Afghanistan (Hansard, 1 May 1986)

§ Viscount Cranborne (Dorset, South)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development for his willingness to answer an Adjournment debate twice in one evening. That goes way beyond the call of duty. I am grateful to him for the good humour he has shown in contemplating such a prospect.
I should like to raise the subject of aid to alleviate the severe difficulties experienced in Afghanistan by the population that remains in that unfortunate country. My right hon. Friend has rightly many times drawn the attention of the House to the Government's generous help to refugees in Pakistan. At least 3 million of those unfortunate people have been driven from their homes by a cruel conflict in their native country. My right hon. Friend's Department is giving direct about £4.8 million to the refugees. About £1 million is being given via the EEC for the same purpose. Of course, I welcome that.
Those of us who have visited the refugee camps know that, by and large, the money is extremely well spent. It is recognised that, although the refugees in Pakistan are treated well and are relatively well off by refugee standards, the real need is inside Afghanistan. On 13 March this year, I was delighted to note the unanimity in the House when my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Moynihan) raised this matter in an Adjournment debate. My right hon. Friend the Minister need look no further than to the comments of the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) who replied to the debate on behalf of the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman stated. I look forward to hearing how the Minister responds, particularly to the request for appropriate mechanisms for channelling aid to those who suffer within the country. I agree with what the hon. Member for Dorset, South said about the need for a Government response on this. He would be the first to recognise that in the peculiar circumstances of Afghanistan, probably that response will have to be through non-governmental organisations such as his, because of the flexibility that they can bring. I congratulate that voluntary organisation on the work it has already done, and I trust that the Minister will respond positively to what has been said."—[Official Report, 13 March, 1986; Vol. 93, c. 1213.] I hope that my right hon. Friend will take note of the unanimity of view expressed in that debate.
The services were always poor in Afghanistan, even before this latest conflict. It is quite clear that a central administration which was poor and which could not provide any sort of development aid before 1979 is wholly incapable of doing that now, when most of the country is in the hands of people opposed to the Kabul regime. It is important for us to recognise the very large number of people indeed who have been displaced. Not only have they taken refuge outside the country—3 million in Pakistan and perhaps another 1.5 million in Iran—but very large numbers have also been driven from their homes to become internal refugees. There is, therefore, a crying need for emergency aid of a humanitarian kind, particularly food and medical services.
My right hon. Friend will know that the organisation to which the hon. Member for Swansea, East referred during the course of that last debate is one of which I have the honour to be chairman, a registered charity called Afghanaid. I think that my right hon. Friend will agree that it has begun to establish a record for being able to 1190 administer, in particular, food programmes inside the country on a fairly substantial scale. Not only can we propose the programmes but we can carry them out and, equally important, we can monitor the results. All those who have been donors to our food programme have admitted that the monitoring which has been carried out under what are necessarily extraordinarily difficult circumstances has been very satisfactory. I would be interested if my right hon. Friend could say something about that in his reply.
Apart from emergency aid, we ought also to consider development aid. Afghanistan was always a very poor country. Once the immediate emergency is under control—and much needs to be done—we should consider the question of development aid, which must include education and agricultural research and development. For all these projects, it is also essential that, if we are to carry them out, they should be based on professional and sensible research. It is impossible to determine the needs unless professional people are sent into the country to interview refugees and to decide what is needed and where.
If my right hon. Friend could look favourably on projects of this kind, he should stipulate that the proposals be based on the kind of research which is now becoming possible, thanks to the co-ordination of the various voluntary agencies which have become so active inside Afghanistan. In that context I would like to mention a federation of voluntary agencies interested in sending help into Afghanistan for the displaced persons there.
We have heard many rumours of late to the effect that the Soviets would like to withdraw from Afghanistan, rumours that I take with a pinch of salt. However, and my right hon. Friend must forgive me for being biased, if such a splendid thing should occur, we would have to consider how we should consult the refugees and indeed the whole Afghan population on their needs. We must also decide what mechanisms there should be for distributing aid if the Soviets withdraw, and perhaps if such an eventuality should occur, we should examine such possibilities as well.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for listening to this short debate, and I hope that he will be able to give some sort of reassurance to the people who deserve our help and who, for political reasons, have not been able to receive the help that their fellow citizens outside the country have.

§ The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Timothy Raison)
My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Cranborne) has a deep commitment to the cause of the people of Afghanistan who have suffered so terribly under the recent onslaught on them. He has spoken, as he has before, with considerable eloquence about the problems. The British Government regard the situation in Afghanistan seriously. The disruption and devastation caused by the Soviet occupation forces are a matter of the greatest concern.
Perhaps it may help the House if I touch briefly on what we see to be some of the aims of Soviet policy. The occupying troops and the regime forces are waging a callous and ruthless war against the resistance with all the weapons at their disposal. They seek out and ambush convoys, try to locate and destroy bases and do all that they can to crush the courageous opposition. We firmly support the courageous struggle of the Afghan people.
1191 The Soviets are only too aware of the almost total rejection of the regime and its Soviet backers and of the resulting support given by the population to the Mujahadin with transport, communications or supplies. They have therefore followed a deliberate policy of displacing the rural population, either to neighbouring countries or into Afghan cities, making it easier to control the people and to isolate and identify the resistance. They do this through reprisals for Mujahadin attacks, destroying whole villages and massacring the inhabitants and by destroying rural infrastructure. Fields are laid waste, irrigation channels bombed and the lands mined. I do not propose to rehearse again the points covered by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the House on 13 March, but any hon. Member wishing to discover more details may consult the report produced for the United Nations Secretary-General by Mr. Ermacora which is in the Library, and which presents a devasting picture of the cruel events happening in Afghanistan.
There has never been the closest Government control in large areas of Afghanistan, but the Soviet and regime policy has resulted in the displacement within Afghanistan of some 1 million people deprived of their usual support for food, health care and education. The Government recognise that it is important that we should do all that we can to help them to maintain the best possible existence in their own country, to prevent them fleeing to add to the statistics of helpless refugees in neighbouring states. There they would become more wretched, a burden on the international community and on even the most generous of host countries, and their flight would contribute further to the breakdown of the traditional cultural and structure of society in Afghanistan.
Soviet troop withdrawal and the restoration of the rights of the Afghan people remain the key to the problem. Any settlement must take into account the position of the resistance and the refugees, or it will never stick. We strongly support the United Nations Secretary-General's efforts to secure a political settlement on the basis of successive United Nations resolutions. Mr. Gorbachev has talked of early withdrawal, but the aggressive pursuit of the war and the Sovietisation of Afghanistan belie these statements. We appeal to the Soviet Union to translate these words into reality.
As the House knows, we have already supported various operations by the Afghan Support Committee and Afghanaid. We financed the 1984 report by Dr. D'Souza to which my hon. Friend referred, on the threat of famine and have subsequently provided £50,000 to Afghanaid to relieve famine in Afghanistan. I pay tribute to the skill and dedication of those in Afghanaid who conducted this difficult operation.
My hon. Friend talked about the future. He must recognise the great difficulty that can occur in giving direct assistance to those displaced persons in Afghanistan. We must be realistic, and I cannot at the moment give blanket assurances about the next stage. I will examine carefully proposals put to me by Afghanaid or by similar organisations. Our policy is to give assistance to destitute Afghan refugees and displaced persons wherever they might be, those who have been forced to leave their homes because of the fighting in Afghanistan.
As I said, it is difficult to give aid in a country that is dominated by a far from friendly power—

§ Mr. Raison
My hon. Friend talked about two aspects of the matter—the immediate relief operation and the need for longer-term development. As far as the needs of the relief operations are concerned, as he knows, we are studying carefully the reports of what has happened. We have monitored the accounts put forward to show how the £50,000 that we gave to Afghanaid, has been spent. I understand that the accounts were presented in Pushtu, but we have managed to translate them. It seems that the money has been spent in the ways that it was intended to be used. We will, however, think carefully about how we will respond next.
My hon. Friend will recognise that the long-term developments are particularly difficult. The normal conditions for long-term development aid are that it is on a Government to Government basis. It requires detailed and careful planning and it is normally a response to something put forward by the Government of the country involved.
None of these conditions apply to Afghanistan. There is some difference of dimension between supplying short-term relief supplies and in trying to become involved in the longer-term development processes. I cannot say at present that I will undertake to embark on long-term development programmes. If proposals are put to us we will consider them carefully. The real hope for long-term development must be a return to normality and to freedom in Afghanistan.
We strongly advise the stand of the Afghan refugees and of their neighbours in Pakistan. The plight of the 3 million refugees and the difficult position of Pakistan was brought home to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs during his recent visit. During his visit he announced a £4.8 million bilateral aid programme for Afghan refugees which marks an increase of 17 per cent. over last year. That demonstrates that we have not forgotten these people. That sum represents a significant increase in aid and a significant step on the Government's part to show that we realise that the problem is not one that can simply be tucked away and that we must continue to bear it in mind.
We also provide food through the European Community. Seven million pounds worth of food aid will be delivered in 1986 of which our share is £1.4 million. Since the Soviet invasion, we have given more than £32 million to these people. That money has been donated mostly through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and also through organisations such as the Red Cross and various British charities.
We are also developing a new scheme for training refugees. We have already given substantial assistance to the Allama Iqbal Open University in Pakistan, particularly in the vocational and mass education field. We are planning—by translating the material into Pushtu—to extend the work of the University into the refugee camps. That will have the advantage that the facilities will be available to the refugees without displacing Pakistanis as would be the case with conventional educational institutions. In addition, as the House will know, we are now providing medical treatment for Afghans who have been wounded in the fighting.
1193 I visited Pakistan two years ago. I went to Peshawar where I met some of the refugees from Afghanistan who told me of their troubles and I visited the hospital where they were being treated for their wounds. Anyone who visits that place will recognise the extent of the cruel struggle that is taking place in that area. Therefore, it is right that we should be talking about this again in the House this evening. I would only say that I respect what 1194 my hon. Friend has to say about these matters. I shall always listen carefully to him and consider carefully what we can do. The Government's record in helping the refugees has been a creditable one, but, given the nature of their plight, that is no more than should be the case and that is something that we must not forget.