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North Africa and the Middle East

Many of us are inspired by what we have been seeing in the middle east and north Africa in recent weeks and by the courage and heroism of the protestors, particularly the young people who have lived their entire lives under repression. Equally, many of us feel sick at the prospect of repression triumphing in many parts of the region. In that vein, I welcome many of the things that the Foreign Secretary announced today. The new Arab partnership and the promise of practical support for what we hope are the emerging democracies of Egypt and Tunisia are excellent. I think he said that there would even be promotion of think-tanks. I am not entirely sure whether that is a good thing, but they are certainly better than the other kind of tank. The Foreign Secretary also reported positive developments in both countries, including the abolition of their secret police organisations. That is welcome, but there are also worrying reports, including the recent one in Egypt about the forcible clearance of Tahrir square. The experience of Europe, Latin America and the new African democracies is that old habits sometimes die hard among security forces. Perhaps we should take up that theme with the Egyptian Government in particular and with all the emerging democratic movements. It is also welcome that the Foreign Secretary described a bold and ambitious vision at the European level. A positive vision of transforming the European neighbourhood and actively promoting freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights is very good indeed, as is the role of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in that. I hope that the Department for International Development will also play an active role in considering how that programme should be carried out. It is very important that the people of the middle east and north Africa see a democratic dividend from their transition to democracy, and DFID can play an important role in that. Sadly, however, freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights are not all that British Governments have promoted in the region. In 2009, EU arms exports to Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, none of which enjoyed good human rights records at the time, totalled €2.3 billion. Export licences granted by the previous Government—the most recent details I have are from 2009—make disturbing reading. We sold tear gas to Bahrain, imaging cameras to Iran, bombs and missiles to Egypt, anti-riot shields to Kuwait, crowd control equipment and tear gas to Libya, crowd control ammunition to Qatar, small arms ammunition to Syria, armoured personnel carriers to Saudi Arabia and so on. For that reason, I welcome the Minister's announcement on 17 February that we were revoking many licences to export to Bahrain, and his unambiguous statement on that day:"““We will not authorise any exports…we assess…might be used to facilitate internal repression.””" That is an incredibly important announcement.