Afghanistan

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to my noble friend for securing this debate and for the way she introduced it. She is a real breath of fresh air in an area which is often dominated by impenetrable foreign policy elites who have their own private conservations and reach their own conclusions, which sometimes bewilder us. Some of those elites were telling us 13 years ago that the invasion in 2001 would deal swiftly with the enemy. We then put in place the groundwork for the presidential election in 2004 and many people were suddenly telling us that the Taliban would be exposed, that we would have human rights and democracy, and that effectively we would have a country such as Denmark. However, we do not have that. That fact that 10 years later we are still wrestling with these impossible challenges is something that ought to humble us. That is very much the theme of my contribution today. I want to make the argument that essential to the success of the push for peace are truth and honesty about our roles on all sides. That then leads to humility and respect, and from that we can start to build trust. That is the foundation on which relations must be built.

Let us deal, first, with some harsh realities. These are very difficult statements to hear. My honourable friend in another place, Rory Stewart, who understands this region very well, wrote an article in the Financial Times in September last year saying that it was time to be honest about Afghanistan. He said:

“The gap between the language of policy makers and the reality is typical. It is time to be honest about Afghanistan: we face a desperate situation and an intolerable choice”.

He continued:

“They have tried ‘ink-spots’ and ‘development zones’; counterinsurgency and nation-building; partnering and mentoring; military surges, civilian surges and reconciliation. Generals and ministers called 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 ‘decisive’ years in Afghanistan. None was. None will be”.

That is pretty stark as a statement. Those who regard themselves as being privileged to live in this country recognise the honourable service and sacrifice of our British forces, 440 of whom have lost their lives and thousands of whom have been injured. However, I do not think that we honour their sacrifice by somehow dismissing the mistakes that have been made and the problems that exist. We honour their sacrifice by being honest and true and by expressing our determination that these efforts will succeed.

I want to point to where we can learn from our experience in Northern Ireland and talk about the elements that are important if there is to be a lasting peace. I very much welcome the push for peace announced by the parties at the Chequers summit on 4 February. The first point is that the parties to the conflict have to be the parties to the peace. We can all get on our high horse and say, “We’re not going to talk to them. They’re evil and guilty of atrocities. We’re not going to sit in the same room as them”, and so on. If we had done that, we would not have got anywhere near having peace on the ground in Northern Ireland, we would not have released people who had been guilty of terrorist outrages before their sentences had been expended, we would not have sat down and talked to Sinn Fein, and we would not have had the negotiations that led to the Good Friday agreement. So the parties to the conflict, however difficult it may be, have to be the parties to the peace. That means that there needs to be a role for the Taliban and for other organisations around the table because there can be no peace without them. I was interested in the suggestion from the right reverend Prelate that perhaps there is also a role for Iran. Everything within us says, “What? Iran? You’re kidding”. But if we want peace, we have to start talking rather than posturing. That is our lesson.

As preparations get under way for the Kabul follow-up conference next month, consideration must be given to that. I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on the role that the Taliban will play and whether, as some evidence suggests, it will lead to other very important parties, particularly from Pakistan, saying that they will not attend because the Taliban will not be present. We need to face up to that point. The second point, which has been very well covered by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, is that whatever the solution, it cannot be imposed but must evolve and come from local people; it must be their solution, not ours. I made a note of the excellent line that Afghanistan cannot relive someone else’s history. That is very profound and true, and we need the centrality of Afghanistan having its own solutions.

We also know from our experience in Northern Ireland that the economy is critical to any success. We know that poverty and economic deterioration are challenges, whether in Northern Ireland or Afghanistan. That causes concern. I was reading a report from Oxford Analytica, which said:

“As NATO withdraws the economy will contract”.

Why will it contract? It stated that it is because,

“90% of the Afghan budget comes from foreign donors and 97% of the total economy is linked to the NATO presence and foreign aid”,

with the other 3% coming from opium production. That is not quite the basis for a long-term sustainable economy, so the economy is critical.

I come to my final point on the absolute rejection of violence as a means of achieving an end. Some will say, “That is completely unreasonable; you can’t say that in Afghanistan. Don’t you understand what is going on?”. We understood very well what was going on in Northern Ireland, yet it was only when it was laid down in the Good Friday declaration that all the parties affirmed their,

“total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences on political issues”,

that progress began to be made. There needs to be an absolute rejection of violence by all parties around the table. But, of course, that means some tough points for us. I was disturbed to read that less than a week after the Chequers summit, which held out that positive hope of the push for peace, that NATO’s ISAF forces were called in to launch an air strike in a village in eastern Afghanistan where there were believed to be Taliban fighters. There were, but as well as the homes destroyed, 10 women and children were killed, and tens more were injured. That led to some forthright words from President Karzai; “How could they ask foreigners to send in planes and bomb our own houses?”. It is a problem. If there is to be lasting peace, there must also be restraint in these crucial days and months.

On 2 March, less than a month after the Chequers summit, we had that terrible incident, again involving NATO’s ISAF, when two boys, mistaken for insurgents, were gunned down by a helicopter gun ship. How could they be mistaken for insurgents? They were both under seven years old; they were gathering firewood in a field and were walking behind a donkey. These are serious charges. When we want to give an example of how Afghanistan can prosper in the future we must set harsh targets. Such conduct would not be tolerated at all in our own country. When Jean Charles de Menezes was shot, we had endless inquiries. There were inquiries into Patrick Finucane and Bloody Sunday. There have been endless inquiries in our own country, but we did not even acknowledge the names of the two boys who were killed in that incident. Elsewhere they are named as Toor Jan and Andul Wodood, and they deserve to be recognised and their families deserve to be cared for.

Such incidents undermine the push for peace, however well intentioned they are. We must exercise restraint in the conduct of violence. These people are not statistics; they are not collateral damage. They are real people going about their daily work in their own country and we need to recognise that. It is difficult but it is possible, but it will come about only if all the parties join together and renounce the use of violence. All the parties must acknowledge their mistakes and together express their desire to seek a justice system, a way of resolving disputes without violence and the prosperity of the people of Afghanistan. We all wish them well in that.