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12.46 pm
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lord Alton for securing this timely debate and for introducing it, characteristically, in a comprehensive and informative way. Like the right reverend Prelate, I shall focus on Sudan, the site of Africa’s longest-running conflict.
The comprehensive peace agreement—the CPA—of 2005 has brought some welcome relief from the war waged by the National Islamic Front regime against the peoples of southern Sudan and marginalised areas such as the Nuba mountains, Abyei and Southern Blue Nile—but not before 2 million people perished and 4 million were displaced. As my noble friend Lord Alton reminded us, this toll of human suffering was inflicted before the horrors of Darfur began to unfold, culminating in a continuing genocide in which at least 200,000 have been killed and a further 2 million displaced.
The current situation is acutely disturbing in at least three ways: the possibility of eruption of further war in the south; the recent disintegration of the Government of National Unity; and the continuing lack of co-operation by Khartoum, preventing effective intervention by the international community in Darfur. Therefore we must welcome the initiative this week to bring the CPA back on track, with the two sides reaching agreement on all issues except Abyei. This may, indeed, be a ray of hope on the dark horizon, although everyone must be well aware that Sudan’s President al-Bashir and his National Congress Party—the NCP—have reneged on every agreement to date.
Therefore, while we welcome this development, we must do so on the basis of the principle, “Trust but verify”. It is essential that there is effective supervision
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Khartoum has also reneged on its obligations to supply resources to the south so that urgent, essential reconstruction and rehabilitation have been impeded and the condition of the people is, in many places, little better under the new Administration than it was previously. It is widely believed that this restriction of resources is a ploy by Khartoum to create such disaffection in the south that, when the referendum for self-determination comes, the people will have no incentive to vote for independence.
Like other noble Lords, I have seen the plight of the people. There is obvious relief that the peace agreement has brought a cessation of fighting, including the incessant aerial bombardment by Khartoum, with Antonovs dropping their bombs, often targeted at health centres, feeding centres and schools, and terrifying attacks by low-flying helicopter gunships. These were diverted to Darfur and have since been inflicting their terror and carnage there.
But we have also seen in the south how people are still suffering and dying from diseases for which treatment should now be available. In Equatoria, in rural areas, we have seen preventable, treatable diseases such as meningitis, measles and malaria killing people on a huge scale. In eastern Upper Nile earlier this year, we found leprosy, possibly of pandemic proportions.
These problems help to explain why the leadership and the people in the south are feeling so desperate. There are also indications of the lack of good faith on the part of the northern leadership, with regard to not only the CPA but Darfur. President Omar al-Bashir, whose Government are widely believed to be instigating atrocities in Darfur, has consistently refused to allow a sufficient number of peacekeepers or military assets to protect civilians. But without an effectively equipped peacekeeping force, the assaults on human dignity—the executions, rapes and ethnic cleansing—will continue, as the noble Baroness, Lady Park, has emphasised.
What efforts are being made by Her Majesty’s Government to support the United Nations in the provision of all resources essential for an effective peacekeeping force for Darfur, and what representations are they making to Khartoum to ensure effective compliance with the requirements of the UN for deployment of the peacekeeping forces?
The debacle over the teacher and the teddy bear is a further indication of the bankruptcy of British policy vis-Ã -vis the Islamist regime in Khartoum. A leader in the Daily Telegraph on 4 December summarised the situation:
“For Sudan to be able defiantly to humiliate a major democratic nation from which it receives large amounts of aid by
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Indeed, many of us have long been urging Her Majesty’s Government to do just this. I therefore ask precisely what representations were made to Khartoum over the totally inappropriate treatment of the British schoolteacher.
The issues of Darfur—particularly Khartoum’s intransigence and continued aggression—and the growing tension in the south are connected. There is a fear among experts that al-Bashir will exploit the weakness and indecision of the international community regarding Darfur to deliver a decisive defeat to the south as soon as possible. Strong voices in the uppermost circles of Khartoum now recommend this line of action to solve all the other outstanding problems by “resolving” the unfinished campaign in the south. The enduring instability in the vital Abyei area can provide Khartoum with many excuses for violating the recent agreement to revive the CPA. It is therefore very important to signal to Khartoum that the outside world is most interested in the sustenance and completion of the CPA. I hope that the Minister will give reassurances that Her Majesty’s Government will adopt appropriately robust responses to any deviation by Khartoum from the CPA, or to any failure to provide full co-operation for peacekeeping initiatives in Darfur. I also hope that the Minister will give some assurance of adequate succour for the victims of Sudan’s longest-running conflict. They will be deeply interested in the Minister’s reply, and I hope that it will bring them some comfort.
12.52 pm
Lord Parekh: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on securing this debate, and thank him for introducing it with considerable passion and understanding.
Since other Peers have spoken about the consequences of conflict, which are well known anyway, I want to concentrate on, first, why conflicts occur and, secondly, what we should do about them. In discussing conflicts in Africa, we must avoid two mistakes. There is a tendency to think that it is a conflict-ridden continent, that conflicts have been there ever since the independence of various countries and that nothing can be done about them. That is not entirely accurate. Conflicts have ebbed and flowed. They peaked in 1991 and then fell. They rose again to 1991 levels in 1998, and they have been falling ever since. Between 2002 and 2005, conflicts in Africa declined by 15 per cent. It is also striking that more and more wars have ended in negotiated settlements, instead of being fought to the end.
The second point is that conflicts in Africa are of three kinds. There are conflicts between countries, conflicts within countries and conflicts that are a mixture of both. They either develop indigenously and then spill over, or they begin outside the borders
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The first factor is the ethnic and religious discrimination in most of these countries. It is striking—all the statistics show it—that those countries that practise ethnic and religious discrimination are 10 times more likely to have wars than those that do not. It is also striking that states that practise ethnic and religious discrimination are five times more likely to fail than those that do not. Therefore, the first problem to address is the question of ethnic and religious discrimination.
The second factor is the easy availability of arms. There are as many as 500 million small and large arms freely available.
The third problem is bad governance. One must bear in mind that in Africa, once you are out of power, you are nothing. You can be harassed, persecuted and deprived of all your rights. Therefore, the only alternatives for those who are discriminated against are to keep fighting or to surrender, in which case they will suffer all the consequences at the hands of those in power. They are simply left with no rational choice to enter into any peaceful negotiations.
The other source of conflict is the ease with which people—rulers in particular—are able to plunder national resources and siphon off money abroad. It is also striking that wars, both civil and international, are more likely in those countries where Governments are able to borrow vast sums from international institutions and bankers in the name of the country. A ruler has a constant temptation to plunder resources, and political power gives him access to them. It is striking that Nigeria’s military leaders left a debt of $30 billion, which is 80 per cent of the GNP, and absolutely nothing could be done about it.
The final factor that causes, or at least aggravates, wars is external interference. This was the case during the Cold War, when one country was played off against another. There is a danger of something similar happening, if we are not careful, with China being actively involved in Africa and we ourselves thinking that we must do everything in our power to stop this, as we did with the Soviet Union. Even if countries do not get involved, multinationals always want to play off one group against another and create conflicts.
This is, briefly, why I think conflicts occur. The question is what we do about them. The first and most important step is to make sure that Africa develops economically. Unless there is a large middle class, and ordinary people have a stake in the country, wars will continue. It is sad and self-contradictory that we talk a great deal about preventing conflicts and do little to provide Africa with sensible terms of trade, or help with economic development. The second important step is to encourage civil society in Africa. Civil society has a greater chance of success if there are sensible international mediators, if conflicts
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The third important thing to bear in mind is that many of these conflicts have exogenous sources—they arise outside the country and spill over into it. It is extremely important to ensure regional co-operation, as the Great Lakes regional summits have done from time to time. Finally, we must tackle the situation in certain countries where one can get into a position of power, plunder national resources, get kick-backs and siphon off money abroad, or borrow money legitimately from international institutions. It is very important that there should be internationally agreed restrictions on the borrowing privileges of unelected military leaders in those countries. It is also important that their right to dispose of national resources must be severely restricted. It is equally important, in this context, to track the movement of money from African countries to others and the ultimately disgraceful practice of secret Swiss bank accounts. The time has come to put an end to that. It has more to account for in terms of human bloodshed than almost anything else I can think of.
1 pm
Baroness Verma:My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on this timely debate. Africa is rich in natural resources yet remains among the poorest continents in the world. Much of my speech is based on the extensive work carried out by Oxfam, IANSA, Safeworld and Save the Children.
As the noble Lord said, the report estimates that the economic cost of armed conflict in Africa’s development has been about $300 billion since 1990, money which could have helped solve problems such as the spread of HIV/AIDS, addressed Africa’s needs in education, clean water and sanitation and helped towards preventing diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. The report also estimates that some 95 per cent of Africa's most commonly used weapons come from outside the continent, the most common being the Kalashnikov assault rifle, in particular the AK47, a light rifle readily used by child soldiers, a point that I will return to. Of course some African nations have made significant efforts towards arms control, but there is an urgent need to reduce the international supply of arms and ammunition into Africa, otherwise the cost of African development will be measured not only monetarily but in lives shattered and opportunities squandered. About 40 per cent of the world's conflicts are fought in Africa, conflicts that prevent development and that keep the world's poorest continent poor, confining people to a life of poverty and shrinking economies.
There are huge intangible costs—and here I return to my earlier remarks on child soldiers. Save the Children reports that most child soldiers are abducted or coerced into volunteering to become soldiers. Resistance often
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On 5 February 2007, the international community established new guidelines. Johanna MacVeigh, an adviser to Save the Children, said:
“Being recruited by armed forces has a devastating effect on children's lives. They are immersed in violence, are subject to terrible abuse and are forced to forfeit love, play, education and hope. Governments and the United Nations must show their support and commit to stamping out the use of child soldiers”.
The plight of young girls is even more horrific. They face sexual abuse, physical abuse, and then the prospect of rejection by their families. They have to live with the scars left of both physical and emotional abuse inflicted on them by grown men. I recently watched a film called “Blood Diamond”. It was based on true events in Africa, graphically portraying the ugly, violent and tortuous way in which innocence is sucked out of the lives of young children and how easily that is replaced with behaviour devoid of any emotional responsibility towards another human being.
The United Kingdom announced that it would double its support to the African Development Fund over the next three years. I hope that the Minister can tell us whether projects will be funded to look at the rehabilitation of child soldiers and young girls who have suffered abuse. Can she also say what progress African nations are making in achieving the millennium development goals and whether the progress to date looks promising? Unless progress is made in achieving gender balance in both civil and public life in the African continent then changes affecting the plight of women and the implications for the lives of children, particularly girls, will remain a serious issue. When increasing funding levels to Africa, will special attention be paid to empowering women’s organisations so that they can participate more fully in the decision-making process of their nations? Is there any tangible evidence to show that real progress is being made to address gender issues, and are all African nations signed up to implementing real changes?
I look forward to the Minister's response. I am pretty certain that we will revisit this enormously important subject again and again. As we all recognise, the stability and economic success of this region has huge compounding consequences for the rest of the world. In last week's debate on Kenya I argued that the key to success for Africa was to make the continent economically strong and that, to achieve that, our emphasis should be as much on trade as on providing aid. Although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Luce,
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1.06 pm
The Earl of Sandwich:My Lords, I thank my noble friend very warmly. He speaks with passion, especially about Darfur, a word which is almost synonymous with conflict in Africa. However, Abyei, in neighbouring Kordofan, threatens to become another household word if the right action is not taken in time to prevent another conflagration.
The history is important, and the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, have already set the scene. Abyei straddles the border of north and south, the home of the Ngok Dinka people, and is bordered to the north by two sections of the Misseriya cattle herdsmen who have claimed a customary right to graze their animals down to the Bahr el-Arab and other shifting tributaries of the White Nile. It was only in 1905 that Britain brought nine Dinka chiefdoms in Abyei within the borders of Kordofan, setting a fuse for the conflict which broke out after Sudan's independence half a century later.
This dispute should have been settled by the Addis Ababa agreement of 1975, but instead Ngok Dinka became the spearhead of the powerful Anya-Nya II movement, which led to the formation of the SPLA. The Misseriya, meanwhile, raided Dinka villages and enslaved their women in their well known government-backed offensives against the SPLA. The Machakos Protocol of 2002 again postponed the problem, leaving Abyei in the north and excluding it from the prospect of a referendum and self-determination in the south. Abyei from then on became one of the “three areas” separately negotiated and was one of the main causes of delay in the painstaking negotiations that led to the CPA.
The Abyei deadlock seemed to be broken at Naivasha in 2004, with the help of US Senator Danforth, when the Abyei Protocol was conceived as a means of creating a special administrative status for Abyei, and yet again the CPA itself was signed without agreement in those important areas.
The presence of some of Sudan’s most important oilfields has naturally aggravated the dispute, because the revenue, instead of benefiting the people, has been withheld entirely until the boundary is settled. The Abyei boundary commission in a sense revived the pre-1905 boundary by bringing the nine chiefdoms back into the south within a territory still to be defined. This logical solution has been bitterly opposed by the National Congress Party. It seems an intractable issue and will require a much greater international effort to resolve it.
I think that the UN can be seen at its best in this part of Sudan, where demilitarisation and disarmament under the CPA is edging forward on many fronts despite the dissatisfaction on both sides. The SPLA, meanwhile, complains quite reasonably that guarding oilfields cannot explain the vast numbers of government
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As my noble friend Lady Cox said, there has been sabre-rattling partly because the Government had not accepted UNMIS's jurisdiction north of Abyei. However, the Ceasefire Joint Military Committee has had some success in defusing conflict and the local monitoring committee has now agreed to lift restrictions on the movement of UNMIS north and south of Abyei.
If we are looking for comprehensive causes of conflict we should include climate change and especially water shortage, whose effect is to drive both pastoral and nomadic tribes, who have traditionally shared resources, into competition at certain times of the year which can be desperate. Abyei and many areas of southern Sudan which were models of racial harmony in the past have become areas of tension, aggravated by recent memories of slaughter during the civil war.
As in Nigeria, the presence of foreign oil companies, however carefully they tread, is bound to make these situations even more explosive if they are not seen to bring direct benefits to the population. I had personal experience of Chevron's activities during a visit to Upper Nile in the early 1980s, and I recall their managers' genuine interest in the welfare of local people. They also drilled successfully in Abyei at that time but they had to work with President Nimeiri, who created his own oil boundary in forming the unity state at Bentu, in 1980. They left soon afterwards and since then the general lack of security throughout the oilfields has further separated the companies from the communities.
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