Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
MONDAY 22 MAY 2000
MR P HAIN
MP AND MR
J BEVAN
Chairman
1. Minister, hopes of an African renaissance
are now giving away, alas, to the reality of a series of wars
across the continent: Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Angola. Now there are the two problems
which are before us today, which directly affect our country:
the tragedy of Sierra Leone and the peculiar problems of Zimbabwe.
The Committee welcomes you, welcomes Mr Bevan the Head of the
African Department (Equatorial). What we should value is to update
ourselves and through us Parliament on the current situation,
the current perceptions of the Government in these two key areas
and to pose certain questions. We shall deal with Sierra Leone
first and then turn to Zimbabwe. First the problem of what we
are doing or seeking to do in Sierra Leone. Are you embarrassed
in any way by the lack of precision in our goals?
(Mr Hain) There is no lack of precision in our goals
and therefore there is no reason for embarrassment. We are absolutely
clear that we went in and were welcomed in with open arms by the
Sierra Leone people and the Sierra Leone Government, the United
Nations, indeed the whole of the international community, as far
as I can see, whose perception is quite different from some of
the issues raised here. Wherever I have been travelling recently
in Africa or the Middle East, our role in Sierra Leone is applauded
and indeed very much admired. The goals are very clear: to evacuate
British citizens—
2. And that has been largely accomplished.
(Mr Hain) No; some 450 have been evacuated. There
are still some there.
3. Who want to leave?
(Mr Hain) At some stage they may well want to leave
and may need to leave.—most crucially, to secure the airport
and its perimeter because you do not secure an airport in this
kind of operation unless you are able to have a wider deployment
area, perhaps at least four miles around.
4. Beyond that?
(Mr Hain) To secure the airport, in order to get more
United Nations peacekeepers in, and more have come in since we
have been securing the airport, and in addition to provide a base
for evacuation, to help reinforce the United Nations command and
logistical support for the United Nations peacekeeping force.
5. You know realistically that the people of
Sierra Leone who welcomed us did not welcome us because we were
securing the place for the UN to come in: they welcomed us because
they were hoping we would stay indefinitely to ensure peace and
stability in their country.
(Mr Hain) No, they welcomed us because we helped stiffen
what was a very difficult situation with the rebel forces lead
by Foday Sankoh advancing on Freetown, the airport extremely vulnerable,
our own citizens potentially trapped there. The mission which
went in overnight almost as part of the MOD's new rapid reaction
capability, has been a very successful mission in the most volatile,
difficult and intransigent of circumstances.
6. No-one can doubt that but how do we leave
with honour?
(Mr Hain) We leave with honour as we have come in
with honour and as we have been there with honour by fulfilling
our objectives of securing the situation around the airport, bringing
the United Nations troops in and allowing evacuees to go out;
at the same time providing the kind of expertise and logistical
support which the Sierra Leone Government and the United Nations
have been most grateful for.
7. Will that logistical support be a continuing
commitment?
(Mr Hain) A continuing commitment will be—we
hope; it still has to be agreed—to provide training, advisory
military support for the Sierra Leone army. They do not have a
proper Sierra Leone army at the present time and we are committed
to help train one up, professionalise a force which is able then
to defend an elected government, we must remember that President
Kabbah's was an elected government, to provide a buttress for
a state which does not exist.
8. And provide ammunition for that state. Is
it true that the Cabinet will be discussing the exit strategy,
including the provision of ammunition, tomorrow?
(Mr Hain) It is not an exit strategy. It is a request
we have had from the Sierra Leone Government to provide ammunition
and that request is being very carefully considered. Clearly we
do not want a situation where the United Nations is being deployed
behind a Sierra Leone army force which is taking on the rebels
and that that force has no ammunition. Clearly that is not a situation
which anybody would want to see arise. We are considering their
request in the light of the circumstances and alternative supplies.
Mr Mackinlay
9. May I ask a legal question? Sankoh was in
the custody of the British armed forces for some four to five
days. Under what powers did we detain Sankoh?
(Mr Hain) If I may correct you there, Sankoh was actually
under the detention of the Sierra Leone Government. They asked
us to provide helicopter assistance when he was at a location
which was surrounded by a very aggressive mob. We provided that
helicopter assistance and whilst under their direction, the head
of police was there at the time, we continued to provide assistance.
10. He was never arrested by the United Kingdom
forces.
(Mr Hain) No.
11. He was never in the custody of the United
Kingdom forces.
(Mr Hain) No, he was never arrested by the United
Kingdom forces. We acted throughout under the direction of the
Sierra Leone Government and provided the support which they specifically
requested in a very difficult situation where he had been captured.
12. You mentioned the United Nations a few moments
ago. There was a resolution of the Security Council, 1270, of
1999 and the Secretary General followed it up with a memorandum
on 21 January detailing the requirements for an expanded UNAMSIL
force. What was the response of the United Kingdom Government
to that and indeed what was the response of the United Nations
generally?
(Mr Hain) Throughout, we, as the Government of a country
which more than any other government, with the exception of Nigeria
quite possibly, have provided more assistance, have been keener
to get the United Nations peacekeepers up to scratch, fully equipped
and fully directed, were very sympathetic to the position in which
the Secretary General found himself and we have been working closely
with him throughout.
13. I do not want to be discourteous but "sympathetic"
is a bit limp. Did we say something had got to be done? Also,
presumably, implicit in this is that the gravity of the situation
was understood in New York and by us, otherwise the Security Council
would not have been flagging up the need for urgent additional
resources. In his report he also listed everything he needed and
the monies involved and that was in January.
(Mr Hain) Yes, indeed. I visited Sierra Leone in January
and Britain, throughout this process, from the time the Lomé
Agreement was signed and agreed, as a West African agreement by
the way—there is a myth that Britain and the US foisted
this on the people of Sierra Leone; on the contrary, it was negotiated
by President Kabbah, their elected president and supported by
the various African organisations involved—gave our backing
to it. From that time onwards we have done as much, if not more—and
I would suggest more—than anybody else, to try to rescue
the Sierra Leone people. Remember that up to that time and up
to the eight to nine months or so of relative peace and stability,
compared with eight years of the most brutal, bestial civil was,
Britain was actually working harder than anybody else to make
this agreement stick by supporting the work of the United Nations,
by providing development assistance of various kinds, military
observers, logistical support. We have something to take credit
for. We stopped the war and its atrocities, we supported the elected
president, sustaining him in power. We also put in place this
UN peacekeeping force to which you referred and it began the extensive
process of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of the
ex- combatants. Some half of those rebel forces, up to the time
when Foday Sankoh broke with the agreement and started attacking
everybody again, had actually been brought into that DDR process.
That, coupled with the other initiatives we were taking in security,
sector reform and so on, planning ahead for next year's elections,
meant a lot had been achieved. Britain played an absolutely key
role, as I discovered myself when I went there in mid-January,
a role for which the people of Sierra Leone and its elected government
have been constantly grateful.
14. Is Lomé dead? There is this faction
of Koroma's—you might be able to clarify the position—which,
having been rebels, seems now still to be supporting a coalition
with President Kabbah. Where are we at on the peace settlement?
Is it just one faction? We use this general term "rebels"
when talking about some real bandits and there are others who
are honouring the Lomé Agreement. What is it?
(Mr Hain) It is very complex. There are different
bands of rebels. There is Johnny Paul Koroma's AFRC who have been
loyal, and especially in recent weeks extremely loyal and supportive
and are fighting alongside the Sierra Leone army. He has given
his full support to the Lomé Peace Agreement. It is very
important to compare the situation, as I began to, with what it
was before. When the Lomé Agreement was signed there was
no Sierra Leone army, there was no state. There was an elected
government without the necessary foundations. Rebel forces including
Koroma's and Sankoh's were signed up to that agreement, a very
imperfect one but nevertheless the only one which the Africans
involved felt they could make work when they did not have the
ability otherwise especially to resist the RUF who were effectively
the major aggressive force. Your question: is Lomé still
in existence? Clearly Foday Sankoh and the RUF have broken from
it and reneged upon it and must answer for that. He must answer
for it himself and his own RUF forces will have to confront that
situation in the end. Others are signed up to it. It cannot quite
survive in the form in which it was signed last year, but the
overall peace process can still be taken forward.
15. Reverting to our mandate there, I realise
we are under our royal prerogative powers because we have been
invited in by a government, but I saw our commanding officer indicating
that he was putting a broad construction on his mandate. Those
were not his precise words. What precisely is his mandate and
where is the genesis of that? Is it simply a foreign policy decision
by us that we wish to support President Kabbah and his government?
We are not there as the United Nations. He is also having to make
day-to-day operational decisions and those might not be his precise
words but he says he is putting a broad construction upon our
mandate. Could you clarify just what he can do and what we are
doing there?
(Mr Hain) I shall be happy to do that. He is there,
as indeed are the British forces under his command, at the request
of the Sierra Leone Government, at the request of the United Nations.
Nothing we do or our forces do there is outside that remit, that
mandate. The British Government decided to deploy that force very
quickly and efficiently, in a way which has won admiration not
just in Sierra Leone but throughout Africa and the world and has
effectively stabilised the situation. I say "effectively
stabilised": with Sierra Leone you are never sure of course,
but compared with where we were before the forces went in, we
are immensely further forward. The airport has been secured, the
city of Freetown is now relatively secure, the UN forces are beginning
to push the rebels back with the Sierra Leone army in front of
them because they know that they do not have to protect their
backs around the airport and the vicinity of the city. His mandate
is quite clear: to assist in whatever way it is decided is best
in the circumstances whilst we are there.
Sir John Stanley
16. In the long series of evidence sessions
we had with the Foreign Secretary in the previous Sierra Leone
inquiry which this Committee undertook in this Parliament, there
was no individual in Sierra Leone of whom the Foreign Secretary
was rightly more critical, more condemnatory than Sankoh with
his murderous, mutilating forces surrounding him. In these circumstances,
why was it that the Foreign Office supported taking Sankoh into
government as the Vice-President, as Minister for Natural Resources,
in July of last year?
(Mr Hain) Together with the international community,
we felt it necessary to support a very imperfect Lomé Agreement
in which that was provided for, or at least the followup was provided
for, because there was literally no alternative. At the risk of
repetition, remember where we were. We were in a situation where
the RUF had again attacked the elected government, attacked Freetown.
The elected government had no army. President Kabbah had no alternative
but to negotiate with Foday Sankoh in particular and the other
rebels in general. He was backed in that task by ECOWAS, the organisation
of African states in West Africa. The Nigerian troops which had
been supported and had previously repelled the rebel forces were
about to pull out, so he felt the only option he had, and he was
supported by ECOWAS, the Organisation for African Unity, the Commonwealth
and others, including Britain and the international community,
was to strike the best deal that he could. I was very aware when
I went in January how fragile, how imperfect this deal was. You
could feel it all the time.
17. When you say there was no alternative, the
alternative which was available then was the alternative which
is now being played out for real in Sierra Leone. Here we have
a situation today where we have a major commitment to British
forces who are doing their utmost, assisting the Nigerian and
other forces to crush the RUF.
(Mr Hain) With the United Nations.
18. Yes, with the United Nations. They are doing
so very successfully. Surely that would have been an infinitely
better alternative in the summer of last year than to let this
murderous man and his henchmen back into the government, who have
played precisely the role in government and subsequently which
some at that time predicted would happen.
(Mr Hain) That is an easy point to make, if I may
say so. What you are inviting me to say, and perhaps even inviting
the Committee to say, is that President Kabbah was wrong, that
ECOWAS was wrong, that Nigeria was wrong, that the Organisation
for African Unity was wrong, the Commonwealth was wrong and with
the benefit of hindsight some different construction could have
been agreed. Well, it is easy to say that. I think the lesson
of this has also to be taken in the context that there was no
United Nations force, there was no United Nations Security Council
resolution there. Britain worked for weeks, indeed months, to
get a Security Council resolution adopted which provided for a
peacekeeping operation. That has now gone in and events subsequently
emerged. We were not in that situation then. If Britain had gone
in ... You cannot have it both ways, if I may say so. Either Britain
should have gone into Sierra Leone and virtually run the place
in July, which is what you are implying, with no United Nations
mandate and no peacekeepers around us, in which case we would
never have got out. Or, it is now being suggested, we are doing
too much there. Make your minds up.
19. We are looking here are the issue of Foreign
Office decisions and Foreign Office policy.
(Mr Hain) Indeed.
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