(Dublin West): When it comes to human rights and the discussion on it, there is scarcely a subject which involves more hypocrisy on the part of those taking part. Human rights, as far as international politics and the major political forces are concerned, is really a badge of convenience. It is something with which to belt one's political opponents in different parts of the world in order to secure ends which are far from human rights but rather economic, military or political advantage.
At present NATO is engaged in a bombing campaign in the Balkans. The human rights of the Kosovars is the only reason given for that action. The brutal regime of Milosevic is correctly demonised but that demonisation is the sole excuse for the campaign. This is absolute and utter hypocrisy on the part of the major NATO powers when, at the same time as paying lip-service to human rights in the Balkans, they are blind to other grotesque abuses of human rights equal to those of Milosevic happening in other parts of the world and, even worse, being perpetrated by members of the very organisation, NATO, claiming to take a stand for human rights in the Balkans.
Turkey is one of the most prominent members of NATO and is valued by the United States, Britain and other countries. Yet, for decades, particularly in the south-east of the country, it has waged a vicious, prolonged and brutal war against an entire nation of Kurdish people within the borders of Turkey. About 15 million people have lived for a long time under a vicious state of emergency. As Amnesty International, Helsinki Watch and other human rights groups have documented repeatedly, Turkey has been guilty of grotesque abuses of human rights against the Kurdish people and those who are opposed to what is currently happening in Turkey. Not only is there a military campaign within the borders of this NATO country, but the rights of the Kurdish people to enjoy freedom of culture, language and national expression are brutally repressed. Even their language is not recognised; it is forbidden and repressed in the education system, broadcasting and publishing under the diktat that everything in the country must be Turkish.
This is an incredible state of affairs. Equally incredible is the silence of the leaders of western countries in NATO which claim to stand for and respect democratic and human rights and the silence of the Irish Government and the main political parties in the House. I am sorry Deputy Gay Mitchell could not remain in the House – like me he has many commitments. The last time we discussed this matter, which was only a few weeks ago, Deputy Gay Mitchell on behalf of Fine Gael denounced Milosevic and stood up for the actions being taken against the Milosevic regime. However, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat when I reminded him that NATO was turning a blind eye to Turkey and said that issue was for another day. It is not for another day and it is outright hypocrisy that this issue is not being highlighted. If the Government and political parties are serious about standing up for human rights, it is issues such as this that should be raised.
The other day I questioned the Taoiseach about the attitude of the Government towards the bombing campaign, in particular the appalling and growing casualty list of innocent civilians, both ethnic Albanians and innocent Serbs, resulting from the NATO bombing. The Taoiseach got quite impatient and narked when I suggested the Government had a certain moral responsibility for this appalling damage, injury and death being inflicted on innocent civilians by virtue of the signing of a declaration by EU heads of state to the effect that the bombing campaign was inevitable. Successive Governments have followed the leading countries of NATO slavishly, particularly the diktats of the Pentagon and US Administrations, when it comes to international foreign policy, and have slavishly refused to condemn anything that is done by them even when it is absolutely indefensible. For example, the US fired rockets into the Sudan, allegedly to take out a terrorist organisation. Subsequent evidence showed that what was bombed was an innocent factory. We did not utter a word of condemnation against that particular violation of human rights. I am afraid that when people stand up and condemn human rights abuses in this country it is done quite selectively and in line with the interests the Government has, or believes it has, in remaining friends with the leading countries of NATO.
According to a reply by the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, to a parliamentary question tabled by me on 26 May 1999, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has given licences for dual goods, that is, goods which could be used for civilian or military warfare. Of these, four licences have been granted for integrated circuits for products sold to Turkey while one licence has been granted for the sale of aircraft related equipment. Does the Government or the Department know or have they taken steps to see if any of this equipment is used in the campaign against the Kurdish people? Similarly, in the context of other countries which have deplorable records in human rights, have successive Governments taken measures to establish, or do they care, whether the products for which licences are issued are used to quash human rights or bolster the positions of regimes?
The history of western powers in the context of human rights, which has been followed by the current and previous Governments, is one of double standards in the extreme. There is example upon example of this. The US thought it should go to war in 1990 when Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait. Of course, a few years earlier when Saddam Hussein poisoned the people of Halabja village with a monstrous gas attack the US turned a blind eye. Why would it do otherwise when it had been arming and supporting the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and other dictatorships? It was not until the US oil supply was threatened by the dictator it had helped create and who was getting too big for his boots that the US took action.
The hypocrisy of developments over the past 20 or 30 years is evident. The result is that, unfortunately, the peoples of the world cannot rely on these powers to defend their human rights because the defence of human rights is strictly secondary to naked economic and military interests. We had the extreme example in 1973 of a democratically elected Government in Chile being overthrown brutally and tens of thousands being murdered with the direct connivance of the US Administration and its agencies. This shows that the peoples who are repressed and downtrodden must rely primarily on their own resources and secondarily on international solidarity between the peoples of other countries, but they may not rely on the military and political establishments which have double standards.
In the course of two months the plight of the unfortunate people of Kosovo has been disastrously exacerbated by the appalling miscalculations of NATO's bombing. This has allowed the dictator Milosevic to do in two months what he could not have achieved in years. With the encouragement of the Serb opposition – the people who hate Milosevic – who stand for democracy and human rights in Serbia, Milosevic would be overthrown before he could succeed in doing anything to the extent to which he has succeeded under the cover of NATO bombs.
The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy O'Donnell, is here representing the Government. I want her to take this opportunity to condemn the use of cluster bombs by NATO in residential areas in the Balkans. It is surely a crime to use bombs which are designed to inflict death and maim personnel, including civilians.
Other matters relating to this country have been mentioned. There is the question of the few thousand people seeking asylum here, many of whose cases have been in the pipeline for many years, who are still being denied the right to work in the State. The right to work, the dignity which comes from work and the economic rewards from work are fundamental to the enjoyment of life and to having the means to live in reasonable comfort. To continue to deny to those few thousand people this fundamental right is a gross denial of a basic human right. The Minister of State or whoever will reply to the debate on behalf of the Government should specify why the Government is continuing to deny this at a time when FÁS is sending recruiters around Europe looking for 10,000 people to fill positions which it cannot fill. That is deplorable, to say the least.
The plight of children over many decades in institutions run by the religious has been dramatically highlighted of late and that is as it should be. We have seen the perversion of State institutions which put a terrible burden on a generation of people who went through them and we must pay the cost. Happily, at last restitution is about to be made and that is as it should be.
However, VOCAL Ireland, which stands for Victims Of Child Abuse Laws, is a small group of people who allege that they have been falsely accused of sexual abuse of children often in the background of the context of bitter matrimonial or partnership separations, etc. Were anybody to be so accused it would be a monstrous perversion of his or her human rights and of any standards of justice and decency, but the group feels quite isolated at present because, naturally and correctly, the impulse of the vast majority in society is to protect children and to expose child abuse and bring it out of the closet where it was hidden for so long and nothing must cut across that. However, if there are cases, as is alleged by these people who are passionately convinced that they have been falsely accused, then they must be heard also.
In documentation which VOCAL Ireland sent to me and many Members of the Dáil in recent months, the group included the notes of a meeting between one of the groups representing these people and a principal officer of the Department of Health and Children. The principal officer's minute states:
I am conscious of the possibility that an injustice may have been done in one or more of the cases raised by the Group, most of which relate to the mid-1980's when our services for investigating allegations of child sexual abuse were not as developed as they are today.
The official further stated that this raises the question of restoring individuals' good names and/or providing compensation for distress, etc. The minute further states:
Short of establishing a Statutory Inquiry, it would be impossible for us to have the original evidence reviewed . .
An inquiry should be set up to examine the serious grievances of this group of people who are a small minority. It would establish the truth, allow them to tell their story and resolve what may be a serious miscarriage of justice.
Human rights touch on all aspects of human life. People have referred here to the situation in prisons, the fact that prisoners come from the deprived sections of society and the implications of that.
People have referred to the housing problem. That is quite correct except that when it was being raised by the main political parties they failed to draw the conclusion that the economic system which dominates society, that is, capitalism, is responsible for a systematic denial of human rights in that regard.