---

Pakistan and Kenya

My Lords, we are also grateful to the noble Lord for repeating the Statement that was made in another place by the Foreign Secretary. We join the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in expressing our dismay at the horrific events in Kenya that have unleashed so much violence and destruction. As the noble Lord has just said, the effects have gone well beyond Kenya. Apart from the 250,000 people who are locally displaced and living in the most appalling conditions, as we have seen on our television screens, the fact that Kenya was the hub of the region, from which so many organisations operated to bring humanitarian assistance to the whole of east Africa, means that their operations may be undermined by the instability that has resulted from these events. I am grateful for the assistance that has already been sent there, which was mentioned in the Statement, but I wonder whether it is in fact as much of a return to calm as was said in the Statement as to enable aid organisations to operate freely and to deliver their services throughout the whole of Kenya. From what I have seen of the reports, I understand that there are still large areas in which the situation is not stable and where it would be quite dangerous for foreign aid workers to operate. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would say whether we are satisfied that humanitarian assistance can be delivered throughout the whole country and whether any discussions have been held with the authorities about the possibility of providing armed escorts where it would otherwise not be safe for aid workers to go. The EU Observer Mission found substantial discrepancies between the tallies at the polling stations and the numbers that were subsequently announced by the electoral commission. I gather from a conversation that I had with Nairobi this morning that many of the ballot boxes were not properly guarded and that they were broken into, or stolen, or have gone missing. It will be very difficult, with the best will in the world, for anyone to arrive at a true result. As your Lordships will know, the head of the European Union mission has called for an independent audit based on the reports from the polling stations, if they still exist. I should be grateful for some comment by the Minister on that. Even if the ballot boxes themselves have disappeared, do we still have the records of the individual tallies at the polling stations, which would at least enable the totals to be reconstructed? The Commonwealth team has suggested a review by an international team of judges to determine who did or did not win. Has that suggestion been picked up? Is it President Kufuor himself who will be the facilitator of any negotiations between the Government and the opposition? Or will he simply be there to establish how that process should be organised and by whom it should be delivered? It is significant—I hope that the Minister will agree—that although there have been several people in the country talking to the leaders on both sides, most recently Dr Jendayi Frazer, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, it appears that, while there is an agreement between the two party leaders on power sharing, the mechanism for achieving it remains to be decided. Can the Minister confirm that Kibaki has agreed that there should be power sharing and, if that is so, what would be the mechanism for appointing the facilitator? On Pakistan, I join in with the condolences that have been expressed with regard to Benazir Bhutto, whom I knew quite well and admired greatly for her courage and determination, particularly during the time which she spent in exile here in London, when the Pakistan People’s Party was under fire in her own country. The loss is not only to her immediate family but to the People’s Party and, indeed, the whole of Pakistan, whose return to democracy has been undermined by her assassination. We note that Scotland Yard has been asked to advise on the circumstances of the murder—the Minister said a bit about that. Does the role of Scotland Yard extend to establishing the motivation of the killer, whether he was operating under his own initiative or on the orders of an organisation—and, if so, what was that organisation’s purpose? Does the Minister agree that there is a huge threat to Pakistan’s stability from terrorist gangs, not only those that commit such assassinations but from the murderers of the eight tribal elders in Waziristan, which was reported only yesterday, and the militant leader Maulana Fazullah, who broadcast an appeal on his FM radio station to his followers to kill members of the security forces? Is there any further help that Pakistan would like from the international community or Britain in particular in dealing with the terrorist threat and ensuring a peaceful election?