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Foreign Affairs and Defence

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. He is right, and the story to which he draws attention is part of the corruption, mismanagement and despotism with which Robert Mugabe has destroyed his country. This country can be proud of what we have tried to do in Zimbabwe in the past and in recent years, but now we need stronger co-operation from South Africa and other neighbouring states to bring what we hope for to fruition. We must not forget that the conflict in Darfur goes on—the Foreign Secretary also referred to it. Out of 6 million Darfuris, 5 million are either in camps or relying on food aid to survive. The humanitarian operation there is becoming ever more hazardous, and access to refugees has become increasingly restricted: 11 aid workers have been killed this year. The House will recall that in July last year the Prime Minister and President Sarkozy announced that Darfur would be one of their top priorities and committed themselves to doing everything possible to bring the necessary international presence there, but, 16 months since UN Resolution 1769 was passed, the UN-AU mission has only 10,000 troops and police—less than half what was intended—and is still desperately short of the helicopters that are essential for its effective operation. I accept that the Government share our concern about this state of affairs, but it is now abundantly clear that the Sudanese Government will not act unless under pressure. I hope that Ministers will therefore consider calls for sanctions on the regime. I hope that they will also take a deeply sceptical attitude to the proposed suspension of International Criminal Court proceedings against President Bashir of Sudan in return for Khartoum's co-operation on other issues—a suspension that risks sending the message to some of the world's despotic leaders that they can act with impunity while the international community watches but does not act, which is another parallel with Zimbabwe. More prominent in the headlines has been the appalling violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was also referred to by the Foreign Secretary. We support the Government in hoping that the talks led by former Nigerian President Obasanjo will be successful. Again, we are concerned about the delay in the deployment of additional UN forces that was authorised on 20 November. The Belgian Foreign Minister has talked of a European force being sent to the DRC while reinforcements of UN peacekeepers are awaited. We would appreciate more information from Ministers, perhaps after this weekend's summit, about whether it is proposed that that would happen. Next in the pattern of under-resourced peacekeeping forces and intermittent international political will has been the situation in Somalia and off its coast. The African Union force in Somalia is deployed with barely a third of the troops required under its mandate. Ethiopia has announced that it will soon withdraw its troops, raising the prospect of further violence. The security vacuum is fuelling piracy in the gulf of Aden and beyond. It is almost unbelievable that large-scale piracy can take off to such an extent in the modern age, but the fact that it has done so requires a decisive international response. Of course, naval forces, including our own, are now doing sterling work off the horn of Africa, but I suggest to the Government that two aspects of that work require further attention. First, three naval operations appear to be taking place in the region involving a combined international taskforce, a deployment of the standing NATO maritime group and now an EU maritime operation. Would it not be better if there was a single command for the currently separate EU and NATO missions, especially since NATO is reported to be considering a significant expansion of its operation? In addition, the rules of engagement appear to differ for the three different missions and there have been some suggestions that the Government have discouraged the Royal Navy from detaining pirates because that might breach their human rights or tempt them to claim asylum in the United Kingdom—