Situation in Darfur

International Development

01-Apr-2008

Mr. Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (LD): I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) in this important debate. It has been brief but passionate. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) on securing this debate and on introducing it in a comprehensive fashion. We have had telling contributions and interventions from Members on both sides of the Chamber. We heard from the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) and the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), and we know that many in the House care passionately about the situation. Perhaps the Minister will suggest through the usual channels that the time has come once again for a debate in the main Chamber, where more Members would be able to participate, and where we could discuss a broader range of questions and issues.

Sometimes parliamentary format and the very architecture of this Room bring measured tones and the discipline of debate but strip out the passion and anguish. Today, we managed to rise above and beyond that.

I am conscious that we are five years into this terrible carnage. I have been struck by the references so far to the people who have been killed—the estimates have now doubled from those that we have been used to quoting for some years—and by the numbers of displaced people and those in camps. That should be related to the parts of the world that we represent to show the enormity of the catastrophe that has unfolded year after year in Sudan and particularly in Darfur.

It is important that the Minister has a full opportunity to answer the many questions that have been asked, so I will focus on two or three main points and allow the Conservative Opposition spokesman to speak before she does so.

We must never lose sight of the sheer scale of what is going on or of the efforts of the Sudanese Government to make it worse: it is not simply about their containing the situation or making it better; as others have observed, they are actually colluding or directly involved in making the situation worse. We have all been approached by the non-governmental organisations—the charities and aid agencies—stressing that their key workers are under attack when trying to deliver water and food and trying just to make their own lives secure. The compounds of those who are there to help are being attacked by militias and others.

There is a chronic shortage of essential equipment. The UN has to reach some 400,000 people by air, yet we read that its humanitarian air service has funding only for another month. I hope that the Minister can assure us about the long-term funding of that essential service, without which a huge number of displaced people and refugees will go hungry and be in an even worse condition than at present.

More broadly, we read in the Financial Times and elsewhere in recent days of the chronic problems facing the World Food Programme, which urgently needs another £250 million for its worldwide programme or else it will be forced to implement rationing. That is inconceivable. I hope that, in response to the undoubted problems with commodity and fuel prices and shipping costs, Britain and other European partners will be taking the lead in responding to the World Food Programme’s concerns.

Colleagues have already mentioned the military situation in Sudan, particularly the lack of numbers and the slow handover from the African Union Mission in Sudan to the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur. Although we have a better mandate now—there is not just a monitoring process, but a duty to protect—the numbers are pathetic. Even if the full force were to get to 26,000 it would be barely credible, but we are dealing with less than half of that. Again, I appreciate that there are frustrating, difficult issues to get round in the world of diplomacy, but I hope that the Minister will demonstrate some sense of urgency in respect of how this matter is being tackled. In particular, she has been asked to respond to the issue of helicopters, which was raised at the Foreign Office questions last month by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) and many other hon. Members. I hope that she will be able to report some progress to us today.

The Sudanese wish to obstruct just about everything that we try to do. Surely, in response, we must tighten our grip on them and tighten the sanctions that are there. The United Nations adopted the duty to protect as part of its raison d’être—to use French where the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) avoided doing so earlier—and although we can see the most obvious example of our need to step up and do just that, we are failing. The recent reports from the Secretary-General to the Security Council were as depressing as anything else reported here today. A chapter 7 resolution was finally passed last summer. All necessary means can be used, but, my goodness, we are not defining that in very good terms at present. That is something of a sick joke.

The United Kingdom has an opportunity; it chairs the Security Council in May. I hope that we will see serious diplomatic initiatives to extend the asset freezes that are already in place, but which are limited, extend the travel bans and look hard at the arms embargo. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West made an important point about Britain\\\'s role in small arms. Whether that issue is linked to Darfur, surely we should be looking a lot harder at what is going on.

John Bercow: To the list of crimes that fully justify the comprehensive sanctions against the Government of Sudan that the hon. Gentleman rightly seeks, might I add one other item? It is true that the numbers of people in the camps have ballooned in the three years since the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West, hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and I visited camps in Darfur. However, is there not another difficulty, which is that, in some cases, the Government of Sudan are organising forced, involuntary returns that are highly dangerous? The United Nations circulated a memo complaining about this last November. It is another example of a breach of human rights law by the Government of Sudan for which it should be indicted.

Mr. Moore: I agree. Since the hon. Gentleman has raised that issue, we might highlight the complete lack of progress in getting hold of the two individuals who should be before the International Criminal Court but are not—and there are surely others to whom that should be extended.

Hon. Members have properly drawn attention to China's role. We must give China credit for recognising that there are problems in the area: it has appointed an envoy for Africa, who has taken interest in this matter and its support was crucial in getting resolution 1769 passed last year. But, frankly, that is not enough. I hope that the Government will ensure that, in this year of the Olympics, when China is learning that it has to face out to the world and deal with the world not just in respect of Tibet, it learns that its role in Sudan and Darfur matters as well.

I hope that today we can learn something of European efforts to bolster the mediation led by the AU and the UN and about our role in what other hon. Members have rightly mentioned is in danger of being a regional conflict. Darfur might only be the start of something. That is too awful to contemplate. We must ensure that we are doing all that is necessary.

Famously or infamously, the former Prime Minister, Mr. Blair, said that Africa was a scar on the conscience of the world and in Darfur we see one of its bleakest realities. It is a horrible situation. The response so far has been feeble. There really is a requirement to act now.

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