The following speech was made in the House of Lords by The Bishop of Winchester, The Right Revd. Michael Scott-Joynt as part of the Queen's Speech Debate on 3rd December 2003

The DRC and  Northern Uganda; the October 2003 Report of the UN Panel of Experts; the Control of Small Arms; and Her Majesty’s Government.

My Lords, I was glad to note in the Gracious Speech the Government’s commitment to  “helping war-torn countries, particularly in Africa, to seize the opportunities for development which peace can bring”.

But, my Lords, there has first to be peace; so I want again to bring to the House’s attention  the situations still faced by millions of people in the Democratic Republic of  Congo and in Northern Uganda. I hope to elicit from the noble Lady the Minister of State the Government’s intentions now and in the coming months in response to the latest Report (published in October this year) of the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the DRC.

I speak both as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and the Prevention of Genocide, and as Bishop of the only Diocese in the Church of England with a Partner-relationship with the Anglican Church in the Congo. I spent nearly three weeks there a year ago; I remain in close contact both with Congolese and with expatriates living and serving in some of its most pressured areas; and  I’m also privileged  to be in contact with a number of Ugandans living in Northern and Central Uganda where hundreds of thousands of people continue to be at the mercy of the LRA and of other insurgent and bandit groups.  

There have been very significant positive developments in and for the DRC in the last year: in particular, the establishment of a Transitional National Government, and modest progress in establishing the National Army; the stabilising of the situation in Bunia by the remarkably swift deployment, and excellent service, of the Interim Emergency Multinational Force, and the opening of humanitarian access to all parts of Bunia; the arrival there in September of a fresh UN Force (MONUC) with an enhanced Chapter VII Mandate. These are real gains, and there are others too; and HMG through painstaking work by ministers and officials has played an important part in their achievement.

But this progress remains extremely fragile. I quote from a report, “MONUC: Mandate to Succeed” published in September by Refugees International:

"The tasks facing international leaders, the UN, MONUC, and the new civilian transitional national leadership – many of whom are leaders of the armed groups committing the atrocities – are monumental. Lack of funding, internal power struggles, the presence of armed groups that have little to gain from peace, outside influence from Rwanda and Uganda and an untested MONUC force all add to the difficulty of the situation.”

Oxfam has recently repeated that “The Eastern DRC remains one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises”. Human suffering in eastern Congo between 1999 and 2003 has been greater than in any armed conflict since World War II.  And what haunts those few brave people, Congolese and expatriate, who are in a position to provide the rest of the world with this kind of appalling information, is that they know how very little of a vast area is accessible to the kinds of observation upon which it is based; but they have only too credible reports, often from people they know and trust, about what is being perpetrated away from the eyes of any but the victims.

In the time available, I can only point summarily to four matters around which I urge the Government to further action, with EU partners, with the Governments of the Great Lakes countries, and at the UN, if the present fragile moment of opportunity is to be consolidated and built upon: MONUC; UK companies and individuals involved in Exploitation; what Refugees International called “internal power struggles” and “outside influence”; and Arms Control, with particular attention to so-called “small arms”, which are not small when they enable atrocities upon yourself and  your loved ones and the pillage or destruction of everything that makes a hard life just possible.

MONUC II has to be better supported, better equipped, better led, encouraged fully to fulfil its Mandate, and very significantly enlarged so that its presence can make for the order and security for which people long down the whole length of eastern Congo. There is no security, no access for Observers or medical personnel, and no possibility of bringing to justice the perpetrators of the atrocities of the last years even 20 miles from Bunia; but mass killings, violent rapes and other atrocities are also occurring many hundreds of miles to the south  across the  Kivus and on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The UN Force in Liberia is, I understand, around twice the size of that now being deployed in Bunia; and Liberia is smaller than Ituri which in turn makes up perhaps a quarter of the area that needs to be in view.

The October 2003 Report of the UN Panel of Experts continues to name UK-based companies and individuals as having participated in the illegal Exploitation of Congolese Natural Resources. In paragraphs 20 and 21 on page 6, in a welter of acronyms, the Panel notes its meetings with the OECD’s Committee on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises, made up of the National Contact Points of the 34 countries subscribing to its Guidelines. It notes that a participant described the meeting as a “wake-up call” for those involved and for the whole system. Those close to all this are concerned that HMG is dragging its feet about acting against UK-based companies and individuals named by the Panel, on the ground that the Panel’s evidence remains insufficient. But how, in the conditions obtaining in the DRC, could the Panel have done more? And what further will the Government do, to show that it is serious about all this and  to gain the information that is required? Could the Department of Trade and Industry Select Committee play a part?

The Panel has produced for the UN ample further evidence, that most if not all of those participating in the Transitional National Government are at the same time continuing to compete with each other in maintaining and developing their bases for power and mineral exploitation up and down the eastern Congo, thus prolonging the conflicts and the suffering of the people; and that in this many of them continue to have the active support, indeed to be acting as the proxies, of powerful elements from neighbouring States whose Forces have not comprehensively withdrawn within their own borders. And not just NGO personnel, but Ugandans resident in the country, have linked Uganda’s continuing failure to bring to an end the murderous activity of the LRA with the corruption of its Armed Forces by their years of largely illegal activity in the DRC. What further steps will the Government take, in the light of information of these kinds, in support of the TNG process?

Lastly, my Lords, the Panel repeatedly notes that illegal exploitation, the continuation of the conflict and the flow of arms are inextricably linked. And your Lordships, let alone the Government, will have seen “Shattered Lives: the case for tough international arms control” recently published by Amnesty and Oxfam. Will the Government make the DRC an embargoed destination for arms, including so-called “small arms”, sold from the UK or by UK nationals? Will it initiate effective end-use monitoring – and effective sanctions? Why should powers of this order be in place with regard to UK nationals suspected of paedophilia or of terrorism, but not of the trafficking of small arms whose effects are lethal for so many millions across the world?

My Lords, perhaps the Government’s Joint Strategy Paper for the Great Lakes Region, long required and anticipated, and  promised in October for  November 6^th, has been delayed so that it can include a full response to the range of questions, that I have tried to summarise, raised for us all by the UN Panel’s Report.