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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord. This summer in Kindu in the province of Maniema in Congo I had the privilege, with my wife and the Congolese Anglican Bishop of Kindu, of spending an hour or more at Merlin’s headquarters in Kindu, Merlin delivering medical services, effectively for the province of Maniema, in immensely complex conditions. A hundred years ago today there was an enormous demonstration at the Albert Hall, with people queuing all around the block and the Albert Hall standing room only, chaired and organised by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, around what was then seen as the moral outrage of the situation in Congo. Today the Archbishop of Canterbury and my other friend, the Anglican Archbishop in Congo, Archbishop Isingoma, have published a statement about the whole situation. There was a celebration and a reiteration of that demonstration at the Albert Hall this morning, at which I had the privilege of speaking. My apologies, therefore, to the Minister and to noble Lords for missing the first four minutes of her speech. In the terms of the Archbishop of Canterbury of a hundred years ago, the real hideous outrage is that the situation is today as it is, and not only in the east of the country—statistics on which have just been well given by the noble Lord. The LRA is rampant in the north-east—there have been hideous outrages both at Christmas and ever since—and in southern Sudan and in the Central African Republic. Even recently there has been a fresh outbreak of conflict in western/north-western Congo, with 21,000 refugees fleeing into the northern parts of Congo-Brazzaville—another hideous state, by the way—in recent weeks. Today’s demonstration at the Albert Hall was particularly concerned with the levels of rape in Congo. The levels of sexual violence are appalling. To put it baldly, where you see the words "sexual violence" alongside "rape" it means the things that are done to women in addition to rape, with the ends of guns, with bayonets, with sticks and so on. At one meeting of 200 to 250 members of the Mothers’ Union in Kindu in the summer, many of the ladies had walked 200 kilometres to meet their bishop’s wife, their bishop, my wife and me. There was a second meeting after the first and after the lunch where those who had been themselves raped joined together to talk further with my wife and the bishop’s wife. Some 50 of those 200 to 250 women came to that meeting as having themselves suffered rape and sexual violence. Kindu, as the noble Lord will know well, is not at the heart of the war area by any means. The situation there, in that respect as in so much else, is appalling. As for the outcome of the transitional process, the elections of 2006 and huge inputs of British and other aid, the Congolese Government are achieving little or nothing. Outside Kinshasa they are achieving a considerable reign of terror over anyone who shows any signs of opposing them. Corruption is pervasive. As a result of that pervasive corruption, as the noble Lord has again noted, the situation in the national army is utterly deplorable. It is, as armies are in so many other parts of the world, as dangerous as the rebels to local people. It is deeply and widely engaged in the management of the pillage of minerals and the making of money for that purpose. It is colluding with those with whom it is fighting; they are letting each other’s vehicles through checkpoints when they are full of minerals or ammunition, as Global Witness has recently publicised. There is a fearful level of impunity at every level for those who are committing human rights offences. There is almost everything to be done in the way of security sector reform. Churches and local NGOs, supported by external NGOs, are unanimous and clear that the present war in eastern Congo, called Kimya II, is a humanitarian disaster. It has recently been described by the protection cluster of Congolese NGOs as a massive, desperate scale of humanitarian fallout of the ongoing military operations through 2009. I have talked to Roman Catholic and Anglican church leaders in Congo. There is a real danger that Her Majesty's Government’s continuing, though qualified, support for that war, alongside that of MONUC, is rapidly leading those most active in protecting the rights of local people to lose confidence in them and other western Governments. I think that extremely few of the 3,000 reinforcements for MONUC promised in October last year are yet in theatre. There is an acute shortage of helicopters and boats in a place where road travel anywhere more than about 10 miles outside any major centre is appallingly difficult, as I know to the cost of my rattled bones. It is important that other ways are found of bringing peace, other than that war. As far as the needs of the country are concerned, I have already mentioned security sector reform. Although work is being done by DfID and the Chinese on the infrastructure, there is a huge amount to be done. There is no climate for economic activity. As you fly into Beni, Butembo or Goma, you see an alarming number of new houses being built, but my information from Congolese sources and from Her Majesty’s embassy is that next to none of those new houses is based on anything other than corrupt money, the pillage of minerals and the import of arms. That is very serious. We have enormous responsibility. Her Majesty's Government and their European and American partners are the major donors to the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda. I believe that our Government need to give real sustained attention to the range of places that the noble Lord mentioned, among them the DRC and the Great Lakes region. It was not encouraging that for more than two months in the summer there was no Minister for Africa. We regret the loss of the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, although we welcome the coming of the noble Baroness, but it would be good if there were a Minister for Africa. If we asked the noble Baroness to reiterate the range of her responsibilities later today, she would not have much time to say anything else because the Minister for Africa is responsible for a great deal else as well. In the NGO community, both Congolese and expatriate, including bodies such as Human Rights Watch, Global Witness and a host of others, there is a strong sense that there is a crying need for British, European and American diplomacy to get on the front foot and be more active and incisive. There is a strong sense around in that community that Western diplomacy has become limp-wristed in Congo and that there is a need for pressured and clear talk to Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC Government, awash as it is with Chinese and Indian money. We cannot make peace with the continuing war. Peace negotiations must include minerals, weapons and mines if the people are not to be abused further. There is a need for energetic action to find out who is making the money, who is taking out the minerals and where they are going. The British Government, like other European Governments, have been very slow around the OECD guidelines to pursue British and European companies. In the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Europe and America there are people running the wars and the pillage. We have to bring all that to book if there is to be some possibility of peace in the land. I hope that we will see a fresh concentration of effort on this region and others by the present Government and by any Government who succeed them because 100 years is a long time and the situation has been appalling all that time. Many of us on these Benches and elsewhere were very concerned about and, indeed, opposed the 2003 Iraq war because we felt that it would lead to a leaching away of attention and money from places such as the Great Lakes region. I believe we have seen that over the past six years, and we must redress the balance, whatever the seriousness of events in Afghanistan and Pakistan.