The United Nations
37. To date, the UN's involvement with Zimbabwe has
been limited to aid and development issues, working through its
agencies the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP). Resolutions have also been tabled
at the UN Commission on Human Rights, most recently at the Geneva
session which ran from 17 March to 24 April. However, the Security
Council has taken no action in respect of Zimbabwe. We asked the
Minister why not. She replied that
the UN Security Council deals with issues which are
of concern in terms of international peace and security and, for
obvious reasons, they tend to stay out of issues which are considered
to be domestic.
38. The conventional understanding of the remit of
the Security Council is certainly that it does not pronounce on
the internal affairs of member states, unless they are potentially
or actually a cause of regional instability. Iraq is a case in
point. However, although the similarities between Zimbabwe and
Iraq are obvious, there are important differences too: for example,
Zimbabwe does not possess weapons of mass destruction.
39. A more germane comparison may be made with Kosovo,
where repression of one section of the population by another became
so severe as to cross the threshold of what the international
community was prepared to tolerate, even without a direct threat
to regional peace and stability. While what occurred in Kosovo
was 'ethnic cleansing', with one distinct ethnic, religious and
linguistic group attempting to expel or eradicate another, the
situation in Zimbabwe is not so easily labelled. In Zimbabwe,
a political elite is attempting to expel or eradicate those who
disagree with it, particularly those who express their disagreement
by campaigning or voting for the opposition. This is not ethnic
cleansing, but it is surely no less pernicious.
40. Reviewing the events leading to NATO's military
intervention in Kosovo in 1999, our predecessor Committee noted
that United Nations Security Council Resolution 1199, passed under
Chapter VII of the UN Charter in September 1998, recognised "the
impending humanitarian catastrophe" in Kosovo and the threat
to peace and security in the region which that catastrophe would
represent. The Resolution was passed notwithstanding the fact
that the humanitarian catastrophe was taking place largely within
the borders of a sovereign state (Yugoslavia). It had been preceded
in March 1998 by Resolution 1160, also under Chapter VII, sponsored
by the 'Contact Group' of the United States, the United Kingdom,
Russia, Italy, Germany and France, which dealt entirely with the
situation within Yugoslavia, without any reference to its effect
on the peace or security of the region.
41. Although we understand the Minister's reluctance
to make comparisons between countries, we believe that a comparison
can and should be made between Mugabe and Milosevic. Each inherited
a country with a bright future; each turned away from that future,
towards repression and corruption. The United Nations was prepared
to express its view on the situation in Kosovo; it should do so
on what is happening in Zimbabwe also. The 'Contact Group' model
could be explored as a means of doing this.
42. We recommend that the Government consult informally
with other members of the Security Council and with African countries
with a view to raising in the Council ZANU-PF's persecution of
its political opponents, its use of torture, beatings, rape and
starvation against its own people, and the threat which it poses
to the prosperity and stability of southern Africa, as a matter
of grave concern to the region and to the international community.
43. Georgina Godwin of SW Radio Africa suggested
that UN peace keeping forces should be put in charge of distributing
food aid in Zimbabwe. Such a step, which could be taken only with
the consent of the authorities in Zimbabwe, deserves serious consideration.
In our view, it might be more appropriate for an international
force to be drawn from the member states of the African Union
(AU)—although the AU's response to international criticisms
of Zimbabwe gives no cause for optimism—or possibly from
certain Commonwealth countries as part of the price of readmission
to its Councils. Post Mugabe, such a force could also supervise
free elections, the Zimbabwe police force having been tainted
by its intimidation of voters at past elections. We recommend
that in its response to this Report the Government set out its
policy on the use of an international force to supervise the distribution
of aid and, in the longer term, to assist Zimbabwe's transition
from dictatorship to democracy.
