§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Malone.]
10.34 pm§ Mr. David Atkinson (Bournemouth, East)Earlier this week the third follow-up meeting of the conference on security and co-operation in Europe — the so-called Helsinki process — opened in Vienna. It takes place against a very different background from its two predecessors.
The first review conference in Belgrade in 1977 and 1978 represented a great disappointment to those participating states which had hoped to see some progress in the two years following the euphoric signing of the Helsinki Final Act. It dashed the hopes of those in Communist Europe who were monitoring the implementation of the humanitarian provisions of the Act in the courageous but naive expectation that they would enjoy a degree of international protection for so doing.
It contributed to the growing realisation on the part of the free world that detente was proving to be a one-way street for the Soviet Union, which was seizing all the advantages of trade, credit and technology transfer while delivering nothing on the human rights issues spelled out in the Final Act. It was also, we now know, taking advantage of the spirit of detente to build up its own offensive capabilities, while we in the West were doing precisely the reverse.
The second review conference in Madrid in 1982 and 1983 took place against a background of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the imposition of martial law in Poland, continued repression in eastern Europe, and, during the course of it, the shooting down by the Soviet Union of the South Korean airliner.
Despite such a deterioration in East-West relations, it was perhaps both surprising and encouraging that the concluding document at Madrid added to the original Helsinki commitments and provided for a series of subsidiary meetings on confidence-building measures, the peaceful settlement of disputes, human rights, and human contacts and scientific and cultural co-operation. By contrast, the Vienna conference this week begins with a far more encouraging background.
Last year in Helsinki at the tenth anniversary meeting of the signing of the Final Act all 35 Foreign Ministers recommitted themselves to full implementation of the Act. The confidence-building measures arrived at in Stockholm represent an encouraging step forward in verification through on-site inspection, which could well contribute to other arms control negotiations.
General Secretary Gorbachev is giving all the appearance of a new broom following the moribund Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko years. There is a more public Soviet perception of its immense economic problems which a significant reduction in defence expenditure and Western technological aid can help to reduce, although, as we all know, only a free economy will deliver the goods to the Russian people as it has to ours. We are in the middle of summitry. Geneva — followed by Reykjavik and Washington — hopefully in the new 1188 year—may yet lead to meaningful reductions in arms before President Reagan retires to go down in history as one of his country's greatest Presidents.
All this augurs well for Vienna but only at first sight, because we must never allow ourselves to ignore the formidable realities and challenges that remain. There is, as yet, absolutely no evidence that the new leadership in the Kremlin is any different from that which so cruelly and effectively put an end to the Hungarian attempt at neutrality and political pluralism exactly 30 years ago, or indeed the Prague spring in 1968. Perhaps Vienna as a venue, just a few miles down the road from both Budapest and Prague, will remind all those participating there that these were the same roads taken by thousands of Hungarians and Czechoslovakians seeking refuge and freedom from Soviet domination. Nor is there any real evidence that the Soviet Union is to withdraw from Afghanistan, and I regret that the European Community is resuming those negotiations with Comecon which it broke off six years ago because of Afghanistan. What has changed?
The treatment of the Soviet Union's so-called dissidents has not improved. Police brutality, harsh treatment in labour camps, abuse of psychiatry—the case of Serajim Yevsyokov is particularly tragic— a wide variety of punishments and pressures, harassment and discrimination—in reality apartheid—remain the norm for anyone seeking true freedom of expression, assembly, unions or worship. Indeed, if anything, pressure on dissidents has intensified under Gorbachev. There is a practice— now commonplace — of re-sentencing dissidents while still serving sentences. That is surely contrary to natural justice. Conditions in penal establishments are deteriorating, and new laws against contact with foreigners and receiving gifts from abroad have been introduced contrary to the spirit of Helsinki.
As the whole world knows, one crude measure of repression is the number of Jewish refusniks denied exit visas and of the growing number of Christians who, like the Siberian Seven, are seeking to leave for countries where they may bring up their families in a religious manner free of state interference. It has been no different in every other eastern European Communist country.
In Poland, while we must but welcome the release of political prisoners, there is no relaxation of party control despite the clear support of the majority of its people for both Solidarity and the Church. In East Germany the number of political prisoners has reached 7,000 and the Federal Republic pays immense sums to purchase their freedom. In Czechoslovakia, in addition to the continual persecution of the Charter 77 campaigners, in recent weeks the authorities have called in some 300 young members of the so-called Jazz Section, an independent group which publishes books and music. In Bulgaria the entire Turkish population is being forcibly subjected to a total loss of their ethnic identity. In Rumania repression against religion continues unabated. Churches in Bucharest and elsewhere have been deliberately demolished to make way for housing blocks.
Last month I visited for the second time the Second Baptist Church in Oradea, in north-west Rumania, which holds 1,000 people, where Pastors Nichole Gheorghit a and Paul Negrut have built up a congregation of more than 2,500 people at every service, and where last year the authorities withdrew their original permission for them to rebuild a larger church to hold 2,200 people on a new site. 1189 Now the old church is deteriorating and will collapse because of the way the drainage from the surrounding development has been laid.
I mention the Second Baptist Church in Oradea in particular because it was the present Romanian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Iionne Totu—who is to visit London shortly for consultations—who was the official on the Central Council of the Romanian Communist party who was responsible for granting the original approval for the new larger church to be built, and which has since been withdrawn after his promotion. Perhaps my hon. Friend will ensure that this matter is raised with him when he comes to Britain.
Nor should we be fooled by the release recently of a number of well-known campaigners for human rights on whose behalf the free world has been campaigning, such as Shcharansky, Orlov and Father Calcui from Romania. While their release proves that perseverance on behalf of those whose names have thus become internationally known can succeed, if only to be exchanged for spies or as pawns in pre-summit propaganda, there are so many more who remain, like Sakharov, Father Gleb Yakunin and Lev Rengelson—of the Moscow Committee for the Defence of Religious Rights—like Valerie Sendarov and Ratislov Endikomov—the free trade union campaigners —and even Irana Ratsushinskaya, the Christian poetess, who though released this autumn is being denied a visa to obtain hospital treatment in Britain, and many thousands of prisoners of conscience whose names we do not know, as my right hon. and learned Friend said in Vienna on Tuesday.
Of course, we must hope that in time internal developments in all these countries will one day lead to the establishment of that pluralist democracy which we know offers the best guarantee of human rights and an end to the separation of Europe between freedom and slavery. In the meantime, it is the Helsinki process which offers the best and only peaceful way forward and it is in that realistic spirit which I know the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues will be negotiating at Vienna. They will, I hope, be .pursuing balanced progress in all areas of existing agreements of the Final Act before any new commitments can be entered into.
There are a number of positive steps which I hope will be considered at Vienna, which I want to put to the House on behalf of the three organisations with which I and several other hon. Members are associated: the International Society of Human Rights, the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in the Soviet Union, and Christian Solidarity International.
First, Western participating states should ensure that a detailed report of all known previous violations of the conditions contained in principles VII and VIII as well as basket III should be presented. They should emphasise that the Final Act constitutes one entity. Those who violate the humanitarian conditions of basket III cannot expect to obtain advantages from the economic, scientific and technological co-operation suggested in basket II. Secondly, they should seek to construct a human rights commission and court of justice for the CSCE signatory states. In that way, the right of individual petition for citizens to voice complaints can be protected. Thirdly, they 1190 should agree a charter for humanitarian aid which will guarantee every citizen the right to receive and provide such aid, which is currently denied in several states.
Fourthly, they should pass a declaration of the right of every citizen to supervise the observance of the Helsinki agreements and to form monitoring groups operating free of state interference. Fifthly, they should call for an experts conference concerning the question of movement and family reunification. Finally, they should call for an experts conference on ethnic minorities and a charter of rights for such minorities in CSCE participating states.
I think the whole House will agree that we who are fortunate enough to belong to one of the minority of nations in the world which enjoy true freedom and democracy have a moral obligation to raise our voices on behalf of those who do not. Standing up for human rights does not represent intervention in the internal affairs of other states. It is indeed provided for by the very principles of the Final Act without which real and lasting peace, security and co-operation are not possible. That is what I know my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues are doing in Vienna at the present time, and the whole House will want to wish them every success.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Eggar)The House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) for raising this matter and to you, Mr. Speaker, for selecting this subject for debate.
As my hon. Friend said, the third conference on security and co-operation in Europe follow-up meeting opened in Vienna on 4 November. This is therefore a timely opportunity to discuss the Government's approach to the CSCE process.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary has just returned from Vienna, where he spoke on behalf of the 12 nations of the European Community. A copy of his speech has been placed in the Library.
My right hon. and learned Friend stated in his speech that in the CSCE process we aim to reduce tension and put an end to conflict, to release new forces for co-operation, and to respect both national and individual rights. He said:
The Twelve believe that the Final Act can be a force for good and a force for change in European and East-West relations. If all 35 countries who signed the Final Act implemented its principles the political atmosphere would be transformed, and not only in Europe. Mutual mistrust would give way to mutual confidence. Uncertainty and insecurity would give way to security. Anxiety would give way to optimism".We are realists. We do not expect such ambitious results to be achieved overnight. Vienna is only one step in a long process of building confidence between East and West, but it is an important one which gives opportunities which must not be missed.First and foremost, Vienna is an opportunity to take stock of the achievements of the Helsinki process and to review the implementation of the commitments entered into by 35 countries. Secondly, it is an opportunity to look for new ways of ensuring that those commitments are better carried out, and for new areas of East-West co-operation.
1191 Superficially, there sometimes seems to be a tension between these various aspects. Reviewing implementation of commitments means exposing the failure of the Soviet Union and some Eastern European countries to treat their citizens humanely. The Soviet Union used to say that such exposure was unwarranted interference in internal affairs, which contradicted the search for new ways of co-operation.
In reality, of course, there is no contradiction, for greater East-West confidence, and better co-operation, can come about only against a background of frankness and truth in acknowledging where commitments are not being honoured. In the past few years, even the Soviet authorities have come to accept that human rights and humanitarian questions are a proper subject for international discussion.
Readiness to discuss is one thing; readiness to improve respect for human rights across the board is another. We are unfortunately still a long way away from that. The release by the Soviet Union of Anatoly Shcharansky, Yuri Orlov and others is very welcome, but it is not nearly enough.
We must not forget the continued existence of that unnecessary monstrosity, the Berlin wall, the enormous number of German, Jewish, Turkish and other ethnic would-be emigrants from Warsaw pact countries, the systematic wasteful jamming of western broadcasts to the east, the recent cri de coeur from individuals in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic and Poland on the 30th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution and the continuing Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Nor must we forget those many individuals of differing creeds in the Soviet Union who are persecuted merely for seeking freedom of religious expression. Those are things the whole House will want to recollect. That is the reality of life behind the iron curtain.
Those are issues which Ministers and officials raise regularly with the Soviet and East European authorities in the CSCE framework and bilaterally. Recently my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary raised our concern over Soviet human rights abuses when he met the Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr. Shevardnadze, in Vienna. The Vienna meeting offers the opportunity patiently to press the Soviet Union and other East European countries to act more humanely. Change, when it comes, will largely be internally generated. However, we can help that process by reminding those countries of the standards to which they subscribed at Helsinki, by continuing to press for improvement and by showing that our concern is wholly compatible with the contacts and dialogue we want to encourage between East and West.
The meeting starts with fair omens. At the preparatory meeting, which settled the arrangements and agenda, we and our partners and allies obtained some modest improvements on previous meetings. There will be a rather longer period for reviewing implementation of existing commitments. Since that review is at the heart of the meeting, we welcome it. Rather more sessions will be open to journalists and others. That too is welcome. Another good omen is the recent successful conclusion of the CDE Stockholm agreement on confidence and security building measures.
The Vienna meeting will start with a review of implementation, or stocktaking, which will last into the new year. I have said enough to show that we attach priority to this part of the proceedings, and want to see a 1192 full and thorough debate which does not gloss over the shortcomings of the Soviet Union and East European countries in human rights and contacts.
But the CSCE process ranges much more widely than human rights. It is a conference on security and cooperation in Europe. The Government's aim is to maintain a balance between all elements of the process. This means maintaining or restoring momentum in each of the three CSCE baskets. I will remind the House that basket I deals with basic principles, including human rights and security, basket II concentrates on economic co-operation, science and technology and the environment, and basket III concentrates on human contacts, information, culture and education.
We will aim at Vienna to reaffirm the West's longstanding view that these areas are linked, and that detente — for want of a better word — is indivisible and not susceptible to partial interpretation in terms of subject or geographical area. We will go on to stress that security cannot be divorced from the political, economic and human aspects of relations between states. Confidence and mutual trust cannot develop properly against a background of repression of human rights. When the conference goes on to consider new proposals for developing the CSCE process, our priorities will be in the areas where performance falls furthest behind commitments—military security, human rights and information.
Let me first deal with security. The Stockholm agreement is a major CSCE achievement. If implemented thoroughly — we will insist on that — it will be an important contribution towards greater openness about military activities in Europe. By establishing detailed provisions for on-site inspection, including on Soviet territory, the agreement breaks new ground. It shows that progress can be made in arms control negotations with the Soviet Union provided we are clear about our objectives.
The Stockholm agreement—the details of which will be familiar to the House — represents a significant achievement for the United Kingdom. Our delegation played a major role in the negotiation, particularly in the crucial discussions on verification. The excellent co-ordination with our partners and allies was an essential condition of success.
The task now is to build on this achievement. The Vienna meeting must help find ways to do this. We and our allies are currently considering the way forward in the NATO high level task force set up—at Franco-British initiative—by Foreign Ministers at Halifax in May. We intend that their final report in December will set the broad lines of the allied approach when discussion resumes at Vienna in the new year. There is clearly scope for further work on measures to increase confidence and stability. But we must also keep in mind our objective of working towards reductions leading to parity at lower levels of conventional forces in Europe. We hope, and will continue to insist, that the Stockholm agreement should now be matched by progress in the mutual and balanced force reductions talks at Vienna, where the major Western proposal—again initiated by Britain—of December last still requires a substantial response from the Warsaw pact.
In the vital "human dimension" of the CSCE process, Vienna must build on the discussions of those specialised meetings since Madrid which did not produce final documents. We will take the Western proposals tabled at the Ottawa human rights meeting, the Budapest cultural forum and the Berne experts meeting on human contacts 1193 as our starting point in considering new texts on which we might agree. We also see value in the possibility of an experts meeting on information after Vienna. This is an important aspect of the Final Act which has been rather neglected since Madrid. I can think of no better venue for such a meeting than London, with its tradition of vigorous and free journalism and broadcasting.
The CSCE is about people, and their values, it is about individuals. We are regularly asked to raise individual cases in CSCE meetings. My hon. Friend has mentioned several examples of these—and five proposals—of which I have taken careful note. I will ensure that his comments are passed to the head of the United Kingdom CSCE delegation, Mr. Laurence O'Keeffe. I assure my hon. Friend that we share the concerns expressed and take parliamentary and public views into account when considering which matters to raise.
1194 We do not always raise all the cases brought to our attention in plenary meetings. Sometimes we decide quite deliberately to raise such matters in private, bilateral sessions. There is, after all, a place for quiet, not megaphone, diplomacy.
For long-standing and well-understood reasons, we cannot commit ourselves to raising particular cases on specific occasions, but we recognise our obligation to the individuals concerned; and we will always be alive to opportunities to help them. We will ensure that the problems that their cases represent are fully and fairly addressed at Vienna.
The Government will maintain pressure at Vienna on the Soviet Union and East European countries to improve the lives of the people of Europe. This is an essential factor in maintaining public support for the CSCE process—a process which we believe lies at the very core of East-West relations.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to eleven o'clock.