Soviet Union (Hansard, 13 February 1991)

§ 5. Mr. John Marshall
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he last met the Soviet Foreign Minister to discuss human rights in the Soviet Union.

§ Mr. Douglas Hogg
My right hon. Friend last discussed human rights with the Soviet Foreign Minister during his visit to Moscow in September 1990.

§ Mr. Marshall
Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the continued enslavement of the Baltic states and the refusal of exit visas to a number of refuseniks is intolerable? Will he remind the Russian authorities that we judge them not by Mr. Gorbachev's speeches but by his deeds and that some of his recent actions are offensive to all decent-minded men and women?

§ Mr. Hogg
On the first part of my hon. Friend's question, we believe that the peoples of the three Baltic republics have a right to self-determination and we hope that they and the Soviet Union will be able to negotiate the outcome that is wished by the people of those republics. On the second part of my hon. Friend's question, I agree entirely that the unfettered right to emigrate is one of the characteristics of an open and accountable society. There have been substantial improvements in that regard within the Soviet Union, but there is still further to go.

§ Mr. Rowlands
Before the Secretary of State meets his opposite number in Moscow about human rights issues, will he make immediate inquiries of President Gorbachev as to whether the latter supports the views of his own Prime Minister that somehow there was an absurd plot to destabilise the rouble in recent weeks?

§ Mr. Hogg
That allegation by the Soviet Prime Minister was manifestly dotty, and Mr. Gorbachev is not dotty.

§ Mr. William Powell
In all the representations that my hon. and learned Friend and other members of the Government have made to the Soviet authorities about the disgraceful shootings in Vilnius and Riga in recent weeks, 842 have the Government received any satisfactory explanation from the Soviet authorities as to why they took place; and will my hon. and learned Friend continue to stress to the Soviet authorities that it would be very difficult for the western powers to be accommodating to the economic needs of the Soviet Union until a satisfactory explanation is given?

§ Mr. Hogg
We have had a number of explanations from the Soviet authorities, some more persuasive than others. As for the second part of my hon. Friend's question, this is indeed extremely regrettable. The British Government, in concert with others, want to signal our disapproval and condemnation of what is happening by, for example, suspending the non-humanitarian aid element of the Rome declaration. So I support the latter part of my hon. Friend's suggestion.

§ Mrs. Mahon
Will the Minister reconsider his letter to me about bringing up at the United Nations the repression and killing in the Baltic states? Will he, even now, acknowledge that it is not good enough to say, as he did in his letter, that he does not think the United Nations Security Council is likely to solve the issue. Does not that show appalling double standards, given the Government's reliance on the United Nations for everything they say about the Gulf?

§ Mr. Hogg
The hon. Lady does not fully comprehend the jurisdiction and competence of the Security Council. If we tried to raise this matter in the Security Council I am afraid that it would be frustrated by endless sterile procedural arguments. What we need to do and are doing is to take every other opportunity open to us—they are many—to make it plain to the Soviet Government not merely that we condemn what they have been doing in the Baltic republics but that they will have to pay a price in terms of lost co-operation with the west.