Illicit Arms Trade (Africa) — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stephen Phillips (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, to which I will turn shortly. The arms that were in Libya have been available to terrorists not only in west and sub-Saharan Africa, but across the world. Indeed, it seems that those arms may well have been used in Paris and elsewhere in terrorist attacks. Today, those arsenals continue to flow into west Africa. They fuel terrorism in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon. The borders are porous There are three specific questions that the Minister will wish to consider answering when he replies to this debate. First, what are the Government doing to make sure that no more of these weapons reach sub-Saharan Africa? Secondly, what is being done to deprive terrorists, in particular Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, of the weapons they have already got their hands on? Thirdly, what strategy do the Government intend to deploy to ensure that next time a heavily armed regime is overthrown in Africa or elsewhere, its weapons do not find their way into the hands of those who would harm either us or their fellow countrymen In truth, however, although these are specific issues on which the Minister will wish to reflect, there is a much broader question that he needs to answer: what is being done, and what more can be done, to stop the flow of illicit light weapons and small arms more generally? What efforts are the Government making to disrupt supplies internationally and deal with the glut of assault weapons to which I have already referred—a glut that, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has made clear, may well have made it easier for the terrorists who carried out the attacks in Paris last week? What support—both direct budget support and technical assistance—are the Government giving to countries across Africa to ensure that arms and arsenals are properly protected and do not suffer the leakage rates, estimated to be as high as 5% annually, that place small arms into the hands of black marketeers, criminals and terrorists The Minister will wish to discuss those issues, in so far as he has not already done so, with his counterparts in the Department for International Development. Indeed, he will have to do so, for hidden among the probably too numerous sustainable development goals to which we and the rest of the world have just signed up, he will find in goal 16 the need to promote peaceful and inclusive societies. That cannot happen without the scourge of highly mobile weapons that kill being removed from circulation, in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. It certainly cannot happen without action being taken to suppress an illicit trade that places light weapons and small arms into the hands of any disgruntled faction or individual minded to take steps to acquire them Manufacturers and brokers operating at the borders of the law, if not beyond it, but at present able to buy their way out of any difficulties they face, must be dealt with. So too, as I have already said, must the security of arsenals and stockpiles. Again, lest it be thought that this does not matter to us here, let me say that it does. It is the taxes of our constituents that fund the international aid that the UK deploys; it is their security that demands that we tackle the root causes of migration and terrorism; and it is their future that mandates that we avert the sorts of crises that fuel the scourge of terrorism threatening us all I want to end my remarks with a reference to another country that should be in the headlines of the world press but is at present largely not, although for perfectly understandable reasons, given the events of the past week: Burundi. There is growing evidence, as I told the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary last week, that if a genocide principally involving the use of small arms against civilians has not yet started, it is on the cards. Libération, the French newspaper, has said that it has started already. The President of the Senate of Burundi has reportedly called on supporters of the Government to "pulverise" and "exterminate" opponents who he described as "good only for dying". Cockroach metaphors familiar to those who recall the Rwandan genocide of 1994 have been used. The ultimatum given to opponents of the Government to disarm and fall into line ended yesterday That this matters—not least because once a civil war starts, as the experience of Rwanda teaches us, it is almost impossible to stop—is obvious, but it also matters in the context of this debate, because Burundi, with its history of past conflicts, is awash with small arms, despite past efforts to ensure the disarmament of the civilian population. Yesterday, according to the mayor of the capital, Bujumbura, his house was attacked with grenades and automatic weapons. There were other attacks across the capital and, reportedly, four deaths, all from small arms or grenades Not only is Burundi in a bad way, as the Minister no doubt knows, but it is in a place that, if the violence does get worse following President Nkurunziza’s decision to secure a third term on the face of things barred by the constitution, is likely to descend into armed violence and humanitarian crisis at speed—and if Burundi, then maybe Rwanda, and maybe, given porous borders, the Democratic Republic of the Congo The real point for tonight’s debate, however—separate, I accept, from the need to act over Burundi recognised last week by the Security Council—is that if the country was not awash with the illicit arms that the five outbreaks of mass violence since independence from Belgium have ensured, we would have to worry a lot less about the current situation It is those illicit arms that fuel violence, threaten civil society, undermine development aid, drive migration and render us here in the United Kingdom a lot less safe. For all those reasons, the Government need to be clear what they are doing and to focus on this issue rather more than I suspect is at present the case. I look forward to hearing from the Minister tonight that that will happen.