Sudan

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Friday 13th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an exceptionally well-informed debate, and I thank the Minister for securing it in government time and for opening it in such a powerful way. I commend him and his work. I also welcome very warmly the appointment announced during this debate of Richard Crowder as the head of the British mission and the special representative. I have met with him and I wish him well in his work. This gives me an opportunity to put on record my thanks to his predecessor, Giles Lever, for his dedication and service.

Many civilians recoil sometimes from the conflict in Sudan being termed a “civil war”. Perhaps it meets a dictionary definition, but the impression it gives is that it is some form of popular-backed conflict between civilian-backed forces. This is a conflict inflicted on the civilian population from two forces seeking advantage over the other, with external vested interests in the resources they will then seek to control. In 2024, they seem to define “resource” as including children forced to bear arms.

The severity of the crisis over the last year and a half is matched only by the wilful ignorance of the western media and political class in highlighting the need for the man-made humanitarian horror to end. I politely disagree with those who have said it is a forgotten war. It is not a forgotten war yet, but it is a wilfully ignored war now.

Although the Ukraine conflict retains a permanent heading on the Disasters Emergency Committee webpage, as it should, the Sudan conflict, which is bigger in its impact on civilians and with a humanitarian crisis on a much higher scale, warrants no mention at all—not on the front page or on any page. I hope the Minister might feel it justified to convene all those NGOs and charities as part of the Disasters Emergency Committee so that there is an appeal, for which the Government will offer matched support. My noble friend Lord Oates was absolutely right when he said that the UN appeal is only one-third funded. The Paris conference appeal earlier this year was only half matched, with the UK Government offering no extra support then. I welcome the modest extra support that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referred to and I look forward to clarification on that in the Minister’s winding. It is a strategic error that this funding is not being provided, not just a moral outrage.

The debate has had three distinct elements: the need for urgent humanitarian assistance, as my noble friend Lady Suttie indicated; the need for those with vested interests to move from profiteering from conflict to being part of peace; and the need for long-term civilian government. I will touch on all three as well. I need not repeat the litany of statistics of the crisis; although they merit repeating constantly to shame us all, noble Lords have done so powerfully throughout the debate.

The Minister referred to the recent ALPS initiative in Geneva. Will he respond positively to the calls by civilian groups that the UK not only supports the process externally but participates in it? This was a call from the women’s shuttle diplomacy group, referenced in this debate, whom I met personally on Tuesday afternoon.

We heard about the exodus of those fleeing the savage conflict. More support can now be given to many of those who have fled the country: it is not necessarily being impeded. At Chatham House earlier this week, I heard that the diaspora community, which has worked so hard and committed so much support to communities back home, is now struggling to do so. What can His Majesty’s Government do to expand flexible cash support, as my noble friend Lord Oates said, not just for those within Sudan but potentially for the diaspora community, which has means by which support can go back to those communities?

The unforgivable blockage of aid inside Sudan by both belligerent forces, which is leading to wilful starvation of young mothers and children, is being carried out with too much impunity. This is most acute in the deliberate attacks on schools by the RSF or civilian medical centres by the Sudanese Armed Forces, with medicine being taken away from lactating mothers and from children, as fighters seem to be given priority, as the SAF says. Will His Majesty’s Government provide extra support to emergency response rooms, communal kitchens, education shelters and youth response committees, as all these are being provided by the civilian population within Sudan, who need extra support now? The need will be greater in the weeks ahead.

This leads me to the second theme. The UK’s status as pen holder has been referred to. The question is not the merit of the UK being the pen holder but what we are writing with it. The last Security Council resolution was as long ago as June, which related to the tragedy of Al-Fashir. There needs to be a new Security Council resolution, and I hope the UK high-level delegation to UNGA will start to propose it. We need clearer statements of UN fact on breaches of international humanitarian law. We need the triggering of measures under Security Council Resolution 2417 on starvation as a war crime, which has been referred to in the debate. We need to designate no-fly areas for aircraft and military drones, many now supplied by Iran and near neighbours. As we have heard, civilians have been attacked with weaponry from China, Iran, Russia, Serbia and the UAE. The UK must now make the case for widening the arms embargo beyond Darfur.

After months of campaigning and repeated calls in this House, I was pleased that the previous Administration proscribed the Wagner Group. I fear that some operatives have been transferred into Russian state entities, which, as we heard, are now advising elements of both the SAF and the RSF, not just in the protection of their gold trading interests but in the provision of misinformation, disinformation and false narratives given against civilians. This also supports elements of the previous al-Bashir regime seeking to obfuscate their intentions and to seek legitimacy, including suggesting that civilians should settle for an autocratic and non-civilian Government. No.

A UK-sponsored UN Security Council resolution should outline clear corridors for supply of medical aid and food, ensure that there is no impunity for deliberately targeting food production and, crucially, start now to outline the basis upon which civilian government services will be restarted, including civilian commercial airspace, money transfers, basic business lending again, an infrastructure reconstruction authority, internal free passage, profiteering-free telecommunications, reducing the state capture of any ceasefire arrangements, and take action on preparing consideration of a UN Security Council resolution potentially including UN security for Khartoum airport. Before the war, Khartoum was home to 60% of the population. There is no future to a Sudan without a functioning civilian airport in Khartoum. We also see the so-called mercenaries from the Central African Republic, Chad and South Sudan, and action needs to be taken to reduce those.

Actions of such a nature are not just for a humanitarian response; I agree 100% with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, that actions in these areas are in the UK’s strategic interest. Sudan’s Red Sea location is close to the Suez Canal, a major conduit of world trade, where we have already deployed military force against Houthi attacks. I am sure the House is aware that even previously in the conflict in Yemen, Sudan was the origin of the highest number of child soldiers deployed by both sets of the war in Yemen.

That General Hemedti recently visited South Africa, and General al-Burhan met Xi last week, shortly followed by visits to Chinese arms companies, is surely a warning for strategic interest. Prior to the war, 8% of Sudan’s economy was through gold exports, but precious little was able to be used for public services, which were already at unnecessarily low levels. The previous technocratic Ministers attempted to put the economy on a stable footing, with global support, but after the coup and especially after the war, the resources of Sudan have been used and exploited not for the Sudanese but for military and personal advantage.

I also believe that the UK can take action, as we heard in the debate, on the renewal of the mandate of the independent international fact-finding mission for the Sudan. Given the critical role played by the FFM, I hope the Minister will respond to that when he sums up. Furthermore, I believe that the UK must be a leading power, establishing the practical basis upon which any future agreement is not just a cessation of hostilities to divide territory but to engage civilian government. I am grateful for the UK support for Taqaddum—the Minister is aware of my interest and involvement over recent months. The Minister and others referred to the former civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. It is worth reminding the House that he is the only civilian Prime Minister in Sudan in 35 years, and that he is president of the civilian Taqaddum, as the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, indicated. I spoke to Abdalla Hamdok this morning before this debate—he is in Nairobi just before travelling to New York and Washington. He wanted me to relay a specific message to the House, that “the unity of Sudan can only be provided by civilians, for all regions and all ethnic groups” and “civilians are the backbone of a unified Sudan”. He also said of the crisis: “Do not entertain that there can be two edifices, there is no military solution to this”. I agree with him.

I wish to close on a personal note if the House will indulge me. I have visited the country on many occasions since 2018 and have come to admire greatly Sudanese friends during the recent horrors of war. Their bravery, persistence, tolerance and optimism are truly humbling. These traits belie how some may categorise the country —not in this debate but elsewhere. Some might put it in the “too difficult” box or into the “well, what can we expect?” category, or they will say, “Well, it’ll become like Somalia or a new Libya or Syria”. The women whom we have all met this week, or the young women in exile whom I have met over the past few months, reject this. They reject the war; they reject the human rape and rape of resources. They reject the military persecution of civilians; they reject those who seek legitimacy on the back of actively blocking aid and food to their own people, to the villages and the communities; they reject the cynicism of external forces that will seek actively to exclude civilians from running their own country.

The noble Baroness, Lady Amos, indicated that it did not have to be this way, and it did not. I had the great privilege of being with my noble friend Lady Suttie in Sudan before the war, working with civilians on the framework agreement, facilitating dialogue. Before the war, I met General Burhan and General Hemedti separately—what has happened since is profoundly disturbing—to make the case at a last ditch that war was not inevitable. However, I could not reflect just on that. As we started our general election campaign in this country, I happened to be in Addis for the launch of the Taqaddum conference with them. As I watched the Sudanese—from all parts of society and all parts of the country, from women to young people, from the professions, from rural communities and urban areas—who had left the country under great security risk themselves to be at a civilian conference, many of them not sure that they would be allowed home, I could do no other than reflect that I had the privilege to be with them as we were embarked on a remarkable democratic process here at home, where we were engaged in the right to choose who governs us and to hold them to account, and where, if we change our minds about them, we can have a peaceful transition of power. That is what they want. I hope that the Minister will make it his mission that they will have what we take for granted.