders who are often related to the abductors. Migrants are then indebted to their owners and treated as chattel – modern slaves. They are spirited into the United States, often forced to carry in drugs, and on arrival they are initiated into a seedy world of narcotics, vice, and every illegal activity known to man. There is also a link with gun running.

Bishop Vera says there is a shocking culture of impunity – with the State authorities seemingly impotent and unwilling to act. He says that in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco and Veracruz  – and in Mexico City – the vast majority of the journeying migrants are detained by the authorities but many of these, too, become victims of abuse and exploitation.

Mexico stands out as a country which, almost uniquely, is both a destination and transit route for migrants.

It is also the country to which illegal migrants from Central America are returned if they are apprehended in Arizona or Texas. The Central Americans who are using Mexico as a passageway to the USA are joined by thousands of indigenous Mexicans who are themselves try to get into the USA in search of jobs. This creates a nexus of economic, political, humanitarian and social entanglements.

We are not talking small numbers. Bishop Vera says that the spider’s web of humanitarian tragedy, experienced by both Mexican and foreign migrants, has led to 20,000 kidnappings every year – and he angrily insists that the authorities in Mexico, Central America, the USA and Europe, have been turning a blind eye to events like the massacre of 72 migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, and mass graves which contain the remains of hundreds of victims.

In 2011 the bishop was one of those who launched the “Campaign for the Right to Migrate Free From Violence”. He and the Campaign holds The Mexican  authorities “responsible for forced disappearances, kidnappings, extortion, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against migrants” and he says that this responsibility stems from their failure to stop – and in some cases by colluding with – organised crime groups who attack and exploit the migrants. Over the past five years 47,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s war on drugs; more than 16,000 people were killed last year alone and 1000 children have been killed since 2006.

Through the work he has done on the ground – he founded the Fray Juan de Larios Centre for Human Rights and the Bethlehem Migrant Shelter, in Saltillo, he has seen, first-hand, terrible assaults on human dignity.

Fr.Heyman Vazquez Medina, who runs a shelter in Chiapas State, says that “Of every ten women who pass through this shelter, six have suffered sexual assault.” At Tapachula cemetery, in the same State, Amnesty International in their excellent report, “Invisible Victims” produce a photograph of the bodies of migrant workers literally dumped and lightly covered in the passageways between the cemetery’s graves.

Bishop Vera would like British Catholics to write to the Foreign Office Minister responsible for Latin America, Jeremy Browne MP, and to their own MPs, urging them to step up the pressure to find solutions to this dire situation.

Bishop Vera wants: Mexico to

Mr.Browne can be contacted by writing to him at the House of Commons, London SW1 OAA or jeremy.browne.mp@parliament.uk