Sarah speaking about human rights, Darfur and Balkan war criminals

Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to European Parliament on Tue 11th Dec 2007

Sarah Ludford, on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Mr President, I think the European Parliament has started off well towards the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the award of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the impressive Mr Salih Mahmoud Osman.

But he told us that we are failing in our duty to offer protection to the people of Darfur and that the EU needed to put determination and resources, including troops, into that effort. How can it be that an EU that preaches human rights allows the murder of 600 000 people and the displacement of four million? The EU must build up its capacity to intervene in crisis situations such as this. Without action, our words on the promotion of shared values are so much hot air. I think many of my constituents and the suffering people of Darfur will have been astonished at the sight of EU leaders enjoying cocktails in Lisbon last weekend with the Presidents of both Zimbabwe and Sudan.

A major gap in the Council and Commission's 2007 human rights report is any response to the revelations, not least by this Parliament, of EU governments' collusion in extraordinary rendition. We are told that the EU has been active on the issue of torture. How can it be that an EU that stands for human rights and the elimination of torture has offered no true accountability or establishment of the truth, but only blank denials and bland assurances for its own involvement in this barbarity? The signing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights this week - welcome as it is, not least as it will be the first time that sexual orientation discrimination is banned in an international human rights instrument - rings hollow if we see hypocrisy in practice.

Lastly, Mr Osman also warned that justice and accountability must not be compromised by a political deal and that the cycle of impunity must be broken. I think we can apply that warning to the current situation in the Balkans. The European Union must not allow itself to be blackmailed by Serbia into signing the Association Agreement as a sweetener for the loss of Kosovo, unless and until Ratko Mladi? and Radovan Karadži? are delivered to The Hague. We cannot sweep aside the judgment of Hague prosecutor Carla Del Ponte that the Serbian Government has deliberately failed to deliver Mladi? and Karadži? to justice. We cannot reward Serbia for holding back from a violent reaction over Kosovo.