Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Rt Hon David Miliband MP, Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Thank you for your letter of 17 December concerning
the FCO current Travel Advice for Sudan.
Lord Malloch-Brown, the FCO Minister for Africa,
received a similar letter from the Secretary of the Sudan Volunteer
Programme (SVP), to which he replied on 23 October. I wrote to
the Rt Hon Sir Menzies Campbell on 19 November in response to
a similar letter on behalf of one of his constituents.
We welcome the Sudan Volunteer Programme's efforts
to provide English language training in Sudan, which can provide
the basis for further development in the country. Mr Wolton has
made clear his concern about the FCO travel advice for Sudan.
There is no intention of being alarmist, and the FCO certainly
does not wish to prevent people from volunteering in other countries.
However, we consider it essential for people to make informed
decisions about possible risks that they may be taking.
The FCO Travel Advice is designed to help British
travellers make their own decisions about travelling abroad, and
to help them to avoid trouble by providing information on threats
to personal safety arising from political unrest, terrorist activities,
lawlessness, violence, natural disasters, epidemics, anti-British
demonstrations and aircraft/shipping safety.
FCO Travel Advice draws on a variety of sources
including the local knowledge and experience of the FCO's overseas
Posts and intelligence assessments. A team in the FCO collates
the advice from our Posts worldwide.
The FCO Travel Advice for Sudan makes clear
throughout that the situation in Sudan is not uniform and highlights
specific areas where we advise that people do not travel for a
variety of reasons including the security situation and natural
disasters. It is regularly updated to take account of current
events.
In July 2007, following feedback from British
travellers and tour operators, we introduced four generic threat
descriptors, intended to clarify the scale of the terrorist threat
to the travelling public. Drawing from our experience of what
our customers need from Travel Advice, we consider that these
descriptions are the most helpful to the travelling public given
the innate difficulty of describing the threat from terrorism.
The descriptors, as agreed with the travel industry and other
stakeholders are:
"A high threat from terrorism" means
a high level of known terrorist activity.
"A general threat from terrorism" means
some level of known terrorist activity.
"An underlying threat from terrorism"
means a low level of known terrorist activity.
"A low threat from terrorism" means
no or very limited known terrorist activity.
Whilst our Travel Advice reflects the best judgements
we can make at the time, as we have seen in the UK, and elsewhere,
it is possible for indiscriminate attacks to take place without
prior warning. In recognition of this, our Travel Advice also
consistently makes reference to the risk of indiscriminate terrorist
attacks globally.
While every care is taken in preparing FCO Travel
Advice, the FCO does not assume any legal responsibility to those
who read the Travel Advice and who may choose to take it into
account when making any decisions relating to a particular country.
I hope that this clarifies the purpose of the FCO Travel Advice.
FCO Officials have also spoken to the SVP Secretary,
Mr Wolton. They had contacted the British Council in Khartoum
to see whether they could offer any recruitment advice: the British
Council reported that they had similar problems recruiting teachers.
Since we contacted the British Council, we have faced the high
profile case of the arrest of the British teacher, Ms Gibbons.
Given the circumstances of her arrest, we have since updated the
section on "local laws and customs" in the travel advice
to all Muslim countries. I hope that, notwithstanding this unfortunate
case, Mr Wolton will be able to find teachers to work in Sudan.
David Miliband
2 January 2008
| 
