Stephen Crabb MP: In defence of the Rwanda trip

Stephen Crabb, MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire, says Cameron's visit to Rwanda is exactly the kind of the thing a potential Prime Minister should be doing.

Thirteen years ago the world abandoned Rwanda.

After 100 days of brutal and highly organised killings between April and July 1994, nearly one million rotting corpses were left strewn across this beautiful country; almost a third of all the children had been made orphans and millions of traumatised survivors sought safety in disease-ridden refugee camps.

Since then Britain has played a leading role in rebuilding Rwanda and has replaced France as its closest European friend. The UK's partnership with Rwanda is a major tick in the credit column of this current government and a key feature of our foreign policy towards the troubled but highly significant Great Lakes region of Africa.

The next Conservative Prime Minister will inherit this relationship together with a whole range of choices about how to use this relationship for the benefit of Rwandans and for the wider region. It is entirely appropriate for David Cameron to visit this country, to meet President Kagame (one of Africa's most competent leaders), to spend time with DfID, NGOs and faith organisations who deliver huge amounts of aid and to return to the UK with a deeper understanding of the problems facing Africa.

When I was in Rwanda last month with a small cross-party group of MPs I was told by some of the opposition politicians there how excited they were about the forthcoming visit of the Conservative team. There is a great need for training and education there about the role of opposition parties and I hope that one of the fruits of our Project Umubano will be to provide some encouragement and guidance to Rwanda's democratic development. It is easy for us in the UK to underestimate just how much it means to Rwandans for the Leader of the UK's main opposition party to visit their parliament and to engage with their country.

There are also some very immediate matters over which the Rwandan government will be looking for David Cameron's assistance. For example, currently within one our prisons there are four Rwandan suspected genocidaires who, according to some reports, may be responsible for the deaths of up to 100,000 people. As an opposition we have a helpful role to play in encouraging our own government to make progress on their extradition and also to put pressure on the governments of France and Belguim to be more proactive in hunting down those suspects residing within their borders. To think that a 48 hour trip into Rwanda is somehow a "jolly" - a description that appeared as a quote in a Daily Mail piece today - is frankly nuts. This is exactly the kind of visit a potential Prime Minister should be making as Parliament winds down for summer. And there is precious little that is jolly about the issues that Rwanda is still coming to terms with.

The question David Cameron faced on Sunday was whether the crisis here in the UK caused by the floods should mean cancellation of the trip. For those hundreds of thousands of people caught without water or power and whose homes and cars have been damaged, the floods are seriously bad news. Constituency MPs can be a tremendous support to their communities at times like these and it may take weeks before the lives of those affected will return to normal.

But I believe David Cameron made the right decision and for the right reasons. After spending time with his own affected community at the weekend he continued with the visit to Rwanda. To have pulled out at the last hour would have been a huge let down for that country. This is an important visit for them and for us. Flood victims in England or genocide survivors in Africa: the choice is not one over another. " There are also some very immediate matters over which the Rwandan government will be looking for David Cameron's assistance. For example, currently within one of our prisons there are four Rwandan suspected genocidaires who, according to some reports, may be responsible for the deaths of up to 100,000 people. As an opposition we have a helpful role to play in encouraging our own government to make progress on their extradition and also to put pressure on the governments of France and Belgium to be more proactive in hunting down those suspects residing within their borders.

To think that a 48 hour trip into Rwanda is somehow a "jolly" is frankly nuts. This is exactly the kind of visit a potential Prime Minister should be making as Parliament winds down for summer. And there is precious little that is jolly about the issues that Rwanda is still coming to terms with.

The question David Cameron faced on Sunday was whether the crisis here in the UK caused by the floods should mean cancellation of the trip. For those hundreds of thousands of people caught without water or power and whose homes and cars have been damaged, the floods are seriously bad news. Constituency MPs can be a tremendous support to their communities at times like these and it may take weeks before the lives of those affected will return to normal.

But I believe David Cameron made the right decision and for the right reasons. After spending time with his own affected community at the weekend he continued with the visit to Rwanda. To have pulled out at the last hour would have been a huge let down for that country. This is an important visit for them and for us.

Flood victims in England or genocide survivors in Africa: the choice is not one over another. That genocide happened on our watch. David Cameron's commitment to Rwanda is a demonstration that the assumptions and world-view that shaped the last Conservative Government's approach to Africa have been turned upside down.

That genocide happened on our watch.

David Cameron's commitment to Rwanda is a demonstration that the assumptions and world-view that shaped the last Conservative Government's approach to Africa have been turned upside down.