Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 107)
WEDNESDAY 21 APRIL 2004
MR ROY
ISBISTER, MR
ED CAIRNS
AND MR
ROBERT PARKER
Q100 Chairman: Finally, on the EU
arms embargo on China, there is some debate about whether or not
it should be relaxed.
Mr Parker: Amnesty is not saying
lift it or keep it. What we are saying is, having put it in place
on the grounds of human rights and internal repression, these
should be the benchmarks against which any decision to lift it
or keep it is taken. I will not go into the human rights situation
in China because it has been very well documented. Suffice to
say that the use of the death penalty is still widespread, with
torture, unfair trials, repression in Tibet and elsewhere, and
there has been no investigation into the events of 1989 crackdown
which led to the imposition of the embargo—
Q101 Chairman: I understand that
but very quickly, because of time, some would say that if we are
talking about human rights concerns there is Saudi Arabia, and
there is no EU arms embargo there. Talking about proliferation
you mentioned Pakistan, and there is no EU arms embargo on exports
to Pakistan. Some would say that China is being treated relatively
harshly by the European Union in comparison with policies towards
other countries that are human rights abusers.
Mr Isbister: Our response to that
would be, and in our audit we mention it on a couple of occasions,
that embargos could be used more widely. The answer to this is
not to turn round and say that you lift the embargos that exist
because in the league table of the recipients somebody is above
somebody else, but you should ask whether there are other areas
where maybe tighter restrictions should be put in place.
Q102 Mr Blunt: Can I ask about end-use
monitoring? Before coming on to what the government's role might
be, how effective do you think NGOs are at end-use monitoring
and highlighting inappropriate use of weapons in countries around
the world? The informal system?
Mr Cairns: We would not see ourselves
as major players in that, for obvious security reasons. Because
Oxfam has so many staff exposed in more than 100 countries it
really would be very damaging for their personal security and
the security of our programmes if we were seen by combatants in
these conflicts as monitors, so we do not see ourselves as players
in monitoring the end-use in that sense.
Q103 Mr Blunt: I understand that
but I am asking about the informal effectiveness of a very large
number of NGOs, particularly development NGOs, around the world
in many of the trouble spots. How good are they at identifying,
for example, the business in Indonesia and all these other examples
about what weapons are being used by the resistance army in Uganda
and all the rest, and at producing the intelligence for the media
who then bring it to the world's attention that these abuses are
taking place and where these arms are coming from. How effective
is that informal system do you think, or is there a vast amount
that is simply never seen?
Mr Parker: They are I think very
effective at reporting humanitarian consequences but not at reporting
what types of weaponry are being used, simply because the expertise
does not exist necessarily out in the field to identify weaponry.
On many occasions also people may be under fire so it is difficult
to try and identify the vehicle or the type of weapon that is
being used. We are trying to encourage the training of NGOs who
work on the ground, when they visit the scene of a violation,
to look around for evidence and pick it up and note down serial
numbers and report back. We are also producing handbooks for journalists
who go out to war zones and other human rights crisis zones to
look at them with a critical eye, but the majority do not look
at it like that.
Q104 Mr Blunt: I understand, but
there is obviously a considerable amount of time to accumulate
evidence. I was just asking whether you have an instinctive feel
for whether the NGOs and the media are producing the evidence
back to countries. My impression is that the United Kingdom is
the subject of great sensitivity; one only has to look at the
whole history of the existence of this Committee, the Scott inquiry,
and the fact that these are matters of very significant concern
in the press. I instinctively think that the United Kingdom informally,
the NGOs and the media are quite good at this, it being an issue
of significant public concern. Do you agree, or do you think that
in a sense the informal monitoring system is missing quite a lot?
Mr Isbister: Some is done, and
probably more could be done, but there is also a frustration about
how information is used by government when it is produced. If
you use Indonesia as an example—
Q105 Mr Blunt: That is not what I
am asking. I am asking about getting this into the public domain
and it being an issue of public interest and controversy. How
good are the media and the NGOs, the non governmental elements,
at raising public concern about this? I think you are quite good.
Do you?
Mr Parker: It is too much of an
ad hoc piecemeal approach to be able to say that it is good and
I think what Roy was about to say was that when some of this evidence
is produced it hardly ever gets you anywhere so it puts people
off.
Q106 Mr Blunt: The government's principal
argument against introducing a formalised system of monitoring
such as the American Blue Lantern programme is that that does
not really work. Do you think such a formalised system can be
made to work and, if we have one, who should pay for it?
Mr Isbister: The second question
is a good one! On the first one, I do not think it would ever
be completely effective and I think that is a frustration as well,
that the government builds a straw man of an end-use monitoring
system that we are not talking about. We see it as one of the
measures you would use to try and limit the amount of misuse of
arms that goes on rather than stop it entirely. If you have a
system in place you are likely to have more effect than if you
do not, and if you look at the Blue Lantern system and the investigations
they do, I think around about 25% of them per year turn up a negative
response. Those cases are ones that would not have otherwise come
to light, so then you can try and do something about them. Also,
because you have the US taking this seriously, if you then lump
in the United Kingdom introducing some kind of similar system
along with 24 other EU Member States, then you are starting to
build up a far bigger stick with which to beat the misusers of
arms, especially if you can turn this into a case of "If
you misuse the weapons we are exporting then not only do you risk
future export licences from us but from all our EU partners."
And if you could do it, you should also get the US involved with
this kind of process as well. So what I mean is that if the United
Kingdom has a problem with end-use they pass that information
on to all the other EU Member States and to the US.
Q107 Mr Blunt: I am asking you a
process question really about how effective you think a formalised
system would be. The government says that in the American system
the evidence does not support that we should go down that route
with such a formalised bureaucratic structure in the way they
do it.
Mr Isbister: I would have thought
it should take place because you will have an effect. You will
not wipe out all problems, but you will have an effect. On the
who-should-pay-for-it side of things, I cannot say I have really
thought of that but I would have thought that if the state is
taking responsibility for ensuring or doing its best to ensure
that arms do not end up in the wrong hands, then the state should
be willing to take on the costs involved with that.
Chairman: I think we will leave it there.
Thank you very much indeed and thank you for your written evidence.
We are always grateful and no doubt we shall meet again in the
near future.
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