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Political and Human Rights (African Great Lakes)

Thank you, Mr Howarth, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to speak in a debate chaired by you.

I thank all Members who have participated in what has been—almost by definition—a wide-ranging debate concerning a hugely important but under-addressed issue. It is under-addressed not only in the House of Commons but in the UK as a whole.

First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for his wide-ranging introduction to the historic context of this region, which is so important. We need to be involved with and to participate in the process of trying to achieve progress in the region, not only because we are of humankind but because we have a historic responsibility in the region, and we need to address the deficiencies of the past in order to make progress in the future.

The issues that have been raised during this debate include the importance of considering the fact that this region is one of the richest areas on the planet in terms of the extractive industries but the people who live in the region do not see the benefit of those industries. It is vital to put right at the top of the priority list the importance of good governance, because good governance is a precondition of being able to make progress in the region.

In certain areas of the region, such as Rwanda, we have seen progress on material wealth. Anyone here who has visited Rwanda will have seen the progress on infrastructure and the Government’s capacity to deliver to the people of Rwanda in practical terms.

We have also heard concerns today, including from my hon. Friend, that the Rwandan Government are not allowing the development of an effective Opposition within a pluralistic democracy in the way that we would like. That is a common concern. Last week I participated in a debate commemorating the genocide in Rwanda, and the progress that has been made in Rwanda is extraordinary, but one sometimes wishes that some of the language used by Rwandan politicians and those who speak for Rwanda was more measured when we hear of deaths occurring in other parts of the world. Now that Rwanda is in the Commonwealth, it has accepted the importance of a pluralistic democracy, which Members here would like to see. We would like the Rwandan Government to take that on board much more.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) spoke with great authority on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and he obviously did a great deal of work to prepare for this debate. Shortly after I took on the Africa brief, I visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo in November 2011 when the last elections occurred. I was struck by the people’s massive enthusiasm to vote in those elections. I was in Kinshasa, and the election I

saw was in some difficulty because of the electorate’s intense passion to vote. We might be encouraging some of our electorate to take steps towards a polling station over the next few days, but in the Democratic Republic of the Congo no such exhortation was needed. The difficulty within the Democratic Republic of the Congo is that the elections delivered in 2011 are not widely accepted as credible, which has been a block to progress. As we progress towards 2016, what steps are being taken to ensure that belief in the system, which was not there in 2011, can be secured by 2016? In 2011 the electoral authority, CENI, was widely discredited, and it is important that the Democratic Republic of the Congo has a Government in which it can believe by 2016.

We then heard about the conditionality of aid, which is another issue that kept cropping up. Good governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is important because this has been a difficult period. I was in the country about a year ago when there were intense problems relating to eastern Congo and the activities of the M23. Some progress has been made since then, and I commend not only the UK Government but the Minister personally for his hard work. What is his current assessment of the progress of the development of governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Now that there is less pressure and immediate violence in eastern Congo, what is the current position?

I am also interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland had to say about returning asylum seekers and his worrying accounts of the way they have been treated. I support what he said about investigating those cases and seeing what is actually being done to address the appalling conduct of the security forces, as it seems, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—if I may call him my hon. Friend—spoke eloquently about the importance of human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He also referred to the extractive industries and the importance of the churches in the region. On my first visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2011 I was privileged to leave Kinshasa, which in my experience is not the most attractive city on the planet, to go south to Bas-Congo to visit the region’s idyllic Salvation Army church. Every day, churches are carrying out intensive work on behalf of the region’s people. The churches have a positive role, which the UK Government recognise, but they need to recognise that role more often because people work extremely hard to carry matters forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) spoke eloquently about Burundi, for which I am glad. I think the Minister went there recently.