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Democratic Republic of Congo

My Lords, we are grateful to the Minister, not only for giving this report on the situation in the DRC but for his considerable efforts in the region—he has described his visit there last week—and to the Prime Minister for his equally robust efforts. We are also grateful for the way in which the Minister has constantly kept your Lordships informed of developments in the region on an almost day-to-day basis. We are well briefed for the debate today and we are grateful to him for that. Although the Security Council had the DRC on its agenda at the end of October for the first time since the end of March, until just now its response to a rapidly escalating emergency was a statement by the president and the secretary-general’s assurances that it was indeed his number one preoccupation. One had a sense of déjà vu thinking back to the former secretary-general’s commitment following the genocide in Rwanda to the UN, "““never again to fail in protecting a civilian population from … mass slaughter””," and the independent inquiry’s recommendations, for example, that member states be prepared to provide the necessary troops and logistical resources at short notice in support of peacekeeping operations. Yet it is only now, at this 11th hour, that the Security Council has authorised, as the Minister described, the deployment of an additional 2,700 troops and 300 police to the eastern DRC with already a quarter of a million people displaced from their homes over the past few weeks and lacking access to food, shelter and medical attention. President Kabila has demanded a stronger mandate for MONUC whereas all that SCR 1843 does is to underscore the present mandate, including what it describes as the robust rules of engagement. Can the Minister say whether the rules of engagement are being updated and whether they will be published so that civilians who are at risk will know what protection they can expect from the UN? On Monday, the Minister said at Question Time that there were caveats by some troop contributors which affected the competence of peacekeeping operations. Can he say something about the further steps being taken to persuade the relevant states to lift these restrictions? Laurent Nkunda, whose spokesman last Friday said that the UN decision was, "““proof of the engagement of the international community to the Congolese people””," a couple of days later did a U-turn and said that the CNDP would not accept outsiders coming to Goma to provide security. He wants the UN’s special envoy, former President Obusanda of Nigeria, to promote negotiations between the Government and the CNDP to deal with what he sees as key issues, such as the failure to disarm and demobilise the remnants of the Rwandan Hutu genocidalists in South Kivu, a point mentioned by the Minister in his speech. The point is that there was a plan to do that but not the political will to execute it, even before the disintegration of the national army deprived Kinshasa of the means. Is there now some hope of rehabilitating some of the units of the national army, with the UN calling for, among other resources, 200 additional military training instructors? Even where the remnants of the FARDC have managed to fend off CNDP attacks at Kanyabayonga, 175 kilometres north of Goma, a week ago, it is a mixed blessing for the inhabitants; as the Minister has said, there are reports of atrocities by the national army, with the UN force commander saying that government troops, in this case, were looting the town. It would be good to know if the military instructors who are part of this UN resource will be given an active role in promoting better discipline within the Armed Forces. Oxfam was supplying water to the 20,000 inhabitants of Kanyabayonga as of a couple of weeks ago, and it would be useful if the Minister could give us an update on access to the town and to other conflict-threatened centres of population for the humanitarian agencies. I join him in the tribute he has paid to the many agencies that are still operating in the region, even under considerable threat to their own security. UNICEF says that 85 per cent of the schools in the territory controlled by the CNDP remain closed to around 150,000 students in spite of promises that they would be allowed to reopen, and we join them in calling for all children to be able to resume their studies and to be protected from abuse, exploitation and violence, particularly from recruitment into the militias, as the Minister mentioned. Olusegun Obasanjo has been successful in negotiating humanitarian access to the area controlled by General Nkunda, but does his mandate allow him to report back on the goals of the rebels so that the UN can gauge the possibility of a negotiated solution to end the fighting and allow the CNDP to pursue its aims by political means? With the increase in the size of MONUC, Nkunda must realise that he is not going to be able to drive the UN out and so become the de facto ruler of the eastern DRC as a whole—if that indeed were his ultimate objective. On the other hand, President Kabila’s options are limited too. He has no control over the territory of North Kivu beyond Goma and the area surrounding it, from which Nkunda’s forces withdrew voluntarily, and he has no military capacity anywhere in the eastern DRC that would allow that territory to be reoccupied. His spokesman reiterated yesterday that he is prepared to talk to Nkunda only within the framework of the January peace agreements, which have already collapsed. Is that not unrealistic? If so, do the Government not think that all parties to the agreements should come together again under UN auspices to see whether it could be amended or replaced by a new, more robust settlement? Does Mr Obasanjo need to be given a more precise remit to arrange such a meeting? Can we get the EU to persuade President Kabila that he has to be more flexible and not to insist on the letter of the Goma and Nairobi peace agreements? As the Minister has implied, the dialogue has to involve Kigali because, as everyone knows, Nkunda gets his marching orders and his military support from there. At the time, most observers warned that the Goma accord was a truce rather than a permanent deal, yet in the months that elapsed between the end of January and the resumption of fighting the international community made no collective effort to address its deficiencies that had been identified at the time. There is a lesson here for the UN too: it must actively address the underlying causes of a conflict that has led to a peacekeeping mission. In the debate in another place a couple of weeks ago, there was general agreement with the proposition that violence in eastern DRC would not end until the root causes were addressed. In addition to the legacy of the Rwandan genocide, my honourable friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton raised the competition for mineral resources. Previously he had been given the brush-off with a reference to the EITI, a useful initiative, but not fully effective in the context of the DRC because of the premature disbandment of the UN Expert Panel, which had been gathering the evidence. It had produced a list of companies operating or trading in minerals from the region, but no action has been taken to halt these activities, which help to fund the conflicts. Have we checked on A&M minerals, listed by the UN Expert Panel? What action has been taken by the NCP following her statement in July on DAS Air, and why was no mention made of the other three UK-based companies cited by the Expert Panel—De Beers, Oryx Natural Resources and Avient? Are we making any further inquiries about Alfred Knight, the assayer who told the International Development Committee in 2007 that he was not doing work on a mine in North Kivu? What has happened following the DRC’s Interministerial Commission, set up in April 2007 to re-examine mining contracts signed before 2003? There were several mentions in another place of the appalling epidemic of violence against women in eastern DRC, referred to by the Minister, and on which the UN Rapporteur, Yakin Ertürk, reported following a visit in July last year. She found that more than half of the acts of sexual violence were committed by state security forces, but in South Kivu the FDLR and its offshoots were the major culprits. Since then, matters have got even worse. The noble Lord referred to the report this week from Human Rights Watch. That allegation goes for the numbers of offences as well as the scale of the atrocities. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, says that the Hutu militias are the most vicious of the lot. Sexual violence has reached levels that exceed even the experience of the Rwandan genocide. What is MONUC doing specifically to protect women or to organise community self-defence against the rape gangs. I have exceeded my time but should like to ask two final questions. Have there been any offers to meet the specific needs itemised by the UN, particularly the 18 utility helicopters, with the personnel to operate them? Can the Minister say anything more about the timetable for getting these assets into the field?