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Christmas Adjournment

I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow, East (John Mason) for making a short speech and giving me the chance to contribute for a few minutes. I simply wish to say a few words about UN resolution 1843 on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to which the UK Government signed up one month ago. It resolves to increase the size of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 17,000 to 20,000. MONUC is run by a UK citizen, Alan Doss. It was argued very strongly by the UN that there was a requirement to increase the number of troops—although 17,000 personnel are in the DRC, it is a very large country—in view of the latest phase of a civil war that is going on between two groups, the CNDP, which some people think is helped by some Rwandan citizens, and the FDLR. The FARDC, the Congolese Government troops, which are deeply ineffectual, are also involved. The UN has deployed to do what it can in that situation, and the UN Security Council has agreed that extra troops are required. The assessment was that it would take two months to deploy the UN's troops in the DRC, once it had found who was actually going to send 3,000 troops there. I understand that the realistic assessment now is that it will take six months to deploy them. Everyone agrees that this is an enormously urgent situation, because raping, looting and pillaging are occurring. Although a ceasefire is technically in place between the FARDC and the CNDP, the two protagonist groups—the FARDC is made up of the Government troops, but there are issues to address associated with the behaviour of all the troops involved—a great deal of fighting is still going on between groups such as the Mai-Mai and the CNDP. The civilians get caught in the crossfire and they also get targeted deliberately. Two little girls, one aged five and the other seven, were shot dead a few days ago inside a UN camp, and a series of rapes took place just outside it—rapes are used in the DRC as a weapon of war. May I quote two sentences from the Security Council meeting on Monday? The record states that the UK contribution"““stressed the importance of the earliest possible deployment of the 3,000 additional personnel, as mandated by resolution 1843…however, the target of two months was a bit 'too leisurely'.””" We were saying that the deployment was taking too long. We stressed the fact that we were able to deploy much more quickly in the relatively recent case of the Lebanon. We are also told:"““The United Kingdom stood ready to find…troop-contributing countries, to help deployments, and it stood ready to contribute both equipment and personnel, notably on the command and intelligence sides.””" The Foreign Secretary went straight out to the DRC with the French Foreign Secretary, and Lord Malloch-Brown has worked tirelessly to do something about this situation, but the fact is that, at the moment, resolution 1843 is just a piece of paper, and nothing is happening in respect of it. I do not blame any particular country, although some countries are more reluctant to contribute than others, and I certainly do not blame the UK Government, but the reality is that the totality of the effort on resolution 1843 is that nothing is happening. Mindful of that, Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General, has asked for an EU force to deploy to fill the gap. It is very difficult for the UK to deploy troops, because we have heavy commitments in Afghanistan, but it is equally difficult to see, at the moment, where any other countries are going to contribute any other troops. If the UK were to contribute a proportion, there would be a risk that it would end up taking on the whole task. That is the fundamental sticking point from the UK's point of view. Some countries that would like to do something cannot because they cannot secure the agreement of all the other European countries. There are historical difficulties in respect of the involvement in the region of countries such as France and Belgium, but I believe that Belgium in particular would be prepared to deploy troops to plug that gap. Those who know the situation there know that Goma needs to be properly stabilised. At the moment, the CNDP and General Nkunda, who commands it, could take Goma if they wished. That would be a grievous blow to the DRC and it would threaten its integrity as a country, and it would be a grievous blow to the UN. We desperately need to respect UN resolution 1843 and, in the meantime, an EU force will probably need to be involved. At the moment, it appears that although we are saying that this is terribly urgent, because all over the place women are being raped and children are being murdered, the international community is doing literally nothing at all about resolution 1843. We really must get a grip of the situation.