The UK’s Relationship with Africa

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

In view of your requirement for brevity, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have thrown away half my speech. I had intended to speak about the excellent report that the all-party group on Africa recently published, “Democracy Soup”, and some issues to do with conflict, but I will focus my remarks on the latter so that there is time for others to contribute to the debate.

I am a Europhile, but also an Afrophile, if that is the word to use, and I greatly welcome what the chairman of the all-party group, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), had to say about the need for optimism about Africa’s future. It matters to us because Africa is our nearest neighbour and because of the great trade opportunities in both directions between our country and Africa.

There are problems of organised crime and people trafficking. Some 5,000 African women are trafficked to Europe every year. We have a Bill to deal with the problem of modern slavery, and this is modern slavery because the vast majority of those women end up against their will as sex slaves in the sex trade.

Our Government have wisely decided to earmark 30% of our bilateral aid to conflict and fragile states, because they rightly take the view that conflict undermines development. According to the latest International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook, Africa’s four poorest states are the Central African Republic, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia, and they have all experienced conflict in recent years.

It is not just poor states that face conflict, however. Libya, of course, was engulfed by civil war a few years ago, and it is one of the richest countries in Africa with a per capita income of over $10,000 a year.

I welcome the Government’s focus on conflict. Trying to avoid conflict is a good thing for its own sake. The United Nations’ responsibility to protect places an onus on countries to intervene where the Government of a third country fails to secure the safety and human rights of its own citizens. One should respond initially by non-military means where one can, by using soft power—aid, UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The use of military force should always be the last resort.

Sometimes, however, a very low level of military commitment can make an enormous difference. I remember going some years ago with the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) to Rumbek in southern Sudan just one week after the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement that led to the independence and separation of South Sudan some five years later. A small contingent of six or 10 British servicemen with a couple of Land Rovers were doing an immensely valuable job, keeping hundreds of Government of Sudan soldiers and hundreds of Sudan People’s Liberation Army fighters apart. Perhaps I should add in this World cup week that they organised football matches between the two teams to try to deal with male testosterone, while a peace framework was constructed.

There are also enormous risks in deploying hard power—military force—however. We know from recent campaigns in Africa and elsewhere that for a well-equipped and well-trained military such as ours, or those of other NATO countries, winning a military victory is usually easier than building a sustainable peace.

In Libya, faced with an imminent threat made by Muammar al-Gaddafi against civilians from his own country in Benghazi, the UN Security Council passed a resolution permitting a coalition of the willing—led by NATO, but including other countries, including Arab states—to use military force to protect civilians in Libya. This force eventually toppled the Gaddafi regime, which led, not through our willing it, to the killing of Gaddafi himself. Almost three years later Libya is still awash with militia and state-sponsored armed groups, who refuse to disarm and who are intent on grabbing a share of power and a slice of Libya’s immense oil wealth.

In September 2012 the United States ambassador and three of his staff were killed. In October that year Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was kidnapped, threatened and forced to change his policy. The country still has no national army. Prime Minister Zeidan subsequently left the country and went into exile. His successor, Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, appeared to resign after gunmen attacked his house, but then different gunmen attacked the Parliament to prevent his being replaced. For a time, Libya ended up with two Prime Ministers: al-Thani running an Administration in eastern Libya and Ahmed Maiteg, an individual who is close to a number of Islamist groups, running an Administration in Tripoli until his election was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court. Now, former general Khalifa Haftar is using military force to try to take over the country, but the security situation is clearly deteriorating. Benghazi is once again a war zone and a curfew has recently been introduced.

When the United Kingdom—and the international community—engages in military action, I believe we have a responsibility after the action is over to help pick up the pieces, and I do not think we have heard enough from the Foreign Office about post-war reconstruction and development in Libya, so I suggest to the Minister that we should have regular, perhaps quarterly, reports on the political situation in Libya and on what the UK and other institutions, including the European Union and NATO, are contributing to that. They could, perhaps, be written reports—I am not necessarily saying they should be statements to the House—but I do think we need to be kept more informed than we currently are.

I also want to say a few words about Mali. It was once seen as a beacon of democracy in Francophone west Africa, but in 2012 it faced three interlocking crises. First, there was a Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country, fuelled by arms which many Tuareg mercenaries who had worked for Gaddafi in Libya brought back to Mali when the Gaddafi regime fell. Secondly, there was a political and institutional crisis precipitated by a military coup against the then President. Thirdly, there was an influx of extremist Islamist groups into the northern regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, which established very harsh and abusive rule in those parts of Mali.

At the end of 2012, those northern armed groups moved very quickly towards the capital in the south, Bamako, and the French launched Operation Serval, supported militarily by the UK, the United States and others. It swiftly defeated the uprising, creating conditions for a new President, President Boubacar Keita, to be elected, and set about retraining Mali’s army. I have seen British soldiers engaged in training—jointly, as it happens, with soldiers from the Irish Republic, which must be the first time British and Irish soldiers have worked together in a single military unit for many years.

Mali faces many long-term development challenges, including the need for job creation, for security sector reform, and for tackling trafficking and organised crime, which funds the activities of the insurgents and extremists. A year ago, there was a pledging conference, where some €3.25 billion was pledged by donors to fund Mali’s plan for sustainable recovery. The UK was a very small player because we do not traditionally have a bilateral programme in Mali. The trouble with our bilateral aid programme is that it is largely built around countries. In parts of Africa, we need to complement those country programmes with regional bilateral development programmes. Ever since decolonisation, many Africans and indeed Europeans have pointed out that Africa’s national borders make little sense; they were imposed as a result of colonisation with little reference to local and regional languages, ethnic differences, kingdoms or even religions.

The Islamists who created such a threat to Mali have been dispersed by Operation Serval, but many of them have slipped over the poorest borders and are regrouping in southern Algeria.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Hugh Bayley]

I think, as so many Members are trying to get in, I will continue.

The point I made to the Minister is that to confront the problems that we face in the Sahel, we need to have a transnational response—a transnational response to transnational terrorism and transnational crime—and to promote growth across the region. We should be working with regional African organisations such as the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Economic and Monetary Union. I wish to see a proportion of British aid to Africa being allocated regionally, so that much of the money, though continuing to be spent by national Governments, could be spent on transnational projects, such as road and infrastructure, trade promotion, training and joint international security arrangements. The Department for International Development’s special areas of expertise in health education and water could be brought to bear in Francophone countries, and other countries’ expertise could be brought to bear in those former Commonwealth countries where most of our bilateral programmes remain.

Finally, the Africa all-party group submitted evidence to the last UK strategic defence and security review about security risks from Africa. A new review is imminent, and I hope that, within it, there will be a chapter looking at the African security risk. Indeed, there have been two military operations embarked on during this Parliament, both of which have been in Africa, and so those issues require some attention in the security review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to concentrate my remarks on two issues. First, I will speak about the recent Foreign Affairs Committee report on instability and extremism in north and west Africa—that covers Mali, to which my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) referred—and secondly, I will talk a little about my impressions of Egypt, having been there at the weekend.

My first point relates to our earlier debate about the global nature of terrorism. Unfortunately, there were some serious adverse consequences to the liberation of the people of Libya from the Gaddafi dictatorship. Huge amounts of weaponry were dispersed, some of which ended up in Syria, as we have heard, but much of it is in the hands of mercenary fighters who had been part of Gaddafi’s military and protection forces. Bands of Tuareg went out across the ungoverned spaces of the Sahara desert, and existing terrorist groups were reinforced by weaponry and personnel. That raises, once again, the problem that although it is comparatively easy to go into a country and to remove the leader, the crucial period is not the declaration of victory but the subsequent construction of a stable political system. That can take years, if not decades, and it can be very difficult, particularly in failed or failing states.

Before it produced the report, which was published in March, the Foreign Affairs Committee went on several visits in 2012. I was part of the visit to Algeria, where we discussed the terrible consequences of the attack on the BP facility at In Amenas. I went separately to Mali, where I met our very small diplomatic post. The Committee’s report makes several recommendations based on our visits.

I also went last year to Nigeria and met, among others, members of the Nigerian security forces who showed us horrific captured DVDs of atrocities carried out by Boko Haram. We also discussed with the governor of Borno state the ongoing struggle of the Nigerian authorities, at governor level and centrally, with that dreadful terrorist organisation. The world knows about Boko Haram, because of the great publicity provided by the Amnesty International campaign about the captured young women. They have still not been found, months afterwards, and nobody knows whether they will be returned safely.

Boko Haram has been carrying out such activities against Christians and Muslims for a considerable period of time, and the Nigerian authorities need support. They need political support, because they are, after all, a democratically elected Government. It is no good simply condemning them for failing. The fact is that Nigeria is a large country, and it does not have the resources or the armed forces that it needs to deal with such issues adequately. Assistance from the international community is required to give the Nigerian authorities support in their difficult role.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What sort of assistance can we give when even with all the technology we have, we have not been able to find those girls from the skies?

[Mike Gapes]

We are talking about long-term issues. The Nigerian armed forces are already getting some support with training and other activities. I believe, and the Foreign Affairs Committee has said clearly, that much more must be done to give them the help and assistance that they need. Nigeria is not only the biggest country in Africa by population, but a potential economic powerhouse. It has oil and other resources, and yet it has tens of millions of people living in abject poverty and millions not in school. There are huge issues of development, as well as of governance and security. There is also a large British Nigerian diaspora community in this country, who are mainly from the south of Nigeria and from Christian communities. We must recognise that the matter is of concern to us, and we must support Nigeria.

We were struck by the UK’s very limited diplomatic footprint in Mali and other parts of North and West Africa. That is mainly because many of the countries in the region are former French colonies, and there has been an assumption that France will take the lead role on its historic associations and the UK on others. However, it is interesting that President Hollande of France recently called a summit to discuss the situation in Nigeria and how help could be given. It is important that we recognise that in many Francophone countries—I certainly picked this up in Mali—there is a desire for us to have a larger presence. As the Foreign Affairs Committee said, we should work with our French partners and allies, with the United States and with the European Union’s External Action Service in a more co-ordinated way with the countries of the region.

In the time that is left to me, I want to say something about Egypt. The all-party parliamentary group went to Cairo last weekend, where we had a long meeting with President Sisi. President Sisi was elected with 23 million votes, and we must recognise that there were observers for that election and it was generally accepted that the result was fair. President Sisi’s total vote was significantly higher than that of President Morsi, who received 5 million votes in the first round and 13 million votes in the run-off second round. The people I met in Egypt—people from the Christian community, leading figures in the Islamic organisations in the country and members of women’s groups—were unanimous in their feeling that the President has the authority to introduce a political change to bring all Egyptians together.

There are huge problems in Egypt economically and with unemployment, particularly among large numbers of young people. A parliamentary system is not yet in place and parliamentary elections will probably be held in September or October. We need to recognise that Egypt is a very large country within Africa and, if we can sort the issue out internationally, it could become a permanent member of the Security Council. It is not just an African country but one of the leading largest countries in the Arab world, as 25% of the world’s Arab population live in Egypt.

We need to recognise that, historically, we have had important political, economic and cultural relations with Egypt. The recent past—unfortunately, I do not have time to go through it all—has seen the emergence of great aspirations since the events of 2011, particularly among young people, followed by the period of the Muslim Brotherhood President, which led to huge demonstrations against how he was governing and what he was thought to be trying to create. Then there was the intervention of the army and now there is a second election.

Egypt is in transition. It is an important country for the future of Africa and to the peace and security of the middle east region as a whole. I shall conclude my remarks and hope that the Minister will respond to those points.