Democratic Republic of the Congo: Conflict

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

As ever, the noble Lord points to a really core issue. With the DRC providing around 70% of the global supply of cobalt, we have a particular interest in addressing urgently this issue of child forced and bonded labour in cobalt supply chains. That is reflected in the work we do through ODA; however, I acknowledge to the noble Lord that there is much more we could be doing, not least through the City of London, given the fact that so many large mining players are based in this country. It is certainly my intention to try to create a more co-operative approach with some of those mining companies to see what more we can do to tackle child labour, but also the very widespread environmental contamination. To give one example, there is a village in Peru where every single inhabitant was registered as having near-lethal doses of mercury as a consequence of illegal gold mining, so this is a major problem and one that we absolutely acknowledge.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, this conflict in the eastern DRC has claimed a staggering 6 million lives since 1996 and 5 million people have been displaced. Arguably, this forgotten conflict is the worst in the world today. Does the Minister agree that among the main drivers of this instability are the actions of the front-line states—Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda—which are financing and developing capacity with different rebel groups and using them as proxies? What assessment has he made of the East African Community peace initiative, once the new Kenyan President has taken his place?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, we have raised our concerns about the increase in violence at the highest levels with the DRC and Rwanda. That includes messages sent by our Foreign Minister to the President of the DRC and the Rwandan Foreign Minister in November. There has been a joint Great Lakes special envoy statement from the UK, the US, France and Belgium on 18 November and a UN Security Council press statement on 22 November. Various Ministers in the Foreign Office raise the issue regularly with both Rwanda and the DRC. Like the noble Lord, we are extremely concerned by the actions of neighbouring countries in relation to the eastern DRC.