Middle East and North Africa

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, does the noble Lord recognise that the Statement he has just read is one of the most remarkable that many of your Lordships will ever have heard? It is about complete convulsion in a very important area of the world which threatens very significantly our whole economy and the stability of the region and the durability and survival of an enormous number of people. It is a remarkable Statement in the breadth that it has represented. We know about Tunisia originally and then Egypt; we have been involved in Libya; we now see the situation in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria; and there are uncertainties in other Arab countries, which I will not particularly mention except maybe Morocco and Algeria, where there are concerns and rumblings.

There was some comment made about the Prime Minister’s comment that we are in for the long haul. What is absolutely without question is that it is going to be a very long haul whether it comes out well or badly. The economic and security implications of what is happening now are going to be with us for a very long time indeed. There is an old phrase, “The future is not what it used to be”. There has been a convulsive change and we may be in the middle of it now or we may be only just at the beginning.

I want to add one particular point. In the first instance the Statement is concerned with the outcome in Libya. Can the Minister comment in particular about the situation in Algeria and the Polisario? What evidence is there that Gaddafi is purchasing a considerable amount of mercenary assistance which may be concealing the fact that the support he has within his own country is rather less than he might seek to pretend?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am very grateful to my noble friend whose experience in these matters is unquestioned. What he says is right: these are historic developments. They are of course different in the different countries. There is a danger, while there is a certain degree of cross-border infection and contagion, of seeing the political mechanics inside each country as similar, which they are not. Each country is different and I have been reminded of that very vividly having spent the whole of last week in the Middle East.

My noble friend asked particularly about Algeria and its involvement in this. It is something we are watching very closely indeed. We welcome President Bouteflika’s announcement that he intends to introduce political reforms, including the setting up of a constitutional commission and a revision to the law governing political parties. We hope that is a political reform statement that will be put in practice. There is no clear evidence of Algerian support for Colonel Gaddafi but it is certainly true that in the past Gaddafi has sought friends in that large neighbouring country, as he has sought friends throughout the African Union further south. Some of these friendships probably remain but I do not think I can comment further on the precise posture being taken up by Algeria externally at the moment; internally it is clear that the Algerian authorities are aware of the reform pressure operating on all governments which do not recognise the need for reform and do not recognise that the world has changed and that people now feel empowered to demand the freedoms and justice which they have been denied in the past.