House of Commons Hansard Debates for 3 Jul 1991

Mr. David Howell (Guildford) : Four months after the end of the Kuwait war, millions of people in Iraq continue to live through a horrific nightmare. The human tragedy in Iraqi Kurdistan has been vividly portrayed and we have witnessed it on our television screens. However, another tragedy that is possibly more appalling has been unfolding in southern Iraq without the benefit of the television cameras. It is, therefore, appropriate that the House should have a short debate this afternoon on the Iraqi refugee issue.

The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs is grateful that time has been made available for a discussion on the brief initial report produced by the Committee following its recent visit to nine middle east countries, including Iraq and Turkey. Some members of the Select Committee visited the Iranian refugee camps for the Shi'ite refugees and the Committee is grateful to everyone who assisted us, including the Iranian authorities, in that visit and in the associated visits in the middle east.

As the report is merely a short initial report, it seeks to do no more than to make observations and raise questions which we hope will help the House when it examines some of the enormous and awesome issues raised by the Iraqi refugee crisis and associated upheavals in the world.

Our report makes four main observations. The first is that, until and unless there are effective United Nations forces in both the north and south of Iraq, it would be wrong for the coalition forces which have been

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safeguarding the Iraqi Kurds and the Turkomans in the north to leave. Between the Committee reaching that view and the publication of the document, the American and British Governments have endorsed a similar view.

We were glad to hear the views and hopes of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister who emphasised on 25 June that before there was any withdrawal of coalition forces there should be four conditions : clear United Nations forces on the ground, clear warnings that renewed repression would be met with the severest response, a continuing deterrent military presence in the region and, finally, the maintenance of sanctions against the Iraqi regime. In other words, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister endorsed the view held by many of us, that while the United Nations security guard force is building up--I understand that about 400 men should be in place by mid July, which is not enough--we will have to consider new structures and ways to safeguard those people to prevent another horrific round of retreats to the hills with the associated starvation and deprivation.

The report's second observation is that the refugee crisis is far from over. The Kurds continue to live in fear. Of course, there is hopeful talk of a deal with Saddam Hussein. However, all of us who have watched that man perform over recent months and years must reach the obvious conclusion about the value of any agreement, dealings or undertakings into which he may enter. We would place a very low value on such undertakings.

In the south, thousands of Shia are locked in the marshes. They cannot decide where to go and constantly fear harassment from Iraqi troops. We have received reports that 800,000 people are affected, but new information from aerial photographs is that the figure may be considerably less and that perhaps 50,000 or 60,000 people are affected. We simply do not know the correct number. However, tens of thousands of people are locked in the marshes and do not know whether to go forward or back. They are living in trembling fear. It is obvious to the House, was obvious to the Select Committee, and I hope is obvious to the international community, that there will be no lasting solution to the endless fear and terror of those people while Saddam Hussein remains in power.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : I agree totally with the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) that there will be no peace in Iraq while Saddam Hussein remains in power. Does not that mean that we should be somewhat critical of the allies' decision to terminate the war when they did? I recognise the difficulties and the case is not clear cut, but within the Security Council resolutions for peace and security in the area there was undoubtedly a case to do what the allies rightly decided to do with regard to Germany in 1945.

Mr. Howell : That is very much a matter for debate. My view is rather close to that of the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), but I must not anticipate a longer and more substantial report from the Select Committee on the security situation in the middle east following the liberation of Kuwait. I am aware that many people share the hon. Gentleman's view.

We must bear in mind that whatever arrangements or dispositions we make for troops--be they UN security forces or whatever--to protect the refugees, those arrangements are temporary because those people will live

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in fear whatever we do so long as there is a violent dictator in Baghdad whose habits, character and track record have been to persecute and kill.

The Select Committee's third observation is that the great refugee crisis has placed a huge strain on the Overseas Development Administration. We have high praise for the way in which the ODA has reacted in trying to meet the crisis. We must recognise, as I am sure the ODA recognises, that the Government Department, in addition to the Iraqi refugee crisis, is meeting four other huge crises of disruption, pressure and potential disaster around the world. Although there have been the horrors of starvation, killing and dying in Iraq, such things are happening on as great a scale, even on a more evil and terrifying scale, as a result of natural forces in the Horn of Africa. There are horrors in Bangladesh, where vast storms caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

Finally, the ODA is the lead Department in coping with developments and in encouraging democratic development throughout eastern Europe. That objective is by no means yet secure and much work and effort will have to be expended on it. That objective may not be on the same scale as the tragedy of the others, but it is a major task. Let us hope that it does not become a tragedy, as it will if the trouble in the Balkans affects the rest of eastern Europe. The ODA is under enormous strain and we welcome the decision to review the way in which it can meet those huge burdens in future.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : The right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) has rightly underlined the huge task facing the ODA. Is there not a case for lifting sanctions, particularly in relation to electricity generating equipment ? Until electricity is flowing, it will be impossible to cope with a situation in which, according to Harvard medical school, more than 170,000 children under the age of five will die this year. Whatever one thinks about sanctions, that is the root of the matter.

Mr. Howell : I hope that the hon. Gentleman gets a chance to develop that thought during the debate because he refers to an important and difficult balance. All humanitarian instincts point us towards doing everything possible to avoid the prospects that he has described, but there is the equally terrible thought that, if Saddam Hussein is let off the hook and is allowed to use his resources, from selling oil, for example, to rearm and re-equip, he will carry on killing. One must balance one against the other. I do not pretend that the Committee has found the answer to the question of how to ensure that humanitarian considerations prevail without also ensuring that new resources fall into the hands of that man, who is still in office and apparently in total control of inner Iraq and ready to spend more money on more weapons to carry out more killings, more persecution and more harassment. That is the difficulty. We must watch the practices and policies of the Government of Iraq--that is the policy of the United Nations--when undertaking any review of the present sanctions and embargo provisions.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : Will the right hon. Gentleman also consider the question of our relations with dictators such as Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath regime over many years? After all, the British Government effectively loaned that regime £1 billion over the past 10

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years and a great deal of Saddam Hussein's power and war machine was the product of close western support for his regine.

Mr. Howell : The hon. Gentleman is taking us, once again, into the broader area of middle eastern security and to the question of how on earth we can secure any improvements in future, after having failed to produce them in the past. The next report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs will look into that. Although we do not claim to have the ultimate wisdom, that will be the opportunity to raise such points.

The fourth observation of our immediate report on refugees was that the strains which have fallen on the ODA, which has struggled excellently to meet them, have fallen also on the international relief organisations. Our report points to ways in which the burdens and pressures on those organisations have led, despite much dedicated work by the people who work in them, to breakdowns in co-ordination and to a lack of effectiveness. We have outlined a number of suggestions and proposals about how the international relief organisations can be strengthened.

That leads me finally to the three questions that we raised beyond our observations. First, how can the international relief structures be better organised? A number of agencies are involved, including several United Nations' agencies led by the UN Disaster Relief Office. We questioned whether that agency could perform its task in the way that it should. We welcome the idea that was suggested by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in concert with the German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, that an individual should be appointed co-ordinator for disaster relief work in the United Nations--a sort of overlord--to begin to bring together the different strands of work that some of my hon. Friends who visited the area found sadly disconnected and, in some places, disordered. Our second question is, can the international organisations, especially the United Nations, deliver help on the scale that is required when humanitarian disasters occur, such as the man-made or dictator-caused disaster in Iraq? The difficulty is that the United Nations is now being asked to deliver security as well as supplies, help and succour to refugees on a scale and with a prominence and effectiveness that, in its present form, it is simply not equipped to meet. The time may well have come to rethink the structure of the international relief agencies so that they can co-ordinate their efforts, work more effectively with the different donor nations and meet the now big demands of the international community more effectively.

The third question is even bigger and leads to the edges of the refugee report and to wider political questions. It is whether it is possible to clarify the powers of the United Nations and its blessed agencies or direct agencies to intervene. That is the question at the edges of this tragic saga. The sticking point or the original base point is chapter 1, article 2, paragraph 7 of the charter of the United Nations, as qualified by chapter 7, which lays down the degree to which, if at all, there can be intervention in the domestic and internal affairs of a nation. Certain derogations are suggested relating to humanitarian aid if there is a threat of genocide or if--this is a loose definition--the peace, security and stability of the surrounding area

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and the international order is threatened. That is not a question that we can consider fully in a report on refugees, but our report concluded :

"if clearer rules were established"--

in relation to intervention by the United Nations and its agencies--

" not only might grinding, endless and bloody conflicts all over the world be brought to an end but also the refugee relief process could be simplified."

We hope that our views will be of use to the House. The time has come for a new agenda for looking at the key problems of disaster relief. I am sure that the whole Committee hopes that its short report will start the thinking processes and the answering of the questions, which will lead to a more effective ability to respond both nationally and internationally-- despite all that has been done in tremendously difficult circumstances--to the disasters that we must realistically, if pessimistically, admit lie ahead. There have been many disasters in the present global order and it looks as though there will be more. We shall need more vigorous co- ordination and more effective means to meet them.

5.6 pm

Mrs. Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) : I welcome the clear statement of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that, unless and until a United Nations force can provide effective safeguards for the Kurds and the other persecuted people of north and south Iraq, it would be wrong for the coalition forces to leave them to the mercy of Saddam Hussein. The Select Committee was repeatedly told by refugees that they would not return to their own country until Saddam Hussein was removed from power. I have heard that view on many occasions, and who can criticise those people for expressing that view? Many of us believe that the danger will persist so long as Saddam Hussein continues his evil and brutal tyranny in Iraq and continues to thumb his nose at the United Nations by denying its inspectors access to Iraqi nuclear equipment. He must take the consequences of such actions.

Evidence of torture and repression is legion. On 27 May The Independent headed Robert Fisk's recent report on his visit to the cells of Iraq's secret police in Dihok :

"A testimony to brutality written in blood".

The article stated :

"The last young women to be imprisoned here died in these fetid cells two months ago. The Peshmerga say they found three of their bodies, naked and with their hands bound, on the floor. One of the girls was 12 years old. Another, older woman had been gang-raped and died later. Anyone who wants to now what propelled the one and a half million Kurds to flee their homes has only to visit Dihok." For eight years I have chaired CARDRI, the Campaign Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq. We have continually exposed the brutality of the Baath regime and have linked up with those in Iraq who are struggling for human and democratic rights in immensely difficult and dangerous conditions. Many have since died. In 1983 an Iraqi mother told us about her son, who was typical of so many thousands of people who have died in Iraq. He was a medical student who went out one day and never returned. Many months later she was told to go to the mortuary and collect his body. She was led to the room where the body was to be found and she said : "When I entered and saw what was inside, I could not believe that there are people who could do such things to other human beings. I looked around and saw nine bodies. My son was in a chair. He had blood all over him, his body was eaten away and bleeding. I looked at the others stretched

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out on the floor all burnt one of them had his chest slit with a knife another's body carried the marks of a hot domestic iron all over his head to his feet everyone was burnt in a different way. Another one had his legs cut off with an axe. His arms were also axed. One of them had his eyes gouged out and his nose and ears cut off".

There were so many of those chilling accounts that at times, over the years, I found them difficult to believe. But now, the horrors of Saddam's Iraq will continue to shock and astound the world. The stories of the two Britons, Doug Brand and Patrick Trigg, are yet more evidence that nothing has changed. As in the past, Saddam's policy is to intimidate, persecute and kill.

It is therefore to the shame of this Government and others throughout the world that, even after Halabja in 1988, Saddam Hussein was still treated as a valued trading partner. The Ministry of Defence allowed the sale to Iraq of a design for a missile testing concrete bunker, even though there was a ban on arms sales to Iraq. That is yet another example of turning a blind eye to the spirit of the regulations. I hope that a valuable lesson has been learnt.

Mr. Corbyn : Does my hon. Friend recall that she and I worked together for many years in CARDRI in support of the democratic opposition in Iraq? As early as the 1980s we asked the British Government to cease their trading practices with Iraq because they were allowing that brutal regime to develop and to attack the Kurdish people. Does my hon. Friend not think that now is the time to recognise that there must be some sanity in the arms trade and trading matters in general to protect people and human rights from Governments such as the Baath regime in Iraq?

Mrs. Clwyd : I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I remember well that in 1988 he, I and others argued in this House that the Government should not double export credit guarantees to Iraq. Our pleas were totally ignored and the Government went ahead and doubled export credit guarantees. Too often, one Government Department has said one thing while another has done precisely the opposite with regard to countries controlled by oppressive tyrants.

The Select Committee highlights the problems of the refugee crisis. I saw for myself the terrible suffering of the refugees who had fled in their millions to the border between Iran and Iraq. The freezing cold, rain and mud have gone and the heat and dust have taken their place. Thankfully, most refugees now have shelter, food and safety. Save the Children Fund gives its observations and experiences in an interesting report on Iraq, and notes that the death rate was high in Turkey, with deaths estimated at 50,000, whereas in Iran the death rate was, by all accounts, slight. While Turkey continued to receive massive support from many Governments, including aircraft, millions of pounds of material supplies and hundreds of medical personnel, Iran--with the bulk of the refugees--received very little. Iran did not receive the assistance that it should have been given to deal with a much larger number of refugees.

Estimates of the number of refugees who have returned to Iraq vary widely. The Iranians believe that up to 750,000 people will stay behind in Iran even if an agreement between the Kurds and the Iraq Government is reached. The remaining refugee camps now need to be equipped for the winter conditions to come. Aid

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organisations are concerned that the present tent accommodation in the north-west provinces would be totally inadequate for those conditions.

Displaced Kurdish people in the regions of Iraq bordering the north-east frontier with Iran are reported by many people to be facing dire health and nutritional conditions. It is still not clear how many Shi'ites have been displaced in southern Iraq. Aid agencies are concerned, as is the Select Committee, that between 400,000 and 600,000 people many have taken refuge in the marshes and that they have not received the same humanitarian attention.

As the Chairman of the Select Committee said, the refugee crisis is far from over. Up to a million refugees are still in Iran and tens of thousands of others are in Iraq. They are in no man's land, camped out on the rubble of the towns destroyed by Saddam Hussein in 1987. They still need medicines and food and it is regrettable that the British Government could not provide safe havens for them because of American opposition.

Sir Alan Glyn (Windsor and Maidenhead) : If the safe areas cannot be protected by United Nations armed forces, it is useless to leave the refugees to their fate at the hands of Saddam Hussein.

Mrs. Clwyd : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not here earlier when I said that I thought that it was important for the allies to stay to protect the Kurds and other groups.

Sir Alan Glyn : The hon. Lady did not mention armed forces.

Mrs. Clwyd : Indeed I did.

The refugees who need medicines and food but who are not covered by any of the aid agencies should be dealt with urgently.

As a Kurdish political leader emphasised when the offer of negotiations was first made by Saddam Hussein, the Kurdish question is not a refugee problem and should not become one. It is a political problem. Although the first stage of the refugee crisis is over, the long-term future of the Kurds and Shi'ites remains to be settled. As the Select Committee says, it leaves

"the grim prospect of a seemingly unending refugee operation of Palestinian proportions".

When I first told the House that Saddam Hussein wanted to negotiate with the Kurds, hon. Members laughed. That was the level of scepticism with which Saddam Hussein's words were treated. The Kurdish leaders who had to stand by and watch their people die in their thousands had no option at that time but to take up the offer and the talks have now gone on for several weeks. The agreement that was brought back to Kurdistan from Baghdad demands that the Kurds cut direct ties with the west and unite with Saddam Hussein's Baath party to crush its enemies. The agreement includes the denunciation of the United States, Iran and Zionism, and the Kurds would need the Baath party's permission to contact outside Governments and organisations. Mr. Barzani of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan and Mr. Talibani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, along with the other political leaders in Kurdistan, rightly rejected those conditions as the obligations entailed in such an offer were clearly intolerable. Once again, strengthened by the allies' agreement to support the deployment of a rapid reaction force to protect

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the Kurds, the Kurds are spelling out their own conditions. They stipulate that there can be no autonomy for the Kurds without democracy and human rights for Iraq as a whole. They have asked for the next stage of the negotiations to take place in Kurdistan rather than Baghdad. They have no intention of splitting off from the opposition to Saddam Hussein in Iraq because they know full well that they will have no long-term peace and stability unless there is peace and democracy in Iraq as a whole.

Although many of the issues raised by the Select Committee were debated in the Opposition debate on 14 May I am glad that we were able to share some of its concern--for instance, about the fact that the Overseas Development Administration is strapped for cash. As the Select Committee said, the aid programme contingency reserve has been subjected to severe strain. The Committee continued :

"this suggests that the ODA will have considerable difficulty in finding new money for further commitments entered into during the year".

The money that might have been used for long-term development purposes will need to be drawn on for emergency relief before the Treasury will provide new money. The Select Committee might have mentioned also that the overall aid budget has been slashed since 1979. It is still 11 per cent. lower in real terms than it was then. Despite continuing claims by the Government, that budget is stagnant in real terms.

The ODA lacks not only cash but staff, as we have continually pointed out. Each time we have pressed the Minister in the House we have created new jobs in the ODA's disaster and refugee unit. The numbers have risen from four to six, from six to nine and nine to 12, and I pay tribute to the staff of the unit, who had to deal with three major disasters at the same time.

We made several suggestions. We dealt with the charges for the relief effort as distributed from the Ministry of Defence to the ODA. We argued that the costs should be shared, as they are in some other countries, to reflect the training value of using the military in civilian disasters. We called for a mobile emergency volunteer force with selection and co- ordination in advance of a disaster. We called for a strengthening of the ODA's disaster unit so that it would have in-house expertise on aspects of disasters apart from rapid procurement.

We also emphasised the need to encourage a strengthening of the UN agencies most involved in responding to disasters. The UN has been criticised frequently, and often unfairly. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs. Ogata, told us at a meeting at the House yesterday that she accepted some of this criticism, but she emphasised again that the UN agencies involved in emergency operations were neither financed nor staffed to be able to meet large scale crises. She said that for every emergency the UN has to issue a fresh appeal, and pledges from donor nations come in much too slowly. She said :

"We cannot respond to emergencies on credit, or on shoestring budget living hand to mouth".

What ought we to do if we want the UN to perform more effectively in the future? First, donors must place at the disposal of the UN a standby financial reserve to pay for a response within hours of a recognised emergency. Stockpiles of basic relief items should be set up in locations easily accessible to air transport. A central databank

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should be set up on a range of goods and services that the UN can offer or mobilise. A pool of international experts is needed to respond immediately to any emergency and could be linked with civil disaster relief groups of member Governments. In other words, we need a system that gives the UN the money, the goods and the people to respond rapidly and effectively to disasters.

UN agencies, especially the UN disaster relief organisation, already exist. We should strengthen that organisation before inventing new ones or dreaming up new supremos. We should give it the means to perform its proper role. Once the UN agencies are assured of enough cash and clout to operate effectively, it will be worth reviewing their mandates to strengthen their roles. We must ensure they can meet the emergency needs of people displaced in their own countries as well as the needs of refugees who flee across borders into others.

This debate is about Iraqi refugees, but according to the UN and many other observers all of Iraq is threatened by increasing malnutrition and disease. Unfortunately, it is doubtful whether the ending of sanctions, for which some argue, would much improve the lot of ordinary Iraqis, given the inflation in that country and Saddam Hussein's priorities.

Humanitarian relief is of course exempt from sanctions, but one of the problems is that the UN does not have enough people on the ground to monitor where the relief is going. A recent example involved 12 food lorries sent into Kurdistan to feed the Kurdish refugees. Six of them ended up feeding Iraqi military personnel and the other six ended up feeding Government supporters. Unless we can guarantee that this sort of relief does not fall into the wrong hands it will be difficult to ensure that humanitarian aid goes to the people for whom it is meant.

In April, questions were asked in the House about what steps the Government were taking to secure Saddam Hussein's trial under international law on charges of war crimes. The Prime Minister told my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) that he was awaiting legal advice in the matter. Earlier, the Foreign Ministers of the European Community had called on the United Nations to consider putting Saddam Hussein and his senior aides on trial before an international court. A similar demand was made by the United States Senate foreign relations committee on 18 April. The United Nations secretary-general promised to refer the request to a special committee before taking a decision. That committee is apparently still deliberating. Why is it taking so long?

The world still has great expectations of the United Nations as a global institution which can provide the vision and the mechanism for reducing global tensions and promoting peace, for protecting human rights and promoting economic development in the third world. The debate about the future of the United Nations is now focusing around questions about the reform of its charter, the make-up of the Security Council and the role of the secretary-general. The Select Committee rightly asked whether the United Nation's power to intervene in the internal conflicts of nations ought to be clarified, and rightly suggested that if clearer rules were established for such intervention, it would mean that grinding, endless and bloody conflicts all over the world could be brought to an end.

I doubt whether anyone can argue convincingly any longer against the right of the world body to move in and

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interfere in what used to be regarded as internal national affairs so as to protect the human rights of oppressed minorities. One thing is certain : the world can never again sit on its hands and idly watch brutal dictators killing hundreds of thousands of their own people in cold blood.

Several Hon. Members rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : I remind the House of Mr. Speaker's injunction that this is a short debate and that short speeches would therefore be appropriate. Sir Michael Jopling. 5.27 pm

Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland and Lonsdale) : I may have misheard you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but that day has not yet arrived, so I fear that you have addressed me wrongly.

Six weeks ago, I visited Iran as a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, with a number of my colleagues--my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), and the hon. Members for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) and for Doncaster, North (Mr. Welsh). We were able to see for ourselves some of the refugee camps, and we visited two of the Kurdish camps in north-west Iran-- near Orumiyeh--and one Shi'ite camp in the south close to the ancient city of Shush.

I warmly support the Government's reaction to the Iraqi refugee crisis of recent months. I strongly support the Prime Minister's initiative on safe havens, and strongly welcome the recent assurances that coalition troops will not be withdrawn while a risk remains, especially in the north of Iraq.

The Iranian authorities at the camps warmly supported the United Kingdom's efforts to bring relief to the unfortunate people in the camps. The authorities greatly welcomed the fact that Britain was the third largest donor of assistance. I have no reason to suppose that we are not still the third largest. That aid greatly relieved the agony of the Kurdish and Shi'ite people.

My impression of the three camps was that things were going reasonably well. The Iranians seemed to be dealing adequately with the massive crisis which confronted them. I did not see obvious signs of starvation or disease. Conditions were primitive, but people seemed to have enough food and we were assured that the refugees in the camps had been vaccinated against the diseases which were thought to present the main dangers.

The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) spoke about the accommodation. Most people in the camps are housed in tents, and some are housed in disused buildings, some of which had been damaged in the Iran- Iraq war. We shall soon have to think about what will happen to the people in those camps during the winter. One rather good sign from the refugees to whom we spoke was that they were beginning to question the facilities. That showed that the first crisis was over. They rightly complained about the quality of the water and said that the clothes sent by the relief agencies were second-hand. They viewed that as insulting. They also complained about the quality of some of their food, especially the high-protein biscuits. However good those biscuits might have been for them, they did not like their taste. At one of the camps, we were delighted to see that the Austrian military had set up what appeared to be an

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efficient tented hospital. Three of my colleagues on that delegation are in their places, and I am sure that they will agree that, as British people, we were received with much enthusiasm in those refugee camps. Perhaps that was because Britain had played a major part in throwing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. We asked them when they expected to go home to Iraq. The unanimous response from Kurds and Shi'ites alike was that under no circumstances would they return to their homes and villages until Saddam Hussein had been deposed. There was universal distrust and loathing for that man. As long as Saddam Hussein reigns in Iraq, the refugee problem will continue. If he launches an attack on the Shi'ites in the south, up to 800,000 more refugees could make a dash for the border. If winter arrives before the refugees are prepared to return to their homes there will be another serious crisis. Urgent action is needed to prepare for winter, because there are many signs that at that time Saddam Hussein may still be in control in Baghdad. I hope that steps are being taken to prepare those camps for a dreadful winter, because people cannot face such weather in tents. Because of the shortage of time, we did not visit refugee camps in Turkey. I think that all members of the group share my concern about the way in which such crises are handled. I came away with much admiration for the way in which the people employed by the aid agencies do their best with facilities that are to hand. They often receive a rush of emergency aid from well-wishers all over the world who want to make a contribution regardless of the quality or the need for the equipment and facilities that they send. That presents a serious problem.

In the face of emergencies, all developed countries ship out the nearest materials, whether they are needed or not. Aid administrators in Teheran told us that, to assuage public opinion, well-wishing developed nations tend to send unsuitable, unnecessary and unwanted equipment and manpower. We saw examples of that in Iraq.

We were told about a country which had sent military units, I think that it was two sapper units, to build facilities for the refugees. There had not been proper agreement about bringing those troops into Iran, and they sat in buses for two days before being allowed to leave the airport. We were told of a German helicopter fleet which had been reduced by half, I think by 10, by the time we arrived because there was nothing for it to do.

Those are examples of a lack of co-ordination. The primary need in the three camps that we visited was for specific drugs which were in extremely short supply. We asked for a list which was subsequently passed to our charge d'affaires in Teheran. I understand that action was taken on that list. There are few ways of going through the necessary motions in the face of a crisis, such as the one faced by the Kurdish and Shi'ite refugees. The first need is to find out properly and accurately what is needed. The second need is to get agreement from the country concerned that it should be brought in, and where and when it should be brought in ; the third is for the aid agencies to find whatever it is ; and the fourth is to get it delivered into the country where it is needed.

Having got agreement from the country concerned, the aid agencies are expert in discovering where they can get

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hold of what is required and in shipping it in as quickly as possible. The Committee's report makes suggestions about this which I hope that the Government will note. I also hope that the Minister will treat this as a serious and urgent matter. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to it.

The technique of getting the necessary and required aid into a country in which a crisis has occurred as speedily as possible is all very well in a country such as Iran, where there is an efficient administration that knows what it wants and can find out what it is likely to want. It is a totally different matter in a country such as Mozambique, which a number of us visited in the latter part of last year. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney was with me on that visit, when we went to the north of the country, to the area controlled by that dreadful guerrilla organisation, RENAMO. In that part of Mozambique, there is no administration, but there is abject poverty. We met refugees coming into the towns and villages who were cowed, hungry and impoverished people, dressed only in the bark of trees. I have never before seen such heart-searing examples of poverty. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) here, and he was with us on that occasion. It was a most dreadful experience. Those people were sustained by the good will of the world community, especially the United Nations and other international organisations.

Here we come to the basic problem, which is mentioned in the report. What should the world community do in such cases? To what extent is it permissible to move into a country without the full support of its Government, however inefficient or non-existent it might be? That is a relatively simple problem in Mozambique, but it does not take much imagination for my colleagues to realise that one could easily have a situation half way between that of Mozambique and that of Iraq. Dreadfully difficult decisions would have to be made and questions would have to be asked about the extent to which we could break article 2.7 of the United Nations charter, which says that it must not intervene in matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned this factor.

We have to think these problems through carefully, but we must think them through and find a better way to get emergency aid to people who need it, if possible without stepping over that most important line of domestic jurisdiction.

Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill) : Is it not a bit farcical to worry about intervention in the internal affairs of another nation when we have bombed that nation back into the pre-industrial age?

Mr. Jopling : I do not remember us bombing anyone in Mozambique when I was there, and I remember no history of us doing so. That point is irrelevant to what I am saying, which is that we have to find better ways to get aid to people who need it in emergencies. This is not easy. The report of the Select Committee deals with it ; I hope that the House will discuss it and that the Government will give a great deal of thought to these problems in the months that lie ahead.

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5.45 pm

Sir David Steel (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) : I congratulate the Select Committee on its report. As I am not a member of the Committee, I can say this to the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) and his colleagues : the report is short, cogent and makes a number of specific references, and I hope that my speech will follow suit.

I am not among those who argue, with the benefit of hindsight, that the war in Iraq should have been prosecuted further. It was brilliantly conducted and stopped at the right time. However, since the end of the war I have been consistently critical of the stance adopted by the allies in the peace negotiations. I mention two incidents. One was allowing the Iraqi regime to use helicopters, and the other was what happened in the south. I was told by Iraqi eye witnesses that our troops stood by and waved through Saddam Hussein's forces on their way to the reoccupation of Basra.

I mention those two incidents not to cry over spilt milk, but to emphasise that we have a moral responsibility for the refugees, because they need not have become refugees. There was political misjudgment, particularly by the Americans, in believing that it would be a mistake to allow Shi'ites to gain the upper hand in the south because they would then ally with the old enemy of Iran. As the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) said, there is a long history of sad neglect by western Governments of the problems of the Kurds. Despite that, neither the Kurdish nor Shi'ite populations, nor their leaders whom we have met, have ever argued the secessionist case. Instead, they have argued for the creation of a democratic state in Iraq. We were all hoping for that. Because mistakes were made in the peace, the refugee problem is not just of passing concern but the direct responsibility of those nations involved in the allied operation.

I have four points to make. First, the right hon. Member for Guildford is correct to say that the Government have already responded with a change of heart, as have the Americans, on the question of pulling out troops. It is obvious that the United Nations' forces are not adequate and that there can be no question of withdrawing allied forces until the United Nations can supply an adequate substitute.

In that connection, I hope that the Government have listened to the recommendations of Tony Parsons, our former ambassador at the United Nations, who has been arguing ever since the war, with increasing conviction, that the United Nations needs to go beyond its tradition of creating special peacekeeping forces at the behest of nation states. His suggestion is that we should be moving on to a post-cold war development, which will give the five permanent members of the Security Council the capacity to oversee the creation of an effective, United Nations, permanent, peacekeeping force, able to act on the authority of the Security Council rather than at the request of a nation state.

At a time when all of us, including the House of Commons and the eastern powers, are having to grapple with the problem of reduced defence budgets, here is a role for some of those whom I shall call redundant soldiers, both east and west, of the cold war line, who could be allocated to just such a UN, permanent, peace-keeping force.

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Secondly, the report rightly refers to-- disorganisation is too strong a word, but I forget the word that was used-- the fact that so many different UN agencies deal with the refugee problem. The reports that we have received from the Quakers and the Save the Children Fund underline the fact that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been disappointed with the response to her voluntary appeal for funds. My complaint is that it is not right that that office should be dependent on voluntary appeals for funds. I hope that in the review of UN mechanisms some thought will be given to bringing the UNHCR's operations much more directly under the immediate responsibility of the UN machinery.

Mr. Jim Lester (Broxtowe) : On that critical point, would it not be a good idea if, as we said in the Select Committee's report, instead of waiting until things happen and then making an appeal, standby credits were automatically available as soon as the Security Council said that such help was necessary? In that way the UNCHR could draw on them without having to embark on the long drawn-out process of asking for funds and then getting only half of what is needed.

Sir David Steel : The hon. Gentleman has put forward one specific way of doing what I advocate. The begging bowl approach of the UNHCR in Geneva cannot continue.

Thirdly, I welcome what the Select Committee had to say about the relative financing of ODA funds both by the Ministry of Defence--a point some of us made after the war when the MOD kept sending the ODA bills for its activities, which the Select Committee rightly said should be sorted out-- and by the Treasury. The hon. Member for Cynon Valley was correct on that point. Given the decline in the ODA budget during the past 10 years and, at the same time, the increased demands that have been placed on it by a series of international disasters, the Treasury should now be more forthcoming with funds for the ODA. The ODA funding sections of the report are important and we are entitled to press the Minister to give an instant reply to the thoughts of the Select Committee at the end of the debate rather than to take the traditional three months to reply. At any rate I prod him and entice him into doing so.

I said that I had four points. The fourth does not arise out of the report and the Select Committee's Chairman would no doubt argue that it falls outside the remit of the report. Hon. Members should be alarmed about the resumption of arms sales to the middle east by Britain, the United States, Korea, the Soviet Union--all manner of powers. It is interesting that on 20 June the House of

Representatives passed a foreign aid authorisation Bill, unilaterally halting the sale of weapons to middle east countries until and unless some other major arms supplier resumes shipments, or until the recipient countries establish an arms control regime for themselves. That Bill is going to the Senate. It may be objected to by the Administration, but there is something deeply disturbing about the political rhetoric from President Bush, our Prime Minister and everybody that we must learn the lessons of the war and hold off in the arms race, while we have specific examples of arms contracts already being negotiated with different powers in the middle east. I notice the strong contrast between the swift reaction of President Bush and his security advisers to the possible concealment of a nuclear capability by Saddam Hussein's

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