The Times
April 3, 2008
Jan Raath in Harare
At a meeting in Harare on Sunday election
officials had some bad news for
Zimbabwe’s generals: President Mugabe was
likely to lose.
The generals, members of the Joint Operations Command
(JOC), digested this
information and are said to have been the ones to tell
Mr Mugabe that the
vote against him was so overwhelming that any attempt to
rig the results
would not succeed.
The top generals in Zimbabwe have
always been political animals and are at
the heart of the Zanu (PF) party.
As such they have enjoyed the choicest
fruits of the President’s patronage:
they are given the best farms, drive
the newest and largest Mercedes and
4X4s, live in mansions and send their
children to school abroad. The JOC,
which was adapted from the
counter-insurgency agency of the old, white
minority Rhodesian Government,
includes the head of the spy service and has
its tentacles at all levels. It
exists, or has existed, purely to prolong
the rule of Mr Mugabe.
One group, however, led by Solomon Mujuru, a
former army commander, has been
at the head of efforts to replace Mr Mugabe
with a younger leadership for
Zanu (PF).
Other members of this
powerful group are intensely loyal to Mr Mugabe. These
include General
Constan-tine Chiwenga, the defence forces commander, who
declared that he
would not salute Morgan Tsvangirai if he came to power, and
Augustine
Chihu-ri, the police commissioner, who called the MDC leader a
Western
puppet.
Many observers believe that the MDC has got so close to victory
because it
has been allowed to and that it is the internal struggle at the
top levels
of the military that has stayed the generals’ hands.
Since
the first signs of an effective opposition in the late 1990s Mr Mugabe
has
filled senior positions in the civil service with former top
officers.
The first assault by Mr Mugabe on the MDC, in the 2000
elections, was led by
the war veterans’ militia – men and women with
experience of the guerrilla
tactics of intimidation. In the election two
years later it was the turn of
another semi-military unit he had founded –
the National Youth Training
Service.
In the past the JOC has used all
means to beat the MDC: sabotage,
propaganda, surveillance, arrest, torture
and, of course, fixing elections.
But as one Western military attaché put
it: “The economic disaster became so
bad in Zimbabwe that even the generals
have been forced to look
realistically at their future.”
The Times
April 3, 2008
Catherine Philp in Harare
He has seen
once-trusted friends desert him, disappeared from public view,
lost control
of parliament and according to his opponents, his presidency
too. But last
night, speculation mounted that Robert Mugabe would yet drag
out his endgame
with one last desperate attempt to stay in power.
Yesterday, after four
days of waiting for official results, the opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) unveiled figures handing outright
victory to their leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai. They threw down the gauntlet to
Mr Mugabe, vowing that
they would take the contest to a run-off if the
official results were rigged
to deny Mr Tsvangirai his victory.
The question is now whether Mr Mugabe
can resist the challenge to go down
fighting in a run-off, which promises to
be a humiliating and protracted
defeat, or accept the inevitable and stand
down. Pressure is mounting on Mr
Mugabe from within his own inner circle to
secure a dignified exit from
State House, so that they can avoid going down
with him should he try to
fight to the death.
Yesterday’s official
announcement that his ruling Zanu(PF) party had lost
control of the once
compliant parliament only added to the gloom in his
inner circle. Official
results for 198 of the 210 seats gave the opposition
105 and Mr Mugabe’s
ruling party 93.
But the agonising wait for the release of the
presidential results, which
enters its fifth day today, has only fuelled
fears that Mr Mugabe is still
trying to fix the outcome in his
favour.
Even Zanu (PF) have conceded that Mr Tsvangirai won the race, as
announced
through their party poll projections, and in yesterday’s Herald
newspaper,
the ruling party’s mouthpiece. But both still said neither
candidate won
more than 50 percent of the vote, paving the way for a
run-off.
Using official vote counts publicly posted outside polling
stations after
polls closed on Saturday night, the MDC declared Mr
Tsvangirai “Zimbabwe’s
next president” with 50.3 per cent of the vote. The
count gave Mr Mugabe a
distant 43.8 per cent. The remaining six per cent
went to the Zanu (PF)
defector Simba Makoni, who has already pledged his
votes in a run-off to the
MDC.
Tendai Biti, the party’s
secretary-general, said the results made a second
round run-off unnecessary
but said that they would accept one “under
protest” rather than challenge
the official results should they indicate a
different outcome.
But Mr
Biti appealed to Mr Mugabe to concede defeat, avoiding
“embarrassment” and
a prolonged political crisis for the country.
The words were carefully
chosen. Mr Mugabe’s pride is rivalled only by his
hunger for power, and
insiders have described the prospect of a run-off as
“deeply humiliating.”
The intelligence and security hierarchy who have
propped him up for nearly
three decades were said to have talked the
election commission into delaying
and massaging the presidential results
while they sought to persuade Mr
Mugabe to go to a run-off.
Mr Mugabe has not been seen or heard in public
since he voted in Saturday’s
elections, fuelling speculation in a febrile
postelection Harare. But
yesterday the official line remained defiant.
“President Mugabe is going
nowhere,” Deputy Information Minister Bright
Matonga said yesterday. “No one
is panicking.”
He dismissed the MDC
victory claim as “mischievous”, adding: “We are not
going to be rushed by
anybody. They can make statements left right and
centre, but they are merely
wasting their time.”Riot police and soldiers
continued to patrol opposition
areas of Harare and Bulawayo yesterday, but
their presence was less obvious
than a day earlier when they closed down
beer halls and bottle
shops.
By law, any run-off must be held within three weeks, raising fears
that
tensions could rise and lead to violence between opposition supporters
and
security forces. Should he cling on, Mr Mugabe could be expected to
deploy
his political shock troops – independence war veterans and his “green
bombers” youth militia – to intimidate voters. But the opposition’s
extraordinary momentum would be hard to halt. Mr Biti reminded reporters
that violent disorder was all but alien to Zimbabwe and dismissed fears that
frustration would lead to violence. “We are not worried,” he said. “There is
a lot of goodwill among the Zimbabwean people. Violence is not their
way.”
The Telegraph
Last
Updated: 11:18pm BST 02/04/2008
Robert Mugabe is unlikely
to flee from Zimbabwe for fear of being
prosecuted for war crimes, the head
of the African programme at Chatham
House, the foreign affairs think tank,
has said.
The President, who is facing the possible end of 28 years
in power, is
likely to see out his days in luxury after a dignified exit,
Alex Vines
said.
The Movement for Democratic Change, led by
Morgan Tsvangirai, was
unlikely to push for Mr Mugabe to be prosecuted,
instead opting to allow him
to leave peacefully in exchange for a smooth
transition of power, he added.
"Mr Mugabe would be looking for a
dignified exit strategy, he sees
himself as the father of the nation, the
liberation leader," Mr Vines said.
"I would expect him to stay in the
country for the time being."
The President has reportedly said he
feared being tried for war crimes
committed during his rule.
If
the 84-year-old did leave Zimbabwe, he would be unlikely to move to
another
African state, instead heading for Malaysia, where he is thought to
have
stashed much of his
wealth.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Blair, the author of Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the
Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe, describes how Mr Mugabe has ruled his
country with violence for almost three decades.
Robert Mugabe
never showed any compunction about using violence
against his opponents.
When he faced general strikes in Zimbabwe a decade
ago, it was entirely
natural for him to appear on state television and warn:
"I have many degrees
in violence."
In the 1970s, he commanded a rebel army that murdered
thousands of
innocent civilians, singling out black villagers as often as
white farmers.
Dozens of his own commanders were also jailed and tortured on
suspicion of
disloyalty.
Yet his greatest crimes came after he
won power in 1980. The massacres
which took place in the Matabeleland region
of south-west Zimbabwe between
1982 and 1987 form an indelible scar on Mr
Mugabe's rule.
The violence began when he tried to secure his grip
on power by
crushing his black opponents. Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the
Zapu party,
was the key rival. Using the presence of armed dissidents as an
excuse, Mr
Mugabe deployed a new military unit, the Fifth Brigade, to Zapu's
stronghold
in Matabeleland.
This arid area is the home of
Zimbabwe's minority Ndebele people.
Here, the Fifth Brigade promptly
unleashed a brutal terror campaign, burying
their victims in mass graves or
flinging their decomposing bodies down mine
shafts.
Investigators later compiled a meticulous report, Breaking the
Silence, that
recorded atrocities of mind-numbing horror.
One pregnant woman
described her ordeal: "They hit me in the stomach
with the butt of the gun.
The unborn child broke in pieces in my stomach. It
was God's desire that I
did not die too. The child was born afterwards,
piece by
piece."
Mr Mugabe's culpability for the reign of terror is clear.
In order to
be guilty of crimes against humanity, international law
specifies that an
individual must hold "command responsibility" for the
forces carrying out
atrocities.
The Fifth Brigade was placed
outside the army's formal command
structure and its soldiers answered
directly to him. Mr Nkomo publicly
described this unit as Mr Mugabe's
"private army", while the unit's
commander, Perence Shiri, was a former
guerrilla fighter chosen for his
personal loyalty.
Moreover, he
cannot plead ignorance of the atrocities. Instead, Mr
Mugabe publicly
endorsed Fifth Brigade's murder of civilians.
"Where men and women
provide food for dissidents, when we get there,
we eradicate them," he said.
"We don't differentiate when we fight because
we can't tell who is a
dissident and who is not."
An official inquiry appointed by the
government in 1983 heard scores
of witnesses describe mass shootings,
beatings and the burning to death of
people in huts. When it handed its
report to Mr Mugabe, he immediately
suppressed it. Releasing this vital
document might be on the agenda of
Zimbabwe's new parliament.
The death toll in the Matabeleland massacres has never been
established.
Breaking the Silence records 3,750 murders but states that the
true figure
was probably twice as high. Tens of thousands more suffered
torture,
abduction, rape or assault.
Nothing in Mr Mugabe's later rule
compared with the brutality of his
actions in Matabeleland, but in their
callous, random brutality, the
township demolitions of 2005 come
close.
In the middle of winter, Mr Mugabe decided to "clean up
Zimbabwe's
cities". Bulldozers were sent into the poorest townships of
Harare, Bulawayo
and every other urban centre and ordered to destroy
"illegal structures". In
practice, they flattened a random selection of
houses, shacks, factories,
shops, garages and businesses.
Some
had been constructed illegally - but many had not. Within a few
weeks, large
areas were razed to the ground and hundreds of thousands of
people left
homeless and destitute.
Mr Mugabe pledged to provide new and
improved accommodation, but only
a few thousand houses were built - and many
were immediately appropriated by
senior figures in the ruling Zanu-PF
party.
A UN investigation found that 700,000 people lost their
homes or
livelihoods during this "disastrous" campaign, which had been
inflicted with
"indifference to human suffering".
Mr Mugabe
disputed these findings but conceded in a television
interview that 100,000
might have been made homeless.
Coming in the midst of an economic
crisis, the township demolitions
showed Mr Mugabe's utter contempt for
Zimbabwe's urban poor. Most of them
supported the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. By wrecking their
homes and livelihoods, he took his
pitiless revenge.
But there is virtually no chance of Mr Mugabe
ever facing justice for
his many crimes.
Any new government is
likely to pledge him a quiet retirement as part
of deal for a peaceful
transition of power. In any case, there is simply no
court in which he could
be tried.
Charles Taylor, the former Liberian warlord, is presently
on trial in
The Hague. But he is appearing before a special UN court whose
only function
is to bring to justice those responsible for the civil war in
Sierra Leone.
Similarly, Slobodan Milosevic died while standing
trial before another
special court established to try those responsible for
the conflicts in the
wake of Yugoslavia's collapse.
Only the
International Criminal Court could conceivably hear a case,
but it has no
jurisdiction over crimes committed before its foundation in
July
2002.
While the Matabeleland massacres would be firmly outside its
remit,
the township demolitions would not. But nobody has yet suggested
these
amounted to crimes against humanity. After all, no one was killed by
the
bulldozers.
So Mr Mugabe will almost certainly die without
having spent any time
in the dock.
Daily Mail
Last updated at 23:09pm on
2nd April 2008
It could be only days or weeks - or, God forbid,
there's still an outside
chance it could be years - before Robert Mugabe
finally loses his fingertip
grip on power in the country he has brought to
ruin.
But one thing is already certain after Saturday's elections: from
this
moment on, the dictator is living on borrowed time in a Zimbabwe that
yearns
to see him go.
With patient dignity, voters queued at the
polling stations in their
hundreds of thousands - many of them weak with
hunger and disease - to
express their views of the monster from whom they
have endured so much.
Their message - despite all Mugabe's efforts to
distort it - is now
unmistakable.
Yes, it remains possible that by
vote-rigging, political bartering, bullying
and bribery the president will
cling on. But no amount of cheating will
disguise the truth that the last,
tattered shreds of his authority have been
stripped away.
All that is
left to him now is the hope that, when the end comes, he will
escape justice
for his 28 years of unspeakable crimes. That must not happen.
When Mugabe
came to power in 1980, feted by the British Left, the country he
inherited
on its independence from Britain was bursting with promise.
It was rich
in minerals, with efficient farms producing enough food for
export and a
growing industrial sector.
But today? After 26 years of Mugabe's
genocide, torture, corruption and the
seizure of land from white farmers,
the breadbasket of Africa has become an
economic
basket-case.
Inflation is running at more than 100,000 per cent and some
80 per cent of
the population are without jobs and hungry.
Yet,
incredibly, the West in general (and Britain in particular) has
indulged
this tyrant. We even sold him Land Rovers for his brutal police
force - and,
outrageously, in 1994 gave him an honorary knighthood.
No. When Mugabe
finally yields to the will of Zimbabwe, he cannot be allowed
to enjoy his
ill-gotten assets, stashed in hundreds of bank accounts. After
years of
shamefully turning a blind eye, the world must make its revulsion
known.
At the very least, Mugabe must be stripped of his knighthood.
And is there
any reason why he shouldn't stand trial at the International
Court in the
Hague?
Why do we stay?
As the Desert Rats prepare
for another tour of duty in Basra next month, the
end of Britain's
involvement in the shambles of Iraq looks as far away as
ever.
Only
six months ago, Gordon Brown promised that by May he would cut our
troop
numbers in Iraq to 2,500. Yet now we are told that because of
deteriorating
security, some 4,000 must remain for the foreseeable future.
Why?
The
somewhat shameful reality is our soldiers are holed up at Basra airport,
providing target practice for insurgents and provoking the irritation of
Americans for not being meaningfully involved.
Is our heroic young
soldiers' role really worth the risk to their lives? Our
troops should
either be properly involved or, if under-resourced, pulled
out.
This
token presence is the worst of all worlds.
A private matter
With
breathtaking impertinence, the Arts Council is asking artists seeking
funding for their work to disclose their sexuality on the application
forms.
What on Earth does it matter if applicants are "bisexual, gay,
heterosexual
or lesbian" - as long as their work is worth
supporting?
Painter Maggi Hambling, who describes herself as "queer",
calls the question
"insidious, insulting and quite outrageous".
We
couldn't put it better ourselves.
The Times
April 3, 2008
The world must
stand ready to rebuild the country's ruined economy
The Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission at last announced yesterday that the
ruling Zanu (PF) party had
lost its parliamentary majority. The Movement for
Democratic Change and
other opposition parties have defeated dozens of
politicians loyal to Robert
Mugabe. That result is a triumph, and testament
to the courage, patience and
determination of millions of Zimbabweans in
defying intimidation to vote
against the pampered clique that has been party
to their country's ruin. But
the commission remained silent on the fate of
the President himself. And
although the ageing despot may desperately be
seeking ways of clinging to
power, it is clear to everyone except him that
the long and obscene
dictatorship of Mr Mugabe has come to an end.
What matters now is how he
can be removed from power as swiftly and with as
little bloodshed as
possible. This cannot be done without help from outside.
Zimbabwe today is a
country broken in spirit, its people scattered, hungry
and desperately
trying to protect their families and their jobs. With every
passing day,
tensions rise and suspicion grows that Mr Mugabe and his
dwindling number of
diehard supports are plotting scenarios to thwart the
overwhelming victory
of Morgan Tsvangirai: a second run-off vote with
massive new attempts at
manipulation; a series of staged provocations and
violent incidents giving a
pretext for a state of emergency and the
annulment of the results; or a
straightforward military coup, with the
arrest of Mr Tsvangirai and
opposition politicians.
Behind the scenes, therefore, Zimbabwe's
politicians and neighbours are
urgently discussing face-saving ways to
persuade Mr Mugabe to step aside:
either to retirement in the luxury villa
he has built for himself, his
immunity from prosecution guaranteed, or to an
honorary position in the new
government, which would include a
representative of his defeated Zanu (PF).
Already African leaders have been
urged to do what they can, with Western
leaders counting on the Southern
African Development Community and President
Mbeki of South Africa in
particular, despite their pusillanimous record, if
only to avert violence
and a new flood of refugees.
It is time for the world to take a tougher
stance. David Miliband yesterday
condemned the rigged vote, the violence,
repression and spiral of decline,
and said that Britain stood ready to
support Zimbabwe in its “massive
rebuilding task”. Already contingency
planning has begun with the World Bank
and the IMF on the priority of
stabilising the economy and halting the
currency's freefall with a balance
of payment support and a tripling of
total donor support from £350 million a
year to more than £1 billion.
This ought to persuade even those too
fearful to defy Mr Mugabe that only
his departure will save their country. A
tough message is needed. President
Bush and all the Nato leaders assembled
in Bucharest must issue an
unambiguous ultimatum: if Mr Mugabe leaves
office, the world will offer
money, knowhow, investment and support; if he
defies the voters, he faces
political and economic ruin. Britain has, at
times, been too afraid of its
colonial shadow. But Zimbabwe needs its
friends to act decisively and
concertedly to enable this long overdue
transition. The world must help
Africans to end Zimbabwe's nightmare now.
The Telegraph
By
Sebastien Berger in Harare
Last Updated: 11:18pm BST
02/04/2008
It was Robert Mugabe's closest
lieutenants who first realised the
truth.
On Sunday afternoon,
as the fact and the scale of Morgan Tsvangirai's
lead in Zimbabwe's
presidential race became clear, a deputation of four of
Mr Mugabe's most
senior supporters went to see their leader.
According to Ibbo
Mandaza, national co-ordinator of the campaign of
Simba Makoni, the former
Zanu-PF stalwart who stood against Mr Mugabe, they
decided they must ask Mr
Mugabe, in office for 28 years, to step down. But
while cornered, Mr Mugabe
still inspires both fear and loyalty.
"They got to Mugabe's house
but no-one had the guts to tell him and
they came back," said Mr
Mandaza.
"He is angry," he said of the president. "First of all his
guys lied
to him that he was winning. He was being told what he wanted to
hear."
With votes for Mr Tsvangirai racking up across the country,
the ruling
party was left with three options, Mr Mandaza said.
"One is to claim a clear win. But they forgot the results outside the
polling stations and discovered they could not.
"The second
option on Sunday night was a coup."
Mr Mugabe's most trusted
security chiefs were arguing for military
intervention, he
said.
"The coup would have involved the sidelining of Mugabe. It
was not to
save Mugabe, it was to save the establishment, including the
generals
themselves."
But with Zanu-PF divided at the highest
level, cooler heads prevailed.
"Somebody just said: 'We can't do
that, not in this day and age'. They
knew any attempted coup would not have
been looked on kindly by the region.
It wouldn't last.
"The
question is whether it would have been accepted down the rank and
file. That
I doubt."
The third option, which appears to have been accepted by
Zanu-PF, was
to take the election to a second round run-off by declaring
that neither Mr
Mugabe nor Mr Tsvangirai had reached the 50 per cent
threshold.
On Sunday night, a long meeting was held between Morgan
Tsvangirai,
Simba Makoni and Arthur Mutambara, head of a dissident faction
of the MDC,
to plan their strategy.
Mr Tsvangirai and Mr Makoni
have been in extensive contact over recent
days.
"Simba Makoni
and Morgan Tsvangirai have been talking on the phone.
Our objective was to
get Mugabe out.
"If this is the final decision by Zanu-PF it means
they are up to
something," said Mr Mandaza of the re-run. "They must know
they are losing
so what are they going to do in the three
weeks?"
In the circumstances it would be impossible to rig the
second round to
the extent needed for a Mugabe win, he said, but he expected
Zanu-PF to try.
"What's important is we work together as opposition
parties to control
the rigging. We are going to join up with the MDC to make
sure that thing is
cleaned up.
"They can't change anything
now."
As Zimbabwe gears up for a final contest between the
government and
the opposition, Mr Tsvangirai has repeated his denials of
reports that the
MDC and Zanu-PF were in talks.
"There has been
no contact with the Zimbabwean government," he said.
ABC Australia
Posted 11 minutes ago
Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe's ruling party has been quick to dismiss
the Opposition's claim that
it has won the country's presidential election.
Official results show
ZANU-PF has lost its parliamentary majority and the
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) says its own results show the
opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai has gained more than 50 per cent of the
vote.
Deputy
Information Minister Bright Matonga says the claim is a ploy to
pressure the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission into releasing results before it
is
ready.
"That is wishful thinking, that is very mischievous, particularly
for Morgan
Tsvangirai," he said.
"Why can't he wait for the official
position?
"He hasn't won 50 per cent because we don't know what the
results are. They
are still being worked out and they'll be announced as
soon as they're
ready."
Earlier, frustrated at the slow work of the
electoral commission since
Saturday's joint polls, the MDC's
secretary-general Tendai Biti, told a
press conference Mr Tsvangirai had won
50.2 per cent of votes against 43.8
per cent for Mr Mugabe.
"Put
simply he has won this election ... Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is the
next
president of the Republic of Zimbabwe, without a run-off."
The latest
results from the electoral commission show Mr Mugabe's ZANU-PF
party had
lost its majority in the 210-seat parliament.
The two MDC factions now
have a combined total of 105 seats while an
independent candidate, Mr
Mugabe's former information minister Jonathan
Moyo, also retained his seat.
ZANU-PF's total currently stands at 93.
"The new parliament, with us in
the majority, is going to give the people
power and freedom through
legislation," said Mr Tsvangirai's senior aide
Nelson
Chamisa.
Meanwhile the reaction of Mr Mugabe's ministers' to the MDC
announcement was
notable for its restraint.
"Let's let the electoral
commission complete its job then we can start
talking from there,"
Information Minister Ndlovu Sikhoanyiso said.
- BBC
zimbabwejournalists.com
2nd Apr 2008 23:22 GMT
By a Correspondent
UK Parliament
House
of Commons
Wednesday 2 April 2008
Zimbabwe
The Secretary of
State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David
Miliband): The whole world
is watching events unfold in Zimbabwe, and with
your permission, Mr.
Speaker, I shall make a statement on the situation as
we understand it. I
hope and believe that the people of Zimbabwe will hear
one message from this
House today: we stand with them at this moment of
opportunity for their
country and we share their demand for a democratic
future.
For
obvious reasons the fragility of the current situation means that I and,
I
am sure, all hon. Members will want to choose our words carefully, given
the
risk that what we say will be distorted. That does not mean that there
are
not some fundamental truths that need to be expressed.
I have within the
last 30 minutes spoken to our ambassador in Harare. The
situation is
obviously fluid and a Movement for Democratic Change press
conference is in
train as we speak. Zimbabwe’s political, civic and economic
leaders are
clearly considering their next moves and each others’ next
moves. The full
results of the parliamentary elections are still unclear.
The latest tally,
as of 10 minutes ago, is that 189 seats have been declared
and 80 remain to
be declared. The two main parties are running neck and
neck, at least
according to the official figures.
There is still no formal announcement
about the presidential election. Many
hon. Members will have seen the
comments made by Opposition Leader
Tsvangirai last night. His comments and
demeanour were statesmanlike. He
committed himself to following Zimbabwean
law, providing all the more reason
for the results to be announced
promptly.
Although the situation in Harare is tense, there is no
suggestion of crowds
massing and no reports of violence. But it is not
business as usual: many
schools are still closed and people are watching and
waiting to see what
will happen. Let me assure the House that through both
political and
official channels there has been a high degree of contact and
consultation
between the UK Government and our international partners. The
Prime
Minister, Lord Malloch-Brown and I have been in touch with Presidents,
Prime
Ministers and Foreign Ministers in southern Africa and around the
world.
There is international consensus that the will of the Zimbabwean
people must
be properly revealed and respected.
Last Saturday, the
people of Zimbabwe made their choice. Outside the 9,400
polling stations,
the tallies have been posted. The Zimbabwean electoral
commission knows what
those results are and has a duty to announce them. The
delay in announcing
the outcome can be seen only as a deliberate and
calculated tactic. It gives
substance to the suspicion that the authorities
are reluctant to accept the
will of the people. They have a responsibility
to do so, and Zimbabwe’s
neighbours, who have borne a significant share of
the burden of Zimbabwe’s
collapse, have a responsibility to do all in their
power to ensure that that
occurs.
No one in the House would want me to hand ZANU-PF a propaganda
coup by
endorsing one candidate or another, or by taking it on myself to
announce
the result. In truth, in spite of what President Mugabe would want
the world
to believe, the crisis in Zimbabwe has never been about
personalities. It is
not a bilateral dispute between British and Zimbabwean
politicians or anyone
else. It is, and has always been, about the policies
that Robert Mugabe and
his Government have chosen to follow and the terrible
destruction that has
been wreaked on the Zimbabwean people. Now the choice
is between democracy
and continued chaos.
The situation preceding
these elections was shocking. The conditions for
free and fair elections
were certainly not in place. The playing field was
tilted heavily in favour
of ZANU-PF. Up to 4 million people who had fled
Zimbabwe’s crisis could not
vote. In some areas, between 18 and 20 per cent.
of those who tried to vote
were frustrated by an inaccurate electoral roll.
We will probably never know
how many dead people on that roll cast ghost
votes. In that context, it is
worth saying that if a second round of voting
is deemed necessary, it must
be held in a way that gives far greater respect
not just to our standards
but to the Southern African Development Community
electoral standards. We
remain in contact with our SADC partners on the
issue.
We do know,
however, that in spite of those problems, millions of ordinary
Zimbabweans
still queued peacefully and voted. Now they are holding their
breath: will
their country reverse the spiral of decline or exacerbate it?
The facts
speak for themselves: life expectancy has halved to an average of
34, nearly
2,500 AIDS-related deaths occur each week, inflation is
practically
incalculable and day-to-day abuse of human rights and freedoms
is
commonplace.
Britain has always supported the Zimbabwean people through
the pain of their
national trauma, and must continue to do so. We are the
second largest
bilateral donor, and spent more than £40 million last year on
aid. Our
support provided HIV treatment for more than 30,000 HIV/AIDS
patients and
helped the World Food Programme to feed up to 3 million people,
about one
quarter of Zimbabwe’s population.
We want to do more to
encourage development within Zimbabwe. When there is
real and positive
policy change on the ground, the House has my assurance
that Britain will
play a full part in supporting recovery. We know that the
Zimbabwean people
face a massive rebuilding task. We will help them to do
that, with EU and
international colleagues, but that can happen only when
and if there is a
return to real democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe.
We will
continue to do all that we can to encourage that to happen and to
encourage
other countries in the region to exert what influence they have
over the
situation in Zimbabwe. Those with the greatest influence are of
course those
closest to Zimbabwe, but we are clear that the situation will
not be one
that Africans alone have to carry the burden of supporting.
The House
will want to know that our ambassador and embassy staff are safe.
Both
UK-based and local staff are working tirelessly in very difficult
circumstances. They are in very close contact with a wide range of
Zimbabweans and stand ready to offer consular assistance to the many British
nationals in Zimbabwe.
Many hon. Members in all parts of the House
have been tireless advocates for
the true interests of Zimbabwe over many
years. The people of Zimbabwe have
suffered for too long. Every hon. Member
and every British citizen will
yearn with them for that suffering to end,
and for it to end now.
Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks) (Con): I thank
the Foreign Secretary for
coming to the House to make this statement. He
said that he hoped and
believed that the people of Zimbabwe would hear one
message from this
House—that we stand with them at this moment of
opportunity. I absolutely
support him in saying that so that they do hear
that one message from this
House, and we strongly support the Government’s
calls for the immediate and
full release of the results of the
election.
This is obviously a crucial but dangerous time for Zimbabwe. As
we saw
recently in Kenya, contested election results in highly charged
circumstances can lead to a very dangerous situation. In Zimbabwe, the
combination of brutality and repression for many years, a desperate
humanitarian crisis and decades-long stifling of political opposition create
the circumstances of a political pressure cooker.
As the Foreign
Secretary said, it is not about personalities. Mugabe is the
author of
Zimbabwe’s catastrophe, but it will no doubt take much more than
his
departure for the country to recover. However, there is now hope for
change:
the Mugabe Government may attempt to cling to power, but they may
just be
unable to resist the force of an overwhelming public rejection—if
that is
what has happened in the election.
I turn now to some specific questions.
Is the Foreign Secretary aware of
whether President Mugabe has spoken to any
of the leaders of neighbouring
countries? It does not seem so, but has he
given those leaders any
indication of his intentions?
There have been
reports of negotiations between the Zimbabwean Government
and Opposition
leaders. Has the Foreign Secretary been able to confirm any
of those
reports? He rightly referred to our very hard working embassy
officials, but
have they been able to speak to Morgan Tsvangirai or his
senior colleagues?
What assessment has he made of the threat to Opposition
figures, many of
whom are reportedly in hiding in anticipation of a
crackdown?
One of
our immediate concerns, of course, is the safety of British citizens
in
Zimbabwe in the event of an outbreak of violence. The Foreign Secretary
touched on that in his statement, but will he assure the House that our
ambassador in Harare has well developed contingency plans if the situation
suddenly deteriorates? Even before the crisis, it took Z$10 million to buy a
loaf of bread, and 4 million people were dependent on food aid. Are the
British Government liaising with the UN about preparations for emergency
food and medical support, as well as for coping with a sudden outflow of
refugees into neighbouring countries?
The Foreign Secretary mentioned
continuing British support for the people of
Zimbabwe. Does he agree that we
must prepare actively now for the
rehabilitation of Zimbabwe at the
appropriate time—that is, when it is set
on a clear course towards the rule
of law and democracy? Whenever that
happens, does he accept that Britain,
with the international community, must
be preparing a major programme of
assistance now?
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that such a programme
could include holding
a donor conference, under the auspices of the European
Union and the African
Union, to develop a programme of assistance that is
tailored to Zimbabwe’s
needs? The programme could include setting up a
contact group to provide
sustained diplomatic support, and an offer to
assist Zimbabwe in the move
from being a culture of violence to one governed
by the rule of law. That
could be achieved by supporting thorough reform of
the security sector,
training officials in civilian policing and human
rights, and assisting with
the orderly return of the Zimbabwean refugees to
whom the right hon.
Gentleman referred. Could not that programme of
assistance, in the event of
a major deterioration in the situation in
Zimbabwe, also include making
preparations for an international observer
mission or over-the-horizon
humanitarian force, under the auspices of the AU
and backed by the major
powers in the world?
Does the Foreign
Secretary agree that there might be something of a golden
hour—a window of
opportunity—when the international community ought to be
prepared to take
rapid and decisive steps to help the people of Zimbabwe in
rebuilding their
country’s economy and society? To succeed, that country
will need support
from its neighbours, international organisations and its
friends. Will he do
his utmost to ensure that all of those stand ready to
help?
David
Miliband: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his words
today, not
least because the speed of change in the situation in Zimbabwe
has made it
difficult to give him as much advance notice of the contents of
my statement
as would normally be the case. A number of his questions would
be very
interesting to discuss, although probably not in the full glare of
publicity
in the House of Commons, so I hope that he will accept the
following
answers.
I think that the right thing to say about President Mugabe is
that he has
been conspicuous by his absence from the air and telephone
waves. The right
hon. Gentleman mentioned reports of negotiations, and we
have seen them as
well. In my statement, I said that senior figures in
Zimbabwe were watching
and waiting, and it is clear that discussions have
been taking place both
within and between parties.
The right hon.
Gentleman made an important point about the security
situation and the
security of Opposition figures; that is obviously a great
source of concern.
There is also the issue of the security of Zimbabweans of
all backgrounds.
He asked about consular planning. Of course we try to stay
in close touch
with as many as possible of the 10,000 or 12,000 British
nationals in
Zimbabwe. We have reached some far outlying areas, but of
course we cannot
be complacent, given some of the doomsday scenarios that
have been mooted. I
can assure him that there has been a serious degree of
activity on our part,
and on the part of the Department for International
Development, to deal
with that contingency.
The other side of the coin is, of course, a
brighter future for Zimbabwe. As
I suggested in my statement, it is
important that the whole international
community is ready, when it has a
decent partner Government in Harare, to
take part in the sort of
comprehensive economic, social, political and
security engagements that will
help to rehabilitate—I think that was the
right hon. Gentleman’s word—the
country. The rehabilitation will be on a
scale not seen by almost any
country for a long time. I cannot remember the
exact levels of inflation in
the Weimar Republic, but he mentioned that a
loaf of bread cost Z$10
million; I think that four weeks ago it was Z$1
million. That is a degree of
chaos that is almost unknown. However, I can
certainly assure him that
discussions are taking place.
It is incumbent on the Government to try to
prepare for all eventualities.
One can never have perfect foresight, but it
is important to refer to the
second round of elections that might be deemed
necessary. If they are, we
want them to take place on a fairer and freer
basis. The humanitarian
situation also needs to be prepared for as far as
possible, and I am
grateful for the fact that on that matter, at least,
there is cross-party
support.
Mike Gapes (Ilford, South) (Lab/Co-op):
When the change in Zimbabwe comes,
there will be, as the Foreign Secretary
says, 4 million people who are
outside their country. Many of them are in
South Africa, but there are quite
a large number of Zimbabweans in this
country. Will he have urgent
discussions with his colleagues in other
Departments, including the
Department for International Development, and
with the people responsible
for the Border and Immigration Agency, about
providing assistance and help,
in a careful manner, to those
Zimbabweans—doctors, nurses, teachers and
others—who wish to go back to
Zimbabwe to help to rebuild their democratic
country?
David Miliband:
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are not yet
ready to cross that
bridge, but hopefully the time will soon come when we
are, and I assure him
that we will seek to do so in an effective and
efficient way.
Mr.
Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD): Although the House will
clearly
want to debate Zimbabwe, and although I understand why the Foreign
Secretary
felt that he needed to make this statement today, in doing so does
he not
run the risk of being deliberately misinterpreted? Will he share with
the
House the exact reasons why he decided to make the statement, and why he
did
not contact the Opposition parties to see whether we would agree on
whether
to delay the statement? Will he reassure the Opposition parties that
when
there is something solid to comment on he will update us, especially
during
the recess?
The whole House will share the great hope and excitement,
expressed by many
voices coming out of Zimbabwe through blogs and other
media, that we may be
about to witness historic, positive change in that
wonderful country, which
was brought to its knees by misrule of the most
odious kind. I therefore
agree with the Foreign Secretary that the
Zimbabwean electoral commission
must publish all the election results
without further delay. Is not the most
striking and fantastic aspect of the
Zimbabwean general election the strong
showing of the opposition parties,
despite the massive electoral fraud and
despite the political corruption?
May I therefore associate my right hon.
and hon. Friends with the Foreign
Secretary’s expression of solidarity with
the people of Zimbabwe? We have a
shared belief that the true democratic
will of the Zimbabwean people must be
heard and acted on. As I have made
clear, I understand that the Foreign
Secretary wishes to tread carefully,
but will he confirm that the targeted
EU sanctions will be maintained and
toughened if the current regime tries to
hold on to power in the face of a
confirmed democratic verdict?
The
Foreign Secretary has begun to outline some of the Government’s thinking
on
the help that Britain and the international community are already
organising
for a fresh Government. Will he assure the House that such
support for
recovery and reconstruction will be rapid and generous? Does he
recognise
that there must be no delay in providing support? Proposals such
as new
World Bank support and donor conferences are of course sensible, but
assuming that those proposals go ahead, will he ensure that matters are so
organised that international pledges of help actually materialise once the
summit headlines have gone, as the record in Iraq and Afghanistan is not
encouraging?
Finally, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the
support that the
international community supplies also flows into Zimbabwe’s
neighbours, as
their populations and economies have sheltered the vast
majority of the
refugees and exiles escaping Mugabe’s tyranny?
David
Miliband: I hope I may suggest, in the nicest possible way, that the
fact
that the hon. Gentleman has been able to ask four or five perfectly
sensible
questions shows that perhaps it was not completely ridiculous to
make a
statement today. However, I do not want to fall out with him about
that. I
will check with my office, but I would not want it to stand on the
record
that there had been no contact with the Opposition parties over the
last two
days; it is important that there is contact.
The hon. Gentleman made an
important point: one reason for being here today
is the fact that the recess
beckons, and I shall ensure that we stay in
touch, even if not in quite such
proximity, over the next two weeks.
The hon. Gentleman tempts me into a
series of perfectly legitimate
hypothetical situations, either where
democratic will is frustrated and
sanctions continue or where democratic
will is respected and rehabilitation
and reconstruction are necessary on a
grand scale. It is important,
particularly given what he said about the
danger of misrepresentation, that
we keep saying that the onus is on the
Zimbabwean electoral commission to
announce the results and that the
international community shoulder its
responsibilities as it does so,
although we must be clear that we are
prepared for a range of eventualities.
I hope he understands that to go
beyond that could be seen as not terribly
helpful. The hon. Gentleman’s
point about the impact of Zimbabwe on its
neighbours is important, however,
and many people will scratch their heads
at how countries surrounding
Zimbabwe have had to cope with such an influx
of Zimbabwean refugees and how
they have tried to manage the politics, as
well as the social and economic
consequences, of that.
I can assure
the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State for
International Development
and I try to look at southern Africa regionally,
as well as nationally and
locally, in relation to how our aid and other
programmes work. We will
continue to do so.
Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South) (Lab): First, may
I endorse everything
the Foreign Secretary has said and, secondly, put to
him the following? One
of the few things that Mr. Mugabe has been successful
at is representing his
difficulties as a bilateral dispute between him and
the UK and a legacy of
colonialism. He has succeeded in convincing many of
his African colleagues
of that. Therefore, those who consider themselves
friends of Zimbabwe
should, as my right hon. Friend said a moment ago, be
cautious in what they
say at this delicate time to ensure that our position
is not misrepresented,
as it will be if we put a foot wrong.
David
Miliband: My hon. Friend speaks with the authority of a former
Minister for
Africa, and in short I agree with him. I know that he is a true
friend of
the Zimbabwean people, and in everything he has said and done he
has shown
that.
Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con): It certainly appears
that the
prayers of those of us in the House who have taken an interest in
Zimbabwe
over many years may finally have been answered and that, despite an
election
that was clearly anything but free and fair, a majority of the
people of
Zimbabwe have clearly indicated that they want change. I agree
with
everything the Foreign Secretary said, as I do with what my right hon.
Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) said.
Will the
Foreign Secretary give the House further information about the
immediate aid
that we can give to the people, not a Government, of Zimbabwe
to reduce
starvation and to help in relation to health and with AIDS, as
well as the
problems associated with it? That would give them hope that what
they have
done so bravely will be rewarded by a country that was in part
responsible
for bringing Mr. Mugabe to power.
David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman
speaks with real passion, born of long
engagement with the struggles of the
people of Zimbabwe, or long sympathy
with their recent struggles. He will
know that the aid programme is now
almost £50 million. It is paid through
the United Nations, whose role was
highlighted earlier.
The best
thing might be to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
for
International Development to put a note in the Library before the rise
of
the House tomorrow afternoon. I hope that there will be a double purpose
in
that: first, to inform hon. Members, but also to help to make it clear to
the British people what difference their tax money is making today to the
people of Zimbabwe.
Mr. Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab): Does the Foreign
Secretary agree that one fact
is crystal clear—Mugabe has lost? First, if he
had won, he would
triumphantly have proclaimed that fact, as he did on all
previous occasions.
Secondly, for the first time we have an aggregation by
independent monitors
of results posted up outside local polling stations,
and they show that he
has lost. That being the case, it is vital that the
international community
stand together with the UN, the European Union and
the southern African
countries to ensure that an orderly transition of power
takes place, and
that there is an end to the prevarication and, frankly, the
complicity with
Mugabe’s murderous rule, which there has been from Beijing
to southern
Africa for far too long. Mugabe has shown consistently that he
will not go
unless he has no alternative but to go. Quiet diplomacy has
never worked
with him.
David Miliband: My right hon. Friend, I am
sure, is right about the
significance of international unity, and seeking
that international unity
across the EU and the southern African countries is
important. I very much
concur about the significance and stress that he
placed on the role of the
civil society organisation ZENS—the Zimbabwe
Election Support Network—and
the highly innovative mobile phone-based
photography it has produced of
results posted outside polling stations,
under quite some threat to the
individual security of its members. I choose
my words carefully: like my
right hon. Friend, I have seen the results that
came out of the sample—540
of 9,400—that the civil society organisation
chose.
There will be time for a post mortem on how we got here, and no
doubt there
will be different views on which countries played what role. At
the moment,
however, I would prefer to stick with the importance that my
right hon.
Friend placed on unity and the role of civil society
organisations.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife) (LD): I commend the
Foreign Secretary
for his restraint. Does he accept that although we here
may feel a sense of
responsibility, the harsh truth is that our influence is
necessarily limited
by the fact that we are the former colonial power? Is it
not therefore the
case that these events are a test for Zimbabwe and its
people, but that, in
a political sense, they are a real test for the
countries of southern
Africa—in particular, South Africa? Will he assure us
that he has taken
every opportunity to communicate our views to the
Government of that country
and, in particular, to Mr. Mbeki?
David
Miliband: The right hon. and learned Gentleman raises an important
point. As
I think the Leader of the House said at Prime Minister’s questions
today,
our Prime Minister spoke to President Mbeki on Monday. I am sure that
the
right hon. and learned Gentleman would agree that that conversation is
about
not only communicating our views, which is the phrase he used, but
trying to
discuss with President Mbeki how both our countries can play an
appropriate
role in addressing this situation. I am sure the right hon. and
learned
Gentleman agrees with that.
As I said in my statement, the people who
have suffered most are those in
Zimbabwe. Those who know best the need for
change are in Zimbabwe, but of
course the neighbours close to Zimbabwe are
greatly affected by these
events.
In respect of our own role, it is
important that we do not in any way—I know
that the right hon. and learned
Gentleman would not do this—fall into the
trap that was highlighted by my
hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South
(Mr. Mullin). We should not say
things that play in the wrong way.
Equally, we should not be at all
ashamed of the aid and other programmes
that we have sent to Zimbabwe over
the last 28 years, destined to help the
people of that country. In fact, we
should try to be proud and to stand up
for the fundamental truths that we
have tried to express in the actions that
we have taken. That is a difficult
balance to strike, and I know that that
is what the right hon. and learned
Gentleman was referring to. Certainly, it
is the balance that we are trying
to strike. We are concerned about the
situation in Zimbabwe because of the
wrongs that are being done to people
who deserve better.
Kate Hoey
(Vauxhall) (Lab): I welcome the statement. This is an opportunity
for us to
send a simple message of support to the people of Zimbabwe without
getting
into any of the details that might be awkward. I also welcome the
fact that
both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have spent a
great deal of
time over the past few days on the telephone doing the work
necessary to
keep the international community and the European Union
together on the
issue. Does he agree—this follows on a little from the
previous
question—that the role of South Africa in the next couple of days
will be
crucial, and can he assure me and all those in this country who have
supported South Africa and who have links with South Africa and President
Mbeki that this is the opportunity for President Mbeki to show that he is a
true world statesman?
David Miliband: My hon. Friend, like the hon.
Member for Macclesfield (Sir
Nicholas Winterton), has played a valiant role
in highlighting the situation
in Zimbabwe and campaigning for effective
international action on the issue.
The international unity to which she
refers was brought home to me at the
meeting that I held in Paris on Monday.
When I suggested to my six EU
colleagues that we should interrupt a meeting
about the French European
presidency to talk about the situation in
Zimbabwe, they wanted that to be
the first item on the agenda because they
saw the importance of it. I took
heart from that that the matter is not seen
just as a bilateral issue. Of
course my hon. Friend is right that South
Africa has the opportunity to be a
powerhouse, economically and politically,
for the whole of southern Africa,
and the partnership with South Africa is
extremely important. It is
important to register the fact that many South
Africans would say that the
elections would not have happened at all without
their intervention.
Hopefully, those elections will allow the democratic
will of the Zimbabwean
people to be expressed.
Mr. Michael Ancram
(Devizes) (Con): I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s
statement. Although we
must indeed be cautious about what we say today,
those many of us in the
House who have campaigned over the years for the
democratic rights of the
Zimbabwean people must hope and pray that this is
the end of the long dark
night of Zimbabwe and the breaking of a new
democratic dawn. The lesson of
history is that democracy can very quickly be
undermined by chaos, and that
the only way that can be avoided, as we have
learned painfully in another
area, is by having a comprehensive plan for
reconstruction and aid in place,
to be put into action immediately. While we
wait for the result, can the
Foreign Secretary, along with his international
colleagues, begin to put
that plan together so that once democracy is
restored in Zimbabwe, as I hope
it will be, there is no delay before that
plan goes into
action?
David Miliband: The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes an
important
point. I think he agrees with me that it is possible to be
diplomatic in
what one says without obscuring the fundamental truths that
need to be
expressed. He has expressed them in his own way. I have expressed
the same
sentiment. The shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for
Richmond,
Yorks (Mr. Hague), referred earlier to Kenya. We want to try and
avoid a
Kenya situation. We are in a pre-Kenya situation in one way, which
could
easily become a Kenya situation, with the violence to which the right
hon.
and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) was referring. That is a
huge
challenge. Every time we describe the chaos that has taken place in
Zimbabwe
over the past few years, we dramatise the difficulties of precisely
the sort
of operation that he mentioned, but he can be assured that although
we are
trying to engage on the immediate issue, we have an eye on tomorrow
as well
as on today. We will do our best in that respect.
Derek Wyatt
(Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab): I thank the Foreign Secretary
for his
sensitive approach to the matter. I agree with my right hon. Friend
the
Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) that had President Mugabe won, we would have
known about it by now. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary may not be
able to answer this question exactly, but I hope he will understand what I
am trying to say. Mugabe has had five days to move his money, resources,
diamonds and the oil that he owns outside the country. Can my right hon.
Friend reassure us that all the international banks will have a letter from
us if not today, then tomorrow, asking them to search the electronic records
to make sure that no money is moved in any of the hundreds of accounts that
Mugabe owns, especially those in Cairo?
David Miliband: The important
thing to say is that our focus is on the
interests of the people of
Zimbabwe. That is the foundation of what we are
doing. It is better if I
just say that.
Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): Can the
Foreign Secretary
outline further what the Government will do to help the
development of
proper democracy in Zimbabwe and a move away from the
corruption that has
been endemic in that nation? Will he indicate what steps
we can take to try
and ensure that the 4 million refugees who had to leave
Zimbabwe are allowed
to return to help democracy flourish in that benighted
land?
David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is
worth
remarking just how deep the democratic spirit is in Zimbabwe. Despite
everything that has been thrown at them, far from forgetting how to vote or
dispensing with their democratic rights, millions of people were determined
to vote.
Sir Menzies Campbell: They were queuing.
David Miliband:
The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir
Menzies Campbell)
is right. The Zimbabwean people’s faith in the ballot box
has, remarkably,
been undimmed by the traumas and travails that they have
been through. In
some ways, the nurturing of the democratic spirit is far
ahead of the
nurturing of democratic institutions in that country. In
respect of
democratic institutions, I know that the hon. Member for East
Londonderry
(Mr. Campbell) is committed to the work of the Westminster
Foundation and
other party-to-party links, which are important in building a
decent civil
society. That will be very important in the difficult task of
reconstruction.
Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab): I warmly welcome
the statement made by
the Foreign Secretary today and the fact that he and
the Prime Minister have
telephoned so many African leaders. May I press the
point made by the
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee? Will the
Foreign Secretary speak
to the Home Secretary about the Zimbabwean citizens
in this country, many of
whom do not wish to go back until the situation is
secure? Will he ensure
that there is no change in Government policy and
there will be no removals
until the situation is secure?
David
Miliband: I am happy to speak to my right hon. Friend the Home
Secretary
about the matter in due course. It has been a pervading aspect of
all our
discussions that no one should do anything precipitate. That is the
approach
that we will take.
Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West) (Con): There will be
a great welcome when
Zimbabwe again becomes a full member of the
Commonwealth. When the election
results come, may I commend to the Foreign
Secretary two quick words? The
first is from Kenneth Kaunda, who said when
he stopped being President of
Zambia, “You win some, you lose some,” and
secondly, the words of the Lord
Privy Seal twenty-six years ago who, when
criticised for the result of the
elections after Lancaster house, said,
“With free and fair elections, you
can’t always predict the
result.”
David Miliband: Those are good points. An hon. Member referred
earlier to
the result that we had produced in the first elections of
Zimbabwe. The
result was produced by the Zimbabwean people, but the
democratic spirit has
lived on. Although I have been lucky enough in my
political lifetime only to
win some, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that
one wins some and loses
some. Hopefully, we will not be able to enjoy that
experience in the near
future.
Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central)
(Lab): During 2004 the House of Commons
Foreign Affairs Committee was
somewhat surprised, during a visit to South
Africa, at the level of support
for President Mugabe and the criticism of
the United Kingdom for the
comments that we were making at the time in
criticising his regime. African
leaders have acquiesced in Mugabe’s tenure
of office over the past few
years. It is crucial—I echo calls from other
Members around the House—that
my right hon. Friend does all he can to engage
those leaders and, if there
is a result that represents the return of
democracy to Zimbabwe, to ensure
that it is implemented. That is the key. At
present, democracy no longer
exists in Zimbabwe.
David Miliband: My hon. Friend leads me towards an
important point. The
temptations of the megaphone are very large indeed,
especially where
terrible things are being done, but sometimes the megaphone
is not the best
tool of diplomacy. Equally, to be timid is not right. To be
silent is
therefore to become complicit. The challenge for us all is to find
a way to
be effective without resorting to the megaphone which, in the end,
becomes
ineffective. We all need to recognise my hon. Friend’s point about
the
striking support that continues or previously continued to exist for
Robert
Mugabe. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr.
Hain),
there will come a time for analysis. One of the things that will come
out of
that is that the megaphone that plays well here does not necessarily
play
well in the place that really matters. The challenge for us all is to
make
sure that we find the right implement.
Mr. Paul Keetch
(Hereford) (LD): In his discussions, has the Foreign
Secretary had time to
speak to President Seretse Khama Ian Khama, who was
sworn in as President of
Botswana only yesterday? I know that the President
is a close personal
friend of the Secretary of State for International
Development. Will the
Foreign Secretary be specific about the Commonwealth?
If and when Zimbabwe
returns to the road of democracy, as the Foreign
Secretary describes it,
will it be welcomed back into the Commonwealth
immediately? That is one
organisation to which the front-line states do
belong and it could really
participate in the rebuilding of civil society in
Zimbabwe.
David
Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. In answering
the hon.
Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley), I did not give due
attention to
that issue. This is an opportunity for the Commonwealth to show
its real
worth in the modern age. I will certainly be in touch with the new
Commonwealth secretary-general, who started yesterday, at the appropriate
time.
I believe in the Commonwealth. An organisation that covers a
quarter of the
world’s population—north, east, south and west, and all races
and
religions—has the opportunity to show what it means for different
countries
to work together and make the phrase “the international community”
mean
something. This situation is a good example.
I think that I am
right in saying that it was Zimbabwe that pulled out of
the Commonwealth,
rather than the Commonwealth that kicked out Zimbabwe in
the beginning. But
I very much hope that, first, a new Government in
Zimbabwe would want to
rejoin the Commonwealth, and secondly, that the
Commonwealth would give the
country a very warm embrace.
Ms Sally Keeble (Northampton, North) (Lab):
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s
statement. Although I recognise the need
for caution, does he not agree that
the international community has a key
role to play in standing absolutely
firm and sending a clear message to the
authorities in Zimbabwe that we
recognise that this is a defining moment in
the country’s history, and it is
inconceivable that there cannot be change
of some sort? There is also a role
for us to step up to the plate with the
funds and the support for
development. I am sure that, with those, the many
extremely able and
talented Zimbabweans will more than succeed in rebuilding
their country.
David Miliband: I agree with my hon. Friend, who knows a
lot about these
issues. She is absolutely right about the potential of the
country. It is a
tragedy for any country to do as badly as Zimbabwe; it is a
double tragedy
when it has the natural resources and people to make a great
success of
itself.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold) (Con): Will
the Foreign Secretary
confirm that there is enormous good will between the
ordinary people of the
United Kingdom and the ordinary people of Zimbabwe,
no matter how they
voted? Will he also agree that the front-line Southern
African Development
Community states have an important role to play, in
particular in reversing
the brain drain—to encourage ordinary hard-working
people to go back to
Zimbabwe and build the country back to its former
success?
David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes good points. As I said,
we do not
want to do anything precipitate. However, the outflux of refugees
to the
neighbouring countries has certainly been a huge drain on Zimbabwe
and a
huge burden for South Africa and other neighbouring countries. It is
important that Zimbabwe returns to the equilibrium that it
deserves.
Ann Winterton (Congleton) (Con): What direct contacts has the
Foreign
Secretary had with his opposite numbers in the front-line states at
this
critical time before the election results are formally announced, so
that
they may encourage recognition of the wish of the Zimbabwean people for
the
rule of law and democracy?
David Miliband: I am happy to give one
of a number of examples. The first
call that I had was with the Foreign
Minister of Tanzania. Our conversation
was precisely about the respective
responsibilities of the states closest to
Zimbabwe. The Minister’s President
was deeply engaged on the issue. I shared
with the Minister our hopes for
the resolution of the situation, and we had
a strong measure of agreement
about the respective responsibilities of the
different countries
concerned.
Mr. Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con): In the past
few days,
constituents of mine with strong connections to the rural areas of
Zimbabwe
have brought me accounts of orphanages and elderly people’s homes
in dire
distress. In some cases, staff have already left and elderly people,
often
with serious geriatric conditions, are left wandering around to try to
feed
themselves. The children in the orphanages are left untended and, in
many
cases, unfed.
May I echo the plea of my right hon. Friend the
Member for Richmond, Yorks
(Mr. Hague) to the Government? When the will of
the people of Zimbabwe is
known and, as we all hope, Mugabe is removed, a
programme of emergency
relief must be immediately available from this
country and we must not
forget the elderly people’s homes and orphanages,
particularly in the often
forgotten rural areas.
David Miliband: My
earlier comment to the shadow Foreign Secretary about the
particular needs
of British—as it happens—nationals in far-flung areas was a
reference
precisely to the issue of children and, especially, elderly
people. I would
prefer not to wait in respect of elderly or young people who
are in the
situation that the hon. and learned Gentleman describes; if he
gets the
details of those cases to my office, I will forward them to the
embassy in
Harare straight away. There is already a food aid programme with
significant
British taxpayers’ money behind it. It is administered through
the UN. We
need to know who the people whom the hon. and learned Gentleman
mentions
are, and find out why they are not part of the humanitarian support
network.
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con): Some of us warned many
years ago that
Mr. Mugabe was not a fit person to be entrusted with the
governance of
Zimbabwe. We have looked on with increasing dismay and horror
as he has
systematically gone about destroying his country—almost with the
connivance
of the South African Government, as the right hon. Member for
Neath (Mr.
Hain) said.
May I ask the Foreign Secretary a specific
question about what he said about
aid? Will he ensure that the British
taxpayer, having already contributed a
substantial amount of money to
Zimbabwe, does not contribute more aid unless
it is specifically linked to
good governance in Zimbabwe in future?
David Miliband: The position that
my right hon. Friend the International
Development Secretary and I have
taken consistently is that the amount of
aid should be governed by the
situation of the people of Zimbabwe and our
ability to make a difference
with that aid. As the hon. and learned Member
for Torridge and West Devon
(Mr. Cox) suggested in the previous question, we
would not want to stand
aside if pressing needs could be met through
available aid.
As I keep
on referring to the UN, I should say that we are not paying money
through
the Zimbabwean Government. If the concern of the hon. Member for
Aldershot
(Mr. Howarth) is that our money is being used for illegal or
corrupt
purposes, I should tell him that significant measures are taken to
avoid
that.
Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con): Although nothing that we say or
do today
in the House should in any way endanger attempts to persuade Mugabe
to
retire peacefully, will the Foreign Secretary reassure the House that the
Government will not condone any deal that would eventually put Mugabe beyond
the reach of The Hague?
David Miliband: Our position on that issue is
well known; we are very
committed to the role of the authorities at The
Hague. I do not want to get
into the issue of individual negotiations and
discussions, but I can
certainly say that they are not something in which I
am involved.
Mr. Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con): Those of us who have
been involved in
this issue for many years might wish in our hearts to see a
Ceausescu
moment, when the world sees fear in the eyes of a despot. However,
like all
of us in the House, I recognise that such emotions are
self-indulgent. Does
the Foreign Secretary agree that, looking forward, one
of the most important
things that we have to do is stop the Zimbabwe central
bank printing money
like confetti? To do that, we need to implement the
International Monetary
Fund plan on which Mugabe reneged some time ago. Does
the Foreign Secretary
agree that that will require huge will from the
international community? It
is something that we really can do to bring
about a rapid turnaround—I
hope—in the Zimbabwean economy.
David
Miliband: The situation has got significantly worse since that plan
was
rejected; I would want to be sure that the plan was appropriate to the
circumstances. However, I know that my right hon. Friend the International
Development Secretary, and the Chancellor when he goes to the IMF spring
meetings, will ensure that the issue will be on the agenda so that there is
a proper plan when the time comes.
PRIME MINISTER
The Prime
Minister was asked—
Engagements
Mr. Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab): If
he will list his official engagements for
Wednesday 2 April.
The Leader
of the House of Commons (Ms Harriet Harman): I have been asked to
reply.
Before listing my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s
engagements, I am
sure that the whole House will wish to join me in sending
our profound
condolences to the family and friends of the two Royal Marines
who were
killed in Afghanistan on Sunday, Lieutenant John Thornton and
Marine David
Marsh. We owe them both a deep debt of gratitude. As the House
will be
aware, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is today in
Bucharest,
Romania, for the NATO Heads of State and Government summit
meeting.
Mr. Joyce: In a few days, the all-party group on the great lakes
region of
Africa will visit Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
both of
which have proper, legitimate, democratically elected Governments.
Does my
right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is, today, time for Mr.
Robert
Mugabe to accept that the people of Zimbabwe deserve no
less?
Ms Harman: I commend my hon. Friend on the work that he does in his
all-party group. He is absolutely right: the whole House will want to
express its solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe and its concern that they
should have their democratic choice respected and recognised. Hon. Members
in all parts of the House have raised the plight of the people in Zimbabwe.
Four million people have been forced to flee that country. The average life
expectancy is now down to 34 and the economy is in ruins, but today the eyes
of the world are on Zimbabwe, which stands at a turning point. Robert Mugabe
must respect the decision of his people.
Mr. William Hague (Richmond,
Yorks) (Con): I join the Leader of the House in
paying tribute to Lieutenant
John Thornton and Marine David Marsh, who were
killed in Afghanistan on
Sunday, and to the soldier who was killed in Iraq
last Wednesday—a further
reminder of the sacrifices and service of our armed
forces.
On a
lighter note, I should like to congratulate the Leader of the House on
being
the first female Labour Member ever to answer Prime Minister’s
questions.
She must be proud, three decades on, to be following in the
footsteps of
Margaret Thatcher, whom we on the Conservative Benches, and the
Prime
Minister, so much admire. I have just one question on Zimbabwe before
the
Foreign Secretary’s statement at 12.30 pm. Will the Leader of the House
make
it clear, on behalf of the Prime Minister, that Britain wants to send
the
clearest possible signal that the world will be there to help the people
of
Zimbabwe, on top of what she has just rightly said, and that there will
be a
comprehensive plan to assist them, whenever they are able, to move away
from
corruption and dictatorship, to the rule of law and democracy?
Ms Harman:
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his congratulations, but I
would like
to ask him: why he is asking the questions today? He is not the
shadow
Leader of the House; the shadow Leader of the House is sitting next
to him.
Is this the situation in the modern Conservative party—that women
should be
seen but not heard? If I may, perhaps I could offer the shadow
Leader of the
House a bit of sisterly advice: she should not let him get
away with
it.
Hon. Members: More!
Ms Harman: On the question of Zimbabwe, I
absolutely endorse the right hon.
Gentleman’s comments, and I do so on
behalf of the Government. This
Government are the second biggest donor to
Zimbabwe and we stand ready to
step up that support. We will work with the
international community, but it
is also right to focus on South Africa and
Africa to help find a solution to
the problem. My right hon. Friend the
Prime Minister has spoken to Thabo
Mbeki and to Kofi Annan; he will work to
make sure that pressure is put on
Robert Mugabe to respect the democratic
choice of his people.
ABC
The Country's Affluent White
Community Reacts to the Deadlock Following
Election
Reporter's
Notebook
HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 2, 2008
It is rather easy to find the
latest and largest Sony high-definition
television in Harare, Zimbabwe. Or
perhaps you are looking for a pair of
limited re-edition Nike tennis
shoes?
Whatever you are interested in buying, a short drive to Sam Levy's
Village
will do the trick. This is a sprawling outdoor mall located in the
affluent
Burrowdale district of Harare, where families can spend the whole
day
getting lost in the various red-brick paved pathways.
Mr. Mercer,
a white employee at an audio and video store, stands in front of
his largest
Sony television screen.
He does not move as he watches the report. After
a moment he lowers the
volume and steps away from the television. "It's like
watching a film. It's
pure fiction. All of it."
Says another store
employee, also white: "The good news is that the
opposition now has control
over the parliament. Everyone now knows the
numbers. Math does not
lie."
Speaking of math, whites make up less than 1 percent of the total
population
in Zimbabwe. And they make up more than 80 percent of Zimbabwe's
upper
class.
"Life must go on," says Beth, a thin young white woman who
is the manager of
a shoe store in the outdoor mall. "I can't let it affect
me."
Boxes in hand, Beth walks towards the stockroom, saying, "I will be
back
tomorrow. No matter what happens."
Until a decade ago, the
minority white population controlled the majority of
the once-lucrative
agricultural industry. That came to an end when Robert
Mugabe enforced his
infamous Land Reform Act, which, in effect, stripped the
white farmers of
their property and placed it into the hands of blacks.
Yet unemployment in
Zimbabwe is at an all-time high, affecting about 90
percent of the country's
population.
Back in the audio and video store, another white employee
explains the
situation. "Our shelves are not empty because no people are
buying, they are
empty because it is very difficult for us to import the
products.
"Bush says he will come to Zimbabwe if Mugabe is gone," he
continues. "And
the British prime minister would love to come here, too. But
instead of them
coming, all they do is send sanctions."
The
widespread rumor of a possible runoff election enters the conversation
as
one of the employees, who is white, reads a text message on his cell
phone.
"But what does that mean? Runoff or no runoff?" asks the other
employee.
No one says anything for a moment.
Finally, the white
manager of the store speaks: "So what if the opposition
wins? They may end
up doing the same thing, going down the same road."
www.theherald.co.uk
MICHAEL SETTLE
April 03 2008
The UK, along with international partners, is
considering a £1bn annual aid
package for Zimbabwe, a tripling of the
current assistance, should Robert
Mugabe be swept from power and replaced by
a responsible new government.
The Herald was told that food and medical
supplies as well as a range of
experts are ready to go to help rebuild the
state should the will of its
people be recognised.
However, Britain,
as the former colonial ruler, will not act alone but in
partnership with the
wider international community.
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
02 April
2008
Some in Zimbabwe are already looking past the
elections and hoping for an
economic rescue program under a new government,
presumably with multilateral
assistance.
In the meantime, the present
government has tweaked its fiscal policy to
raise the top marginal tax rate
to 60% for incomes over Z$20 billion (US$30)
a month from 47.5%. It also
raised the threshold under which no tax is paid
to $300 million a
month.
Economists said the move looked like an attempt to recover
unbudgeted
election expenses, including the big pay increases given to civil
servants.
As to the future, economist Godfrey Kanyenze told reporter
Jonga Kandemiiri
that if a new government comes to power, it will need six
months to
stabilize the economy.