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Democratic Republic of the Congo

I hope not to speak for as long as 10 minutes. I have listened carefully to the speeches of my hon. Friend the Minister and the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), and I want to talk about the situation in Goma, to follow on from the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (John Battle), and to make a couple of points about what might happen. The Opposition spokesman has, of course, also put a number of questions to the Minister; I am sure that my hon. Friend will respond to them, and we all want to hear his answers. The general direction of travel in terms of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is fairly bipartisan, although the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) talked about commitments of troops in other places, about which there are valid points to be made. I listened to what my hon. Friend the Minister had to say about the situation in Goma, and I am three quarters in agreement, but not entirely. The problem is difficult, because the situation is moving. The Foreign Secretary is elsewhere, and he has already been out there. The Government have shown as much commitment as they possibly can—the DRC is high on their agenda. It probably should have been higher up the world agenda before, but it is up there now because of the terrible things that are happening—that is a perverse upside of recent events. I also understand that Lord Malloch-Brown is off there tonight. The situation is fluid, therefore. I acknowledge that it is not my hon. Friend the Minister's immediate area of responsibility, and some greater in-depth knowledge might be expected from the Ministers for whom it is an immediate area of responsibility, particularly Lord Malloch-Brown. That is no one's fault; it is merely a consequence of Lord Malloch-Brown being in the Lords. The Congo is very large and there are 17,000 United Nations troops there. The Kivus, however, are not particularly large, so a force of 17,000 troops might be more significant than it sounds. People mention the size of the Congo, but we are talking about a relatively small area of the country. None of us wants to be an armchair general or an armchair diplomat. My remarks are just common-sense comments that come from looking at what is happening on the ground. The Lord's Resistance Army and many other organisations, including some that do not have names, as well as groups of bandits, are operating across the Congo. There are problems in Ituri and other issues, so Alan Doss, the UN special representative in the Congo, faces constraints on what he can do with those 17,000 troops. We must take care to ensure that he does not displace troops from areas that might then become problematic. The history of the Congo tells us that when one problem is solved, another one crops up because there are underlying issues, which I hope to have a couple of minutes to discuss. I am not yet convinced that there is not a requirement for additional troops. As the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), has said, there has been a request for an additional 2,750 UN troops. The Rifles have been mentioned, but my instinct is that UK troops are fairly hard-pressed. I do not know the details of any information at the higher political level, but I would not rule out the possibility of, let us say, the Belgians sending some troops there, and I understand that they are perfectly confident of being able to deploy there. I have had two messages from the Foreign Office: at ministerial level, I am hearing that all possibilities are kept open, but at an official level it is not quite as clear that we have not ruled this out. I would not like to hear that the UK was against the idea of Belgian troops, for example, being deployed. There may be a higher level political reason for that; I cannot imagine what it might be, but perhaps I could be persuaded. At present, however, it seems to me that there is a strong case for increasing the number of troops there, not simply to deal with the Goma situation, but for what comes after that in the next three, six and nine months. We simply do not know what will come next. I hope that we are now seeing a reapplication of the Nairobi principles, but we must bear in mind that they say that the FARDC—the DRC army—will secure the border between Congo and Rwanda. That is a small border, but the FARDC has disintegrated; it is no longer integrated. It was in theory an integrated force that included Nkunda's CNDP—National Congress for People's Defence—but the FARDC is currently coming apart. Essentially, there is no capacity. The DRC cannot simply say, ““We sign up to the Nairobi principles,”” and then do that, because it does not have the capacity. Several Members of various parties have frequently visited the eastern Congo in the past few years. It is striking that the general narrative is that capacity will be developed in the FARDC, which will enable the Congo to look after its own security. There is a democratically elected Government. Many of us went there to see the elections taking place. The fact that we are now going backwards is to a large degree a political matter, but to some degree it is down to lack of FARDC capacity. This crisis will not be solved by the FARDC but, in the short term, by the international community. Once the crisis has passed, we must take advantage of the current window, so that we ensure that we follow through on the high profile that the Congo currently has. My interest is in the FARDC having the capacity to look after itself. At the moment, I am nervous about seeing troops in white vehicles and soft blue hats, although it may well be that they have hard hats now. For the benefit of colleagues who do not think about such things all the time, UN vehicles are white so that they can be seen, and generally speaking people do not want to be seen if they are in a war-like situation; they want to be in a different colour, such as green. People might say that General Nkunda's troops are a raggedy bunch, but it is fairly well known that African troops are extremely resilient in the face of being shot at, because it happens a lot. Looking at Goma at the moment, it is perfectly realistic to imagine troops on the ground organising themselves properly in a defensive sense, but it is also perfectly possible to imagine Nkunda's troops infiltrating, walking around those defences and establishing a significant presence in Goma. The worst case scenario—Nkunda's taking Goma—would be disastrous for the UN and the DRC. It is particularly significant that the international community invested $250 million in the elections; it would be pretty reluctant to do so again. It looks like we are back where we started, and if the public believe that that is the case, it will be very difficult for us ever to commit ourselves to such a diplomatic and political effort in future. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West mentioned the historical sweep, which I will deal with as briefly as possible. Demographics tell us that more than 5 million people have died in the region in the past 10 years as a consequence of constant war and conflict. This is a crisis on an enormous scale, and dealing with the current upsurge will make no difference in the long term; we must address the underlying details and issues that we know exist—politically and militarily—and start dealing with the situation for the long term. Otherwise, there will be another crisis in three or four months, and a bunch will come along together like London buses. As sure as eggs is eggs, that will happen. Having listened to what has been said, I am not yet convinced that Alan Doss will be able to secure Goma and deal with the situation on the ground with the resources that he has, while the politics is dealt with elsewhere. I still think it really important to keep an open mind on that. On the politics, clearly, we need to convince the Rwandans and President Kagame—an extremely good man who has been a profoundly powerful force for good in the region, although he has natural reservations about what is going on the eastern Congo—to deal with the FDLR and Interahamwe issue more stringently. We also need to convince the Congolese Government to take up their responsibilities for the FARDC and to build it up with the assistance of the international community. I hope that my final point does not sound too negative. My hon. Friend the Minister referred to an International Criminal Court sanction on one individual in the CNDP. Ultimately, in the medium term we have to consider applying that lever to General Nkunda himself, if he does not play ball.