Somalia

Debate between Edward Leigh and Alun Michael

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We have either the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) to thank for this debate—we are grateful to him—or perhaps the lack of business, because a Bill is being discussed in the other place before it comes back here. Sometimes we are too self-absorbed and it is good to have a few weeks to look beyond our own horizons and think about what is happening elsewhere in the world, where often there is great suffering.

I warmly welcome what my hon. Friend the Africa Minister and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary have achieved in their proactive stance on Somalia. It is clear that we have a Foreign Secretary of stature—of course we knew that already—and a Minister for Africa who has tried to push the process forward. He said recently that he wanted a “strategic approach”, but Somalia defies strategy. Nostrums of liberal unitary democracy do not work with Somalia. It has tinges, shades, gradations and distinctions that evade a simple solution. We have to learn to work with that reality rather than try to defeat it with our own notions of what is right.

[Alun Michael]

I do not think we should be quite so defeatist, given that the Somalis themselves have a model that has worked in Somaliland. It has dealt with what was a clan situation and has engaged with the elders through the Guurti. I think that the hon. Gentleman is right about the current situation, but I do not think we should write off the capacity of Somalis to build democracy, especially if they can do so with our help.

[Mr Leigh]

I agree entirely and apologise if my opening remarks had a defeatist tone. I did not mean to convey that at all. I just wanted to be realistic. I will, as have many who have already discussed Somaliland, pay tribute to what it has achieved. There is a model about which the right hon. Gentleman speaks with great knowledge, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), so we should not despair of the situation. I was leading up to saying—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with this—that there is no single solution or governmental process that is right, because Somalia is a patchwork of sub-national entities: some, such as Somaliland, are large, some are small, and some are clan-based.

Somaliland has developed governmental structures that exercise authority in a relatively normal and competent way, despite or—dare I say it—because of almost total non-recognition by outside powers. Perhaps we should learn something from that. Elsewhere in Somalia power can shift rapidly as clans align, separate and shift alliances. I suspect that progress can be made only by encouraging the peaceful institutionalisation and regularisation of the clan structures. That is not being defeatist; it is just recognising reality. That is why I believe that any kind of imposed solution or attempt to create one out of this conference would be a mistake.

At least, in my view, we have learned some lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. I strongly opposed both those ventures, because I believe they were badly planned and because they involved western troops on the ground. Thank God we have learned the lessons and British coffins are not returning through Wootton Bassett from Somalia. We are, however, engaged and not a great deal has been said about this so far. We are, apparently, training, equipping and supporting Kenyan and other African Union troops. I am told that British Army officers can often be seen in Nairobi doing that. Not a great deal is disclosed about it by our Government—perhaps that is right and it should be under the radar—but I think that Parliament, which pays for it, needs to know what is happening on behalf of our taxpayers.

We have to acknowledge the limitations of foreign intervention, even if we are being cleverer about it this time and using troops from the African Union effectively as proxies. The fact that troops are from Burundi and Kenya does not mean they are not resented as interloping Christians and foreigners by many in Somalia. We have to recognise that and we must not be over-optimistic about their ability to change events there. I still believe there are worrying comparisons with Afghanistan. There is foreign intervention for a start, there is the resurgent Muslim al-Shabaab—read the Taliban in Afghanistan—and there is a weak, corrupt central Government who are too reliant on aid from the west. I think we have been too kind to the Mogadishu Government in this debate. It might be difficult for the Foreign Secretary to say this—I went to the Somali conference yesterday at Chatham House, at which he gave an excellent speech—but the failure of the transitional federal charter and the transitional federal Government, whom we support, is almost absolute. They are virtually a failed entity, apart from in Mogadishu, where they operate only with foreign intervention.

The corruption in that Government, whom our Government support, is absolutely appalling, and taxpayers here should know about it. A confidential audit of the Somali Government suggests that in 2009 and 2010, 96% of direct assistance to the Government from outside powers simply disappeared, most likely into the hands of corrupt officials. Billions of pounds and dollars from the west have therefore simply disappeared. I am not attacking international aid, and I will say something about the vital importance of humanitarian aid in a moment, but it is appalling that, according to a confidential and authoritative audit, 96% of aid from our country and others has simply gone down the drain—into the pockets of corrupt officials.

I believe the transitional road map should be abandoned. If possible, another road map should be agreed that is more flexible and able to develop in response to the implementation of changes—bending to them rather than being broken by them, as has happened in the past. In that part of the world, as in many others, a strict road map is unlikely to succeed in practice. It is clear that the presidential system of a central Administration is inappropriate for Somalia. That has proved to be unworkable and it might be wise to propose a confederal solution to the problem. The country could be arranged into a number of cantons that bestow authority upwards to the national Government rather than there being a system that works downwards from the centre, as with most unitary states.