Mesopotamia (Hansard, 20 July 1994)

§ Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and Devon, West)
I congratulate the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), on his recent appointment. I know that, this morning, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), the new Minister, will be first class in his post.
It has been a long night. It was a long day yesterday for those who waited to discover what their change of portfolio might be. It was a long day on the Opposition Benches, waiting for announcements of shadow leaders and deputy shadow leaders. Our time span of difficulties here in this Palace of Westminster is just a tiny flicker in the time span of the suffering of the people on whose plight I wish to dwell this morning. I speak of the marsh arabs of the Mesopotamian marshes, and of the southern Iraqi Shi-ites, whose lives bordered the Mesopotamian marshlands until so very recently.
Thirty thousand square miles of antique waterways, with 10,000 square miles of that large expanse always under water, have been destroyed. Earlier this year, the Royal Air Force gave me to display, through the courtesy of the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, now chairman of the Conservative party, some material showing the extent of the works that had caused that devastating damage. It was a tragic sight—enormous bulwarks, dams, the type of things that one can imagine would divert all the rivers of the United Kingdom.
Millions and millions of dollars have been poured into taking away the ancient Mesopotamian marshlands, the waters of Babylon, and creating an arid desert. There are those who claim—Saddam Hussein and his minions among them—that the consequential burning of the reed huts, the marshland villages, the rice farms, the date palms, all the historic agricultural produce of the marshlands, is all done for beneficial agricultural purposes.
I am chairman of the AMAR—assisting marsh arabs and refugees—appeal and chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for Iraq. In that capacity, I have had the opportunity to visit the area and to listen to the hundreds of thousands of victims whose homes have been destroyed, apparently for good, and whose lives have been wrecked irreparably.
I recall at the end of the war, when I was a small child, people, dreadfully full of guilt, asking, "Why didn't we listen? Why didn't we listen to the Jews when they said that they were being exterminated? Why didn't we listen when the concentration camps were being built and used?" Today, there are people who still refuse to listen to victims unless they see them on the television, go to Rwanda or experience at first hand the Bosnian tragedies. I am ashamed of those people. They refuse to listen to the plight of the victims. But it is the victims who can tell us of the gruesome tortures and the lifelong incarcerations in gaols below the surface of the ground in Baghdad and who, today, tell us of the degradation of the marshlands and the despoliation of that wonderful, unique habitat for wildlife, birds, animals and, most importantly, humans.
I am engaged in saving the survivors—there are 100,000 of them. Those survivors have fled into Iran. Some 30,000 of them are in Saudi Arabia, but it has not been possible to visit them. In Iran, we have a team of doctors, 60 medical people, 160 teachers and a number of people 543 who support and help us. Those people are working day and night. In conditions of acute danger, they have crept back into the marshlands where they are managing to save the lives—temporarily at least—of the remaining 50,000 or so marsh arabs who are coming ever closer to the border with Iran. I do not know whether they will come through because dams, and yet more dams, have been erected. Along the top of those dams, as I have seen, soldiers stand with machine guns and bombard the people as they attempt their final few yards to escape. Now, a road has been created along which armed vehicles are roaming along the border.
We care for those who can get out. Last August, when I was there, 11,000 people streamed through our medical clinic. The British Government have been helping us and I want to give warm thanks for the competence of the Overseas Development Administration to the Minister for Overseas Development and her senior staff—Mr. Ron White now has the Iraq desk in the ODA.
We have had consistent and wonderfully sensitive and thoughtful support from ECHO—the European Community humanitarian aid organisation that is based in Brussels. Mr. Gomez Reino, Mr. Donato Chiarini and Mr. Richard Lewartowski have been consistent and un-derstanding in their support. I was delighted when Dr. Rietweldt managed to visit the region and see a small portion of our work the other day.
Iran, a country more sinned against than sinning, has given us consistent and tremendous partnership support throughout, which still continues. A representative of the president came from Iran the other day and I was fortunate enough to introduce him to the Foreign Secretary. They were in complete agreement about humanitarian work. They were wonderful supporters from Iran.
Surely the time has come to start a proper dialogue with Iran on the cultural and, perhaps, the religious differences that have kept our countries apart for too long. I want that 544 dialogue to start under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. I am co-chairman of the UNESCO committee in the House of Commons and I believe that we might manage to begin a substantial, far-reaching dialogue that could begin to knit together those unravelled threads of cultural dialogue that have stretched back over so many centuries between two historic civilisations.
It is difficult to have any feelings other than disgust and disdain for Saddam Hussein, a man whose sole purpose seems to be to wipe out everybody who voices even the most modest disagreement for his unbearable and inhumane policies. That man is a genocidal monster. I am so grateful to the Government for all the support they have given to me and others in attempting to repair just a fraction of the damage that he has caused.

§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) knows that I disagree with her deeply on the substance of what she has said. However, I want to defend her right in raising a very important subject, placed at No. 9 in the Consolidated Fund debates, to have proper time for her speech and to have a proper ministerial reply— [Interruption.] I am on a point of order.

§ Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes)
Order. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that, although it is an interesting point, it is not a point of order.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I have already said that, in my view, the hon. Gentleman did not raise a point of order. It might be a point of substance, but it is not a point of order.