Congo: International Crisis Group Report

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, again I must stress the sheer size of the DRC. There are 20,000 troops in MONUSCO. They operate across the entire DRC, which is roughly the same size as western Europe. At present, they have 24 helicopters. Unfortunately, the Indians withdrew their dozen helicopters some time ago. There are limits to what the international community is able to do in this area. As the noble Lord knows, some of the unofficial forces come from Rwanda and others from Uganda. Nevertheless, we are working with other members of the international community as actively as we can to try to build an effective administration in the area, which it currently lacks.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, has the Minister concluded that there can be no security in the DRC until there is security for women? Only this week, the UN registered that 120 women had been raped in east Congo in this year alone, and those are just the reported rapes. Is pressure being put on the Government of the DRC to push much harder on the issues of justice and impunity, and to put those issues further up the agenda? Is the noble Lord aware that only 0.1 per cent of the DRC budget is allocated to the justice sector at this time? We should surely ask what has happened to that idea of zero tolerance that the president of DRC has spoken about. Rape cannot be seen as collateral damage, cultural or inevitable.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are co-operating with other members of the European Union in providing assistance to improving the quality of justice in the DRC. We all recognise that the quality at present leaves a great deal to be desired. There is also an enormous task in improving the quality of training in the Congolese army. A number of countries, including Britain, are contributing in different ways to the training of the battalions. I should remark that the Chinese are also helping to improve the quality of training.