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23 Oct 2007 : Column 25WH—continued
“Given the still extremely serious situation in Darfur, will my right hon. Friend explain what steps his Government took during the recess to support Security Council resolution 1769, as well as the wider peace agreement in Sudan, in order to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered in desperate circumstances, and that this carnage is discontinued?”
“The combination of peace talks beginning in the next few days, and the possibility of an end to hostilities, gives us hope that this outrage—which has meant that 2 million people have been displaced, 4 million are in famine and a quarter of a million have died—can soon be brought to an end.”—[Official Report, 10 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 294-95.]
There followed a debate in Westminster Hall on 16 October, which was led by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), whom I am delighted to see here today. That debate highlighted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office perspective on Sudan, underlined by the fact that my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe replied. Today, I invite a wider debate specifically on aid and want to draw attention once more to the immense humanitarian problems that still exist in that unhappy region. It is right to seek to update the excellent debate on Darfur that we had on 5 June on the Floor of the House, but I wish to widen the debate to include the whole of Sudan.
A report received as recently as last week shows that the humanitarian crisis in Sudan is getting worse, with aid agencies suggesting that targeted attacks on their workers are at their highest since the conflict began. On 9 October, the African Union Mission in Sudan published a bulletin stating that, on 29 September, an AU peacekeeping camp was burned down, killing 10 African soldiers for peace. For reasons that I gave to the House on 5 June, aid agencies working in the region now understandably refuse to be quoted by name for fear of having their cover blown.
In a country of 35 million people, nearly 4 million in the Darfur region alone currently rely on aid. The activities there have been described as the world’s largest humanitarian response. Nearly one in seven Sudanese people are in need of aid; that is equivalent to the population of Wales. Two million of those people are displaced and living in refugee camps, often in appalling conditions, and half a million cannot be reached by aid agencies. Two years of bad rainy seasons, particularly in the east of Sudan on the coast of the Red sea, have put even more strain on the fragile infrastructure of the country, with more humanitarian efforts having to take place in that region.
Implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement between north and South Sudan has been slow. Southern Sudan is potentially achieving four of its 20 millennium development goals, compared with 13 out of 20 in the north. Enrolment in primary schools in the north is about 60 per cent. compared with 20 per cent. in the south. Sudan is facing horrendous problems, and it is profoundly unacceptable that, when the international community seeks to offer assistance, its efforts are blatantly
undermined by—there is no point in mincing words—the Government of Sudan. It is plainly outrageous that, while non-governmental organisations and aid agencies struggle to assist in refugee camps, they do so under conditions of aerial bombardment initiated by the Bashir regime.
There has been no absence of outright condemnation; nor should there be when men, woman and children are fleeing their homes, women are being raped as they gather firewood and emaciated children appear on our television screens. The case for international outrage is surely justified. Comparisons with Rwanda have been made. I do not for a moment seek to excuse what took place there, and I welcome the reconciliation, but that terrible scenario extended over 100 days, whereas the awful carnage in Sudan has gone on before our very eyes for something like five years.
What is to be done? A consensus seems to have emerged in the House that our humanitarian efforts should be matched by a diplomatic approach. I commend the efforts of my colleagues in the Department for International Development, especially the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the current Secretary of State for International Development and his team. I particularly welcome my good friend the new Minister, who will respond to the debate. DFID is the second-largest bilateral donor to Sudan, having given more than £250 million in humanitarian assistance since April 2004.
It seems to me that the House believes in taking a two-pronged approach by stepping up humanitarian delivery and pursuing urgently the diplomatic route. However, I concede that that is far from easy. President Bashir seems to concede when the international community makes concerted efforts to put pressure on him, but carries on as before as soon as our back is turned. The only way to force real change, given the unacceptable intransigence of the brutal regime, is to exert pressure continually on every relevant issue. Parliament is the right forum for doing that in Britain. Without that pressure, the Sudanese Government will throw up obstructions at every opportunity. They will impose needless red tape, undermine NGOs, delay United Nations and African Union peacekeeping efforts and carry out aerial attacks on their own people. The truth is that the shame of the regime knows no bounds.
Many people have placed their hopes in the peace talks due to take place in Libya at the end of this month, but the considerable concerns about progress must be expressed. For example, those very hopes must have taken a severe blow when the Justice and Equality Movement, one of the main political players in Sudan, announced last week that it would not attend the conference because of the planned absence of other key parties. A spokesman for the group said that he would stay away unless the rival Sudan Liberation Army united its warring factions. Indeed, in the run-up to the talks, infighting between the warring factions in Sudan has led to the creation of many splinter groups. It almost seems that no one is sure who should or should not be at the table in Libya.
Will the Government continue to give their full support to the fine work of Ban Ki-moon, who is attempting to get negotiations off the ground? On that point, I received a letter from the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees this morning, virtually on my way to the debate. Its immediacy is extremely striking. It is able to give a far clearer picture, devastating as it is, of what is happening. I ask for the patience of my colleagues as I share some of the letter with them.
On UNHCR operations in Sudan, the letter states:
“Sudan epitomises the complexity and intricacy of refugee crises in today’s world. Whilst repatriation is ongoing to South Sudan, violence in the Darfur region in the west of the country continues to force people from their homes, the Eastern part of the country continues to receive asylum seekers from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, and up to 2,000 Palestinians may soon be resettled from Iraq to Sudan.
The UN Refugee Agency has a network of 16 offices across Sudan, managing the return operation to South Sudan, supporting tens of thousands of refugees in one of the world’s most protracted refugee situations in eastern Sudan, as well as providing protection and assistance to some of Darfur’s two million internally displaced persons in the west of the country.
UNHCR has welcomed the UK Government’s funding of 1.2 million GBP for its 2007 operation in Darfur and Chad. However, further support from the international community is urgently required as two of UNHCR’s largest operations within Sudan—repatriation in the South, and protection and assistance to internally displaced persons in Darfur—both face funding shortfalls.”
Elsewhere, the letter deals with UNHCR operations in Darfur. It states:
“UNHCR opened offices in...West Darfur, in 2004. In April this year, UNHCR responded to a request by the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator and agreed with the Sudanese Government to ‘scale up’ its activities in west Darfur, which are expected to include south and eventually north Darfur.
However, the general security situation in Darfur continues to be unstable, with recent reports of vehicle hijackings, temporary abductions and even killings of aid workers. The deteriorating security environment prevents UNHCR from accessing some displaced persons (the agency’s current reach is about half of Darfur’s two million displaced) as well as placing civilians at great risk.”
A poignant paragraph—again, I appreciate the forbearance of my colleagues—states:
“The plight of Darfur’s internally displaced is extremely precarious, with the recruitment of displaced children”—
“into armed groups a serious protection issue. UNHCR has continued to search for innovative ways of addressing this problem, including programmes to keep youths productively engaged and the separation of armed elements from refugees.”
Given the title of this debate, I should like to refer finally to what the letter said about funding shortfalls. It states:
“Unless funding is received soon, a shortfall of US$7.1 million in its 2007 Darfur budget of US$19.7 million may force the UN Refugee Agency to scale down protection and humanitarian aid operations in the conflict-ridden region. UNHCR is appealing to donors for immediate contributions. UNHCR is concerned that the lack of funding will soon have a direct impact on our operation to protect and assist some of the more than 2 million internally displaced persons...and thousands of Chadian refugees in Darfur, whose numbers continue to rise.
Similarly, UNHCR is facing a critical shortfall of US$11.1 million for its refugee return and reintegration operations budget in South Sudan for this year.”
I am grateful to my colleagues for their forbearance while I quoted from an extremely important letter. I believe that it shows the importance of the focus that we are giving to these matters today, and I am glad that the Minister is indicating that he agrees.
The UN and the African Union have committed a force of 26,000 troops for the task of peacekeeping in the region. That is an admirable and much-needed step forward in the process of getting aid into the region. However, although the force is due to reach its full complement of troops by December, it appears that diplomatic impediments have been placed in the way. As a result, there is now no clear timetable for having personnel in place to safeguard the aid agencies and their work, and, therefore, to help the 500,000 or so people who are unable to receive aid.
Another issue of enormous concern has recently come to my attention. A group called the Aegis Trust, to which the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) referred in the June debate in the Chamber of the House, has written to several hon. Members. That international genocide prevention organisation has highlighted cases of Sudanese people seeking asylum in this country who could be sent back to Sudan because the capital, Khartoum, is considered safe, even though it is plainly obvious that they would be in considerable personal danger.
The matter has been before the courts and is due to be considered in another place, but the other side of the coin is truly intriguing. Sudan’s head of intelligence, Salah Abdullah, is seen by many as the architect of what they consider to be Sudan’s genocide. He recently hosted an intelligence conference, which representatives from the United States, France and the UK attended. Indeed, Mr. Abdullah was recently invited to this country to receive medical treatment, and it was revealed by The Guardian that he later met unnamed officials. That was at a time when aid workers were putting their lives on the line and working with inadequate resources, including insufficient medication to meet the needs of the most vulnerable of the world’s oppressed people. More than 10,000 people, mainly young, attended the charity concert for Darfur at the weekend. What would they have thought if they had known that their contribution had been so deeply undermined? The House is entitled to an explanation.
Let me be frank as we survey the carnage that clearly exists in Sudan. It did not come about by accident, and those responsible should be held to account. For example, the House knows that arrest warrants were recently issued by the International Criminal Court. Former Sudanese interior Minister, Ahmad Harun, and Janjaweed militia leader, Ali Kushayb, are wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region. Khartoum has refused to co-operate with the ICC and has said that it will not hand over Kushayb or Harun, who—would you believe it?—is now Sudan’s Minister for Humanitarian Affairs. The ICC’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has expressed his worry that Harun in his new position will not help the people whom he displaced.
Before the Minister prepares to respond to the debate, may I make a few points for his consideration? Many people are asking where we are with the proposed no-fly zone over parts of Sudan, and perhaps he would enlighten us. What are the Government’s thoughts about the problems in neighbouring countries, such as the Central African Republic and Chad, which have had to deal with 235,000 refugees since the conflict escalated? What response have the Government made to the Sudan-UK investment organisation, particularly its letters to the Governments of India, Malaysia and Japan, which have
close economic ties with the Sudanese Government? Those letters ask those states to make their economic relations with Sudan dependent on its full commitment to peace and security for the people of that country. What is the Government’s view of the effectiveness of the European Union’s response?
As in so many other regions of the developing world, we know that wealth-sharing is an increasing imperative in moving people towards genuine development, so I invite the Minister to take this opportunity to outline the steps that DFID is encouraging in this important matter.
In conclusion, I want to underline the importance of crucial diplomatic initiatives. Of course, a positive approach involves France, the United States and the UK speaking with one voice on this crucial issue, but there is another window of opportunity with the Olympic games in Beijing. In many ways, China could be the key to a permanent solution, especially with its desire to be seen in a positive light as the games approach. I was greatly encouraged during the debate in June, when I made that point to the then Secretary of State for International Affairs, who said that
“at the Addis meeting last November...we reached the point where the Chinese representative said to the Government of Sudan, ‘I think you really ought to accept what is being offered here.’ The Sudanese Foreign Minister looked around the room and realised nobody else was supporting him.”
The then Secretary of State continued:
“That collective determination of the international community helped to get that agreement.”—[Official Report, 5 June 2007; Vol. 461, c. 227.]
Unless the Sudanese Government change track, they are destined to be isolated and alone. The international community might have been found wanting in the past, but the future can be so different. Challenges and opportunities exist, and we should not flinch from our duty when the opportunity for peace and progress comes.
11.25 am
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): It is a pleasure to follow my good and right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke), and to have a second bite of the cherry, having had a debate last week with the Foreign Office.
I welcome the Minister, and the good news is that I do not intend to go over the same ground. I am sure that you would rule me out of order, Mr. Olner, if I did, because this is a different debate. However, I want to emphasise a couple of points that I made last week and to examine the funding situation. It is good to see the hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster) here today. He accompanied me and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer) to Sudan a couple of months ago when we saw the situation for real, and I want to make a further contribution as a result of that.
We are having this debate against a difficult background. I referred last week to the decision of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to withdraw from the Government of national unity for a period. Various attempts at mediation are being made, but while the situation in Darfur is dire, the wider ramifications for Sudan of losing the comprehensive peace agreement must be
understood in their full context, because they are deeply worrying. I hope that at the very least the Minister will tell us what efforts we are making to ensure that the comprehensive peace agreement is maintained, and that every attempt is being made to persuade the SPLM to return to the Government of national unity. That is an interesting concept, but it remains the only show in town, and there is no possibility of solving the Darfur situation unless we can keep the north-south dialogue on track. Given that the Darfur peace agreement is entirely reliant on the comprehensive peace agreement, we must understand how important this time is in the history of Sudan.
I make no apology for looking at the multilateral arrangements for funding, but as chair of the all-party group on Sudan I have nothing but praise for the way in which the Government have engaged with Sudan, and that includes current Ministers and their predecessors. When we took on the issue, we knew that we were in it for the long run and that it would be a rocky road. It has certainly proved to be so, but there is no evidence that the Government have reneged on their commitment and they have been asked to take on more responsibility, which they have done so willingly, knowing that the situation is difficult.
To put the funding situation into context, I shall give some of the background. When the original arrangement to proceed to the comprehensive peace agreement was put in place at the Oslo conference, some £5 billion was pledged. There is a downside to the international community’s commitment, and the hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes will remember that Riek Machar, vice president of southern Sudan’s Government, put it to us fair and square that the international community had failed to deliver its Oslo commitment.
Again, it is pleasing that the British Government have kept to their commitment, but many other countries have yet to deliver the money that they promised. The international community has made a commitment, and if we are going to point the finger at Khartoum and Juba and argue that it is right for them to pursue peace, it is only fair that we keep our side of the agreement. However, we have failed to do so, which is lamentable, given that that will bring pressure to bear on the comprehensive peace agreement.
On the wider issue, it is fair to say that Sudan has been something of an experiment—almost a laboratory experiment—in the provision of funding, but no one knows whether that experiment will work. Part of the problem is that the situation is quite complicated in terms of what has been put in place and how it works or—dare I say it—does not work on the ground. There are three main funds—the multi-donor trust fund, the basic services fund and the common humanitarian fund. I will quickly go through what I think each of them does, although there is some questioning of them on the ground in the south, and I am sure that there will be some questioning when we get some peace in Darfur whether the right structures are in place and whether they have worked.
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