House of Lords, Short debate 15th November 2022
Lord Alton of Liverpool
(CB)
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My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, for both securing this debate and opening it so comprehensively and powerfully, I should declare that I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea.
I will focus my remarks on justice and accountability, which are absent from the 2 November peace agreement and the 12 November road map. Yes, we all agree that the killings in the deadliest war in the world—Africa’s great war—must end immediately, but peace without justice is an illusion, a chimera, with impunity invariably leading to more atrocities. I remain sceptical that this omission will be addressed at a later stage.
Even in the past few days, I have seen disturbing reports from Alamata about accelerated ethnic cleansing, which I drew to the Minister’s attention yesterday. Since 3 November 2020, when the war began, I have hosted or participated in numerous discussions about Tigray. It took until March 2021 for Ethiopia and Eritrea to confirm Eritrea’s involvement in the war, but from the very outset its involvement was widely suspected. Eritrea is a country with enforced conscription, which abuses its own citizens and has a long record of exporting terror into Tigray and other areas of Ethiopia. In December 2020, and in repeated Questions, I have asked the Minister about the forced return of refugees to Eritrea, the desperate need for a humanitarian corridor and how and when we intend to bring to justice the militias responsible for these many barbaric acts. Back in 2020, the Minister said
“the moment does not allow”.—[Official Report, 2/12/20; col. 735.]
Let me ask again: when will it allow?
In March 2021, I raised reports of a massacre at the historic town of Axum, which is well known to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, whom we will hear from soon, in which a church deacon stated that 800 civilians had been executed. Amnesty said that atrocities could well amount to “crimes against humanity” and the Minister told me that the reports were “credible”. In June 2021, I hosted a meeting with Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea. He detailed appalling violations of human rights. On 16 December 2021, I told the House that “thousands” had been
“murdered, injured and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, and thousands subjected to sexual violence as a weapon of war”.—[Official Report, 16/12/21; col. 454.]
What did we do to stop that?
Seventeen months ago, all the predictors of atrocity crimes had emerged as the world stood by and watched. The utter failure of the international community to intervene and to save lives makes a mockery of the duty to protect. As Tigray was plunged into gross human suffering, the world was too busy and looked away. There has been repeated evidence, report after report, that Eritrean forces have been responsible for some of the worst atrocities, including massacres of civilians, conflict-related sexual violence and attacks and forcible repatriation of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia in camps such as Hitsats. We have done precious little to help them. When did we last raise with Ethiopia its obligations under the refugee convention?
As recently as 6 October, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the invasion of Tigray by Eritrean forces and specifically condemned the war crimes and human rights violations by Eritrean forces. It called on Ethiopia to sign and ratify the Rome statute of the ICC and stressed the need for an independent and impartial mechanism to address ongoing violations and accountability. What have we done to support that European initiative?
This weekend, I sent the FCDO Alex de Waal’s assessment, The Despotism of Isaias Afewerki, whose “logic”, he said, “is genocidal”, and the conclusion of Professor Kjetil Tronvoll that atrocities in Tigray “amount to genocide”. What has the Foreign Secretary done about this? Others who have issued warning signs of atrocity crimes include Genocide Watch and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Why has this expert analysis been ignored? These statements on the serious risk of atrocity crimes and genocide trigger the duty to prevent, as confirmed by the International Court of Justice in its 2007 judgment. How have we responded to that duty?
What assessment has been made of the report, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights following their joint investigation into alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian and refugee law committed by all parties? What about the findings of the UN Human Rights Council’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, which said in September:
“Regarding the EDF, the Commission finds reasonable grounds to believe that it committed the war crimes of violence to life and person, in particular, murder; outrages on human dignity, in particular humiliating or degrading treatment; rape; sexual slavery and sexual violence”?
How is all this informing the Government’s responses in line with the genocide convention?
On 23 September, in answer to a Question that I tabled to the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, it was confirmed that:
“A Joint Analysis of Conflict and Stability (JACS) was completed earlier this year”
for Ethiopia. The noble Lord did not answer the second limb of my Question on whether the Government had examined and assessed
“the risk of … identity-based violence, and … mass atrocities”.
Will the analysis be made available to Members of your Lordships’ House via the Library? If not, why not?
These are not trivial matters. We are talking about mass killings, starvation, rape and sexual violence used as weapons of war. Yes, rape is being used as a weapon of war. Last week, the Dr Denis Mukwege Foundation, in co-operation with the FCDO and the Washington University Institute for Public Health, published a joint report entitled Understanding Conflict Related Sexual Violence in Ethiopia. Among the testimonies in this rare and rigorous analysis is a statement by a 27 year-old woman
“raped in front of her children by a half-dozen Fano militiamen carrying out neighborhood searches targeting Tigrayans”.
She testified:
“Two of them raped me and then I lost consciousness and don’t know how many more raped me, if all six [did], or not. They said: ‘You Tigrayans should disappear from the land west of Tekeze! You are evil and we are purifying your blood.’”
The report said:
“Data suggest that Ethiopian and allied forces committed CRSV on a widespread and systemic basis in order to eliminate and/or forcibly displace the ethnic Tigrayan population.”
It also cites “revenge rape” and the lack of support for the deeply traumatised victims.
Does the Minister accept that the systemic elimination of a people because of their ethnicity is one of the criteria used to determine whether atrocities amount to genocide? Before he says that only a court can decide what is genocide, can he answer the actual question I have just asked—whether, under the provisions of the 1948 genocide convention, the elimination of an ethnic group constitutes a genocide? Does this not demonstrate why the Government should provide time for the Genocide Determination Bill, given a Second Reading on 28 October, to make progress? I remind the Minister and the House of the speeches by my noble friend Lord Hannay and the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg.
As for starvation being used as a weapon of war, a year ago I told the House that millions had been deliberately denied food and were starving, and that:
“This catastrophe is manmade”—[Official Report, 16/12/21; col. 455.]
That word was repeated in a letter to me by Vicky Ford, the then Africa Minister. She added that
“a prerequisite to ending the depredations”
was Eritrea’s immediate withdrawal from Tigray.
This is not over. There are continuing reports of attacks on civilians by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray. There is a quotation, which I can send to the Minister, from the president of Mekelle University. There is Rita Kahsay—referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Browne—a young woman who addressed a meeting in your Lordships’ House at which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and I spoke. She tells me that there are unconfirmed reports from Adwa of Eritrean soldiers looting properties and stealing water pumps. Unsurprisingly, then, Tigrayans in the UK, who recently lobbied Parliament, are deeply concerned by the lack of explicit mention in the peace agreement of the withdrawal of Eritrean militia.
What does the Minister make of Eritrea’s training of an Amhara militia? How does he respond to its continued collection of its war fund, the 2% diaspora tax, which has collected $4 million a year in Saudi Arabia alone—as detailed in a report I sent him two weeks ago—and is used to pursue its agenda of destabilisation?
Eritrean forces have the potential to derail any peace deal. We should be very clear-headed about its pitiless, brutal and cruel ideology and its indifference to the suffering it causes. Until we address the elephant in the room and attend to justice and accountability, that will not change. Peace without justice will not endure. I hope the Minister agrees.
8.33pm
