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Foreign Policy

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, especially for his excellent introduction. This is a timely debate because, in his own metaphor, we are riding a new wave of foreign policy and have entered the Obama-Clinton era of international relations. It seems the spirit of Robin Cook is abroad again and I believe that the Government are rightly rethinking, or have the chance to rethink, their policies in the Middle East and south Asia. I hope that this will include a radical change in the way Britain and NATO have tried to protect reconstruction in Afghanistan. For some time, I have questioned whether military force has become an end in itself rather than a guarantor of national rights and freedoms. I am also persuaded that through mainly US influence, as in Iraq, the Afghan people have watched massive aid contracts benefiting the contractors more than the intended beneficiaries. The evidence is very strong on this and I warmly endorse what my noble friend Lady D’Souza said about the loss of capacity of centralised government, a deliberate policy mistake on a scale comparable to de-Baathification in Iraq. I hope the Minister will say something about the UK forging a new direction post-Blair in its diplomatic and development policies, with or without the United States. This could be signalled both at NATO and at the forthcoming G20 summit. I have heard our Armed Forces Ministers talk rather disparagingly about NATO members who prefer to keep away from the front line and I wonder whether anyone has had a chance to study the experience of the Hungarian provincial reconstruction team in Pul-i-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province north of Kabul. There the Hungarians have been deliberately attempting to support local institutions and aid projects away from the front line but, because they were in uniform, their efforts were frustrated at every turn. The aid agencies have been saying for years that armies cannot do development except in emergencies. For this reason, I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will design a new strategy which genuinely puts the Afghan people first. We have an enlarged embassy but I am not sure that we have a new strategy. Today I want to give an example of another important post-conflict country in south Asia which receives much less attention but where, on a smaller scale, we have a much better track record. I was in Nepal earlier this month with the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, as members of an IPU delegation led by Sir John Stanley. We met the new Maoist Prime Minister, Prachanda, and several Ministers and MPs of all political parties. We wanted to know how successful they have been in moving from a destructive civil war to a new constitutional democracy. I am glad to say that they are progressing well, though it is still a struggle. The UK has been in the forefront of the UN-led peace process and has supported the consequent search for change through a new parliamentary system and for a way out of violence and poverty. We have been prepared to talk discreetly to the Maoists for some time, while our US allies still see them as terrorists and keep them on the wanted list. This is still paying dividends; the UK is held in high esteem and, through our embassy, DfID and other channels, has been associated with some of the best practice in power sharing and the drafting of the new constitution before May next year. I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, and my noble friend Lord Wright—none of whom are in their place—that in this sense much of the DfID budget that they are attacking is diplomacy. I hope I can send that message through the Conservative Front Bench before the wind-up of the debate. The image we have of Nepal is one of tranquillity, conjured up by the Himalayan peaks and the smile of the honest Gurkha. But that vision contrasts somewhat with the confusion of the political scene, a faltering economy still held up by militants in the labour force and violence in the Terai plain. The world recession has already cut the number of tourists and is now hitting at migrant workers returning from places like Dubai, whose remittances were a significant proportion of national income. The two armies remain in separate camps. The chances of the Nepal Army merging with the People’s Liberation Army still seem quite remote, although there are moves to integrate the youngest group of Maoist soldiers as a priority. I know that our Government are supporting this. Both armies are jealous of their independence and the human rights agencies have attacked them both for their defence of impunity and for refusing to investigate disappearances and atrocities on both sides. One potentially brighter spot is the presence of an active media, which still enjoy a degree of independence, although they, too, have suffered from the killing of a prominent journalist and they have to exercise a degree of self-censorship. One nationwide programme which the UK has supported since the 1990s has been in forestry, which affects the lives of 40 per cent of the population. Specifically, DfID has supported thousands of community groups all over Nepal which are replanting and maintaining the forest while using it to provide fuel and fodder as they always have done. We visited one of these user groups in Baglung province, in the shadow of the Annapurna range. We found that they have plenty of ideas for the new constitution and, just like us, they were discussing climate change, alternative energy, more benefits for women and minorities, a healthier lifestyle, better economic opportunities and, of course, support for forestry. For the moment, these ideas chime in well with the new Maoist philosophy. They are now the mantra of political leaders and those who are drafting the new constitution. But they are still only aspirations and hard to turn into reality. It will be impossible to satisfy all the expectations of the people even in the present interim constitution. And yet Nepal is a good example of a post-conflict society and of which we should take note. It is capable of overcoming the mistakes of the past and also offers a good example of our foreign policy generally. I wish we could support other countries with the same blend of our experience and practical action.