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Darfur Crisis

In the original agreement, I think that it was in the area of 1,000. That was changed after four days of negotiation. From memory, I think it is 4,000. In addition, I think that 1,500 will go into the police forces. [Interruption.] I apologise, it is 1,000. So, there are 5,000, which is a significant increase on what was in the draft tabled by the AU. There was a lot of debate about exactly how many forces the rebels have, but we made significant progress and it was key to unlocking the agreement from Minni Minnawi’s group. The hon. Lady is right about the timing on recovery aid and issues of land. Dealing with those is going to be difficult. She was also right about the World Food Programme, which is the most outstanding organisation. I saw that for myself yesterday in Somalia, and what it did to stop 6 million people starving to death in Afghanistan three years ago was extraordinary. On the central emergency response fund, $20 million has so far been put in. The truth is that there have been some delays in getting the common humanitarian fund up and running. It is a pilot. As I have said right from the start in proposing the common humanitarian fund approach, it will not be any good if it does not work speedily to deliver the money. I remain absolutely convinced of the rightness of an approach that says we look at what we have and at the needs, and we get one person to take an overall view of how we will divvy up the cash that we have to meet those needs. I know that that is a different way of doing things for some UN agencies, which have had their own long-standing relationships with individual donors. To be honest, not all of them like the change. However, when we have needs and a certain amount of resources available, it is the logical way of handling matters. Nonetheless, we have to move quickly and we must therefore distinguish between, on the one hand, the speed of operation, which is an important issue, and, on the other hand, the amounts that are available. The excellent contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) revealed the depth of his knowledge. He drew to our attention the competition for land and for water, and the issue of banditry. He also raised the matter of the east, to which the hon. Member for Richmond Park referred. In Sudan, there is a big issue about the balance of power between the centre and the periphery. That is what such matters are all about, in part. As for the discussions and the conflict with the Abuja Congress, if that is an issue—and it is—can we skip the fighting and go straight to negotiating? In the comprehensive peace agreement, which is why it mattered so much—I will come back to the point made by the hon. Member for Buckingham and the role that Britain played—all the elements that we need to make a deal are there, such as on power sharing, wealth sharing and transitional arrangements. I hope that, having learned the bitter lesson from the 25-year civil war and the conflict in Darfur that, as other parts of Sudan legitimately express their desire to share in power and wealth, the people of those parts of the country do not go through the same cycle of violence and suffering. On the donor conference that I was asked to arbitrate, the truth is that there are two conferences. There will be the AU pledging conference on further support to AMIS scheduled for June. There will also be the donor conference in support of Darfur’s reconstruction and redevelopment, which the Dutch are hosting, and which is scheduled for September.