Democratic Republic of the Congo

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of recent developments designed to halt the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity this evening to lead this short debate and to pose some questions to the Government about the situation in the eastern DRC. I am also particularly grateful, on such a sunny summer’s evening, to the Minister and other noble Lords for volunteering to speak on this topic. I should record my role as the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa, partly because it was in that role that I recently had the opportunity to visit both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda as part of a parliamentary delegation from the United Kingdom.

When requesting this debate, I thought that it would be timely, partly as a result of that delegation visit, which took place at the end of May, and partly because I spent last week in Burundi at the regional conference on women, peace, security and development in the Great Lakes region at the invitation of the new UN special envoy, Mary Robinson. However, this debate has become even more timely with the events of the last 48, or perhaps 72, hours. There has been renewed fighting in the eastern DRC, not just in one area but across much of the region and involving, it appears, many different groups. Publicity this week will no doubt focus on the clashes between the M23 and the FARDC—the Congolese army—which now appear to be battling outside Goma, yet again, for control of parts of that area. Fighting appears to have begun at the weekend, involving a group called the ADF, which is at least alleged to be made up mainly of Ugandan-based rebels and which appears to have some links with Islamist extremists from elsewhere in the continent.

There has been a growing trend over recent weeks, which again appears to have been shown over the weekend, for the FDLR—a former Rwandan rebel group—and other smaller groups to use the fact that the main focus appears to be on the M23 around Goma to execute all kinds of attacks on local villages. There have been kidnaps and in some cases rapes and deaths. Yet again today we see an outbreak of accusation and counter-accusation from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwandan Governments, which will no doubt heighten tensions in the area and in the region as a whole. I have received a series of e-mails over recent days documenting the horrors that this means on the ground for local people who are living in small communities. To be honest, they are too painful to read out tonight.

The Great Lakes region has, as a whole, seen incredible conflict over the past 20 to 25 years. The eastern DRC is not the only area affected. There is the Central African Republic and the long-standing campaign for independence in South Sudan, with conflict continuing even after that independence has been achieved. There is the terrible civil war in Burundi and the horrific genocides in Rwanda, the 20th anniversary of which is next year. In and around the DRC itself, there is what has been described as Africa’s world war, in which over 5 million people have died in the past 15 years or so. The whole region is affected by each of these conflicts in turn, but tonight I want to concentrate on the situation in the eastern DRC.

This area, and indeed the whole country and the region, is populated by wonderful people. It has incredible resources and a beautiful landscape, but the poverty, violence and hopelessness at its core have been debilitating, as anybody who has visited or studied the region over recent years knows, while other parts of the continent have grown and prospered. Lives have been ruined and opportunities are being wasted on an incredible scale. That is why we, as the United Kingdom, need to continue to be interested in what is happening there.

Last year, a group called the M23 broke off, as we know, from the official Congolese army and eventually overtook the capital of the area, Goma. There are allegations against that group, the Congolese army and others for the way in which the conflict in 2012 was conducted. The UN failed to protect Goma. More than £8 billion has been spent on the UN peacekeeping force over the past 14 years, yet it has continually failed to contain and deal with these conflicts at the local level.

In 2013, however, there have been what might be seen in the context of the region as quite dramatic developments. On 24 February, a peace, security and development framework for the whole region was signed by all 11 heads of state in the Great Lakes region and by four supporting multilateral institutions: the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, the African Union, the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community. Subsequent to that, on 28 March the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2098, which updated the mandate of MONUSCO in the region but also called for and started to put in place a regional intervention brigade, which for the first time in UN history will have the specific job of dealing with combatants at local level to try to secure peace for local people. It also bravely appointed the first ever woman special envoy in this area for the United Nations, Mrs Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland. She has begun her work and, as I said, I was with her in Burundi last week.

During our APPG visit focused on this area, we met President Kabila and senior Ministers from both Rwanda and the DRC. We met human rights campaigners, parliamentarians and senior officials in the UN. We also met a significant number of former combatants from the M23. This visit has indicated a number of things to me. First, the anger and suspicion in the area continue on all sides and are deep-rooted, but there is, perhaps for the first time, some hope that this regional framework can make a difference. There are at least public, formal commitments from everybody involved to work with the new framework. The President of Burundi reinforced that when I met him last week in Bujumbura.

Progress has been slow in implementing the details of the new framework, perhaps especially in relation to the peace talks presided over by President Museveni in Kampala. However, the UN has put in place the regional intervention brigade and Mary Robinson is in place and being very active. Her appointment has been welcomed by almost everybody in the region as someone whom they can trust. She has said that it is time to do things differently, by trying to implement a bottom-up approach to peace as well as a top-down approach, and in particular by trying to involve women in a way that is so needed, as was of course highlighted by UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

The DRC Government have at long last started to pursue, in a more determined fashion, security sector reform and genuine dialogue between different groups. Oversight mechanisms are starting to be put in place and improvements in governance are at least promised. However, this peace, security and development framework has not just national recommendations and commitments but regional and international ones, and it is to them I want to turn in my questions.

This is a very complex series of conflicts involving identity, land, fear, greed and power. These different emotions and elements of history cross borders in this region perhaps more than anywhere else in the world. We need to see implementation and determination on national, regional and international commitments. Inside the DRC there needs to be real reform and genuine improvements in governance, including decentralisation. We need a balanced, negotiated political approach that ensures that everybody has a stake in the future. We need a regional context that will help to bring peer pressure and, I hope, economic progress to the area. Women must be much more involved than they have ever been before in these discussions and efforts across the whole region.

I want to ask the Minister some questions quickly within the time allocated. First, as this is a unique opportunity, perhaps a once-in-a-generation one, to see some progress, how strong is the Government’s support for this regional peace process and what actions have we taken to secure its success? Secondly, what actions have we taken to support the new UN special envoy, Mrs Robinson, and what discussions have taken place with her? Thirdly, do the Government have an update on the peace talks in Kampala, which appeared until recently to have stalled and whose stalling may have triggered some of the violence at the weekend? Fourthly, do the Government have an update on the events of the past few days and a response and reaction to them?

Critically, do the Government agree that there is a need for a regional approach not just by the 11 states of the Great Lakes region and the African Union as a whole, but also by the British Government, other major European and North American donors and the European Union? Can we do more to integrate our diplomatic and development efforts across the region, taking a regional approach to our development decisions and our diplomacy? Can we use the European Union more? Can we integrate our various initiatives, including the Foreign Secretary’s admirable Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative, and can we review the decisions on aid to Rwanda and Burundi to secure their greater enthusiasm for this approach? The killing, rapes, fear and incredible violence against women and children in particular have gone on in this area for far too long. Along with others, we have been too inconsistent in our attention to this matter in the past. I hope that we can use this opportunity to say that we will be consistent and determined to see this through to an end that might actually bring some hope to the people of a land that has suffered for too long.