Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 20-37)

MR PETER LONGWORTH CMG

TUESDAY 21 JANUARY 2003

  20. Do you think there is any argument to extend the sanctions any further. New Zealand have targeted some 140-odd individuals; I think we have taken action against—or banned—79. Is there an argument to extend the sanctions against supporters of Zimbabwe? Commercial organisations, such as that, but without, as you say, affecting the population of Zimbabwe economically?
  (Mr Longworth) I do not really think it is a numbers game, frankly. I have been out of the debate for some time. I am sure that as people qualify for sanctions, the sanctions should be applied to them. I would not really want to comment on it.

Mr Hamilton

  21. As you know, on 19 March last year Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth. Do you think that was the right decision?
  (Mr Longworth) Yes, but I think to be precise it was not suspended from the Commonwealth; Zimbabwe was suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth. It is still actually a Commonwealth member; it is just that member of the Zimbabwean Government cannot participate in official Commonwealth events.

  22. Does that suspension from the councils reduce the leverage that the Commonwealth has on the Mugabe regime?
  (Mr Longworth) I think it certainly hurt the President that the Commonwealth had taken that action. I think it hurt that he had not been able to prevent his African colleagues from going that far. I think it was something which was upsetting and something which was telling. We have only recently had a meeting of Commonwealth Ministers of Finance in London; Zimbabwe was not represented. That hurts. I think the degree to which the Zimbabwe Government seeks to participate in international meetings in countries where individuals would otherwise be banned is an indication of how much this kind of exclusion hurts.

  23. Should they therefore be expelled from the Commonwealth completely? Does Mr Mugabe care at all? You indicated that it hurts.
  (Mr Longworth) I do not know. I do not believe that expelling anybody from the Commonwealth is a good idea. I think the Commonwealth is a unique organisation which, as we know, spans every kind of country from LLDC to members of the G8. At this particular time I think it is important that it is an organisation which incorporates so many creeds and beliefs. I think it is an organisation which does exert influence and I think the importance with which the Commonwealth electoral observer body was accorded is something which showed that the Commonwealth does matter.

  24. Is that an argument, then, for continued suspension after March?
  (Mr Longworth) I am sorry. I think you said expelled.

  25. I said expelled earlier, but I am wondering whether—from what you say—suspension might be the best option. That hurts them but it does not kick them out completely.
  (Mr Longworth) I think the Commonwealth has every right to feel aggrieved at Zimbabwe, particularly after the complete disregard that was paid to the Abuja Agreement18.7

Mr Chidgey

  26. Mr Longworth, I would like to raise a few issues with you on regional developments. We have the humanitarian crisis which obviously is far worse since you were in post. Nevertheless, I am sure you have kept up to speed with developments. For example, the South African Minister of Labour visited three farms in Zimbabwe on 10 January, it is reported. After his visit he said that South Africa had a lot to learn from Zimbabwe about land reform. Interestingly enough, in the counter-part to that, earlier last year, Fergal Keane gave evidence to this Committee[1]. He said that the United Kingdom should be pressing President Mbeki of South Africa to do more and that, in fact, he was a critical partner to resolving the problems in Zimbabwe with Mr Mugabe. He said when we put real pressure on Thabo Mbeki it has an effect. The questions coming from that to us is to what extent do senior members of the African National Congress feel some sort of solidarity with the Mugabe regime? What influence do they have, if any? And what influence, if any, do we have as a Government do exert on the ANC to exert pressure on Zimbabwe?

  (Mr Longworth) Of course I have views on everything you said except that I was High Commissioner to Zimbabwe and not South Africa.

  27. But you were in Johannesburg at some stage?
  (Mr Longworth) Yes, I was in Johannesburg. I think that it is important for the United Kingdom and for the countries of the developed world that South Africa and the other African states are kept in play on the issue of Zimbabwe and that they should be reminded on a regular basis that it is just not good enough to fall back on arguments which derive from the liberation struggle. I can appreciate that the ANC leadership and President Mbeki do have difficulties in coming out and condemning President Mugabe and I see there are a number of reasons. They are, in many respects, partners from the struggle. I think President Mbeki remains an African nationalist. I think he has taken a great deal of persuading that much of what President Mugabe has said about the UK's involvement in destabilising Zimbabwe is not true. I think probably he does believe that. I think there is also something else which is likely to become more of a factor in Africa, which is what really worried the ANC was the emergence of the MDC as a popular African party, multi-racial—something which had nothing whatever to do with the struggle - suddenly being in a position almost to overthrow one the great liberation movements. I think that has struck a number of serious alarm bells in various parts of the continent.

  28. That is very interesting. I think from what you are saying, Mr Longworth, is that pressure from South Africa and other southern African countries might not be the best prospect of peace in Zimbabwe, primarily because they do not perceive it to be in their interests.
  (Mr Longworth) I think it is difficult to lump Africa into a whole. The interests in South Africa and the management of the politics and the economy in South Africa are much more complex than, for example, in Botswana. One would expect that there is a lot of fudging which needs to take place in the upper leadership of the ANC on issues which are so emotive and so strongly relating to what in South Africa is a very recent struggle. ZANU-PF came in 20 years ago, but memories in South Africa of white domination are extremely recent.

  29. Folk history. In that case, if the southern African countries, because of these very strong and diverse links in all sorts of factors, are in some way inhibited and therefore cannot be persuaded to act, what about other African countries with great influence? What about Nigeria? Do you see a role for countries such as Nigeria in having some influence?
  (Mr Longworth) Nigeria and South African became engaged at quite an early stage. Presidents Obasanjo and Mbeki have both had joint missions and individual missions to discuss this thing through with the Zimbabwean authorities and also with the UK Government. President Obasanjo initiated a meeting between Robin Cook and Mugabe in Cairo, at one particular stage of the meeting of the OAEU. These countries have been engaged. I think that it is maybe naive for us to think that their priority is our priority. Their priority is the stability of their own country. There are important political factors that a leader of South Africa has to take into consideration.

Chairman

  30. They also have a priority in terms of the image of the continent, in terms of inward investment and the deal they reached with the G8 over NePAD.
  (Mr Longworth) I do agree, Chairman. I was going to come to this. The problem for South Africa and the others is that in trying to manage the political difficulties which they find themselves in with Mugabe—on the basis that the African search for consensus and respect for elders and so on—they are in great danger of losing the confidence of the international investor community.

Mr Chidgey

  31. One final point on the regional aspects before we get into humanitarian. Do you think that the recent peaceful transfer of power in Kenya and the election of Mr Kibaki, might be another source of influence on Mugabe or would this be totally irrelevant so far as he is concerned?
  (Mr Longworth) As I said earlier, we get into quite easy mistakes if we try to lump the continent together. We have seen a lot of very progressive things happening in African over the past five or six years. We have seen a market economy developing in Mozambique; we have seen good governments in Botswana; we have seen good things happening in Ghana and even good developments taking place in Tanzania which was once really thought to be at the bottom of the heap. It is not all a one-way street in Africa. I think that the Kenyan experience is something which should help people who wish to pursue fair elections in the rest of the country. That is not to say that the succession of power in Kenya is actually gone entirely into the hands of an opposing group. Quite a number of the members of the new administration were once members of the old one, but I think the lesson drawn from Kenya is that it is possible that in an Africa country an unpopular leader can be removed by a popular vote without too much violence associated with the election.

  32. Moving on to the humanitarian crisis much of which I suppose has taken place since you left Zimbabwe I imagine. We are briefed that recent events have led to a situation now where I think it is some eight million people are facing starvation. Perhaps more seriously, we are informed and advised, that food aid which is being provided for Zimbabweans is being channelled and directed solely at those Zimbabweans who carry membership cards of ZANU-PF. It is reported that the reaction from Mr Mugabe's ministers is that they do not see any point in feeding members of the opposition because they are merely weeds. That leads us to ask you, Mr Longworth, whether you believe that the escalating food crisis in Zimbabwe is likely to affect the political situation in the coming months.
  (Mr Longworth) Yes, I think it is. If it were to go anywhere it could be rather tragic. There is no question of what one might call a civil war, for example, in a country where only one party is armed and has control of the security services. But I do think there could be a rapid deterioration of society in Zimbabwe as a result of this starvation. I think, to be clear, it is something that we saw coming . We knew the famine was coming despite denials. There were a number of signals which we received quite a long time ago—two and a half years ago—that the ruling party would find it very hard to tolerate the management of food distribution to outsiders. This has been a traditional source of patronage. This is something that they would have been very unwilling to lose.

  33. Given that it was clear that Britain, the EU and also the United Nations has been manipulated for political purposes in terms of how the aid is arriving in Zimbabwe, it is a key suggestion that the international community should take direct action to intervene in Zimbabwe. I said the international community, not the United Kingdom. May I preface this question with the fact that even now it is being debated in Parliament as to how one defines genocide. You will remember, of course, the Matebeleland massacres that took place in the 80's. You will know that we have intervened with the United Nations in Kosova, for example, for genocide. We are contemplating going into Iraq, one of the reasons being, we are told, is genocide. Do we not also have to bite the bullet and classify what is happening—or is likely to happen—in Zimbabwe as a deliberate attempt to kill large sections of the population who happen to be of a particular ethnic group and should we not be calling to the United Nations to pass resolutions in the security counsel calling for action under humanitarian rights, as we do elsewhere in the world?
  (Mr Longworth) I am not an expert on how genocide is defined and I think in the case of Zimbabwe it is irrelevant because the actual aggression is directed towards members of political parties, people who do not support the government. You do not necessarily have to be Ndebele to be opposed to ZANU-PF nor to have voted against them in an election. I would not want to go down a track of saying that there is a genocidal thing taking place based on the difference between the Shona and the Ndebele tribes. It is based on support, or non support for the ruling party. This does not make it any better. I am not sure how you would define it. I do not think it is directed specifically towards one tribe. I think the United Nations does need to be brought into the debate. I think that we have tried; our European partners have been persuaded to join us in joint action. I think we have worked very hard with our African partners and within the Commonwealth and that process has been less than helpful, or less that totally helpful. I think that the United Nations should be involved. My view of human rights appreciations by governments is that there seems to be some inverse relationship between one's intention to pursue a human rights cause and the geographical, political significance of the particular country involved. I think actually to start doing what the Americans suggest is penetrative action in Zimbabwe will require a very, very big political will. It will require a huge amount of persuasion of the neighbours and the region. It is difficult to see how any kind of action could be taken without the support of the African neighbours. I think we are stuck with resolutions.

  Mr Chidgey: Back to the UN. Thank you.

Andrew Mackinlay

  34. I saw Peter Oborne's piece on television recently. I put down a parliamentary question following it[2]. DFID really do not have up-to-date information as to the scale of the famine or potential famine on a regional basis. I do not know if you can comment on that, but it seemed to me that it also



raised the question of resources in the British High Commission. Have we got enough there? Could we do more in terms of knowing the scale of the crisis?

  (Mr Longworth) I think I am going to ask to be excused the question. I do not know the size of the High Commission. I know that there has been a restructuring, for example, and the commercial section is now very much depleted because there is very little commerce. I honestly would not want to be drawn into a debate on resources.

  35. Throughout the past months I have been looking, when I read the press reports, for the mischief which apparently the British Government are apparently guilty of. I look for mischief in the British Government, but on this I cannot fault them. It does seem to me that there are protestations that somehow the British Government can and should be doing things but they are not doing them. From your observations is there anything more that HMG should be doing which they are not doing?
  (Mr Longworth) It is very difficult to influence someone who really does not care about the suffering of people or the views of the international community. If you accept that you are not able to use force against Zimbabwe to bring down a government—which most people would accept—then it is very difficult to see how you can influence the course of events. Believe me, not a day goes by without my wondering if we could have done something during my tenure in Zimbabwe to have stopped this happening. I do not think we could. I think the moment that President Mugabe found that he had lost the referendum on the new constitution and that his power base was vulnerable, then I do not think anything was going to stop this happening.

Chairman

  36. One final matter to help the Committee, you know South Africa, you know Zimbabwe, what are the levers which South Africa could use if it were so minded to influence Zimbabwe? One, presumably, is the electricity supply Eskom, there are debts. Can you just give a series of headings of the degree of dependence of Zimbabwe on South Africa?
  (Mr Longworth) I would say that a while ago there were more opportunities for South Africa to take action than there are now because the economy in Zimbabwe has now been reduced to almost subsistence level. You get to a stage where identified sanctions are not necessarily as effective as they might have been. Everybody quotes electricity because it is said that that was the threat that was used against Ian Smith and which brought Rhodesia to the negotiating table.

  37. Are there debts which could be called in?
  (Mr Longworth) I am out of date, Mr Chairman, but there were very large debts to the South African Electricity Utility. There are debts elsewhere.

  Chairman: That is very helpful. Mr Longworth, you have been of great assistance to the Committee. Thank you very much.





1   Foreign Affairs Committee, Tenth Report of Session 2001-02, Zimbabwe, HC 813, Ev1-10. Back

2   HC Deb, 13 January 2003, col 458w [Commons written answer]. Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2003
Prepared 27 May 2003