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Mr. Straw: We are always open to proposals. We obtained quite a substantial extension this year when the sanctions came up for renewal, and we would be happy to consider any future suggestions from my right hon. Friend.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab):
Is my right hon. Friend saying that on no occasion would this country feel that, as a country with a particular historical relationship with Zimbabwe, we could go a little further than the European Union? I am thinking particularly of the Ministers in the Mugabe Government whose children
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are being educated privately in this country, while the children of the vast majority of Zimbabweans cannot even get to schools because Mugabe has closed them.
Mr. Straw: I am not saying that there would be no such occasion. We go further than our European Union colleagues in many ways, and we are always open to proposals for extending bans, although it happens that the legal base for bans is different depending on whether we are acting bilaterally or through the European Union as a whole. I thought carefully about the issue of families when it came up. Generally, I think that we should target the real evildoers and decision makers rather than their families, but I accept that the House might have a different point of view on that issue.
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con) rose—
Mr. Straw: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman and then I shall get on with my speech.
Mr. Howarth: I am very grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. He said earlier that one of the actions taken by the British Government was to provide Zimbabwe with food aid, but is it not the case that some 90 per cent. of such aid is not reaching the proper recipients? What can he tell us about that, and is he aware that according to the shadow justice Minister of the Movement for Democratic Change, David Coulthard, during the Lupane by-election people were being told that unless they voted ZANU-PF, they would not get food aid? What are the Government doing to ensure that the food aid given by the British people gets to the people of Zimbabwe who need it?
Mr. Straw: We are aware that people have been intimidated by being told that unless they vote in a particular way, they will not get their food aid. At the same time, the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that 90 per cent. of food aid does not reach its intended recipients is wrong, according to the best information that we have. The World Food Programme monitors such aid very carefully and most of it gets to the intended recipients, but that does not mean that the hon. Gentleman's first point is inaccurate. There is plenty of evidence of people being intimidated and encouraged, as it were, to change their political approach in return for food aid.
Mr. Straw: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I want to deal with an issue that is central to this debate, and which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead raised earlier: the role of the international community, particularly the United Nations.
We were able to take action in respect of Iraq because of its defiance of mandatory UN Security Council resolutions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead is familiar with the story. Also, we took action in Afghanistan in pursuit of instructions from the Security Council, and in respect of Kosovo, although there was a period when we were acting without direct mandate; that action was endorsed by the Security Council retrospectively.
There has been no Security Council resolution in respect of Zimbabwe, and let me explain to the House why. We discuss Zimbabwe with the United Nations
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very regularly—particularly with the UN secretariat and agencies—and it is fully aware of the situation. Its own programmes are very actively engaged in providing food and other aid.
For three years, at the instigation of the United Kingdom, the European Union has tabled a resolution in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, drawing attention to the widespread violation of human rights by the Government of Zimbabwe. Regrettably, other African members of the UNCHR have used procedural motions to block discussion of those resolutions. That highlights the fact that many countries, including Zimbabwe's neighbours, see the situation differently from us. Exposing those differences in a body such as the UNCHR is one thing; but it is my belief that it would be counter-productive to do so in so high-profile an arena as the UN Security Council, as some Members have suggested doing. I am as certain as I can be that President Mugabe would dearly like us to seek action by the Security Council and then fail, as that would deliver him the propaganda coup of exposing divisions within the international community. Our view is that doing so now—to try but to fail—would put the cause of democracy in Zimbabwe back, not forward.
I have spelled out the action that we have been taking, and that remains the case. [Interruption.] The right hon. and learned Member for Devizes makes some comment from a sedentary position, but there is a question that he must deal with. He will doubtless imply that what we need to do is to invade Zimbabwe, but we are not going to do so. If he is not suggesting that, he needs to say exactly what his proposal is and how it differs from what we have undertaken. In all the huff and puff that we have heard from him in the past three years, he has never come up with a single constructive proposal. Either we have already put what he proposes into practice, or it cannot be put into practice because of a failure to obtain international consensus.
The second thing that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will say is, "Take it to the United Nations." Of course we would take it to the UN if we thought that doing so would help. But our judgment is that, far from helping, taking it to the Security Council—still less to the General Assembly—and then failing would actually undermine the cause that we all seek: a democratic and free Zimbabwe. He might wish to address that point.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Perhaps we can all agree on the fact that Zimbabwe is a test for Africa. There is no value in the New Partnership for Africa's Development if Africa itself is not going to try to sort out the problems of Zimbabwe. Can we not agree that Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo and Museveni need to address this issue, which is primarily one for Africa? If they cannot address it, there is very little that can be done for Africa. All that we are doing through the European Commission, on international development and in terms of meeting the millennium development goals will be as nothing without that. So can we in this Chamber please agree that this is a challenge for Africa and our Commonwealth colleagues in Africa?
Mr. Straw:
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman: it is indeed a test for Africa. However, the right hon. and
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learned Member for Devizes is trying to suggest that it is somehow a test for this country or this Government. We are there to help, but as the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) so wisely and shrewdly pointed out—I hope that the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes is listening—the idea that the United Kingdom, as the former colonial power, and in the absence of an African consensus to get to grips with a problem that stares it in the face, can take action beyond that which we are already taking is pie in the sky. That raises expectations beyond the point at which they can be fulfilled, but worse still, it feeds the Mugabe propaganda that we still hanker after exercising some kind of imperialist, colonialist power there, or that we still have it.
Mr. Straw: I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East.
Donald Anderson: I want to reinforce my right hon. Friend's point. When the Foreign Affairs Committee recently visited New York, we sought advice on this point in particular, not only in respect of our own mission but of many others. It was absolutely clear that there was no prospect of getting such action on to the agenda, so to suggest or infer otherwise is not only gesture politics but wholly ineffective and counter-productive.
Mr. Straw: I shall now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt).
Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab): If the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting did actually agree that President Obasanjo of Nigeria is to be in charge of talking to Mugabe regularly, how many times has he visited Zimbabwe since December and how many times per week is he in touch? It seems to us that things have got much worse since December. What on earth can we do, given the circumstances?
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