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Mr. Straw: I shall go through the things we have done, and the things we are not going to do, in a moment. If we are to deal with the Zimbabwe issue, however, we must avoid doing what Robert Mugabe wants most, and making this a bilateral dispute between the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. That is at the heart of Mugabe's strategy.
Of course the purpose of debates in the House of Commons is to ensure that Ministers are accountable and doing what the House wants, and there should be proper debate. But I urge those who feel that we have not done enough—I believe that we have done all we could reasonably do, and more—to think about the
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implications of suggesting that there are things we could do that would not work, and would have exactly the effect that Mugabe seeks.
I am aware of the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Indeed, the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) has made the same point—that because of our policy of having had to carry out armed intervention in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the example he used, Kosovo, we should consider the notion of what amounts to armed intervention in respect of Zimbabwe. I ask right hon. and hon. Members to make it clear when they speak what they are asking for. We need to know whether armed intervention is on their agenda—that is fundamental to our having an effective debate. If they are not calling for armed intervention, the Opposition must accept that they are trying to score some points on this issue without having a clear strategy.
I recall that the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes put to me a series of points on Zimbabwe, saying that we ought to follow the example of Kosovo. After he had made those points, I wrote to him to ask whether he was proposing that the United Kingdom take military action against Zimbabwe. He wrote back to me to say that no, he had never suggested that. If that is the case, what on earth was the point of raising the example of Kosovo? The difference between Kosovo and Zimbabwe is that in Kosovo we contemplated and took action, whereas we are not contemplating taking military action in Zimbabwe, nor do we have any intention of so doing.
Donald Anderson (Swansea, East) (Lab): Is not the danger of what the Opposition are saying that unrealistic expectations will be raised? There is no chance of any neighbouring country providing bases, and that is apart from the point that my right hon. Friend makes about this situation being construed as a bilateral dispute. Will he also confirm that there is no realistic prospect of the matter even reaching the agenda of the United Nations Security Council because of African opposition?
Mr. Straw: Indeed, and I shall come on to that, but first it is worth my recording some of the points that the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes made. In August 2002, he asked what the difference was between ethnic cleansing and state torture in Kosovo and Zimbabwe, and why the Government had been so keen to act in Kosovo and yet were so inactive on Zimbabwe. Given that we have done a great deal in respect of Zimbabwe apart from military action, the clear implication of that question was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was proposing military action in Zimbabwe. On 1 April last year, he said again:
"We acted in Kosovo because of unacceptable floutings of human rights . . . The oppressed and persecuted people of Zimbabwe . . . see nothing post-colonial in asking us to intervene; rather, they see it as a moral obligation".—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 1 April 2003; Vol. 402, c. 209WH.]
I have to say, however, that I have received no invitations from anyone in Zimbabwe, least of all the Movement for Democratic Change, for us to take military action.
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In February, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that we had to look at all the options. When I finally pinned him down, he said that he had not called for military action in Zimbabwe. Just to pick up on the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson) was raising, what on earth could the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes have been calling for if he was raising the Kosovo example except military action, given that the difference between the treatment of Zimbabwe and Kosovo was military action?
Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes) (Con): I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way, but it is quite obvious that he has so little to say about what the Government are going to do in Zimbabwe that he is fabricating a case to which he can then try to provide an answer. May I make it absolutely clear, as I have on a number of occasions, that I have never suggested military intervention in Zimbabwe? I ask the right hon. Gentleman again this simple question, which is an important one in terms of human rights: what is the difference between ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and ethnic cleansing in Zimbabwe?
Mr. Straw: Of course the right hon. and learned Gentleman understands that where there is ethnic cleansing, there is ethnic cleansing. The really serious ethnic cleansing—given that he wishes to lower this debate to a partisan knockabout—took place when he was supporting a Conservative Government in 1985, when 20,000 died in what was plain ethnic cleansing. The then Government, far from taking military action against the Mugabe regime, applauded it and said, "Oh well, they've got a bit of a security problem."
I shall just run through what we have done in respect of Zimbabwe, which might assist my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and others. We have kept thousands of Zimbabweans alive by providing food and other humanitarian help. We are the biggest cash donor of all and have spent £67 million on humanitarian and food aid since 2001. We have helped Zimbabwe's many AIDS victims, and our programme to help those suffering and those left behind has involved expenditure of £26.5 million so far. There are more than 700,000 AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe. We are actively supporting those working for peaceful change in Zimbabwe: lawyers, trade unionists, civil rights activists, the free media and Members of Parliament. We have given asylum to those persecuted by Mugabe and allowed others at risk to remain in the United Kingdom for now. At the same time, we have borne down hard on illegal immigration with the introduction of a visa regime. We have helped the large community in Zimbabwe with ties to the United Kingdom by maintaining a full embassy and consular service to them.
In terms of international action, we have hit Mugabe where it hurts through a travel ban and asset freeze on him and his henchmen. We know that they hate the ignominy and inconvenience that that brings them. I can tell my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead and others who have raised this point that we have been in the lead on sanctions against Zimbabwe. They were only going to be effective if we had international consensus. We could easily have put sanctions on Zimbabwe's political elite ourselves, but that would
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have raised the question, "Well, so what?" If those people had then been able to travel to every other country in the European Union and to the United States, and had suffered no opprobrium from the Commonwealth, it would have been we who were mocked, not Mugabe.
However, the effect of our engagement in the European Union, and of a great deal of effort, has been that we have got the other countries of the EU—initially 15 and now 25—many of whom know very little about Zimbabwe, and for whom it is not a particular issue because they have no history with it, to accept our case for sanctions against the Zimbabwe elite, in the face of quite strong African lobbying. I got those sanctions introduced in 2002, at a time when relations with Germany and France were difficult, and we got them tightened last year and extended this year. We have also persuaded the United States to introduce a similar embargo—
Mr. Richard Spring (West Suffolk) (Con): The right hon. Gentleman persuaded the United States?
Mr. Straw: Yes, we did. We worked very hard with the United States, and I worked very hard with Secretary Powell, to achieve that. Alongside that, we managed to get the Commonwealth to take tough action on Zimbabwe, which led initially to its suspension from the councils of the Commonwealth because it had failed to run its elections properly. Then, because of a further, tough decision in November 2003 by the Commonwealth Heads of Government, led courageously by President Obasanjo of Nigeria, the Zimbabweans decided to pull out of the Commonwealth altogether rather than continue to accept sanctions.
In addition, we have established an arms embargo in respect of Zimbabwe, again throughout the European Union. That would have been easy for us to do, but ineffective. However, it is effective with 15—and now 25—European Union members, and it is hobbling the Zimbabwean military where it hurts.
Mr. Frank Field: I thank the Foreign Secretary for the sanctions that have been applied to some people to restrict their travel. When hon. Members from both sides of this House met some Zimbabwean opposition members, they asked us for a modest extension of the list of such people. Is my right hon. Friend saying that he just does not command the support among our European colleagues to achieve a modest extension to the list of people to whom the travel restrictions should apply?
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