Somalia

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Tony Cunningham

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, of course. The right hon. Gentleman has been a great expert on, and friend of, Somaliland for a long time, and we can indeed make that distinction. I spoke to the President of Somaliland last week to encourage him to come to the London conference, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has visited Somaliland. We give it a lot of assistance in many ways and welcome the fact that it has become a more stable area within Somalia, and we will welcome its participation at the London conference. I will come back to Somaliland later. I have been giving a general introduction to Somalia as a whole, but the right hon. Gentleman is certainly right to make that distinction.

Somalia as a whole not only cries out for compassion but is a point of great weakness in the long-term security and prosperity of the wider world. The people of Somalia deserve their country to be more stable and peaceful, and we in this country need it to be so. For reasons of national interest and our common humanity, we need to help Somalia get on its feet. We need to do so to reduce our vulnerability to terrorist attacks, to maintain the free flow of trade on which our economy depends, to limit our exposure to the effects of uncontrolled migration, to increase the support that we can give to education and economic development in Somalia and to support the stability of a part of Africa where our country has a great many interests and our nationals have been shown to be vulnerable.

Nearly $1 trillion of trade to and from Europe travelled through the gulf of Aden last year. Some 20,000 British nationals live next door to Somalia in Kenya, and a further 200,000 travel there every year. They would be deeply affected if the violence in Somalia spread to its neighbours.

All those interests are undoubtedly threatened by many factors in Somalia, including piracy and terrorism. The House will be familiar with many of the risks, so I will not list them in detail, but just one aspect of the crisis in Somalia brings home the problem dramatically. Large parts of south central Somalia are still controlled by the group known as al-Shabaab, which until recently occupied Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab has publicly declared sympathy for al-Qaeda’s aims and methods, and elements of its leadership welcome foreign fighters and sympathisers from around the world who have swelled its ranks and coffers and used Somalia as a base for terrorism.

Attack planning linked to extremist networks in Somalia has been thwarted from Sweden to Australia, and the Kampala bombings of July 2010, which killed 74 people, were planned and executed by individuals with links to Somalia. Al-Shabaab’s violent tactics inflict suffering on Somalis, including through its known forced recruitment of children, and its embrace of al-Qaeda imposes a concept of global jihad and violent extremism that is alien to most Somalis, highly damaging to their country and dangerous to us.

In the face of such threats, our Government contend, as did the previous Government, that we do not have the option of disengaging from the problems of Somalia. We cannot afford simply to continue to treat the symptoms of those problems without addressing the underlying causes such as the fundamental lack of governance and security across most of Somalia. We believe that a stronger and more united international approach is needed if we are to achieve a stable and peaceful Somalia over time that combines political will with practical measures to boost security and development. We also judge that recent positive developments in Somalia mean that the time is right for a new international effort. This moment of opportunity is why, in two weeks’ time, we will host the London conference on Somalia, bringing together 50 countries and organisations.

[Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the conference on Somalia, but is there a danger that the country’s humanitarian needs will be sidelined if there is too much emphasis on political and security concerns?

[Mr Hague]

There would be such a danger if we constructed the conference in the wrong way. I am talking about security concerns, but the UK makes a huge contribution to addressing humanitarian concerns —we were the second-largest bilateral donor in the recent humanitarian crisis. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will host, alongside the conference, an event to discuss humanitarian needs. As I will describe, one of the conclusions that we hope for from the conference is to highlight those humanitarian needs.

This is about much more than security, as I will describe.