Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

Last week I was in Mauritius, happily after its cyclone season which has been particularly bad this year.

Some Mauritians complain that nobody pays any attention to them. This is probably true, because the island – known for high end tourism – is so successful. It is prosperous, and has particularly excellent business and investment links with China and India. Community relationships are by and large good.

This week the Mauritian Prime Minister has hosted a South African Development Community conference on poverty. Nevertheless, despite being members of SADC and the African Union, they are quite detached from events in Africa. Yet between Africa and Mauritius lies a huge, potentially rich, ecologically unique, but underdeveloped island, namely Madagascar. Mauritius has an independent judiciary, low taxation, property rights protection and transparent investment codes. Apart from these, Madagascar needs a radically improved infrastructure, and considerable investment – the potential is huge. Mauritius could definitely assist. It could act as a link to Europe and Asia. Given Mauritius’ food security concerns, a closer relationship could be mutually advantageous.

Now nowhere is without problems. The island’s textile industry faces intense competition, and sugar is destined to decline in importance. Also it would like to reclaim the Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia, the site of a huge and strategically important US airbase. And of course, given the island’s high propensity to import food, cost increases for Mauritians for food and fuel are being keenly felt.

However the island has been extremely well led and has made all the right strategic decisions. The leadership is often Anglophile, and of course they belong to the Commonwealth.

Curiously enough, there is no All Party Parliamentary grouping for this remarkable little place, so I intend doing something about it. There is always a risk that a country gets noticed only when it is a problem, rather than a success, and Mauritius is indisputably a real post-independence success story.     

Well over 1000 people have been killed in the Somali capital Mogadishu this month, and 200 plus so far this week. The death toll continues to rise as chaos descends. There are 174,000 refugees in Kenya, which has now tightened its borders. Over 300,000 have fled and attempts to provide UN humanitarian aid have failed.

Many have fled by boat to Yemen; others have drowned or been thrown overboard on the way. Unlike its neighbours, as signatories of the 1951 Refugees Convention, Yemen is generously accepting thousands of Somalis, who are penniless and in many instances have health problems. It is a huge problem for a poor country. I saw this for myself just after Easter.

Earlier this week, 9 Chinese and 65 Ethiopian oil workers were killed in Ethiopia by a separatist group. It looks as if there could be a clear linkage between this and events in Mogadishu.

Last year, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) seized control of much of southern Somalia, imposed Sharia law, and laid claim to part of Ethiopia. Allegations followed of al -Qaeda operatives basing themselves in Somalia, encouraging the formation of an Islamic state. The UIC had replaced the weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

So Ethiopia – without UN authority - invaded, in large measure to restore the previous government and banish the UIC. Like the United States, it is determined to prevent the spread of Islamist fundamentalism in Africa. However Ethiopia – substantially Christian – is hated in Somalia, and its troops, fighting the remnants of the Islamic militia, are part of the cause of the dying and mayhem. The largest local clan the Hawiye has joined in the resistance to the Ethiopian troops. Between 1960 and 1978 there were three wars between the two countries.

The Yemenis fear a major regional conflict. Eritrea is blamed for supporting the separatist group which killed the oil workers. It has also been accused of supporting the Somali Islamists, not because it shares their beliefs, but to hit their enemy Ethiopia, which in turn may retaliate, as in the past. The African Union has sent a limited number, but far too few troops, to seek to bring order. Many Yemenis feel that the chaos in Somalia will now actually precipitate Islamic terrorism, al- Qaeda links in particular.

So we have a real powder keg – death, suicide bombers, refugees, lack of food, foreign occupiers, warlords and Islamists, and the potential for a wider war. The British Government is alive to this and wants to broker a conference of all interested parties to try to thrash out some way forward. The aim would be to restore the TFG by separating more moderate individuals from opposition groups and negotiate with clan loyalists. It is a tall order. As Kofi Annan has observed, our clout in the world is now diminished, but at least others share our objectives, notably Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately each day that passes the problem becomes more difficult. In all of this there are echoes of the situation in Iraq, with the added threat of the conflict spreading to neighbouring countries.

And apart from the Somalis themselves, it is Yemen that is paying a very heavy humanitarian price indeed.

This article also appeared on the Conservative Home blog today: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/

That is the name of the great waterfall on the Zambezi River before it was called the Victoria Falls.  It was a good description of the Chancellor’s performance yesterday with its concluding coup de théâtre.

Beyond the headlines, there were two really bizarre announcements.  Taxes on small businesses have risen yet again, thus acting as a disincentive to start up businesses.  The Chancellor’s reliefs on capital investment in small companies will not apply to the creative and knowledge based acorn businesses.  Also, at a time when energy security is an increasing problem, yet another consultation has been launched on offshore oil and gas taxation, rather than an actual tax cut which applies to other businesses.  The warnings from the industry have been ignored.

Once again, micro-management, despite the major income tax realignment, characterised this Budget.   A future Chancellor will have to disentangle the accumulated webs of complication which have been such a beanfeast for lawyers, accountants and tax advisers.  

When Manuel de Araujo MP spent the weekend in my constituency, he was on the telephone several times, or texting Mozambique.

The reason is that there are appalling floods there, not least in his constituency as a result of very heavy rains in Zambia and Zimbabwe, so that the enormous Cabora Bassa Dam is overflowing. So far 68,000 have been displaced and 27,000 are now in accommodation centres along the Zambezi River. The head of Mozambique’s national relief agency estimates that the total number of displaced people may rise to 280,000. Manuel is flying back this week. He told me that the inevitable end product of such flooding, on top of all the death and destruction, is a chronic outbreak of malaria. In 2000 and 2001 flooding killed over 700 people.

This sort of tragedy puts everything in our country in context.

Meanwhile, I am personally off to the United States for a few days, so blogging is suspended until next week.

Consciousness of Africa and its problems has probably never been so high. Many British people try to buy fair trade goods or give money to good causes in the developing world.

In 1992, following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy was founded to assist the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe. Since then it has tried to assist in democracy building in Africa and elsewhere. It is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

In the past two years, as a WFD governor, I have done political development work in Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique. Last summer in Mozambique, I spent time in the central Zambezia constituency of Manuel de Araujo MP. There are huge problems there, all expressed very clearly by the many people we talked to. Mozambique’s economy is doing well, but there are massive difficulties flowing from malaria, HIV/AIDS, on top of poor education and health care facilities.

Manuel is now doing a Ph.D. at the University of East Anglia but this weekend will be in my constituency meeting school pupils and many others. It will be illuminating to hear at first hand what the role is of a politician whose constituents have in many instances such limited opportunities in life, and how he tries to represent their interests.

In 1994 the Westminster Foundation for Democracy was established, to help the new democracies of Eastern Europe create institutions and structures which would perpetuate their hard won freedoms. Today we do democracy building work in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.

There are political and independent governors. One former governor, Professor Mary Kaldor, once told me that in all her considerable experience, newly established democracy could not be sustained and embedded without supporting structures in civil society, and the acceptance of those structures by the people. In other words, getting the vote was only part of the picture. The notion that all you need to do is have an election and declare that democracy is established is simply not enough.

WFD Governors travel to some difficult parts of the world to offer help and guidance in a practical way. As we reflect on events of the last few years, and the incredible naïveté that surrounded them, a speech in the Commons by my fellow WFD Governor, Gary Streeter MP, excellently made the point. Whether it is Rome, Baghdad, Kabul or Kathmandu – none were built in a day, however much we would wish otherwise.

You can read Gary Streeter’s speech by following the link below:

http://pubs1.tso.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm061122/debtext/61122-0014.htm#06112238001008 

One of the arguments advanced by the apartheid regime in South Africa was that communists were infiltrating Africa.  It was beyond their understanding that they were creating conditions in South Africa which made communism, as an alternative, relatively attractive for some.

There is therefore a rich irony that the very week after the death of former president F W Botha, who pursued this particular theme, the Chinese were hosting a conference for African leaders in Beijing.   The script is well known.  In exchange for Africa’s resources, transport infrastructure is being created, buildings constructed and increased aid is being given.   I have witnessed this even in quite remote parts of the Continent.   The Chinese do not link their involvement to the West’s demands for good governance.

One of the foreign policy failings of this Government was, at an early stage,  to misunderstand the dangers of the course Robert Mugabe was charting in his country.  By contrast, we immediately foresaw what was happening.  In the Commons, our warnings were regarded as bordering on the hysterical.  At that point, it might have just been possible to make the South Africans alive to what was coming.    They are now paying a huge price, with a flood of impoverished refugees.

When in Beijing, Robert Mugabe said he regarded China as his “second home”.   The Chinese reputation for hospitality would be further enhanced if President Hu Jintao invited him to make it his first home.   It would be an excellent solution to an intractable problem, with all its tragic consequences.
 

During the past twelve months, I have gone to do political work in Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique. It is my practical way of doing my bit for the Third World. I try to help with democracy building, encourage transparency, improved Parliamentary procedures and accountability and encouraging civil society.

Last summer in the middle of Mozambique, I witnessed some sports displays – for example, three brilliant gymnasts who had no equipment to improve their standards on. There was a universal love of international football. The local MP, Manuel de Arajuo, handed out a few footballs and football shirts. The look of joy on the young recipients’ faces was indescribable.

It led to my Parliamentary colleague, Hugh Robertson, with whom I was travelling, securing for them many more footballs from the Football Association – they are now being despatched.

In amongst all the problems in the rural African community we saw – lack of education, health and transport facilities – there will soon be a group of young Mozambicans who will be ecstatic. It is a small gesture, but it will thrill and delight beyond description.