Western Sahara: Conflicts

HL Deb 05 December 1994 vol 559 cc802-22

3.29 p.m.

The Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking as a member of the United Nations Security Council to resolve conflicts in the Western Sahara and other areas of tension in the African continent.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, since 1986 I have become closely associated with the last remaining colonial problem in Africa—that of the Western Sahara. I propose therefore to confine my remarks to that continuing, if unresolved, conflict.

Because I am the founder and trustee of a registered charity which exists solely to provide humanitarian aid to the 200,000 or so refugees who were forced to flee from that unfortunate country in 1975/76, due to the brutal invasion of it by Morocco in that year, I have always tried to confine my activities to the humanitarian aspect and steer clear of the political aspects.

I hope that the Charity Commission will note that I have tried to be a good boy. But when I was told that there may be a slot available for this Unstarred Question today and that the Minister was also available, the temptation was altogether too much to resist, even though I was thrown into an immediate panic by the shortness of time between last Wednesday, when I was told, and this afternoon to prepare a speech worthy of your Lordships' House. Nevertheless, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, not because I enjoy making speeches, which I do not, but because this problem has always been and remains largely ignored by the world and its media.

Very few people know anything about this remote and long-standing tragedy which has now been festering for 20 years. Any news of it which occasionally gets into print is confined to a tiny paragraph buried on page 9 or wherever, and yet, when exactly the same thing happened to an oil-rich country like Kuwait, where we have considerable economic interests as well as a dependency on its product, the media were full from front to back for many months of the gross violations of basic human rights by Saddam Hussein that were taking place in Kuwait and Iraq. Very little was said about the gross violations of human rights in Kuwait before the Iraqi invasion. Sadly, it seems that human rights carry a price tag, along with everything else these days. We are prepared to protect them only when there is something in it for us. I had that said to me quite candidly last year by our foreign affairs Minister in his office in Whitehall.

That attitude of total cynicism is something which we have created ourselves in our cosy world and I maintain it is because we feverishly seek excuses to hide behind in order safely to distance ourselves from any responsibility in disputes which are not of our making and where our wallets are unaffected. It would be a very different story if the Western Sahara was floating in oil, or had other commercially desirable minerals in abundant quantity. If that had been the case, no doubt the United Nations' response would have been vastly different, and the problem would have been swiftly solved within six months of the Moroccan invasion taking place, instead of the 20 years it has taken so far. By any yardstick, that length of time is obscene, but it becomes especially obscene if you are the unfortunate victim.

The Saharawis were forced out of their homes by bombs being dropped on them, bombs manufactured in the United States, the home of the free and the brave. The bombs were dropped by units of the Moroccan air force and consisted of napalm bombs, cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs. The planes pursued the civilian population into the open desert, where they had set up some temporary refugee camps, and bombed those camps as well. Thousands were killed, maimed, and injured. They had no option but to flee across 700 miles of open, hostile desert, to the sanctuary of neighbouring Algeria, where they arrived exhausted, dehydrated, starving, destitute and suffering from severe exposure. Many of them were carrying dead children in their arms.

They have since been forced to exist in exile, in terrible conditions, which they have tried largely by their own efforts to improve, and all of this without a mention, let alone a headline, and certainly never a murmur of condemnation of the aggressor, the Kingdom of Morocco, from any of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, of which the UK is one. It is my own view that if a full member of the UN breaks the UN Charter which it has sworn to uphold, then that member should be expelled until he mends his ways. The threat of public humiliation of that kind could be more than enough to convince wrongdoers of their sins and crimes.

So why has Morocco been allowed to get away with this act of international terrorism? Well, my Lords, we are back to the price tag again, aren't we? Morocco had something we wanted; it was of great geographic and strategic importance to NATO; it has a king who is seen to be pro-Western; it has unlimited quantities of high-grade phosphates; and it is a nice place to go for a holiday or to shoot a TV commercial or a Hollywood feature film. It also produces nice oranges. Never mind its appalling record of gross human rights abuses; or the rejection by the International Court of Justice of the claim of territorial sovereignty of the Western Sahara submitted by Morocco; or the fact that Morocco's invasion of the Western Sahara has also been roundly condemned by the Organisation of African Unity.

So where are we now? What is the UN actually doing to try to bring an end to this illegal occupation by Morocco of the Western Sahara? Are we going to see another Israel and West Bank situation being repeated in the Western Sahara? Do the Saharawis have to remain in the wilderness for the obligatory 40 years, or will we graciously allow them to return to their country and homes after a mere 20 years of misery? The decision is ours in that we have a collective responsibility to humanity in our position as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Will we see the UN taking some firm, courageous and unbiased action to bring a just and fair referendum to the people of the Western Sahara, something that was originally promised to them by Spain, when she withdrew from her colonial territory back in 1975?

The way things are going, I doubt it. The UN has shown itself to be greatly lacking in resolve and impartiality in seeking an acceptable solution in the Western Sahara. The present Secretary-General is known to have Moroccan sympathies and leanings; so did his predecessor. There have been recent confirmed press reports of UN officials, tasked with organising the referendum by the UN, being arrested by the Spanish authorities for massive drug smuggling on their way from Morocco to New York, and being mysteriously reinstated by the UN after being in prison for five months.

A blind eye is turned to the 400 or so violations by Morocco of the cease-fire, currently shakily in place, which was initiated by the Saharawis three years ago in an effort to encourage the peace process, and there has been only a muted response from the UN to the outrageous demands from Morocco for an additional 120,000 names to be added to the list of those entitled to vote in the referendum, which is based on the last population census carried out by Spain in 1975.

On top of all this, as if the Saharawis have not enough to bear, their four refugee camps, each holding approximately 50,000 people, were very badly damaged, with one camp being totally destroyed, leaving about 55,000 people, mainly women, children and the elderly, without any form of shelter. In two days at the end of October, more than three feet of rain fell, and more was to come in a second wave of storms which hit the camps at the beginning of November.

All the infrastructure which they had so laboriously created through their own efforts at self-help was severely damaged or washed away. Gone are their schools, hospitals, clinics, kindergartens, day-care centres, and the protective walls around their horticultural establishments which had been growing a wide variety of fruit and vegetables where nothing ever grew before. I have witnessed these achievements on my 15 visits to the refugee camps since 1986. In spite of this latest disaster, our Government still refuse to send direct aid to these refugees, preferring instead to continue making anonymous contributions through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva for general distribution. That is because the British Government maintain that they have always adopted a position of neutrality in the dispute and that to aid one side would offend the other. Therefore our aid to the refugees has to be covert and indirect in nature. But what about the considerable sums that we openly give to projects in Morocco which benefit the Moroccan king and his people? Would that not offend the refugees who would be bound to see Britain aiding Morocco in this direct fashion as being extremely one-sided and unjust?

The noble Baroness the Minister knows that I have applied through her office on more than one occasion for a modest amount of ODA funding for humanitarian projects in the Saharawi refugee camps. She also knows that my applications have always been refused on the grounds that to grant them would be to violate Britain's position of neutrality. She attempts to justify British aid to Morocco, which last year amounted to just over £9 million, by saying that none of it reflects any opinion on Morocco's policy towards the disputed territory of the Western Sahara, and it is all of a developmental nature anyway.

I am sure that ways could be found of getting direct aid to the refugee camps—aid which is crucially and urgently needed after the recently disastrous flooding—without offending Morocco. Anyway, if Morocco did get upset with us for sending aid to the Saharawis, I am sure that we could weather that storm. But the Saharawis were not able to weather the storms that hit them and they need to know that there are people out there who do care about them. So I submit that direct aid needs to be sent from Britain, and it needs to have a symbolic Union Jack on it.

I also submit that the very least that this country must do as a founder member of the UN is to take a much more robust role in encouraging the peace process in the Western Sahara. It would only need a sharp word from Britain on the floor of the UN in New York to achieve a shift in Moroccan intransigence and evasiveness. We are still admired around the world as being the mother of parliaments and one of the founders of democracy and champions of liberty and freedom. Why do we not practise what we preach?

3.41 p.m.

Lord Wise

My Lords, I have travelled with the noble Earl, Lord Winchilsea, on, I believe, three occasions to the Western Sahara. I have been associated with him in the sterling work he has done and is doing for those people. He must be one of—if not the—finest friends which they have in the western world. I want to support him very briefly in what he has been saying.

As he said, in a few months' time 20 years will have elapsed since Morocco, invaded the Western Sahara. We all know that it was a far from peaceful invasion, as the noble Earl has told us. I shall not reiterate all that he has said about the horrific and gruesome details and the sufferings endured by the defenceless Saharawi people. Suffice to say that those who survived eventually managed to trudge the 700 miles across the desert into Algeria where, with Algerian help, they set up the camps, where they remain to this day.

However, the Polisario did fight back and, as we all know, a bitter war raged right up to, I believe, the unofficial ceasefire negotiated in 1989. The ceasefire was going to be made official in 1991 to mark the beginning of the operation of the settlement plan leading up to the free and fair referendum which was to be held in January 1992, to which Morocco had agreed. The original United Nations settlement plan, which was agreed by the United Nations Security Council, Morocco, the Polisario and the Organisation of African Unity, identified a census of the Western Sahara population carried out by Spain before it left its former colony in 1975. That was going to be identified as the starting point for the electoral register.

It was agreed by all, including Morocco, that the electoral roll would consist of all of the Saharawis listed in that census plus their descendants. However, at the last moment and, not unsurprisingly, Morocco decided not to honour the agreement and then sent tens of thousands of new settlers into the Western Sahara, claiming their right to vote on the territory's future. It renewed air strikes against the Polisario. As the noble Earl has pointed out, the United Nations report stated that there had been frequent air strikes and many other violations of the ceasefire by Morocco. But that seems to be just another story of Morocco's complete disregard of international opinion or the authority of the United Nations.

It is now three years since the referendum should have taken place. The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, called MINURSO, is still trying to progress in the identification and registration process. It is a pretty thankless task, greatly aggravated by Morocco's procrastination and intransigence and its insistence on the addition of between 120,000 and 150,000 names over and above the original agreement. That is the main sticking point. It is obviously completely unacceptable and it is the root of the current crisis.

The United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, had hoped to report in August last that the referendum would take place in February of next year. However, when he finally produced his report on 9th November it indicated that February 1995 was not going to be the date for the referendum after all. Again, that is hardly surprising.

The noble Earl's Question asks what action Her Majesty's Government are taking, as a member of the Security Council, towards the resolution of the conflict. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will assure us that, even though we have withdrawn our personnel, we shall not allow MINURSO to be disengaged. It is seriously undermanned in both civilian and military sections. Owing to the sheer frustration of the whole situation, I believe that there is a real danger of it being abandoned. If that happens another horrific, full-scale war will undoubtedly erupt.

The Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, is dispatching a technical team to the field to reassess the logistic and other requirements for the deployment of MINURSO at the full strength that was originally intended. He is asking for this full-strength deployment, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will urge that this should be done. MINURSO is an essential instrument in the quest for peace and stability in the area. If it is brought up to full strength it will speed up the process of identification and registration.

I believe that the Security Council and the United Nations must assert its authority. It has to bring the two sides together for dialogue in conjunction with the United Nations and the OAU. That is the only way in which the conflict can be resolved peacefully, if at all. It is not going to be easy. If the United Nations has any credence at all it must honour its obligations to the Saharawi people for their right to self-determination.

The noble Earl spoke of the devastation in the camps following the terrible and unprecedented floods. I also implore my noble friend the Minister, whom we all know to be a very kind and compassionate lady, to use all her powerful influence to try to get direct aid sent from Britain to alleviate the immediate problems. To say that the situation is appalling is a gross understatement: it is absolutely catastrophic, as the noble Earl has said. These people desperately need help and I am sure that if the will is there we can send help directly to them from this country—and I trust that we shall.

3.48 p.m.

Viscount Waverley

My Lords, the number of speakers today is not indicative of the importance of the subject of conflict resolution. Indeed, the House should be grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Winchilsea, for his initiative. I listened with great interest to the contributions which addressed the Western Sahara dispute. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, will concern himself with the United Nations role in Africa. Therefore, I wonder whether I might broaden the debate.

Conflict prevention and resolution are complex but essential. The unfolding events in what was Yugoslavia are ample evidence of that. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute illustrates the gravity by determining that, of 34 major armed conflicts in the world last year, seven were in the African continent.

If those conflicts are to be prevented, it is essential to understand their root causes. In Africa poverty, for example, has a devastating effect on the continent, with half of the entire population living below the poverty line. Fifty per cent. of total African external earnings is required to service their external debt. Declining income with the fall in commodity values—the continent's principal export—and a corresponding increase in the cost of manufactured products have all led to extreme difficulties. Structural adjustment programmes and inward investment are vital.

Population pressures, with falling food production and desertification, are threatening the food-producing areas at the rate of 6 million hectares per year. A combination of drought and unsuitable agricultural practices have increased the misery. Insecurity and instability along borders, sometimes caused by not negotiating shared resources, precipitate tensions in neighbouring countries, with the risk of armed confrontation and, as we know from recent events, they can give rise to refugees. The list goes on: illiteracy, with a staggering 165 million still illiterate; illegal immigration; gun running and drug trafficking compound the difficulties. It is a grim picture.

African initiatives undertaken by Africans are politically essential. Regional co-operation, as a confidence-building measure, sustains friendly relations and peace. That is illustrated in the work of such regional bodies as the Organisation of African Unity. The countries of Africa constitute one-third of the membership of the United Nations. That partnership has contributed positively to efforts to resolve conflicts, although such bodies tend to work more closely on preventive diplomacy by promoting African unity and tackling the continent's economic problems.

Among the principles of the OAU Charter is a mechanism for preventing, managing and resolving conflicts in Africa. It is prepared to undertake peace-making functions. The OAU has been given a shot in the arm by President Clinton's negotiations to set up an African peace-keeping force, which could also be called upon by the United Nations. Last month the United States Congress passed an African Conflict Resolution Act which will set aside foreign aid for that purpose. I urge Her Majesty's Government to take a proactive interest in that initiative. Perhaps the Minister can tell the House how much information about funding initiatives is passed between the donor nations in order to achieve the maximum, and avoid duplication, from scarce resources.

The Southern African Development Community divides sectors of responsibility among member nations. The new remit for politics, democracy, human rights and security has not yet been allocated. That will shortly be forthcoming, and is welcome. South Africa, as a newly admitted member, could possibly be a suitable candidate. Certainly the Mandela-Mugabe axis makes for a formidable team and much can be expected from their endeavours to keep peace in the region. Angola, Mozambique and Lesotho were three countries where immediate attention needed to he directed. That was done effectively by the two presidents.

The Commonwealth Secretariat is proactive in the peace process. That is to be encouraged when the opportunity presents itself. The Secretary-General, with two highly regarded unsung members of his staff, Mr. Gaylard and Dr. Anafu, twice successfully defused tension in Lesotho and Natal. The Secretary-General actively works for the promotion of democracy, human rights and conflict resolution through preventive diplomacy. The secretariat's election monitoring mission underpins the democratic process. The outcome of elections determines whether democracy will take root. The secretariat currently has a team in Namibia.

Finally, the application of the Parsons principle in crisis diplomacy establishes a contact group or diplomatic presence to monitor a crisis and to take the opportunity of any opening to negotiate with the parties concerned. Our Prime Minister, in a recent speech in Cape Town, declared: an entirely new effort at preventative diplomacy is long overdue. With our friends in Africa and with their agreement and their participation, Britain wants to develop new mechanisms to head off conflicts". The Foreign Secretary developed those ideas in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 28th September.

It seems to me that regionalisation is the key to future stability and should be encouraged. The European Union, MERCOSUR in the southern countries of South America, NAFTA and APEC are evidence of such regionalisation. It is becoming generally accepted that the Lomé Convention will be replaced by entirely different arrangements. Future arrangements will possibly be region specific as part of the overall European development policy. Political leaders will therefore be made to communicate with each other if they are to benefit from bilateral aid. That is not to suggest that the work of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and myself as officers of the All-Party Lomé Group diminishes. On the contrary, our duty is to ensure that existing benefits are not eroded under whatever new arrangements are set up. That will help, in a small way, the preventive process.

However, more is required. Constant confidence-building processes are necessary, and it must never be forgotten that the essential ingredient for the peaceful process is negotiation through continuous debate and consultation.

3.57 p.m.

Lord Redesdale

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham for tabling this Unstarred Question. Perhaps I may mention his role in helping the Saharawi people through Rainbow Rovers. On my visit to the camps in southern Algeria I saw many indications that my noble friend had been there. No one who has been to see the Polisario camps can fail to be impressed by the people's tenacity and ingenuity in surviving that very harsh environment. I was distressed to hear of the storms that have caused so much devastation.

The conflict has been going on for a long time and needs to be resolved as quickly as possible to help the Saharawi people. Ultimately, the United Nations has a large part to play in resolving the conflict. However, the difficulties faced by the United Nations in enforcing Resolutions 658 and 659 in the Western Sahara are a striking example of the problems of inadequate resources and ambiguity of mandate that can often undermine the effectiveness of the United Nations. In April this year, total contributions outstanding to the MINURSO special account amounted to approximately half the total annual cost of its present deployment of 40 million dollars. The United Kingdom has a good record for paying its assessed contributions to the United Nations on time. But other member states' failure to pay on time is a serious obstacle to the fulfilment of the organisation's role. As the noble Baroness has said previously, the United Nations is the sum of its parts. It is only as effective as its members allow. The Foreign Secretary has commented on the need for reform of the UN's financing system. Will the Minister say what action the Government have taken to put that suggestion into effect?

I do not intend to address the numerous areas of tension in Africa but to confine myself to three present conflicts—Somalia, Angola and Rwanda—because they seem to me to exemplify the limitations of the United Nations and hence the need for substantial reform. Essentially, that is where the United Kingdom can take action by pushing for effective reform at the international level.

Since the end of the cold war, the type of conflicts that prevail today result from numerous complex and historical factors including political instability, ethnicity and religion. The definition of what constitutes "conflict" and at what stage the international community should step in has been the crux of the dilemma about foreign intervention in today's conflicts. The UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, helped to clarify the types of conflict and the consequent changing demands on the UN in his document An Agenda for Peace. Among his recommendations is the idea of preventive diplomacy, a concept that is really at the heart of the founding purpose of the United Nations. The vision expressed in 1946 at the opening session of the UN Security Council centred not so much on how to respond to future conflicts but how to prevent their very occurrence.

In An Agenda for Peace, Boutros Boutros-Ghali spoke also of the need for peace-building and reconstruction in post-conflict areas. Without the foundations of a peace-building strategy, which take into account the necessary political, social and economic changes in order to create an environment for stability, the international community has been only partially successful. That means that in future the assistance provided by UN agencies and other agencies not usually associated with peacekeeping—such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the private sector—should be tailored to both short and long-term needs.

UN operations in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia have demonstrated the urgency of institutionalising preventive diplomacy. An integrated early warning system for those crises could well have limited civilian casualties. Active UN diplomacy in Somalia did not begin until 1992, 15 months after the conflict began. Had the UN responded earlier, it is likely that much suffering could have been avoided. In Rwanda, UN troops were withdrawn from the area in April when evidence showed clearly that the crisis had mounted into genocide. The United States' reluctance to become involved in another Somalia, for whose failed and questionable military strategy the US lost face and which further damaged the credibility of the UN, meant US obstructiveness was a contributory factor to the UN's delayed response to the unfolding tragedy in Rwanda. Despite appeals from African nations to act, and the provision of a 5,500 African peacekeeping force, the logistical support was not forthcoming. By the end of May, the Secretary-General issued a strong criticism to member states: We must all recognise that … we have failed in our response to the agony of Rwanda, and thus have acquiesced in the continued loss of human lives. Our readiness and our capacity for action has been demonstrated to be inadequate at best, and deplorable at worst, owing to the absence of collective political will". UNOSOM II, the UN's second operation in Somalia, launched in May 1993, was to some extent an experiment drawing the UN into peacemaking rather than peacekeeping activities. "Peacebuilding operations" were the pretext under which the US military-dominated command pursued General Aideed only to end in defeat and the further loss of life. The lack of a clear mandate in Somalia contributed to the UN's ineffectiveness in many of its initial aims.

The political impasse in Somalia continues despite the considerable reduction in UN forces in the course of this year. It appears that the balance of power is once again in the hands of the faction leaders. There is fear that a new federal government could collapse if the fragile arrangement between Ali Mahdi Mohammed and his allies and the SNA is not accepted; at worst that could re-ignite the war. The cost of UN peacebuilding in Somalia has already set the UN back some 1 billion dollars a year. If the Nairobi Declaration were to disintegrate, it is doubtful whether the political will would exist for another attempt by the international community to resolve the conflict in Somalia. Moreover, the perceived partiality of UNISOM may well mean that the validity of its mandate to try to forge a political solution has long expired. Will the Minister comment on any recent developments in Somalia; the United Kingdom's position regarding any new outbreak of conflict; and the value of the United Kingdom's contributions to Somalia since 1991?

I move on to Angola. The ceasefire in Angola has raised hopes for an end to the conflict, often referred to as the worst war in the world. Although the peace accord has a fragile base, the chance for reconstruction and peacebuilding in Angola is an opportunity which should be encouraged by every means possible. Angola is a country rich in resources and its prospects are good. But much support in the way of foreign investment and long-term development initiatives is needed. As at 30th April 1994, total contributions outstanding to UNAVEM I and UNAVEM II were approximately 31 million dollars. Would the Minister consider channelling the amount outstanding to meet the needs of reconstruction?

A further problem is that although long-term agricultural potential in Angola is large, an estimated 10 million to 20 million landmines are scattered across the country, preventing agricultural workers returning to the field. That leads me to ask what steps the United Kingdom has taken to ratify the 1981 UN Inhumane Weapons Convention or to impose a ban on the production and export of landmines which continue to inflict civilian suffering in many regions of post and present conflict in Africa?

I say a final word on Rwanda. The conflict in Rwanda bears some of the most serious criticisms that can be levied against the UN, because of its delayed response to the reported genocide. If nothing else, it sets the most recent case for an immediate call to strengthen the UN's ability to undertake preventive action. Until such structural changes to the UN organisation are introduced, in particular the establishment of a UN rapid deployment force and including human rights monitors, the UN is unequipped to do its job. Quite apart from the compelling moral case of the international community's responsibility to uphold respect for human rights, the costs in terms of global security are not to be diminished. I wish to refer to a recent report by Saferworld, an NGO, which focuses on issues of international security, entitled The true cost of conflict. It summarises the costs incurred in a number of conflicts, not just in terms of the financial deficit of member states, but in the long-term wasted potential of the afflicted country and its bearings on regional and international levels of stability and prosperity. It states: International peacekeeping represents a real investment … if moral reasons do not give rise to the political will needed, then national self-interest should". As the Minister will appreciate, the United Kingdom has the opportunity to convey that message in the UN Security Council conference in January.

I conclude with a reference to the peace settlement in Mozambique. I recently had the opportunity to witness the elections in Mozambique. I was amazed by the degree of organisation and the peaceful nature of those elections. Mozambique summarises what can be achieved by the UN if it has the will to undertake such activities.

4.10 p.m.

Lord Judd

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham, spoke with compassion and conviction rooted in his first-hand experience of the Western Sahara and his exemplary commitment to the Saharawi people. However, as was argued by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, his Question has a relevance which stretches way beyond the Western Sahara. It is highly pertinent to next year's 50th anniversary of the United Nations. There will be much international debate about the future of the UN. Part of that debate will concern the future of the Security Council.

Were the Security Council being formed today, it is hardly conceivable that the United Kingdom would be offered permanent membership. However, permanent membership is what we have inherited based on the world as it was in 1945. If we want to retain that permanent place we must justify it. In our post-imperial, post-colonial era, the way in which we can best look to our interests is to be second to none in our commitment to international institutions, which are vital for effective global governance.

It is by our demonstrable internationalism that we shall maximise our influence on world affairs. Part of this will be our contribution to international peace-keeping. But more important than that by far will be our lead in building up the resources for pre-emptive diplomacy and conflict resolution.

There are those—and I am sure that the Minister is not one—who will argue that the United Kingdom has no interest in the Western Sahara. In our closely-knit interdependent world, with all the unpredictability of knock-on effects, that argument is dubious. But that is not the point. Such cynicism ill befits a nation wanting to retain its permanent membership of the Security Council. That status is not simply to pursue narrow UK interests; with it goes the task of shouldering our share of responsibility for security throughout the world.

The noble Earl reminded us of the brutality of the displacement of the Saharawi people. Amnesty International reports that, despite the presence of UN monitors, they still suffer disappearances, political prisoners and torture at the hands of the Moroccans. In the past some have been held for up to 16 years without charge or trial and no explanation has ever been offered. Human rights, guaranteed under the implementation plan agreed by the UN in co-operation with the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario (the political resistance movement of the Saharawi people), are not yet respected. I am afraid that, although Polisario does not yet itself have an unblemished record—and Amnesty International has certainly drawn attention to its prisoners of conscience—it has never resorted to international terrorism.

The Saharawi people do try to operate under broadly democratic principles, with the objective of one person, one vote and government by elected representatives. They aspire to religious freedom. In the main, women enjoy comparable rights with men. Priority is given to education and a 95 per cent. illiteracy rate has been transformed into a 95 per cent. literacy rate.

As was indicated by the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Wise, the UN supervised referendum to determine the future of the Saharawi people, which was promised 20 years ago, has still not happened, and the implications of the UN Secretary-General's report of last November suggest that inevitably there will be another postponement beyond the expected date of February next year. The choices on offer are, after all, for a referendum without agreement on the electoral roll, for the UN to drop its presence and to withdraw the proposal for the referendum and for the parties to continue talking until June in the hope of compromise.

As the noble Lord, Lord Wise, stressed in his remarks, there are already acute anxieties about the manipulation of the voter registration process, with reports of intimidation by the Moroccans and of thousands of new settlers being sent into the region by Morocco. In all these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the Saharawi people are rapidly losing faith in the UN—or, as the Minister reminded us in the debate on the Queen's Speech, in us—for there is no United Nations other than its member states.

The noble Baroness will need to convince us that the Government, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, are taking the lead that they should be taking to resolve the impasse and to bring about the direct dialogue between the parties for which the United Nations General Assembly has called.

Meanwhile, as the noble Earl so graphically described, the four Saharawi refugee camps adjacent to Tindouf were a month ago the victims of catastrophic floods. He told us that 50,000 people have been made homeless, infrastructure has been wrecked, all schools are closed and 20 years of hard work lie ruined in mud. The overstretched United Nations High Commission for Refugees is trying to respond, but special assistance is clearly needed at once. We look to the Minister to reassure us that it is being provided.

The Question tabled by the noble Earl refers to Africa as a whole. The cost of failure to resolve or forestall conflict in that continent has been horrendous. The accumulated evidence of the Horn, Somalia, Sudan, Mozambique, Liberia, Angola and, indeed, little Gambia is grim. Surely the inescapable lesson is that, as in the Western Sahara, the priority must be to address the causes of conflict and to act in time.

We have been reminded that in Rwanda, for example, there was no shortage of warnings. As one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, we must take very seriously our share of the responsibility for the failure to take pre-emptive action on the basis of the special rapporteur's report and, when conflict erupted, for the failure of the wider world to provide troops or even to provide sufficient logistic support in time to back up the African troops who had been offered. In other words, the issue was a lack of will.

In an age of revolutionised communications, with so much more information available, the predominance of reactive diplomacy is a sad commentary on political culture. It is all too often not a matter of whether the international community will intervene but of when it will be compelled to intervene—probably too late, at greatest expense and when least can be achieved. Repeatedly we cobble together the resources—far from sufficient—for the UNHCR to meet the latest refugee crisis; but how much do we spend on preventing the crisis developing in the first place? We agonise about GATT and the need to expand world trade; but how often do we count the cost to world trade of the failure to prevent conflict?

Governments speak of pre-emptive diplomacy—and, as was pointed out by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, the Secretary of State when he addressed the UN General Assembly spoke of his intentions to promote this in Africa—but what in the Government's thinking really is the priority for pre-emptive diplomacy? According to the latest's estimates, annual global military expenditure is of the order of 1,000 billion US dollars. The total annual UN peace keeping budget, inadequately struggling to cope with failure, is by comparison only some 3.6 billion US dollars. But resources for pre-emptive diplomacy and conflict resolution barely register in the shadow of these incredible figures. The Government like to claim a radical sense of purpose. Real radicalism in foreign affairs cannot leave these skewed priorities unaddressed.

In the African context this very day the world's attention, led by the Security Council, on which the UK is so determined to serve, should, for example, be tirelessly focused on Kenya, with all its sinister, incipient violence and cynical manipulation of ethnic differences—its disappearances, assassinations, hundreds of documented cases of police torture, judges directed by government, the media intimidated, MPs needing permits to hold political meetings and 36 of the 85 Opposition MPs gaoled in 1993 for varying periods of time. Those facts were all admirably rehearsed in the Queen's Speech debate in the other place.

Attention should similarly be focused on Zaire and Nigeria, where there have been 24 years of military dictatorship and denial of human rights and where, as tension mounts, the United Kingdom still inexplicably and dangerously maintains its arms supplies to the regime, including, significantly, Vickers battle tanks. It does that despite the European Union's curbs on arms sales and IMF anxiety about the level of arms expenditure by the Nigerian regime.

Attention should also be given urgently to the renewed dangers in Rwanda demonstrated in the refugee camps, where an international police force is urgently required, and to the dangers in Burundi where the failure of the international community to provide the number of monitors called for by the UN Commissioner for Human Rights and many non-governmental organisations is frankly a disgrace, not least when the cost of not supplying them may well yet prove to be disastrous by comparison.

As I emphasised in the debate on the Queen's Speech, it is lamentable that, with all the talk of the importance of good governance, democracy and human rights, we have appeared impotent in the face of the wanton destruction of democracy in little Gambia by a handful of ambitious, power-hungry army officers.

In the debate on the Queen's Speech, my noble friend Lady Blackstone called for an early debate on pre-emptive diplomacy and the reform of the UN system. The question raised by the noble Earl today and the significant and thoughtful contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, underline the importance of that proposal. Apart from the case for a rapid deployment force at the disposal of the Security Council and the Secretary-General to contain situations before they escalate out of control, the case for earmarked stand-by forces in member countries of the UN to be called up by the Security Council and Secretary-General when required, and the case for a proper, responsible system of financing UN peace-keeping operations, there is the crucially important issue of establishing clear guidelines and principles for UN pre-emptive intervention, let alone military action.

Recent history has been a disturbing story of tardy arbitrariness. The debate for which my noble friend called will, I suggest, need to examine arrangements for petitioning the international community by groups at risk; for early warning; for the use of the specialist knowledge and insight of non-governmental organisations, academics and other similar sources without—a vital point—compromising their ability to act as genuinely independent impartial agents. It will need to consider whether an office for preventive diplomacy, preferably on the 38th floor of the UN, might have a powerful part to play. It should look at experience of sanctions and how in future they might be better targeted and refined to achieve their objectives with minimum adverse effect on the innocent. It would be sensible too to review the contribution of safe havens.

The debate will not be able to dodge the issue of the arms trade—the crude fuel of armed conflict—the degree to which it is exploited ruthlessly by immoral profiteers and merchants of death and, equally significant, the degree to which large numbers of decent people in otherwise civilised countries have, through no fault of their own, become dependent, together with their national economies, on arms manufacture and exports. I hope that the debate will grapple with how, in the name of humanity, governments can together make the arms trade more accountable and transparent and how they can together work at massive programmes of substitution for arms manufacture.

Meanwhile, one astounding and profoundly worrying statistic cannot be too often repeated; namely, that almost 90 per cent. of the arms sold to the third world are sold by the permanent five members of the Security Council. Above all, however, in Africa, as the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, suggested in his powerful contribution, we must never overlook the reality that among the root causes of conflict have been the problems of land distribution, grinding poverty, debt, adverse terms of trade and insensitive economic restructuring demanded by wealthy nations of the world. In that respect Rwanda's story was far more complex than just ethnic conflict alone.

With all that in mind, latest budget indications for the future of the aid programme, when aid is already at an all-time low as a percentage of gross national product, are candidly depressing. With his unrivalled insight into the Western Sahara, the noble Earl has helped to demonstrate today that viewed from another galaxy the priorities of humankind are indefensible. Indeed, we prepare like giants for war and like pygmies for peace.

I cannot say often enough that the Minister is personally a genuine humanitarian. I have no doubt that she will convince us of that once more this evening. On all sides of the House we must work with her to build a strategy to transform the myopic preoccupations of government so that rationality is asserted, so that we think ahead and so that we free ourselves from the horrific consequences of fatalism. Nowhere is that more important than in our policy towards Africa. The story of the Western Sahara is all too symptomatic of the absence of commitment to effective global governance.

4.25 p.m.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey)

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham, on choosing this subject for debate. He is absolutely right to say that it is often forgotten. But it is certainly not forgotten by the Foreign Office and the ODA, as I hope to demonstrate, despite the fact that he was critical of me, as is his right.

However, at the beginning I wish to say to your Lordships that we must be realistic in what we demand of the United Nations and in what can happen. I am beginning to believe that there are some parts of the world where people, quite frankly, do not want to stop fighting, whatever is done by others outside those groups. The sufferers are the women and children and some of the men who genuinely do not wish to fight.

Therefore, let us have a reality about the situation before we get into the "something should be done" mode, which is all too easy to do. However, we must find out what will be appropriate and what will work at a reasonable cost. When I say "a reasonable cost", I mean that I am not unwilling to spend money on peacekeeping; in fact, I am extremely willing to spend money on conflict prevention and resolution. But let us understand that sometimes the costs that will be put upon the giving nations, which may still be thrown back in their faces by the warring nations, may be too great for the giving nations to continue providing. We need to have that very firmly in our minds.

The noble Earl's remarks concentrated almost entirely on the subject of the Western Sahara, and I shall spend most of my speech dealing with that. However, I assure your Lordships that at no time has the United Kingdom played anything but a thoroughly active role in the United Nations Security Council's discussions on conflict resolution and prevention. The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, mentioned that, following my right honourable friend the Prime Minister's speech in Cape Town in September, the Foreign Secretary, when he addressed the General Assembly, encouraged the international community, working with the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations, to set up a structure of support systems running from early warning and preventive diplomacy through to humanitarian and peacekeeping deployments on the ground. I shall return to the detail of how that has been received and taken forward in a few moments.

First, I turn to the Western Sahara with regard to which I have more sympathy for the plight of the people who are suffering so greatly than perhaps the noble Earl realises. We have supported the United Nations Secretary-General's efforts, especially through the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara—that is MINURSO, to which your Lordships referred—in order to secure implementation of the settlement plan agreed by the parties on 30th August 1988. Your Lordships may say that that is a long while ago but the problem has always been achieving the acceptance of all the parties to the necessary measures to bring about that referendum. I shall update the House on that in a few moments.

There are some 300 military and police observers in the UN mission at present, but there have been very regrettable delays in implementing the plan. There have also been grave difficulties in securing the agreement of the parties to hold the referendum. In August this year, the process of identifying those who have registered to vote in the referendum was launched. We have been monitoring very carefully what has been going on since that process was launched.

Perhaps I may make two observations about the referendum. First, we attach considerable importance to the speedy resolution of all the remaining obstacles and to holding that referendum on the future of the territory as soon as possible. We have repeatedly urged all parties to co-operate in that aim. We were most disappointed that the parties have allowed the latest timetable to slip. We hope that further delays will not occur, although from some news I received just before coming into the Chamber, it seems that that may be in vain.

As one of the Security Council's Group of Friends of the Western Sahara, we have sought to facilitate the UN's preparations for the referendum. It is, therefore, of prime importance that the procedures are hastened along. Before I came into the Chamber today, I was told that the referendum will be held in 1995. However, we are now told that it may not be held until the summer for one good reason in the eyes of the UN Secretary-General, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He is quoted as saying last Thursday that the referendum planned first for January 1992, and then later postponed to February 1995, will be organised next summer because he wants 20 new bureaux to speed up the population registration in order to end the conflict. That has much to do with the very notable anxiety about last-minute Moroccan voter applications, about which the noble Earl and other noble Lords spoke.

We are seeking to ensure that the UN's identification commission has sufficient manpower to be able to identify all those who have applied for inclusion on the voter list for the referendum, including those whose applications were only submitted by Morocco shortly before the deadline of 25th October. I believe that to be the reason for the requirement of 20 extra bureaux to be opened in addition to the two already in operation in Laayoune and in Tindouf in south-western Algeria where so many of the Western Saharan people are at present in camps. That has come about since Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali toured the area last month and is being done in an effort to ensure that all those who should vote are, indeed, registered to vote.

It is not just a question of solving the problems of the election. My noble friend Lord Wise asked me about the future of MINURSO, knowing that it had been considered last March by the Security Council. We believe that it should continue; but, of course, Security Council Resolution 907 said that if the referendum was not held by the end of this year, the future of MINURSO would have to be reconsidered. Since the Secretary-General visited the area, we can now see things in a new light. There is certainly no discussion at present about disbanding MINURSO, and there is the statement about the requirement of 20 new stations to help the registration for the elections. Therefore, I sincerely hope that MINURSO will continue up to the election, but what happens at that point must be a matter for the Security Council.

The noble Earl also asked me about human rights. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made the point that there have been human rights abuses on all sides, if one may put it that way. I sometimes think that this is not a two-sided contest. We certainly raise human rights issues regularly, whether it be with the Moroccans or with others. In June this year, the Moroccan human rights Minister came to the United Kingdom as a guest of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. My right honourable friend in another place, Mr. Hogg, and human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, met with him. I believe that that was a valuable step forward; indeed, it was something that had never happened before. It was part of our attempt to improve human rights in that area.

We also know that it is not only human rights which are of concern: it is a fact that there have been some further unauthorised troop movements, though not normally anything as serious as was intimated by the noble Earl in terms of a cease-fire violation. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that where there is no stability—and that is what we are really talking about—there is plenty of room for troublemaking, however it occurs.

We have a situation where we are looking towards a referendum next year and where the United Nations is, under quite difficult circumstances, doing its best to help achieve that aim. I know that the noble Earl is disappointed that I have not responded to his requests to put direct help into the area, as set out in a number of letters which I have recently received from him. But there is a very good reason why that has not happened. It is because we are contributing through an already well set-up and running organisation within UNHCR which has earmarked 4 million dollars this current year for assistance to Western Saharan refugees, with a further 4 million dollars allocated for next year. We have made inquiries and they lead us to believe that there is not a need for further resources, but that there may be a need for better organisation. Certainly, the Department of Humanitarian Affairs has airlifted emergency supplies to the camps and provided money for local relief goods purchases following the tragic floods.

If there were a need for further assistance, I would, of course, look into the matter. However, I am told on reliable evidence from those who assess such matters that the current assessment is that we are giving—indeed, as we always have—our full due. We shall continue to do so and, if there is a need for more, I shall be the first to be willing to look at it. I have seen too many disasters in too many parts of the world ever to be able to turn away when there is real need. I believe that your Lordships are aware of that fact.

The debate widened very considerably, especially with the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. It seemed to me that the noble Lord was trying, quietly, to get in on the back of the noble Earl's Unstarred Question and have that general debate that his noble friend Lady Blackstone was calling for about two weeks ago. But I now gather that the joy of that debate still awaits us. However, perhaps I may turn to the more general points that were raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Judd. I shall deal, first, with the more general points about the United Nations as a whole.

As I said earlier, we have been playing a very full part in the United Nations, both in the Security Council and in all the General Assembly work. We have examined most carefully all the ideas that have been put to us. One of the things that I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, without fear of any contradiction is that Her Majesty's Government have always paid their contributions to the UN on time and in full. I wish that I could say the same for other member states, because we are regularly urging others to do likewise. We have certainly never run away from those responsibilities; nor, indeed, shall we.

However, one of the things that we are careful not to do is to rush into every idea when it is promoted without having examined it very thoroughly. For a very long while I have advocated that the United Nations needs to do more in the field of conflict prevention and conflict resolution. It is for that reason that we have been looking for ways of actually operating in that mode, particularly in Africa where so many of the conflicts seem to take place these days.

The idea which has been around for a long while of the United Nations standby forces has not found support among the United Nations' member states. That may be, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, intimated, due to the question of funding and the fact that there has not been a serious review of the finance to support the jobs within the United Nations. As yet we see no sign of that happening quickly.

One of the reasons why the idea of standby forces has not found support is that peace-keeping operations vary so greatly in type, scope, size and the training required that it has not been thought possible to train contingents literally for any eventuality.

It has been with that very much in mind that my right honourable friends have been discussing what more could be done to prevent the conflicts in Africa which the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Judd, described. I agree with the noble Viscount when he says that it is critical to involve the Africans in conflict prevention and resolution. Frankly, if one does not have support from the groups on the ground one does not succeed. One cannot impose troops, ideas or planning totally from outside. One can help and refine ideas alongside people of the nation concerned. It was for those very reasons that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister launched the initiative on African peace-keeping in Cape Town in September.

Why did we do that? We were looking for a way to get the international community to work with the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity to set up a structure of support systems which would run from early warning, through preventive diplomacy and on to humanitarian peace-keeping and deployment on the ground, as I said at the beginning of my reply.

We have been exchanging information readily with fellow donor nations to see what is possible. In some part that answers the question of the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. Our objective is a system which works effectively at three levels. The first level would be an early warning system. This would be directed at potential trouble spots in order to decide whether preventive diplomacy needs to be triggered.

The second level would be an institutional framework of preventive diplomacy which would allow the UN and the OAU to provide, together, experienced personnel, equipment and other support which would bolster the diplomatic efforts to prevent conflict breaking out.

The third level of action would be the development of the peace-keeping capabilities themselves. We envisage that being done through the establishment of peace-keeping skill centres at African staff colleges, through the creation of UN logistics centres in Africa, and some rapid mobile logistics teams which would help to maintain equipment. A great many of the problems which arise in any of those tasks relate to the need to have equipment ready to move and to use. It is so often out of date or badly maintained. The final part of that capability would be the creation of a UN sub-regional support centre whose staff could identify and help to remedy the logistic weaknesses which so often occur.

Were there time I could go through all the countries named by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and talk through the logistic weaknesses, the diplomacy failures and so on. I shall not take your Lordships' time today, but I shall tell your Lordships that the British ideas have been very well received in the UN and OAU. African countries have welcomed them as a practical contribution to enhancing peace-keeping capabilities. Our ideas have also been welcomed by our European partners.

In view of that welcome we decided to hold expert level discussions on our proposals in Accra in Ghana on 14th and 15th November with the African countries, the UN and the OAU. We reached agreement there on the priority areas of early warning, preventive diplomacy and peace-keeping. We are now working further on the detail of those proposals and how best to translate them into practical action on the ground. The next step in that process will be a workshop to be held in Cairo in January.

We are moving forward with the ideas. Perhaps I may say to the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that those ideas have very much more backing than anything that has come from any single nation, even the one he mentioned, which might have had an idea which initially found favour in that country.

There are some tragic and preventable situations. There are others which, sadly, are less preventable because people are determined to fight and not to talk peace. That is why the type of comprehensive approach that I have just outlined, with the support of many of the neighbours of those nations which have so many problems, be it in Africa or elsewhere, is important.

I can assure your Lordships that whether it be Rwanda, Angola, Somalia, Nigeria, Ghana or Sierra Leone—and I can make a long list—we keep a watch, day by day, on each of those countries to see when and where we should intervene. There will never be any hesitation if we can do something to prevent conflict breaking out or to help resolve conflict when it has broken out. The United Kingdom will be there.

That is why I can pay a real tribute to Mozambique. Although the situation was rather touch and go towards the end of the election, I am proud to say that the British Ambassador and his staff in Mozambique worked literally day and night to help make sure that the situation was resolved satisfactorily. That is an example of both conflict resolution and conflict prevention for the future.

It is by means of that type of engagement, which we hope we shall see before long in Angola, that we shall create a greater peace in the African continent and elsewhere. But we shall do that only if we lead strongly and thoughtfully and persuade others to follow. That is exactly what we are trying to do.

House adjourned at thirteen minutes before five o'clock.