Afghanistan

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, the Minister covered a vast area and I envy her trip to Bukhara and Samarkand. I hope that we shall all achieve that. It is a pleasure to join her in such an upbeat and constructive debate on Afghanistan because it is a country which will always depend on the strength of its links with its immediate neighbours. However, so much uncertainty may mean that what we say will be largely speculation. Having been puzzled by the wording of the debate, I nevertheless fully understand the Government’s motivation for tabling it.

Are we bold enough to say that Afghanistan even has the prospect of becoming a united country? In my view, after ISAF’s withdrawal, it will still require subtle partnerships not only with neighbours but with provincial warlords to achieve relative unity and ensure a reasonably stable coalition at the centre. If we have learnt one lesson in 12 years—the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, reminded us of this—it is surely that over every mountain is another form of loyalty to family, tribe and the shura, normally before that of central government. However, there will always be central government in some form, and it is the job of this debate to identify what forms of regional co-operation are going to achieve the most secure results. In the absence of ISAF, Afghanistan will have to fall even further back on the good will of its neighbours, and they are pulling it in different directions. The Istanbul Process was a good idea but perhaps too ambitious, and the key bilateral partnerships with India and Pakistan will always be restrained by the endemic rift between those two countries, although I am very glad to hear of the improvements in the links between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the transit trade agreement and the new strategic partnership agreement. They will always be helpful in achieving reconciliation.

Iran has a common language with Afghanistan. It has many close regional ties with Herat province and we may be underplaying its role in a future Afghanistan. I am never clear why our relations with Iran seem to inhibit us from making this point. It is true that our embassy and the British Council in Tehran have been badly treated, as I saw for myself when I visited Tehran, but so have they in Moscow. I know from fairly recent experience that there is a great affection for the UK among people in Tehran, and I hope the Minister would agree that there is room for discussion about development along the Iranian border, perhaps through DfID or EU funded NGOs, as I believe there has been in the past over the narcotics trade.

Security is not part of this debate but it is almost impossible to discuss regional relationships without mentioning the background of insecurity and terrorism which has frustrated so many initiatives. Most critical of all is the inability of the Afghan Karzai Government to come to terms with any of the Taliban, the Haqqani group, the Quetto groups, the ISI-created groups mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, or the cronies of the dreaded and mercurial Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, to name but a few. Indeed, the Afghan Government have been unable to identify any lasting relationship either side of the Pakistan border.

We have heard that there are a number of initiatives in international trade and development, and this is why I will today confine myself to soft diplomacy, as it is called. The Afghan Government’s website states:

“Through regional cooperation, Afghanistan wishes to improve trading opportunities, integrate itself with regional railways and road networks, become an important partner in regional energy markets, and eliminate narcotics trade”,

and achieve millennium development goals. That is a tall order—trade, transport, energy, narcotics and MDGs. I will consider just trade and MDGs. Trade is perhaps the most important of all because it actively concerns and develops people’s livelihoods. It is happening every day, bringing goods and services across all borders, despite the insecurity. Afghanistan already has bilateral agreements with Pakistan and India and its membership of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, SAARC, should be helping to build its partnership with both countries. I should be interested in the Minister’s comments. The association aims to promote the welfare of the peoples of the region through accelerated economic, social and cultural development. Afghanistan joined the association in 2007. What has it to show for that?

I remember watching the reconstruction of destroyed small towns and villages outside Kabul, such as Istalif. I saw how dependent the people were on imports of, for example, roofing timber from Pakistan, and all the appalling delays in ordering and transporting it. What Afghanistan needs is more of its own timber so that development is more sustainable. Perhaps the noble Baroness can forecast what our role will be in trade promotion after 2014, especially in agricultural exports, which are the potential winners. To the north and west, there is the important international trade route through Uzbekistan used by ISAF. What is its future? We know that there is considerable local traffic across a long border with Iran. We have heard about mineral exploration and co-operation on proposed pipelines, which are promising.

The Pakistan border is in a special category because of the refugee camps in Peshawar, where many of today’s decision-makers grew up and were educated in exile. This is how many of the Afghan NGOs developed, in partnership with the aid agencies. That building up of civil society has been very important, both before 2001 during the rule of the Taliban, and since. After our armed intervention, when the mist of antiterrorism had receded, development became our principal motive for public support for our intervention in that country, as we have, usually for bona fide reasons, intervened in many poor countries around the world, although not as dramatically as in Afghanistan. I was delighted to hear from the Minister that the UK intends to remain in Afghanistan through international development for another decade. That is saying a lot. In the knowledge that DfID is reducing its programme in India, I ask for a reassurance that the Government will begin now to encourage and support development and co-operation between India and Afghanistan, given that India has much experience in that field.

I will mention one important millennium development goal that affects Afghanistan—water and sanitation. About 300,000 children in south Asia die from diarrhoea every year and more than half the population of Afghanistan lacks improved water facilities, and nearly two-thirds lacks sanitation facilities. The WHO estimates—this must be repeated as often as possible—that for every $1 invested in water, sanitation or hygiene, $3 or $4 come into the national revenue. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells knows from his connection with WaterAid, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and I are joining a parliamentary delegation to the Kathmandu valley this coming weekend to draw attention to the importance of water and sanitation in south Asia. I am beginning to do that here and now. It will be a regional event and will be joined by MPs from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere in a street march to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation headquarters.

Another objective of the campaign is to highlight the work of the high-level panel on the post-2015 millennium development goals, which is meeting in Bali this month and has to come to a decision in May. Perhaps I may send a signal to our Prime Minister that WASH—water and sanitation and hygiene—is still only a subsection of MDG 7 on sustainability and needs to be upgraded in the next round. While drinking water targets are being reached generally by 2015, the world is still well short of the targets for sanitation and hygiene. I hope that the Minister can take back that message.

Afghanistan must play an increasingly active part in these international associations. I hope that our Government will ensure, post-2014, that this continues to happen. I congratulate the noble Baroness on her personal role in this region.