Lords Hansard text for 13 Dec 200713 Dec 2007 (pt 0006)

1.13 pm

Lord Sheikh: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on initiating the debate and on his excellent presentation.

The subject is very broad and we do not have time to talk about the details of any particular country. I wish, therefore, to make general comments. During recent history, Africa has experienced significant turmoil, upheaval and war. That ranges from large conflicts including the problems in Darfur and the statelessness of Somalia, to the smaller, more localised problems including the turbulence in the north-east of Kenya involving disputes between different tribal groups.

Africa is a vast continent comprising hundreds of distinct ethnic groups with complex histories. Therefore, the continent has witnessed conflicts of tremendous diversity in nature, size and scope, including struggles for independence, civil war, tribal conflict, genocide and terrorist attacks. All this means that it can be difficult to draw broad conclusions about the causes and consequences of these conflicts. Having said that, it appears possible to draw a clear link between conflict in Africa and poverty. Poor economic development can be seen as both a cause and a consequence of conflict. Conflict can quickly cause inflation, debt, reduced investment and unemployment.

Poverty, in its many facets, can create social discontentment which in turn can create an environment more prone to conflict. Poverty, and specifically financial inequality within a society, can be exploited by leaders to mobilise followers and legitimate violent actions. Thus the nature of the problem goes in a cycle. Poverty results in conflict and conflict results in further poverty. There are also reasons to relate conflict to the absence of good governance. Weak government institutions, a lack of transparency and poor adherence to democratic principles all predispose a state to conflict. The ideas developed by Immanuel Kant in his essay, Perpetual Peace, in 1795 have since evolved into the theory that democracies rarely fight or go to war. It could be suggested that the absence or weakness of democracy in certain African states has led to conflict and war.

Furthermore, conflicts have arisen from the failure of leaders to relinquish power, resulting in military coups and other attempts to seize power. The example set in 1991 by Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, who gave up power, needs to be repeated in states where unpopular leaders, such as Mugabe, cling to power. In the spirit of working with Africa as a partner, I would like to see Africa solving African problems, through an empowered African Union, albeit working with strong support from the international community. I feel this is probably the best way to deal with problems in Darfur.

The implementation of an international arms trade treaty would represent an important step forward in preventing tomorrow’s crises in Africa becoming violent conflicts. Ninety-five per cent of the small arms in use in Africa were made outside the continent and ensuring tighter global controls on the sale and movement of such weapons would help to stem their flow into Africa, where they fuel conflicts and cause untold damage.

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If Africa is to become a peaceful, stable and secure continent, we need to show support to countries recently emerging from conflicts, otherwise those countries may slip back into a cycle of violence and conflict. Conflict resolutions are therefore very important. I would like to take this opportunity to remind us all of China's heavy involvement in Africa. The concern is that the numerous projects and financial aid packages funded by China seem to be unrelated to any requirements for good governance.

However, we are pleased to note that the EU remains the largest donor to Africa and that there seems to be a shift away from projects for Africa towards a more mature partnership involving projects with Africa. This method is to be commended as it represents a stronger and more responsible solution for obtaining peace and development in Africa. I am pleased that, despite problems connected with Mr Mugabe, the EU-Africa summit was held last week in Lisbon.

A major challenge facing Africa as a continent is climate change, the effects of which could stoke new conflicts in the continent in the years to come. There are predictions from some scientists that the continent will have 25 per cent less water by the end of the century. This points towards an increasingly bleak scenario for certain areas of Africa, in which the availability of water will decrease and there will be a reduction in viable agricultural land and an increase in food shortages, possibly leading to conflict. We all appreciate that the problem of climate change needs to be tackled globally, but I am very pleased that we have taken the initiative and are discussing the Climate Change Bill.

1.20 pm

Lord Crisp: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this debate and on generating such a wide-ranging and interesting one that covers so many topics. Others have talked about governmental and strategic issues; I want to talk more on the local level about a single topic, health, which I hope will complement what others have said. Health is an area where, I believe, more action is possible. I will make my remarks about, first, the impact of conflict on health; then on the support that health can give in dealing with the aftermath; and, finally, on preventing conflict in the first place.

On the impact, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, began our debate by telling us that awful story about Kinshasa hospital. Others have commented on the impact of conflict on health. I want to pull out two aspects that I think have not yet been mentioned. One is the long-term nature of the damage done; for instance, if a child does not get appropriate nutrition early in life, there will be impacts on the development of the brain and the rest of the body. Therefore, in the longer term, if a community contains many such people, there is less ability to develop that society economically. That is a real, long-term impact on individuals.

Secondly, there is another long-term economic impact. Before conflict, Liberia had something like 500 doctors—not very many. After conflict, it had about 75. It was also observed that, as more doctors were brought into Liberia, inflation on salaries was not 1,000 per cent

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but 1,000 times their salaries. We have therefore seen inflation and changes in costs in Liberia having knock-on effects elsewhere. So, my first point is that impacts can be very long-term, and they therefore need action that is sustained over the long term.

On dealing with the aftermath of conflict, the UK can do—and already does—an enormous amount. It can do that practically to support local people. I certainly take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Luce, that it will be Africans who solve Africa’s problems, but that does not mean that we cannot be there in support, providing help through respectful partnerships based on trust. As a simple example, the King’s College NHS trust here in London has, since 2000, been partnered with Somaliland. Over that period, something like 90 people from that trust have gone for various periods to work with partners in Somaliland. They are starting to have a real impact: this year, for the first time in 20 years, medical students graduated in Somaliland. I could give other examples of partnerships; there is the Cheltenham link with Sierra Leone that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jones. It is interesting to note that these volunteers are going to work in countries with such difficult circumstances.

Earlier this year, I published a report for the then Prime Minister on what more the UK could do to support such person-to-person or institution-to-institution partnerships. I am yet awaiting a government response, so I will take this opportunity to ask two specific questions. First, do the Government support and value that sort of capacity-building partnership in the aftermath of conflict, or in developing countries in any case? Secondly, the Government give no significant financial support there, so will they do so in future? There is much more that we can do to mobilise the terrific good will in this country to support such people. This is about people-to-people partnerships; we should pause to salute the many people who take on those difficult and daunting responsibilities. Health, with other actions, is thus a key part of development.

I will move briefly to prevention, with two examples. The first is of eight countries from west Africa, a sub-region that has been devastated by ongoing civil conflict. As a result, populations have been dispersed and infrastructure has collapsed. As a means to break the cycle and provide a stabilising influence on security in that sub-region, as well as addressing the crisis in healthcare provision, the ministries of health in those eight countries met in August 2001 and developed the “Health for Peace” initiative. That was designed so that they would work together—they are, generally, small countries—with different countries taking the lead on different aspects of health, which provides a common ground. I should declare an interest as chairman of Sightsavers International, one of the British organisations that have been playing the lead role in eye health in that region.

West Africa is not the only example. I am indebted to Ingrid Stellmacher of the International Commission of Peace for drawing my attention to many others around the world, not just in Africa, where health has, in many places,

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She has also observed to me that, in many places, hospitals or health facilities are relatively neutral grounds where communities can come together.

Finally, health is a basic human need. We need to see it as a much greater part of the whole development process, and in terms of the practical things that can be done to bring people together at both individual and community levels. I believe that paying more attention to health can play a big role in conflict prevention, during conflict and, of course, in rehabilitation.

1.26 pm

Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for securing this debate. I should at the outset declare an interest, as for the past 12 years my wife and I have worked on a hospital ship in most of the countries of west Africa under the auspices of the charity Mercy Ships. We have seen at close quarters the appalling results of conflict—especially in Sierra Leone and Liberia, which have been torn apart by civil war.

There, rebel soldiers would invade a village, round up the children and ask each one, “Are you left- or right-handed?”. If a child said “Right-handed”, the rebels would amputate the right hand. The children became wise to this, so if they were right-handed they would say that they were left-handed. That hand would then be amputated, but at least they were left with their more useful hand. The fate of the adults was even worse. The women were repeatedly raped and often killed, and the men killed in their hundreds.

Then there was Salamatu, a 19 year-old married lady in Sierra Leone with a young baby. The rebels surrounded her village, murdered her father and took her into the bush. They forced her to choose her fate by making her pick up one of three pieces of paper. On one was written, “Hands and feet”; on another “Feet and waist”, and on the third “Hands and waist”. Not knowing the significance, she picked up the paper with “Feet and waist” on it. The rebels promptly amputated both feet and her buttocks with a machete, cheering as pieces of her body fell to the ground.

In spite of all those disasters, and the death of her husband a few years later, she eventually made her painful way to the hospital ship, where she was hospitalised for four months while having extensive and successful plastic surgery. She was fitted with lightweight, artificial legs. As her story became known, donations came in that enabled a house to be constructed for her and for her dependants, and to provide her with the materials to start a tie-dying business that would make her self-sufficient. What amazing courage and faith; it was a great inspiration to all 400 people on that hospital ship.

Then there was a girl of 12, kidnapped by the rebel soldiers in Sierra Leone and taken away as a hostage. They raped and tortured her for a whole year and left her doubly incontinent. Somehow or other, she managed to escape and hide in the jungle for a week; no one knows how she managed to survive, but she made her way to the ship and her appalling injuries

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were corrected surgically, which made her completely continent again. However, psychologically she was very damaged indeed, and it was the tender, loving care of the nurses on board that helped her to come to terms with her appalling trauma.

Many of the countries in Africa are potentially rich, as many noble Lords have already said, in diamonds and other resources. Sierra Leone should bring prosperity to its citizens, but the corruption and intertribal warfare have prevented this.

One of the most interesting countries in west Africa is Ghana. We often wondered what makes that country different from the neighbouring countries; it may be that its educational structure is the solution, as children of different tribes and religion are educated peacefully together, which creates lifelong friendships and tends to preclude later internecine warfare.

There have been some encouraging signs elsewhere in west Africa. The 2,000 British troops who restored and maintained the peace in Sierra Leone did so much more besides in helping the local population to rebuild their homes, schools and hospitals. They went the second, third and fourth mile—so much so that many of the Sierra Leoneans asked the British troops to stay for ever and run their country. In Liberia, there is also good news, as they have elected a president, Mrs Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who is the first lady president in Africa. She is strong, honest and charming.

Has the Minister thought of using the really radical solution to the African problems which Costa Rica found when it abolished its army in 1948? As the New Internationalist stated in August 2005, as a result of abolishing the army,

There are now 28 nations without armies. Former Costa Rican president, Dr Arias Sanchez, has stressed that abolishing the army reduces the threat of military coups but he emphasises that it is essential to have a comprehensive programme to disarm and reintegrate soldiers into society. Otherwise, armed groups can reform under a different banner. Radical and imaginative solutions are essential for this terribly troubled continent.

1.33 pm

Lord Avebury: My Lords, I join in the congratulations expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on returning to a subject that has been discussed several times during the current Parliament; in the debate on the Address, in his own Question on the Oxfam report and in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, on liberal intervention.

The Government have agreed with the estimate that conflict in Africa is costing $18 billion a year, which is roughly the same as the amount of aid by the whole of the world. In the year to June 2008, the UN budget for peacekeeping in six of the seven major conflicts where it is involved comes to $4.9 billion, which does not include the amount for Chad and the CAR, for which the budget has still to be agreed. In addition, there is the 3,700-strong EU force to be deployed in Chad starting early next year, the UN Peacebuilding Support

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Office in CAR, and the UNHCR’s operations in Africa, for which it is requesting $380 million in 2008. That is to consider only the direct costs of the seven larger conflicts, leaving out the numerous indirect costs to the UN and its agencies such as those incurred in the conflict in Somalia, and of the smaller conflicts in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, and so on.

The Oxfam estimate is a conservative one, as Oxfam acknowledges. It includes nothing for Somalia, for the simple reason that there are no data, and nothing for the cost of armed crime, on which the only data, in relation to Ghana and Nigeria alone, are seven years out of date. There are also no data for piracy along the coasts of Africa, including 27 hijacks or attempts near the Somali coast alone this year. The downstream costs, extending for a generation or more, are also neglected in these estimates, as has been highlighted by the noble Lords, Lord McColl and Lord Crisp, simply because they are utterly incalculable. However, as the Commission for Africa said:

“War does not only harm people. It destroys roads, bridges, farming equipment, telecommunications, water and sanitation systems. It shuts down hospitals and schools. It slows trade and economic life, sometimes to a halt”.

As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, those effects carry on for many years after a conflict has ended.

One contributory factor identified by Oxfam and highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is the steady flow of weaponry into the hands of private militias and organised criminal gangs. Most of the arms and ammunition come from outside Africa, and in spite of the EU code of conduct, which prohibits arms exports that provoke or prolong conflicts or aggravate existing tensions or conflicts, one EU state is the largest supplier of ammunition to sub-Saharan Africa. The international arms trade treaty, which all noble Lords have agreed is absolutely necessary, will have to include better provisions for reporting and enforcement than the EU code. It will be useful to hear from the Minister whether in the light of experience that code is to be strengthened, and what the EU is intending to propose to the UN group of experts when they start work on drafting the treaty next month. Will they seek to include an international monitoring mechanism such as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has indicated would be of great importance?

One answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is that it is impossible to generalise about the causes of conflict in Africa, although I agree to some extent with the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that many of them are due to ethnic and religious differences. For instance, there is only one that I can think of that is based on traditional antipathy between two neighbouring states, ostensibly but not mainly about the boundary between them. That is the confrontation between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and their proxy war in Somalia, which stems from the grievous mistake of the UN in 1950, when Eritrea was compulsorily federated with Ethiopia in the absence of any proper democratic consultation. When the people of Eritrea rose against the colonialist occupation, and there was a war of independence lasting 29 years, the international community did not lift a finger to help, and the Foreign Office throughout continued to parrot the mantra that some form of federal solution was best for the people of Eritrea.

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When the Eritreans finally gained their independence, but war broke out again over the boundary, the international community failed to act firmly against Meles Zenawi’s refusal to accept the findings of the boundary commission. Now, after that commission has been disbanded, Meles remains in illegal occupation of some Eritrean territory, and refuses to accept the commission’s final recommendation for the boundary to be demarcated by co-ordinates. One-quarter of a million troops are confronting each other along this border, and Eritrea, a desperately poor country of 4 million inhabitants, has become a militarised police state, dubbed the worst country in the world for press freedom. Those are the reasons that the UN has to spend $120 million on the peacekeeping forces of UNMEE this year, and they help to explain why the two states are involved in a war in Somalia. Even now, if the UN took a robust line on the border decision and on withdrawal of Ethiopian forces, it could solve this problem, which would allow both countries to reduce military spending, to benefit from trade through Assab and Massawa, and to release the agricultural potential along the border. What is the UK doing, as a friend of both countries and as a permanent member of the Security Council, to avert this potential war?

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