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Democratic Republic of Congo

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for making possible this debate, for his useful contribution in opening it and for all the work that he has done in recent weeks to deal with this pretty terrible situation. Surely no country in the world epitomises more accurately the old Irish adage ““Well, I wouldn’t start from here”” than does the Congo. A brutal and rapacious colonial regime was rapidly followed after independence by a civil war in which the Congo became a pawn to cold war rivalries. That war was followed by a long period of autocratic kleptocracy, and then another civil war, in which many of the country’s neighbours joined. Two years ago, democratic elections under UN auspices held out some prospect of a better future, but now the country is again teetering on the brink of an all-out civil war in which its neighbours get involved. This truly appalling sequence has brought massive suffering and loss of life to the population, and while some responsibility for this miserable state of affairs can be laid at the door of the Congolese themselves, the greater part of their troubles has invariably come from outside the country, fuelled by a desire to get control of its valuable mineral resources. In speaking in this debate, I should declare a non-pecuniary interest as chair of the board of the United Nations Association of the UK. The UN has had a long, and by no means entirely happy, involvement in the Congo. Embroiled in the civil war that followed independence, in what turned out to be a military enforcement capacity for which it was ill suited, it extricated itself, having preserved the unity of the country, but at the cost of the life of arguably its greatest Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld. In recent times, it has been at the heart of international efforts to remedy the state failure which followed the departure of President Mobutu. As the Minister said, with 17,000 peacekeepers on the ground and a major civilian contingent, this is the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation. As recent events around Goma have shown, it is not going well. We need to ask why, and not just to throw brickbats at the UN. We need also to ask what Britain, a major player at the UN, can do to help remedy the situation, not just give a weary shrug of our shoulders and turn away. So far as the military aspects of the peacekeeping operation are concerned, it surely cannot make sense to have spread the 70,000 peacekeepers all over that vast country and to have made no provision for a rapid-reaction capability within the force to cope with any emergency such as that which has occurred in the north-east of the country. The decision by the Security Council just before last weekend to increase the force by 3,000 is obviously a step in the right direction, but will the additional troops be forthcoming in a reasonably short space of time? Perhaps the Minister will say a little more about what we are doing to help with force generation. He said a few sentences on it but not much in detail; it sounded more like exhortation than logistical support and other things. Is thought now being given to constituting a rapid reaction capability, perhaps, as was done in Bosnia in 1995 when the peacekeeping operation there was on the point of collapse, and to it being better equipped—indeed, perhaps not in blue helmets at all—so that it can deal with the threat to the mission in a reasonably robust way? Does there need to be some adjustment to the UN’s mandate and rules of engagement, where I echo the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury? However, it is clear that a military response is not all that is needed if the situation is to be stabilised. I again pay tribute to the work of the Foreign Secretary and the Minister in helping to muster a diplomatic response to the crisis. It is obvious that the main focus now needs to be on the mediation efforts of the UN special envoy, former President Obasanjo, who appears to be making some initial headway. However, no UN envoy can ever hope to succeed without the concerted and sustained support of the main international players. What are we doing to use our undoubted influence with the Government of Rwanda to shift them from being part of the problem to become a key part of its solution? Is it not surely the case that Rwanda’s security will never be achieved unless there is stability across its western border? That requires not a fellow Tutsi warlord but a political accommodation with the Government in Kinshasa, including action to deal with the Hutu genocidaire militias, which are still active in the region. Are we working closely with the French Government, who probably have more influence than us in Kinshasa? It is deeply unfortunate and deplorable that, just when the main requirement is for both external and regional players in the Great Lakes region to work more closely together, the air is being filled with accusations and counteraccusations about responsibility for the event that triggered off the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. With an international tribunal determining responsibilities for that terrible episode, it should surely be possible for all other jurisdictions to leave the lead to that court and not to seek to exercise competing jurisdiction themselves. Is that the view of the Government, and, if so, what are we doing to persuade other actors that that is the best way to proceed? Looking beyond the immediate crisis, are we giving any thought as to how to avoid the Congo’s rich mineral resources continuing to be the focus of greedy incursions and destabilising activity? Does the success of the Kimberley process in dealing with illegally mined and traded diamonds, which did so much to fund the wars in Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone, offer some kind of pattern or template for similar action; for example, with respect to the coltan deposits in the eastern Congo? Are we learning a lesson from other peacekeeping operations that an excessive focus on the holding of elections may prove a distraction from the much more laborious, resource-intensive work of rebuilding state institutions, courts, public services and the rule of law more generally? Both in the Congo itself as well as in Bosnia, and perhaps Afghanistan next year, elections are not a kind of silver bullet or a cure-all and should not be presented as such. It is what happens when the elections are over that really matters, and that means planning ahead and situating the elections in a wider, longer framework of sustained international commitment. In this context, I suggest that it is a pity that the UN is still not making greater use of the UN Peacebuilding Commission or the UN Peacebuilding Support Office which were established following the 2005 UN reform summit. As is often the case when crises occur in major UN peace-keeping operations, the organisation comes in for a good deal of criticism. Some of it is well deserved, but we need to remember that when we criticise the UN we criticise ourselves. The UN is not some kind of disembodied entity operating outside our control and area of responsibility; it represents the collective efforts of a world body, in which we still have considerable influence. I hope that the Minister, who has more reason to be aware of these uncomfortable truths than any of us, will be able to tell us when he replies to this debate what the Government have been able to do and intend to do to strengthen the hand of the UN in our attempts to help the long-suffering people of the Congo to escape from their poisoned historical inheritance.