Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for her commitment and dedication to the people of Sudan and South Sudan, for initiating this debate and for her excellent speech, which covered all the ground that I think we need to hear.

Ten years ago, few of us imagined we would still be discussing the suffering of the people of Sudan. Yet the misery of Darfur has once again intensified, Khartoum’s campaign of aerial bombardment and systematic ethnic cleansing has spread to Blue Nile and South Kordofan, and after last week’s referendum it is clear that the permanent residents of Abyei wish to be free of a regime that is hostile to their very existence.

Despite all that, the international community has chosen to focus on the low-level conflict that rumbles on between Sudan and South Sudan. That has always been the intention of the Sudanese Government. They know that the world lacks the knowledge and the vigilance needed to see what Bashir is up to in Sudan. There is now no UN special representative after the departure of Robin Gwynn, and the capacity of the FCO’s Sudan unit has been diminished by the exit of staff who have not been replaced. Also, as the excellent Rosalind Marsden departs from her EU role, her replacement, Alexander Rondos, is expected to take on responsibility for the whole of the Horn of Africa. The message that all that conveys to those in power in Khartoum is that the world community is unable or unwilling to focus on Sudan while Syria and Somalia preoccupy security interest. The need for concerted international action to deal with the crisis continues, but international engagement shrinks.

For years, there have been calls for Khartoum to give unhindered humanitarian access to the starving and displaced people sheltering from the Sudanese bombing raids in Blue Nile and South Kordofan. Khartoum knows that it can carry on killing its own citizens with impunity because there is absolutely no response other than media statements and ministerial condemnation. For years, we have expressed concern about Khartoum’s brutal repression of free speech, the disappearance and torture of intellectuals and the sexual abuse of thousands of young women guilty of no greater sin than wanting to go to school or to college.

Symptomatic of the failure to grasp the reality on the ground has been the dogged attempt to impose the Doha peace agreement on Darfur. Officials continue to negotiate debt relief with the very governing regime whose leaders have been indicted on counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC. Meanwhile, assistance is given to British trade missions and British links when we should be warning British companies that Sudan is rated among the worst in the world for corruption, high inflation, opaque banking and dubious overseas payment systems. In addition, DfID still channels aid through a Government run by those indicted war criminals, surely knowing that it reaches only projects and people acceptable to them.

We should be turning the tap off and challenging Khartoum on every occasion when an aid agency travel permit is withheld, an aid shipment delayed due to some fatuous new regulation, a new restriction is invented to stop humanitarian aid reaching needy people or a patrol of peacekeepers is attacked or intimidated by the regime or its proxies.

Can the Minister comment on an analysis that has suggested that our security services and Washington’s apparently count as their partners in the war on terror this regime that has such a terrible, criminal reputation? Does he agree that in view of the evidence against the current regime in Sudan, current debt relief negotiations should immediately be cancelled until such time as the regime, first, abides by its multiple promises under the CPA, and secondly, stops the aerial bombardment of its civilians and allows unfettered access for international humanitarian aid groups in areas of Sudanese aggression? Anything less will, tragically, guarantee that we will be debating the misery of Sudanese suffering in another 10 years.