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UN AND CONGO

I am the Chair of the All Party Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa at the Houses of Parliament in London, UK. I returned from the DRC last week with members of my group, where we visited Goma and Kinshasa. We were the first parliamentary group to address the DRC parliament. Stephen Carter, our group co-ordinator, remains in the DRC to monitor this case flagged up the BBC today. Prior to going to the DRC, I had been fully briefed, via Stephen, by the BBC about the allegations about the UN. It had been planned that we would meet the (British) head of the UN in the DRC, to discuss our concerns, but he unfortunately made a late cancellation. There had been a serious air crash while we had been in Goma and his cancellation may have been related to that. I did meet Ross Mountain, the no.2 and head of humanitarian work there.

All members of the group who visited the DRC last week have been there a number of times recently. All are deeply committed to the well-being of the DRC and the great lakes region. The group is all-party in nature and a number of visits to the region have been made by members of all parties in the last year. Many DRC politicians have been hosted at the Houses of Parliament. Our group is arguably the largest and most active in the UK parliament. We are very proud of the fact that the UK Government, under Prime Minister RT Hon Gordon Brown MP, is the leading bi-lateral donor to the DRC and helps lead the world in international development.

The BBC material today (Panorama, World Service and elsewhere) is of a high quality and is disturbing. There is some 'churn' however, and such stories are commonplace in the developing world. Our group has met, and I have personally, Pakistani and Indian soldiers of the highest quality and their presence in the DRC has been more than positive. The presence of the UN in the DRC has saved tens of thousands of lives. The work of the NGO's in the DRC is, well, it simply is God's work, if you're up for that stuff. If you're not, then it's effective and saves thousands of lives every year. Democracy in the DRC is flourishing. The government is beginning to organise, with the help of the international community.

The Goma peace process is going well. But the ex-Interahamwe forces (often referred to collectively as the FDLR) must, where they are of Rwandan origin, leave the DRC and integrate back into Rwanda - having faced up where appropriate to crimes committed. We have met with President Kagame of Rwanda and will do so again next week and he has given us a complete assurance that he stands ready to accept them.

These allegations have been around for some time but it is completely unacceptable that independent agencies of the UN should be stymied by any political interest. It looks to us that this may be happening now. It won't cut it and it shouldn't. The UN is the source of great work, but questions of the integrity of UN forces lead to the undermining of the work of the UN as a whole. That is a matter of the greatest urgency. The UN is a force for good, and so are the countries who contribute their personnel so generously. But no-one is served by a failure to investigate these allegations properly. Our instinct is that it is not the UN which presents the problem here.

We, as a group committed to the DRC's well-being, and which is impressed by the changes under the present government, call for a full investigation into these allegations.