Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
RT HON
CLARE SHORT
MP, MR BARRIE
IRETON AND
MR MATT
BAUGH
TUESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2001
Chris McCafferty
200. As Andrew has just said, many of our witnesses
have commented on the speed of the UK response, both logistically
and financially, and I think we are all very proud of that. Catherine
Bertini did say in her evidence that it was very depressing that
the UN always had to go cap-in-hand whenever there was an emergency.
I know we are the second largest contributor after the US but
in terms of gross national product little Denmark and the Scandinavian
countries actually do contribute quite heavily, much more heavily
than most of the donor countries do, to the UN. I think my question
would be, what do you think we can do to get all the donor countries
to increase the level of aid that they give and reach their targets?
My second question would be, is the provision of sexual and reproductive
health services and information considered to be humanitarian
aid? What percentage of our aid is given to that?
(Clare Short) I think there is a series of questions
folded together here. Obviously, when there is an emergency anywhere
in the world the UN makes an appeal, but I cannot see—in
the world we are living in now—any other way of doing it,
because if an emergency flares up you need some expertise and
we have been working in particular to strengthen the current co-ordinating
expertise in the UN system so they can make an informed assessment
of numbers of people etc. Then they make an international appeal
and all the OECD countries respond, and there is a rough rule
of thumb about what a country's share in that kind of effort should
be. Some appeals are more proficiently done than others, and some
are responded to more fully than others. The appeal for Afghanistan
post-September 11, I have to say, not prior to, was over-fulfilled.
It was a $600 million appeal and $700 odd million was pledged.
Then, and this is a very serious issue, you always get countries
pledging, which is all done in the media both internationally
and at home, but a lot of countries are very slow to turn their
pledge into real money on the ground, liquid, that can be there
and help the UN agencies to operate. That needs attention. In
this case, however, we think that has gone better than in most
usual emergencies; that countries that responded then were quite
quick to provide the parts of the UN system with what they needed.
You have to remember the UN appeal has to predict the future,
so, for example, they predicted 1.5 million refugees, UNHCR was
poised to build new camps that were not needed, so you have to
have the capacity within that appeal to go where the people are
and switch direction. The second thing I would say is that the
UN is precious and the world cannot function without it, as we
see so clearly here, but lots of UN agencies are not as efficient
as they should be. They are very, very slow. They have incredibly
cumbersome, inefficient economic management systems—as bad
as, if not worse than, the EC, I have to say, which will fill
you all with gloom, but it is true. For example, in East Timor
there was a trust fund run by both the World Bank and the UN.
The people put money into that for East Timor and then for nearly
a year you could not get any money out, and it was just a useless
administrative system. It is disgraceful. They have systems, also,
for appointing people to any country in an emergency and there
are procedures for who gets appointments and how long it takes
them to go and take up the job, and how many houses and how many
vehicles they have to have. All of that is not good enough. Kofi
Annan came in as Secretary General determined to bring about some
reform, and he has, but there is a lot more to do. I think it
was John Battle who asked me, on the floor of the House about
this. Our department's position is that with all the UN agencies
that we fund we now have these published strategy papers that
we put together based on our experience and then negotiate with
the organisation about what directions of reform and improvement
in their effectiveness is necessary, and then we try to encourage,
through our donations and a willingness to contribute more in
return for increases in efficiency, improvement. There are improvements
taking place, but there is a need for more. So it would not be
true to suggest that if everyone just gave the UN the money we
would have a perfectly functioning international system; it is
a system under improvement but it needs more improvement and it
needs the attention of committees such as yourselves to try to
make these improvements. I do not know whether your question was
also partly linked to the whole overall question of levels of
the ODA 0.7 target. On that, as you know, the UK had moved away;
it reached nearly 0.5 in 1979, got down to 0.26, is on its way
to 0.33 and I would like us to do a lot better. I assume you will
be allies in this. The UK is seen now as a leading player in international
development and I think our financial resources are a bit behind
our reputation, but I am sure that is a value we would all share.
I assure you I work on it endlessly. Whether sexual and reproductive
health is seen as part of emergency humanitarian provision—the
answer is most firmly yes. It was not in the past. Obviously,
refugees and people still need these kinds of facilities and there
have been improvements. In the case of Afghanistan, I do not have
any information. Do you, Matt?
(Mr Baugh) If we look at our wider package of support
to agencies such as UNICEF, which traditionally works in child
health but not necessarily sexual and reproductive health, there
is support for sexual and reproductive health care.
(Clare Short) It did not used to be recognised, and
there has been a big move, as you probably know, through the international
system, to accept and realise that just because people are on
the move or in refugee camps it does not mean that they do not
need access to contraception or help when they become pregnant
or whatever. So, in general, the point is respected, but I will
find out in relation to Afghanistan what is being done as part
of the humanitarian effort. This is not a country that is famous
for taking up contraception, but if we can get more girls to school
I am sure that will change.
201. They have got the second highest maternal
mortality rate in the world and a very high level of child mortality.
It seems to me that would be something where we really could help.
(Clare Short) I think, however, if the Taliban would
not let little girls go to school or women to work, the thought
of opening clinics for more access to reproductive health care
would have been very difficult. So it is not that they have got
these problems because no one is willing to provide sexual and
reproductive health care, but I absolutely agree with you, it
must be part of the emergency assistance, and the provision of
such services is part of the reconstruction of Afghanistan. I
will find out exactly how these needs are being cared for in the
emergency effort.
Hugh Bayley
202. The way to rebuild women's rights must
be to involve women at every level of government, from the Cabinet
down to the local administration. Do you agree that one of the
real lessons about why these bakeries have been successful is
because women are empowered; they control the food? Is that not
a lesson which should be learnt in all the post-war reconstruction;
that if women control the budgets then the men will want to hear
what they have to say? If they do not control budgets and resources
then they will be left out in the cold. Is that a lesson?
(Clare Short) This is the lesson of the whole world.
As Kofi Annan said, number one: poverty has a woman's face. The
poorest of the world are widows and women alone and their children,
all over the world. It is true in our own country but in a desperately
poor country the widows, or indeed the orphans, are the poorest.
Seventy per cent of the poor in the world are women, and whenever
you have programmes that do not think about women in leadership
positions you tend to get the poorest left out. That is step number
one, and it is really important, all the time, to recognise that.
Number two, women because they live so closely to the needs of
their families, elders and communities, are very good organisers.
That is the lesson of all sorts of interventions; it is the lesson
of our Child Benefit, is it not? When you get things into the
hands of women who are responsible for the care of others they
will use that resource to care for others. All over the world
there are lots of lovely men, as we know, but quite a lot of them,
given resources, will spend a fair proportion of it not on the
needs of the neediest. This is true in Afghanistan and it is more
urgent in Afghanistan because of the position of women in Afghanistan,
but it is true of development worldwide and emergencies worldwide.
Ann Clwyd
203. One of the unfortunate instruments of war,
as you know, has been the use of rape against women. Obviously,
both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance and other warring factions
will probably have used rape during this conflict, as they have
so many times in the past. From going to other countries, particularly
where Muslims are involved, I have been surprised that nobody
has actually tried to debrief the women concerned subsequently.
I am thinking of the women from East Timor who escaped to Portugal
and who asked to speak to me separately in a room about their
experiences; about the women in Northern Iraq who, again, years
after the conflict have wanted to talk about what has happened
to them in similar situations. I wondered if you had anybody in
your department who would be particularly sensitive to that situation
and will be able to debrief the women they come across when they
go into Afghanistan.
(Clare Short) I think you are absolutely right. There
was denial right through the international system, but in conditions
of war you get a lot of rape and abuse of women, both from armed
forces out of control and as a way of humiliating communities,
which we saw to a very deep degree in Bosnia: deliberate, systematic
rape as a form of humiliation of battle and a way of driving people
out of the places where they had historically lived. It used to
be completely ignored because it is so shameful and horrible,
and women often do not feel able to speak of it and it is not
recognised. I think it is only recently that the acknowledgement
of the point you make is growing. Certainly in the preparation
for the International Criminal Court, I think, systematic, abusive
rape as an instrument of war has been recognised as a war crime.
That is a new and very important part of this recognition. My
understanding is, in the case of Bosnia, there was an attempt
to provide therapy, because of course here we had women suffering
multiple, deliberate, systematic rape to drive people out of their
lands, and important lessons were learned. A certain amount of
therapy should be made available but there was some evidence in
an evaluation I think I saw that normalisation is also very important.
Therapy for someone in a camp might be less helpful than getting
them settled back in their home, or settled somewhere in a proper
way. So that I think we must acknowledge it, it must not be ignored
and we must provide proper assistance for the women concerned
but we should see it through the filter of their needs and not
just through the filter of our society. If they are living in
terribly difficult conditions therapy might be less important
than getting back to some form of normal life, but clearly both
provisions should be made. In the case of Afghanistan, I have
read reports of the problem of rape. Even more terribly, I have
read reports of women who were not allowed to work because of
the Taliban's rules then becoming prostitutes. In the name of
dignity not allowing women to work and then driving women to that
kind of degree. So you are right to bring up the point, and I
think the international community has moved on this and there
is more acknowledgement, but thank you for raising it and I will
try and make sure that we take that inside and remember that appropriate
provision should be made into the humanitarian-plus and then the
reconstruction effort.
Mr Battle
204. Could I move things on because I was encouraged
when Catherine Bertini told us that now she did not believe there
really would be a great humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan; the
resources were there, it was a question of distribution. Perversely,
the attention of September 11 has meant that there is not a humanitarian
crisis in Afghanistan but there could well have been, but to the
credit of DFID, paragraph 4 of your memorandum spells out that:
"Between 1997 and September 2001, DFID had provided £32
million for emergency food, shelter, healthcare, water supplies
as well as support for agriculture, mines clearance, education
and monitoring and advocacy in relation to human rights."
You were there before. Two years ago I was trying to draw attention
to the fact that there was a humanitarian crisis in Mongolia where,
because there was such a hard winter, all the cattle froze and
some people were starving. Is it possible for us to anticipate
the next humanitarian crisis? If we could anticipate it, what
can we do to make sure that organisations, the UN, and governments
actually address it in advance without waiting for the kind of
crisis that we face now? In other words, where does your department
think will be the next Afghanistan? Will it be Angola, will it
be Burma, will it be Zimbabwe? Can you do any work on that, or
are you so cramped by immediate crises and the attention of the
world on one great tragedy?
(Clare Short) I will ask Matt or Barrie to talk about
the way in which we and the UN monitor emergencies across the
world. We were in Mongolia too. We are in lots of places that
the media and even the Select Committee do not take any interest
in us being in.
Chairman
205. Where have we been failing to take an interest?
(Clare Short) No, no, I am just saying that the spotlight,
as you know, moves around but there are lots of places not in
the spotlight but still in need, and we have got to have an international
system that does not just scurry after the spotlight, although
it does do some of that, as we all know. What we have been working
to do is strengthen the UN's capacity. My department, brilliant
as it is, cannot be everywhere in the world, we are not that big,
but the UN can be everywhere in the world and it can have strong
co-ordination mechanisms and the capacity to call down resources
so that no one is neglected. It is that kind of international
system that we are trying to build. We have, in the Conflict and
Humanitarian Affairs Department of DFID, a capacity to monitor
right across the world. We try to make sure that every emergency
is being responded to. I will bring in both, Barrie first and
then Matt, if I may, because these are very impressive systems.
We are only part of it but we are a kind of front edge part of
it and we are trying to improve the effectiveness of the UN's
capacity to have a reach that is everywhere.
(Mr Ireton) Just two quick points. On the issue of
disaster preparedness, obviously we cannot predict when the next
earthquake is going to be but we do know, for example, in Bangladesh
they have continual problems with flooding and so forth. We have
worked with the Bangladesh Government and within the country to
significantly increase their preparedness, so that Bangladesh
really does cope rather well with those sorts of episodes.
(Clare Short) Very well.
(Mr Ireton) I think that is something which we are
thinking about more and more. The other point, in terms of human
conflict, is that we are increasingly, as a department, much more
aware of the potential for conflict, beginning to analyse it better
in the countries in which we are working before there is open
conflict, like Sierra Leone, and thinking of how we can help,
working with countries, to avoid those conflicts emerging into
open conflict. That is a general point, but I think we are becoming
better at it.
(Mr Baugh) A couple of points, one on Mongolia to
start with. We have actually been engaged in Mongolia for some
time now—certainly over the last two winters—and Mongolia
faces, at the moment, a peculiar type of drought coupled with
a harsh winter called a "Dzud". We have provided assistance
both to UN agencies and, I think, UNDP and FAO, if my memory serves
me correctly. We also, from the UK side, tragically lost a member
of the UK UNDAC team (UNDAC is the UN Disaster, Assessment and
Co-ordination team) which flew into Mongolia last January to undertake
the inter-agency assessment. A helicopter tragically crashed,
killing all members on board, including a UK member. The other
point I would make is on our monitoring unit. We have a dedicated
unit within the area in which I work. That is a 24-hour, 365-day
a year capability looking at current crises and monitoring the
current situation. That is an ongoing function that we have. One
final point on disaster preparedness: part of our approach with,
for example, agencies such as the Red Cross, particularly the
Federation of the Red Cross, looks at building disaster preparedness
capacity as part of the IFRC's global programme, so it is something
that we are heavily engaged in.
(Clare Short) Just to add to that, it is one of these
strategic partnerships also with the Red Cross to build up Red
Cross and Red Crescent capacity in every country, particularly
disaster prone countries, because 24 hours after a disaster your
chances of survival will depend on local capacity. The international
system takes longer to get to you. Especially in disaster prone
countries it is more and more for that capacity inside the country
to move very rapidly because of a flood or an earthquake. We have
been working on that. The Red Cross has been doing some very fine
work. In Angola again it is the war—a country that should
be a wealthy country and there is terrible humanitarian suffering,
land mines and the rest, and there is a continuing internal effort
but the people have suffered dreadfully. Burma similarly, though
there are some signs of some political movement that could bring
us very good news about progress in that country. Zimbabwe, we
are in this agriculturally rich country all preparing for food
aid. Things are bad and it is going to get worse. It is part of
the tragedy of the political situation. We do have this fantastic
capacity but we are not trying just to say, "Isn't the DFID
wonderful? Here we are. The UK is great." We are trying to
use that knowledge to strengthen the capacity of the international
system to respond everywhere.
Mr Battle
206. Could I follow through on that? You mentioned
the strong co-ordination mechanisms of the UN to draw down resources.
We got a strong impression from Catherine Bertini that for example
there is food in the warehouses even within Afghanistan, even
throughout the whole of the conflict, which was not the common
impression in the media at all. We have got a brief in the papers
this morning, an update from the International Red Cross, and
there are some discrepancies. It does not quite tie in with what
the World Food Programme is saying. Is there a gap sometimes between
the World Food Programme's top-down approach and then the ability
to deliver on the ground, and can you help bridge that gap by
going directly to the agencies, whether they are NGOs or the International
Red Cross, the Red Crescent? What can be done to strengthen the
co-ordination or is it strong enough already?
(Clare Short) I know some of the NGOs, when there
was the disparity in the story of what was going on, tried to
suggest that the World Food Programme did not know what was going
on. Hardly anyone knew the whole picture of what was going on
because communications inside Afghanistan were so difficult. That
of course was the general situation, but the World Food Programme
was employing Afghan truckers who knew their country better than
anyone, who were taking in food and bringing back reports of what
was happening in those warehouses. In the early days that was
one of the major and most accurate sources of information about
whether onward distribution was working or not. Similarly, truckers
would not go the next day on that route until they got the report
back from the other trucker, so it was a very good informal communication
system that was reaching across the country. Some NGOs were getting
partial information from some of the people inside from one part
of the country. I am not saying there were not parts of the country
that were in more stress than others but I believe that the World
Food Programme was getting a more comprehensive feedback. The
World Food Programme worked then with NGOs and that includes a
lot of Afghan NGOs. We say NGOs and we think Oxfam, Christian
Aid and so on, but they include within that community groups in
Afghanistan because once you had got it into a warehouse or a
stopping point, who is going to do the distribution to the people
in need rather than just spreading it across the local community
where some need and some do not? I do not think that criticism
of the World Food Programme was informed. I think it was a kind
of camouflage for some of the rather exaggerated claims. That
said, in some parts of the country it remains the case that there
were particular difficulties in reaching people and people who
were under great stress, so of course, if there was an NGO that
had information about one such community, they could reasonably
say, "Things are very bad in this place", and then of
course the danger is always to generalise it. The Red Cross has
been providing—what is his name?
(Mr Baugh) Dr Kellenberger.
(Clare Short) And he said, "We are really the
Health Service of Afghanistan", and of course this is partly
because of their enormous operation across the world in providing
health care and false limbs and so on to people who have lost
their limbs because of land mines. They have been operating in
Afghanistan for some time. This is on top of everything else that
Afghanistan has got. It has lots of disability because of land
mines and will, I fear, have more, as has Angola. They are preparing,
he told me, medical stocks around the country ready to move in
and strengthen the medical systems. That would be my response.
There are areas under strain but it is not true that the World
Food Programme is top-down and it is these other people who are
really close to the ground. The final point is that all these
international agencies, including British NGOs, employ local NGOs
and local Afghans to do the operation when it gets right to the
bottom. I think we should remember that and absolutely remember
it in the reconstruction of the country. There is always a danger
that when it becomes safe to go you get this flood of internationals
coming in, all with their Land Rovers and expensive equipment
and so on. It happened in East Timor to a considerable extent
and caused some resentment. We must remember how, despite low
levels of education and the rest, Afghans kept this going, and
in the reconstruction effort their talents and skills must be
used and we must not have lots of expensive internationals coming
in above them except in a way that empowers them, and taking over
and marginalising the people who are going to have to rebuild
their country.
Mr Robathan
207. On the question of NGOs and employing local
staff I would particularly like to lead you into the question
of mine clearance. You know I am a trustee of the HALO Trust which
has 1,200 local staff still in Afghanistan. In the Security Council
draft resolution, and I am not sure whether it was passed, it
refers to de-mining as humanitarian assistance.
(Clare Short) I think it was passed. Let us make sure
we get you a copy of the one that was passed. It is probably the
same.
208. It refers to de-mining as humanitarian
assistance rather than development assistance. This of course
is quite critical at the moment with, amongst other things, a
certain number of cluster bombs having been used in Afghanistan
and therefore unexploded ordnance on the roads and in some villages.
Do you see in this context de-mining as humanitarian assistance
and will you be supporting NGOs in de-mining in Afghanistan now?
(Clare Short) As you know, it is another thing that
was an issue before September 11. Massive de-mining efforts have
been going on and HALO has been doing a lot on de-mining, and
we have been supporting de-mining. Now there is probably even
more de-mining to be done and the cluster bombs that have been
used will add to that. I am sure there will be other unexploded
ordnance just in the nature of any military conflict. I read a
couple of days ago that there is another £12 million we have
dispersed and I think two million of that was for de-mining which
we will distribute through the UN Mines Clearance Agency, is it
called?
(Mr Baugh) Mine Action Service.
(Clare Short) We have done that in a way that HALO
objects to but we agreed and is part of trying to build an international
system that operates everywhere. I am sure they will be keen to
have the help of HALO in doing the even greater de-mining that
needs doing. Hopefully, if we are going to get peace, then we
really can get on with the de-mining and clear more areas in the
country in a way that we have been de-mining but then you get
mines re-laid as in Angola, which is kind of heartbreaking.
Mr Bayley
209. What is the intended humanitarian role
for British troops now on standby to go into Afghanistan and what
conditions would need to be met before further troops go in? Is
there not a danger that British troops will create problems for
the impartiality of the humanitarian operation?
(Clare Short) The fundamental humanitarian role of
troops in the humanitarian role is to give order, which is key,
as we were saying at the beginning, to being able to operate in
a more effective way and bring in humanitarian relief and move
to humanitarian plus. I have already answered the question to
Ann Clwyd about the actual role of the troops that are already
there and the planned role. I will ask the Ministry of Defence
to amplify this and I will let the Select Committee have that.
We really need security to do the humanitarian job. We do not
need the military to do the humanitarian job; we need the military
to do what they do well, which is bring us security so that the
humanitarian system can operate. I did say this on the floor of
the House but I would like the Select Committee to note it and
to take it further. The civil/military liaison that we have had
in this problem has not worked particularly well at all, nothing
like as well as in Kosovo. We are working hard to try and improve
it but it is an issue I would like the Select Committee to be
aware of because we are going to need in the reconstruction some
security. Some parts of the country are not orderly and some are.
As soon as there is order you need to be able to say that the
humanitarians can move. If military action is getting in the way
of the humanitarian operation you need to be able to communicate
and say, "Could you get out of the way please? We want to
get some convoys through here". You need that kind of communication.
Some of it is there but it is not operating as well as it could
and it would help us a lot if it improved. The United Kingdom's
part of the military action is small. You would not believe it
by reading our newspapers but it is small, although it is not
without influence. We are really working on it and the UK military
do understand the significance of this. We could do with some
improvements and anything that the Select Committee could do would
be gratefully received. I should add one other thing. NATO was
planning as NATO to maybe try and come in and help with the humanitarian
efforts. Shades of the memories of Kosovo, you know, when all
the people were trapped in no-man's-land coming out, the refugees,
and people were dying in that and indeed babies were being born
there. The British troops—other troops too; the French did
it—in the camps I visited did a phenomenal job in throwing
up refugee camps with a speed and capacity that humanitarian aid
could not have done and then later handed them over. I think NATO
and Brigadier Cross (now General Cross) just did a fantastic job.
They worked all night, they cooked meals and sent them up to the
people in no-man's-land, they put up the tents, they created washing
areas, kitchens. That was a fantastic contribution. NATO was looking
at whether that kind of effort was needed in Afghanistan and making
plans, but I think that is overtaken up to now by the fact that
the World Food Programme and those who work with it held up so
well. There was some NATO thinking about whether it should come
in and help but it has now been stood down as I understand it.
But, who knows? If we get a bit of disorder it might need to be
stood up again. At the moment it is thought not to be needed.
210. So who would be the key actors on the humanitarian
side and on the military side? If you need better liaison who
should lead the humanitarian side of the liaison and who should
lead the military?
(Clare Short) There are in the US military headquarters
in Tampa and also in Islamabad units where there is civil/military
liaison arrangements and there are representatives of the UN.
We have two people in Tampa. We have people in Islamabad as well.
The UK and the UN have people. This is meant to be the point where
at a high level the communications take place. In Tampa there
are plenty of humanitarians there and the communication is taking
place but it is not being taken seriously enough at a high enough
level. It is not a disaster, please understand me, but if it improved
we could do better. It is a thing that is fixable so we ought
to get on and do it.
211. It seems that there are a lot of people
involved. Is that the problem, that it is not clear who leads
from the humanitarian side?
(Clare Short) I will invite Barrie to come in, but
I think the problem is, because this is the new post-Cold War
disorderly world we live in, that you often get the humanitarian
and the military operations taking place in the same place: East
Timor, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and so on. Certainly the relationship
between my department and our military is that we have got to
know each other much better, we have got to understand the need
to work these things together, not to get the military doing the
humanitarian job but appreciating and respecting the importance
of it. We have grown a lot in that relationship and I do not think
it is quite as informed, the US military, and has not had the
same experience.
212. At the end of last week there were press
reports of Hazaras marching from the central highlands to Kabul
because they were unhappy with the Northern Alliance forming an
administration in Kabul. How serious an impediment do you believe
the Northern Alliance will be to the fair distribution of aid,
to ensuring that it gets through to the people who need it, since
they are obviously going to be there for maybe days, maybe weeks?
They are going to be there for some period of time controlling
things on the ground.
(Clare Short) This is again the spectre of what happened
when the Russians withdrew, when the Northern Alliance took Kabul,
all the factions broke apart, everyone wanted to take over the
government. They all fought each other, destroyed the city, it
was a disaster. It caused enormous suffering across the country.
Then when the Taliban came along saying, "We will bring order",
that is partly why the country fell to them, because the people
so desperately wanted order. That is the tragedy of this recent
period in Afghanistan and must not be repeated. Of course, there
are elements in the Northern Alliance now who have attempted to
say, "We have won and we are the government". That is
not acceptable but there is tension in the current situation,
as everybody who reads the newspapers knows. The urgency, as I
have said before, is the success of Ambassador Brahimi and Vendrell's
efforts to get agreement on the transitional government. There
is a meeting about to take place. It is urgent, urgent. I think
it will succeed because the Northern Alliance or anyone else is
dependent on support and supplies from others. They could cause
difficulty but they could not operate alone is my own judgement
of the situation, so we could get mess but in the end we will
get our transitional government, I feel confident. The sooner
the better. In the meantime Kabul, I understand, is quite orderly.
We have someone there now and the British are back in, we have
got Mukesh Kapila, who has been before this Committee, who is
the head of the Conflict and Humanitarian Department, there now.
The French are back in representation, the Turks, and Kabul is
pretty orderly. I think the French troops are there. Mazar is
not quite as orderly but holding up. That is the picture but we
need the transitional government rapidly. I think we are going
to get there, soonest the better.
213. Back in October you announced £15
million of aid to Pakistan for economic assistance. This was in
addition to the £11 million for work in the refugee receiving
areas amongst the poorest people. How can the use of aid for a
political purpose by DFID be seen as different from the use of
EU aid for near-abroad which you have criticised in the past.
(Clare Short) No. This £15 million for Pakistan
is not at all for political purposes. Since the military coup
in Pakistan, and of course the nuclear tests in Pakistan and India,
many countries have withdrawn all aid and we paused everything
that went that had anything to do with government. We did not
stop things like the Aga Khan Foundation which is in very poor
rural communities. Different countries took a different view.
Let me say that before the military coup poor Pakistan has had
such gross mis-government, such corruption, so-called democratic
government plundering the country, not managing the economy well
and not delivering to the people. We get the military coup that
is welcomed by the people and then we, the west, say, "This
is not acceptable". Here we are, this is a complex situation.
Nonetheless, we cannot welcome the military coup. We were still
in with some of the efforts on the ground and we had paused others.
We were watching very closely. A lot of very competent technocrats,
Pakistanis who came back from overseas: bankers, people who had
worked for the UN, prestigious and honourable people, were appointed
to the government. I have taken a view for quite a long time that
this is a real chance for Pakistan. If the military government
could succeed in being a transition to better government, better
economic management and dealing with corruption, it would be a
great gain for Pakistan. We helped with technical assistance for
the local elections and local elections have been held throughout
the country. The requirement that a third of those elected must
be women, which is a revolution for Pakistan, has been done. The
Finance Minister is a former city banker of great seniority. He
is doing a remarkable job. He is called Shaukat Aziz. Pakistan
has just for the first time ever in the history of the country
completed an IMF/World Bank programme because they have had many
programmes but never ever completed one. It is about to have a
poverty reduction and growth facility grant. Of course the nightmare
of anything going wrong in Afghanistan would be Pakistan being
destabilised and being Talibanised and then you would have a Taliban
government with a nuclear weapon. That is not going to happen
now but pre-September 11, without anyone noticing, that could
have happened. Then God help the world as well as this region.
That is not alarmist. That is the sort of thing that had to be
attended to, which was partly why I was focusing so much on, given
goodwill in the military government, the need to help them to
succeed in being a transition to a decent democratic government
unlike what Pakistan had had before. We were engaged and we were
giving £15 million of technical assistance on getting the
finance ministry organised and the local elections, and we are
starting to prepare for the parliamentary elections that were
promised, but also improved management, poverty reduction strategies
that Pakistan is preparing. We have got a lot of expertise in
the department on that. Pakistan has taken a big economic hit
because of the crisis. The costs of insurance for its cargo coming
out and shipping insurance has gone up. There has been enormous
economic loss to Pakistan on top of the fact that it had been
badly governed for so long. It needs some help to keep its reform
agenda in place. We were planning budgetary aid, if their reform
agenda worked, for the subsequent years, but in the light of the
threat to their reform effort of the economic consequences of
the crisis in Afghanistan I brought forward this £15 million.
It is not money for a bad government "because we want you
to be a political ally" at all. It is money to protect a
reform agenda that is crucial to the future of the people of Pakistan
and indeed the region.
Mr Worthington
214. Can I turn to the longer term reconstruction.
Last week when we were talking to UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF and OCHA,
they were very concerned that it was not clear how the development
work was going to be co-ordinated and I was very pleased to see
that Mark Malloch Brown has been appointed by Kofi Annan to lead
that recovery plan. Could you talk a little bit about the dimensions
of that because he will be answerable to Brahimi? Do you for example
see it as going into areas such as we have done in Sierra Leone
of creating a police force because there is no national or even
local system of organisation? Could you say a little bit about
how you see that work developing?
(Clare Short) Yes. The capacity of a state at all,
let alone an effective modern state—hardly exists in Afghanistan,
so we are going to go from better humanitarian to the sort of
humanitarian plus food for work, schools, more bakers, little
enterprises, to the reconstruction of not just infrastructure
but the institutions of the state. Indeed, on the military there
are three options to get stability, to be able to get the new
government functioning and start to reconstruct the state. This
is going to take decades but we need to get started on driving
it forward with a coalition of the willing, which is what appears
to be happening, but a UN blue-hatted peace-keeping operation
is unlikely partly because it tends to be too slow and rather
ponderous as the experience of Sierra Leone shows. I do think
it is really important, as an aside, Chair. Obviously we need
the UN peace-keeping capacity but we need to make it more effective.
We did succeed in Sierra Leone but it does show lessons of some
of the problems of using that instrument. They are moving to an
Afghan force and Afghans are famous for not liking foreign forces
on their soil, and indeed have rarely had them and have resisted
them whenever they have come forward. It is wise to think of any
coalition of the willing to bring security being short term. There
will be a need to create Afghan forces out of all these disparate
but disciplined Afghan forces. You need policing. To get development
you must have some order and some security. When we have got schools
and using food aid and bits of reconstruction, we will need a
ministry of education, we will need to plan to move beyond the
Red Cross, providing medical care to Afghan health provision.
This is going to be a phenomenal job. We will have an Afghan transitional
government and I am sure that there will be a UN Security Council
resolution recognising its authority. I am sure it will say something
about elections later and the job that has got to be done. Brahimi's
prime role is to bring that government into existence. Then the
UN will have to come in and operate in the humanitarian plus to
get the country moving again. One of the problems of the UN system
is that you have got UNICEF, World Health Organisation, UNFPA,
UNDP, and so on, and co-ordination in the past has been weak with
deep jealousy between the different organisations and a lot of
wastefulness. We have been trying to work to strengthen the co-ordination
and one of the UNDP's roles is to hold the system together to
get all the UN family into one house and to share out the work,
not duplicate each other's work, which we really must try and
do. There is room for further improvement. Malloch Brown is very
appropriate given that that is UNDP's job, not in an emergency
but in a reconstruction phase. Obviously there will have to be
a relationship between the UN agencies and the new transitional
government but handing over wherever possible to Afghan-labour
work and learning the lessons of often doing that too slowly.
This is a new Cambodia, a country that had to be rebuilt from
scratch. East Timor after so much oppression has been building
the institutions of the state from scratch. Kosovo is another.
I am looking forward to us having this problem in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, another country that was brutally colonised,
massively mis-governed ever since, a country as big as western
Europe, where we have got a peace process that needs taking to
fruition, and then again a state will have to be created from
scratch. This is a new demand on the international development
system. In the modern day and age the institutions of an effective
modern state are not just good governance in the sense of democracy
and respect for human rights but a finance ministry that works,
that can create the kind of economic climate where the economy
can grow and a health and education ministry that can provide
a service to their people. We are going to have to build the institutions
of a modern state almost from scratch. It will take time. We have
got plans. The Hundred Days paper I think is with you and that
is much more about this learning the lessons of some of the bad
practice that has occurred in other places. There is a UK paper
being shared with others—I do not know if it is published;
probably not—on the reconstruction effort. Obviously Ambassador
Brahimi, looking a bit beyond Hundred Days, is preparing similar
work and the World Bank, with the Asian Development Bank, is also
preparing and there is a World Bank paper. I do not know if that
is published.
(Mr Ireton) I do not think it has been published yet.
It is going to be discussed in the board later this week and the
Bank will be having brainstorming discussions with various people
in Islamabad at the end of the month.
(Clare Short) That is right; there is a meeting coming
up on the 27 November, an Asian Development Bank/World Bank meeting.
The components are all moving and getting ready to go but getting
that to function well (and it has got to be complementary with
the transitional government) we need to get right because if you
get these things wrong it wastes enormous amounts of energy. Instead
of building the country you get clashing of bureaucracies and
different international institutions.
215. The country it reminds me of is Somalia
in terms of another failed state where the clans of Somalia regarded
anything that came into their country as their possession, which
is rather difficult for Oxfam and the Red Cross and everybody
else. It is how you manage this transition between Afghanistan's
ownership of what is going to develop but at the same time not
seizure of resources that are coming from UN organisations. Is
that a concern of yours?
(Clare Short) I think it is going to be a horrendous
task but a very welcome one. There will be lots of bumps on the
way and I am sure the Select Committee will want to return to
it, but to have peace in Afghanistan after all these years of
suffering and warfare and just be able to work with the country
to build a better future for itself is going to be an enormously
complicated and difficult job but a very welcome one.
216. It seems to me very important if this is
going to be a success that the ordinary people of Afghanistan
see that they are moving to better living standards, better education,
better health, as quickly as possible, so we have to move quickly,
but before Brahimi can possibly have done his job. You are right:
it is going to be fascinating as to how that can be effectively
led by outsiders but at the same time you do the transition to
a totally Afghanistan regime.
(Clare Short) The immediate improvement in the lives
of the people will be peace and then, just allowing the humanitarian
operation to operate more effectively because nothing is getting
in the way and getting to humanitarian-plus, so you can get schools
re-opening across the country, the Red Cross could be opening
up health facilities, employing Afghan nurses and doctors, Afghan
teachers and women teachers being able to work again, food for
work and so on. I am pretty confident of an immediate release,
first from conflict but then some improvements in food and so
on. It is then what happens because that is fairly deliverable
providing we have got security, but then building the institutions
of the state, having elections: that is hard grind, building the
institutions of a state from scratch. Afghanistan has not got
a lot of educated people but its educated people are by and large
asylum seekers across the world. We have some in Ladywood. This
country more than any needs educated people to return. I did ask
some of the women I met in Downing Street yesterday, and they
said that every Afghan wants to return, but "we need to know
we will be safe", especially educated women, to know that
it has gone to them being able to operate with dignity. I think
we can deliver improvements quite well if we have got security.
After that it is going to get very difficult.
Ann Clwyd
217. Do we have any idea at all, and I am sure
this is an impossible question to answer, how many civilian casualties
there are likely to be as a result of the bombing and fighting?
(Clare Short) I have seen some estimates from security
sources. I do not think anyone honestly has an informed view.
I think they are likely to be less bad than the figures that have
been expressed but every loss of life is a tragedy. There are
also people losing their lives because of hunger and poverty and
that is a tragedy too. There have been people losing their lives
because of the land mines and the rest. However, I am sure as
we get back in and as the rudimentary health facilities get going
we will get better information and we will keep you informed.
The estimates I have seen, as well informed as we could make them,
are hundreds. I do not think this is well informed but I do not
think it is going to be the vast numbers that some of the people
who feared blanket bombing across the country, which of course
there never was, I am happy to say.
218. Then the invisible refugees inside Pakistan
itself, those who have not registered, either from choice or because
they are not allowed to, as refugees so they do not get the support
that refugees would get in camps. Is there any way that we can
assist them because I think the estimates are about 140,000 in
South Pakistan, which is quite a lot of people.
(Clare Short) Part of the two million is spread across
Pakistan. If you talk to Pakistanis some of them feel very burdened,
let me put it like that, by the very large numbers of Afghans
from the previous crises who have spread across the country, not
just in the camps. There are more people living in Afghanistan
than are in camps from the previous crises. When I was in Peshawar
or Islamabad the UNHCR had just negotiated with the Pakistan Government
that people who were coming across the mountains and going to
live with families could be provided with humanitarian supplies,
so some help was given. It is always better when people can live
normally, but then you need to support the families who are supporting
them. That was the purpose of the other 11 million commitment.
We all hope that as Afghanistan moves forward a lot of the refugees
will return home. There is no doubt that both in the case of Iran
and of Pakistan the world turned its back on the nearly four million
people that those two countries have been hosting. We continue
to provide some support but I do not think either country got
enough support to carry the burden that they have been carrying
and we really must try and make sure that does not happen again.
219. Two years ago this Committee visited some
of the camps in the North West frontier, camps which had been
there 20 years. Looking at the situation of women within those
camps, it did not seem to be much different from their situation
had they stayed in Afghanistan because they were still segregated,
they were still expected to wear the burka, etc, etc. From past
experience how do we prevent those UN camps becoming permanent
camps?
(Clare Short) It is the view of some informed observers
that the conditions in the camps helped to breed a lot of the
fighters for the Taliban, these young men who grew up as refugees,
completely segregated from women even the women members of their
own family, who had never known any women, who could believe in
all these crazy ideas about the way women should be treated. Grave
errors have been made there. There has been movement across the
border. Prior to this government in Pakistan, as you will know,
Pakistan was a major supporter of the Taliban, I think for tactical
reasons, because they were terrified of being squeezed on two
fronts: the conflict with India over Kashmir unresolved, and then
if you got a hostile government in Afghanistan, Pakistan felt
terribly threatened, which I think led the previous Benazir Bhutto
government into supporting the Taliban, but then the border was
porous, the Taliban could move across, the Taliban could dominate
the camps, the Taliban could recruit fighters in the camps; all
of that was going on. This government is tightening up and is
no longer supporting the Taliban so I think there have been enormous
errors. This is just like in Rwanda: you get massive movement
of refugees and then you can get fighters dominating the refugees
and actually being strengthened by the international community's
provision of food, as has happened in Rwanda, so that their forces
in the genocide were strengthened by the UN giving them the food
to distribute to the people that had withdrawn from the country.
There has been a lot of mess, there is no question. Some effort
has gone on, I believe, to improve conditions in the camps. I
am sure they are still far from perfect. If we come out of this
well, which I am increasingly optimistic about, and we can keep
the Pakistani reform effort going, then I am sure we will be able
to address bit by bit and as fast as possible the conditions in
the camps and the possibilities of people returning home. As you
say, the camps are not good, so I am sure with a bit of support
people will want to return home. However, we are talking about
millions of people.
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