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Democratic Republic of Congo

: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an important point, to which I intend to return. The simple answer is that the UN has stabilised the situation, but we now have to persuade the child recruits who joined the militias to come back out of the bush, and determine whether the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process, under which the child recruits are demobilised and reintegrated back into the communities, is actually working. The international community seems to have devoted a lot of money to making that process happen, but when one actually looks at the DDR camps, there seems precious little evidence of that money on the ground, so he legitimately raises a concern about whether the policy is as effective as it should be. Returning to the issue of the UN force, we have to recognise that a UN peacekeeping force can only ever deal with the symptoms of a problem, not the cause. Attacking the causes of the problem will involve much more fundamental action, including an international arms trade treaty, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), and serious reform of the unpaid, untrained and undisciplined DRC army. We must consider whether some of the money spent on UN forces would be better spent on training that army. We must exert maximum pressure on the post-election regime to stamp out the corruption that filters off soldiers' salaries before they are received. Given our substantial influence in Rwanda, we can do much more to help facilitate the return of the estimated 10,000 Interahamwe militia members, who terrorised the population of the DRC in a desperate attempt to avoid repatriation. We need an internationally agreed repatriation corridor, complete with credible, publicised amnesties for the majority of militia members who had no part in the 1994 genocide. We all hope that the June elections come off successfully. Some 26 million people have registered to vote and there was overwhelming support for the new constitution. However, there are plenty of reasons for caution. Consider this: a Head of State gives in to pressure from the west for reform; he declares his country a multi-party state; the newspapers explode with new-found freedom; civil society, the military and politicians agree on a transition to democracy; nearly 400 political parties are formed. Am I talking about the DRC under Kabila in April 2006? No, that was Zaire under Mobutu in April 1990. When we see pictures of that old kleptocrat shaking hands with President Kennedy in the 1960s, we are reminded that Mobutu was as credible to the west then as Kabila is now. We wish President Kabila well, especially if he wins the election, but we urge him to recognise that, when the time comes, it will not be the acquisition of power but the courage to hand it over peacefully that will place him in Africa's pantheon of respected leaders. I conclude with a couple vignettes about the child soldiers whom I met in Congo. Rafiqu, aged 13, was driven by poverty to leave his family and join a militia called the Mudundu 40, a rebel group that later merged with the Mai-Mai militia. He learned how to use Kalashnikovs, mortars, M160s and rocket propelled grenades. In his three years as a rebel militia soldier, he was involved in four battles and he thinks he killed about 30 people. Four years later, he is undergoing rehabilitation in a camp run by the excellent organisation Save the Children. Sadiq, a 12-year-old, woke up to find that militia had stormed into his house and were raping his sister. They then abducted her. In a perverted twist of logic, he joined the same militia to see whether he could get her back. On one occasion, he remembers his commander telling him to execute 10 men, which he did. Now he is undergoing rehabilitation in a Save the Children camp, where he says that for the first time he is in a community with people who care about his future. Such children are starting their lives again. The DRC is starting its life again. It is not for us but for its people to solve their problems. However, when we find those all-too-rare people—whether they be former child soldiers, an about-to-be-elected President, people working in rape hospitals or young politicians in Kinshasa—with the vision, determination and courage to deal with the problems, we in the international community must do everything we can to give them the support that they need.