Mali: UN Peacekeeping Mission

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My understanding is that a total of £79.85 million has currently been committed to the deployment through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. I emphasise that the decision to withdraw is nothing to do with money—I wish to make that clear to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. It is to do with a fundamental change in the operational environment, which means that we are trying to support a peacekeeping mission when the host country is not prepared to co-operate on that objective and is enlisting the help of parties that have a directly inimical attitude to such an objective.

As to future funding, we have to look at the Accra initiative and see what unfolds from that. We have not yet asked His Majesty’s Treasury to fund that initiative. When we know more about what is needed and how much funding we will apply for, we will make sure that this is an agreed, cross-government effort. The noble and gallant Lord will remember that Operation Newcombe, our contribution to Mali, was resourced by two different funds. It was resourced by the special reserve for our support to Operation Barkhane and the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund for our contribution to the MINUSMA mission.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, we must all feel deep sorrow for the people of Mali if they are to be left to the tender mercies of the Wagner Group, as looks all too likely. I should have thought the Government of Mali would rue the day they got in with that lot. Can my noble friend elaborate, which she is very good at doing, on the phrases in the Statement and exactly what they mean? What is the implication of

“rebalancing our deployment alongside France, the EU and other like-minded allies”

and

“preventing further contagion of the insurgency”—[Official Report, Commons, 14/11/22; col. 401.]

in a whole string of countries in the region? Does that mean we will redeploy some of our troops, military effort and equipment to these other countries? Will we concentrate just on those that happen to be in the Commonwealth, such as Togo and Ghana, or will we put troops in Niger? Can she give us just a little more indication, even though decisions have yet to be made, on what the broad aim is—to leave troops in the area or to take them all away?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I am not sure that it is possible to give a specific response to my noble friend’s question; reverting to the Accra initiative, I think a great deal of discussion has to be had as to how we take forward a concerted desire to support these west African states, with a mixture of military intervention—or military support rather—if that is required, and advice and support for the political or economic regimes. A number of factors have to be taken into account. Mali is, of course, an observer member of the Accra initiative along with Niger. In total, the initiative represents a very healthy and promising group of countries. One of the strategic challenges to be hammered out is just what my noble friend referred to: at the end of the day, what is it that the African states are looking for, and what can we do to support that endeavour?

I am not being evasive; it is just that I think a great deal more discussion has to ensue before clarity begins to emerge about some of these strategic objectives. My noble friend will be aware that we already do a lot in west Africa. We provide support in Nigeria and in the Chad basin, we are supporting the armed forces of Cameroon and we are working closely with the Ghanaian armed forces to develop ongoing counterterrorism training packages. At the end of the day, the threat of terrorism in the Sahel has not disappeared; it is there. Sadly, the presence of Wagner is likely to exacerbate the situation rather than facilitate solutions; that is another important component of everything that has to be discussed.