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Debate on the Address

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord’s wise and experienced speech. Granted that a day is to be given in December to the Holy Land, Iraq and Afghanistan, I shall devote the whole of my time to northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But even they are not untouched by the long shadow of our lack of commitment to achieving a just and viable peace in the Holy Land and the still-terrible story of the war in Iraq. Of course, I welcome the note right at the end of the gracious Speech that Her Majesty's Government, "““will continue its focus on Africa””." Then there is a reference to Darfur. However, this mention of Africa comes with a great deal less detail than in most recent gracious Speeches. Where is the Government’s commitment to give real priority to Africa as—I think that these were the Prime Minister’s words—a scar on the conscience of the world, which led to the real achievement of his commission on Africa? I fear that it has run into the sands of the Middle East. When have we received in this House any substantial update on progress since the publication of the commission’s report 18 months ago? Who has ever heard of the Africa Partnership Forum through which such reporting should be happening regularly? Northern Uganda is at least one-third of Uganda, with some 4 million people grievously affected over20 years and around 1.5 million still living in appallingly destructive displaced-persons camps. It is very good that the peace talks continue between the Ugandan Government and the LRA, facilitated by the southern Sudanese Government, and that the ceasefire largely still holds. I appreciate the substantial contribution to this state of affairs made by Her Majesty's Government over many years. But how do the Government now view the difficult tension between the need on the one hand to bring Joseph Kony and his lieutenants to the talks, and the talks to a lasting solution, and, on the other hand, the warrants of the International Criminal Court against Kony and four or five others? Do the Government support the strongly held judgment not only of President Museveni, but also the Acholi and other religious leaders, and, apparently, 95 per cent of the people of the north, that peace, rather than the ICC’s interest, is the priority? Will the UK be a strong and persevering partner not only with the Ugandan Government, which has few friends in the north, but also with the peoples of the north and the religious leaders for the long and complex process of reconstruction once peace is achieved? Will we recognise and help others to recognise the need for a paramount commitment to the needs of children across northern Uganda, so many of whom have suffered terribly in every way imaginable, and in many ways that should not be imaginable? Will the Government use whatever good offices they have to ensure that recent reports of hurried and forced removals of people from some of the camps with inadequate support and equipment to unreconstructed or even utterly strange villages are untrue? Will they keep a careful watch over the human rights situation in Uganda and the treatment generally by the Kampala Government of their outlying regions, especially the northern third of the country—not least as we look ahead to Her Majesty’s participation in Kampala next year at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, to which she referred in her speech? It is natural on many grounds to move from northern Uganda to the DRC, not just because so much in the way of shared languages, cultures, history and trade connects the two countries. The LRA has for many years moved in and out of the north-east of the DRC, as have other groups of Ugandan rebels.In turn, Ugandans—if not Uganda—have armed a succession of rebel groups, illegally extracted huge amounts of gold and other Congolese resources, and have fuelled the insecurity and violence that still makes for the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in the DRC and for, perhaps, 1,200 deaths a week, half of which are children. That is a good deal more, I fear, than in Iraq. Where is the publicity for Congo? It is very good that the presidential election appears at last to have produced a clear result in the victory of Joseph Kabila. We now have to pray and work for it to be widely and peacefully accepted. If it is, we can hope that for the DRC the transition out of conflict can at last begin. I hope that we shall hear tonight from the Minister that the UK has heart for what will be a long and difficult course and that we shall encourage the DRC’s other international partners and donors to stay in there with us.Mr Kabila’s Government will need the continuing existence and support of the committee of ambassadors if they are to tackle effectively the forbiddingly vast scale of the task that lies ahead of them. It is imperative that the UN resists any temptation to reduce the strength or the mandate of the UN force in the DRC—the largest though it is. I hope, too, that the EU force, committed to the DRC through the elections, will not be too quickly withdrawn. There are mountains of work to be done before the Congolese army is at all reliable or competent, its leaders at all honest, and its units no longer a terror to their own people. The process of disarmament and resettlement of fighters of all sorts, or their effective integration into the new army, has so far been painfully slow and disorderly. Is it the UK Government’s intention that this many-faceted process should be placed under a single management to support the new Government, and that the EU security co-ordination mission should be appointed and funded to do the job? Congo’s mineral resources have to be developed for the benefit of the people. How do HMG, the EU and other partners intend to help the new Government to create and maintain an effective regulatory regime? Will the Minister assure the House that he and his colleagues will continue to strengthen the UK's own processes under the OECD guidelines? On the Government’s performance on that front, there are some very critical words indeed in the recently published sixth report of the DfID, Conflict and Development Peacebuilding and Post-conflict Reconstruction. Lastly, do the Government intend to encourage the ICC both to bring further charges against Thomas Lubanga, the first Congolese warlord to be brought before it, and to pursue others at a very high level whose atrocities are equally well-known? The development of a credible justice system is another of the many priorities facing the new Government. They have to be dissuaded from appointing known villains to new commands and influential positions. I hope that amid so much else, Her Majesty's Government have their eye on the Great Lakes region of Africa.