Mali

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, on 14 January, my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave a Statement in the House of Commons outlining the UK’s deployment of two C-17 transport aircraft to provide logistical support to France as well as a small detachment of technical personnel deployed to Bamako airport to assist with the reception of the C-17 aircraft.

Since the announcement on 14 January, we have decided to extend our support to the continued provision of one C-17 in support of France for a further three months. There are currently around 20 people deployed in Bamako supporting liaison with French forces. Following a French request for additional surveillance support, we have deployed a Sentinel R1 aircraft to Dakar, Senegal, with supporting ground crew and technical support amounting to around 70 people.

EU Foreign Ministers agreed on 17 January to establish an EU Military Training Mission to Mali (EUTM) and work is ongoing to scope that mission. Today in Brussels, representatives from EU member states, including the UK, will meet to discuss the individual member state contributions to the mission. The UK is prepared to contribute up to 40 personnel to the EUTM, either in an HQ or a training team role. We do not envisage UK personnel fulfilling a force protection role, and it is quite possible that 40 personnel will not be required, dependent on the contributions from other member states. However, we will not contribute UK personnel to any mission until we are satisfied that adequate force protection arrangements are in place.

Also, today in Addis Ababa, the African Union is hosting a donor conference to discuss how the international community can support the African-led intervention force, AFISMA. The UK will offer £5 million for two new UN funds to support the strengthening of security in Mali—£3 million of this would be directed to AFISMA, and £2 million to activity in Mali that would facilitate and support political processes for building stability. The UK is also prepared to offer up to 200 personnel to provide training to troops from Anglophone west African countries contributing to AFISMA, though the numbers required will be dependent on the requirements of the AFISMA-contributing nations.

In addition, we have deployed a small number of advisers to Anglophone west African countries who will contribute to the AFISMA mission to assess their needs and to gain situational awareness. Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will provide an update to the House on the outcome of the discussions in Brussels and Addis Ababa at the appropriate moment.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer given to an Urgent Question in the other place. Under what circumstances would we agree to extend further our military deployments beyond those set out in the Minister’s Statement? What is the minimum period of time we anticipate being deployed on our surveillance and training activities? Will any of our resources deployed, whether personnel, aircraft or other equipment, be resources which would otherwise be deployed in Afghanistan? What is the estimated numerical strength of the forces in Mali against whom action is being taken? Will we extend our support operations if those forces move into neighbouring countries and our continued assistance is sought? Are there any circumstances in which our military personnel deployed in the support operations could be involved in a combat role other than in self-defence? What is the Government’s definition of “success” which would lead to the end of our deployments to Mali? Finally, will there be a Statement shortly on the work presumably now being undertaken by the Department for International Development and the need to achieve stability in Mali through a political process?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord asked a number of questions and I will try to answer them. I may not have noted all of them. As to the question on the combat role, there is no question of our troops being sent out there in a combat role. Their terms of engagement in Bamaco are in self-defence. We are there in support of a French-led operation and in the expectation that the African countries round about will be in a position to pick up any of the military activities that are needed there. There will be a Statement shortly. We have these two conferences going on today and from both of those a Statement will come. We are not anticipating extending our position there but, of course, all these things need to be under discussion. However, we have made sure that this is a finite contribution for a short period in order to ensure that the African countries and Mali have stability. It is in our interests both to support the French in this operation and to ensure that Mali does not become ungovernable. We do not want to leave space for terrorism in this. The noble Lord asked about the strength of the Mali troops in the north. Our understanding is that their numbers are relatively small at the moment. We would hope that the engagement will be short and swift and that following this the Malian community can come together to build itself up.