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6.33 pm
Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North): I welcome the opportunity to speak, however briefly. I shall make two points that build on what was said by two earlier speakers. My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington) spoke of the importance of oil in west Africa, and the increasing volumes of oil coming from it. I want to draw attention to the dangers that that will bring, in terms of geopolitical stability.
Let me refer to a country that has not been mentioned so far today—an increasingly oil-rich country. I do not think that Cameroon has ever been the subject of debate, or has even been referred to during a debate, in my time in Parliament—or, I suspect, before that. The construction of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline and Cameroon's successful offshore oil claim against its much larger neighbour, Nigeria, focuses our attention
on the pressures building up in west Africa. I want to bring to the House's and the Secretary of State's notice the dangers in that part of the world. In recent months, we have witnessed the events in Liberia, in Côte d'Ivoire and further round the coast in Sierra Leone; moreover, we know of the tensions in Nigeria. It is entirely conceivable that Cameroon will be the next flashpoint in that part of west central Africa, because of the pressure on natural resources—the pressure to extract oil—and on Cameroon's almost unique rain forest, which is one of the most precious virgin rain forests in the world.We must also consider the importance of good governance in any development strategy, an issue which the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) raised. I want to draw the Secretary of State's attention to a report published by FIDH—the Paris-based, international human rights non-governmental organisation—on torture in Cameroon and the absence of basic standards of criminal justice. The combination of the pressure to extract natural resources, the lack of acceptable standards of governance, the oppression of minorities, and the systematic use of torture against ordinary criminals and political prisoners, is building up into a flashpoint that we ignore at our peril. In recent years, the international community has found it easy to ignore the warning signs in small countries in strategically important areas. Today provides an opportunity to look at these warning signs and to ensure that we avoid the mistakes that have been made before.
I draw particular attention to the FIDH report on torture that was published just a few weeks ago. I accept that this issue is not primarily the responsibility of the Secretary of State for International Development, but I ask him to consider it and to discuss it with the Foreign Secretary. My understanding is that the United Nations committee against torture will convene in November, so here is an opportunity for the UK to play an important role in improving human rights in Cameroon by making representations about the complete lack of acceptability of torture as an instrument of the criminal justice system. It is also an opportunity to bring to the international stage the wider conflicts in Cameroon between the many different ethnic minorities, which speak many different languages, between the Muslims and the Christians, between those in the desert north and those in the tropical south, and in particular between the English-speaking minority and the French-speaking majority. Of course, Cameroon is one of very few countries with a French-speaking majority that happens to be a member of the Commonwealth, so the United Kingdom has—or ought to have—a particular interest in it. There is a sense among its English-speaking minority that the United Kingdom has not taken on that responsibility, or shown the level of care and interest that it might reasonably have been expected to show over a number of years.
I want to tie together the relentless exploitation of natural resources and the dangers of the absence of good governance in Cameroon, and to draw to the House's attention the fact that Cameroon may prove, if not a new Côte d'Ivoire or Sierra Leone, a potential flashpoint that could destabilise the wider region. I should be very grateful if the Secretary of State would discuss Cameroon and look at his Department's role, alongside that of the Foreign Secretary, in strengthening human rights in that country.
6.39 pm
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby): One of the difficulties of speaking at the end of a debate is that we have already heard many sensible speeches across the Chamber. I shall try not to repeat points that have already been made. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) rightly said, this is not a partisan issue, and we have heard from members of the International Development Committee on both sides of the Chamber.
I will briefly repeat what the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington) said about welcoming the fact that the Secretary of State has been in his place throughout the debate, which encourages us all. I also want to welcome the Secretary of State on the occasion of his first debate in the House as Secretary of State for International Development. I found what he had to say upbeat, optimistic and uplifting. I did not agree with everything that he said, but he would not expect that. It was good to hear his optimism about the Sudan peace process and I hope that he is right. I do not, however, really share his optimism about the Congo.
I visited the Congo two years ago with the all-party group, including the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King). President Kabila told us then that he expected elections to take place within two years, but those two years have come and gone. I read Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", which many people have read, while I was there. It was written a century ago. I was greatly saddened to read Saturday's The Daily Telegraph, which described cannibalism in Ituri province. I recalled Kurtz's dying words, "The horror, the horror." We are now living in the 21st century, yet British and other journalists are living in an area where people are indulging in cannibalism.
I base my speech largely on the three issues mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman)—AIDS, conflict and corruption. They are connected. Indeed, as the Secretary of State said, they are all, albeit not directly, development issues.
We heard a great deal about AIDS from the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), and I agreed with almost everything that he said. The first time that I referred, as did the Secretary of State, to the black death, I was interrupted by Liberal Members for being racist. However, it is like the black death. In leaving schools without teachers and hospitals without doctors, it is exactly the same as the scourge that swept across Europe in medieval times. It is destroying all the development progress made over the past 40 years. As the hon. Member for City of York rightly pointed out, it is vastly reducing life expectancy. The worst prediction that I have heard from UNAIDS is that life expectancy in Botswana will be 27—younger than any hon. Member who has taken part in this debate—by 2010. I hope that the prediction is wrong.
Antiretroviral treatment is terribly important, but the lesson to be learned from Uganda is that educational and behavioural change is the key to improving the situation. Having visited Botswana last year, I want to say that the way in which the Botswana Government behaved is magnificent. It is probably the richest country in southern Africa—certainly the richest per capita—and it is the best-governed country in southern Africa. As a result, it is giving antiretroviral treatment to anyone who wants and needs it.
On the subject of conflict, reflecting on the heart of Africa says it all. As I said, I do not share all the Secretary of State's optimism. Many of the problems are interlinked. The Sudanese believe that the Ugandan Government have supported the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, so they have supported the Lord's Resistance Army, which is fighting in northern Uganda. It is abducting children—a ghastly business. The Ugandans, of course, invaded Rwanda to help Kagami to put out the last regime. The Rwandans and Ugandans then invaded the Congo to get rid of the Mobutu regime: they are still in the Congo, looting natural resources. The Zimbabweans are doing the same—making a fortune out of the natural resources of the Congo. It is all deeply interlinked, and deeply depressing.
I shall not go through others on the list: one could go on through Liberia, Sierra Leone, Eritrea and Ethiopia. I have to say that money spent on arms and destruction should be spent on construction and development. What horrified me most on a visit to Angola in May this year was hearing from UNITA what the conflict in Angola was for. That conflict has gone on for about 26 years and millions of people have been killed in terrible destruction. What was it for? The people in UNITA said that they did not have any real ideological differences with the MPLA. They said that it was really about personalities and who had their noses in the trough. I find that deeply worrying and very cynical.
Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robathan: The hon. Gentleman has only just taken his place and I have very little time, so I will not give way to him, even though we went to Angola together.
Talking of Angola leads me to the subject of corruption, or what is euphemistically termed good governance. In Angola, former Marxists who seized power in 1975 are now making fortunes from the oil revenues from their country. Some $1 billion is unaccounted for, which is some 20 to 25 per cent. of the total oil revenue. Allegedly, it is going into the president's private bank account. Who knows? When BP tried to be transparent about the money it was paying, it was threatened with being kicked out of the country. It is a beautiful, fertile and rich country that is not overpopulated, but people are starving.
We heard much about Nigeria from the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie. Nearly a quarter of black Africans live in Nigeria and two thirds of them live on less than $1 a day, in a country that has oil revenues of $18 billion. Where is it all going? We must all ask that question. A few years ago, a finance Minister in Kenya said to me—I remember his exact words—
- "Don't give us more money: ask us what we have done with the money you already gave us."
Zimbabwe has an AIDS infection rate of between 25 and 33 per cent. Who knows? People are murdered daily by the regime and the corruption is self-evident. However, I remind the Secretary of State that last year our aid to Zimbabwe doubled to £29 million. As I said in my intervention in his speech, humanitarian aid is all very well, but it is being used as a tool of repression by
the Zimbabwean Government. I urge him, as he kindly said he would in his reply to my intervention, to ensure that we monitor exactly what happens to our aid.My final points concern the great hope for the future—NEPAD—of which we have heard much today. The Prime Minister speaks warmly of NEPAD, but President Obasanjo of Nigeria, a former military dictator, is one of its leaders. Nigeria is the second most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International. What hope does that give us? We are told that NEPAD will include peer review. Well, the International Parliamentary Union was going to meet here at Westminster in March, but the Government—to their credit—refused to give visas to Zimbabweans, so African countries have pressured the IPU to move the meeting outside the United Kingdom. That is deeply depressing.
We heard about South Africa from my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). It refuses to press Mugabe to resign or to reverse his policies. However, NEPAD relies on peer review and leadership by those people. How much confidence does that give us? Is NEPAD wishful thinking, as my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden suggested? Do African leaders see no evil and hear no evil? I hope that the Minister addresses that issue when he winds up.
The Prime Minister called NEPAD
- "a real signal of hope for the future."—[Official Report, 1 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 23.]
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