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Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes) (Con): I welcome the debate, but I have to say that it is not before time. It is, in fact, the first time during the seven years of this Government that we have had a debate on Zimbabwe in Government time. I am nevertheless grateful for it, because I think that it is important.
I genuinely hoped that the Government's belated recognition of the need to debate the issue indicated that they were at last beginning seriously to address it, but, having listened to the Foreign Secretary, I have to say that I am disappointed. He made a pathetic, complacent speech that brought no hope or comfort to the oppressed people of Zimbabwe. It was long on historical analysis and more than just short on action, given that he began by saying that he was not going to announce any further or new action. He was high on accusations of a historical nature and Aunt Sallies but low on answers and, indeed, on accuracy.
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After those seven years I could indulge in a sort of "recherche du temps perdu", but it would serve little purpose because although Zimbabwe's problems are rooted in the past, they are very much current and in the future. Four years on from the last rigged parliamentary elections and two years on from the "stolen" presidential election, preparations for the next parliamentary elections are already being made. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy), sitting on the Front Bench, seems to be surprised about these facts. If he had bothered to study what has happened in Zimbabwe, he might realise how serious the situation is. The problems are not only bad, but getting worse, and they must be urgently addressed.
As the House knows, I have been talking about Zimbabwe a lot over the past two years, and I have sometimes been criticised for spending too much time on it. I make no apologies for that. Zimbabwe is not, as someone once admonished me, just another African country, on which we should not seek to impose our western values. Zimbabwe has enjoyed democracy and the rule of law. Its people have known prosperity, full stomachs and economic stability. All of that is now lost or under threat.
Nor is Zimbabwe a far-away country of which we know little. It is a country that we know well, and for which we must still feel a sense of responsibility, even if it is only a moral one. We cannot say that it has nothing to do with us and that to seek to interfere smacks of neo-colonialism. That is not what the dispossessed black farm workers told me when I met them in the woods outside Harare two years ago, and neither is it what the politicians and the many other victims of Mugabe's brutality told me. They believed that this country had a moral duty to act. They heard the Prime Minister announce as much on one occasion. They feel a sense of betrayal at what they now see as our inactivity.
The simple fact is that, month after month, the situation in Zimbabwe is getting worse. It was bad enough when I was there. I saw some pretty horrifying sights—of ethnic cleansing, political intimidation and food queues.However, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow)—who cannot be with us today as he is in Darfur—visited Zimbabwe only a few months ago. The situation that he witnessed was far worse even than what I had seen. Quite simply, we are watching the birth of a failed state, the victory of crude despotism and the failure of the international community to respond sufficiently.
I am baffled by the inertia with which the international community has responded to Mugabe's vile regime. The most recent International Crisis Group report appeared on 19 April. It stated that
"the response has been inadequate and ineffectual at all levels",
and that the policies of the US and the EU
"do not begin to address the roots of the crisis."
I repeat to the Foreign Secretary that I am not advocating a military solution. I am asking for the form of international action that the ICG and other bodies are also seeking. I shall come to that a little later.
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It is worth reminding ourselves of the nature of the crisis in Zimbabwe, which can best be described as a series of deficits. The first is the democratic deficit. That began with the patently rigged parliamentary election four years ago; then, two years ago, the presidential election was stolen. At the time, the Foreign Secretary admitted that the Government
"do not recognise the result, or its legitimacy."—[Official Report, 14 March 2002; Vol. 381, c. 1035.]
There has been a systematic undermining of the principles of free and fair elections, and the ironically named Harare principle—as well as the principles of the Southern African Development Community—have been flouted. In the past years, dishonest voter registration has allowed Mugabe effectively to rig the voter register. There has been rigged vote counting, with ballot papers going missing. There has also been voter intimidation and bribery, and the physical persecution and even murder of political opponents.
We now learn that voter registration for next year's elections has begun, without any independent supervision or verification. In one case at least, the sitting Opposition MP was not even told that the registration was happening until after it was completed. Mugabe has announced that he will have no observers in Zimbabwe for the election. The democratic deficit is almost complete.
The next deficit is the rule of law deficit. Many opposition MPs in Zimbabwe have been subject to murder attempts, torture, assaults and arrest. A recent survey of Movement for Democratic Change Members of Parliament found that 42 per cent. claimed to have been assaulted in the past four years—most commonly, as it happens, by the police—while 24 per cent. said that they had survived assassination attempts.
Because of the politicisation of the police and judiciary in Zimbabwe, there is rarely any legal comeback. Despite the immense courage of many Zimbabwean lawyers, the once proud rule of law in Zimbabwe lies in tatters. The independent judiciary used to be one of the pillars of democracy, but it has been severely compromised, and the Bench is now packed with Mugabe supporters. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act was adopted before the 2002 elections and it requires journalists to provide detailed information about themselves. If they do not do so, they will not receive a licence for journalism.
The law has been used to close Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper, and to arrest people on the charge of "suspicion of journalism". The state now claims a virtual monopoly of written and broadcast media, and foreign correspondents, as we know, are a thing of the past. The Public Order and Security Act restricts freedom of association. The Government in Zimbabwe have used it to stamp out any form of activity or protest by opposition groups. The rule of law has been exchanged in Zimbabwe for the rule of tyranny and the organised mob.
Another deficit is the law and order deficit. Mugabe has skilfully created a society in which his orders to kill, maim and destroy are easily carried out. His private militia—the so-called Green Bombers—are, quite simply, evil. The methods in which they are trained in the special camps to which they are often abducted
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include systematised violence, organised rape and brutal abuse and humiliation. The first-hand accounts from some former members of the green bombers who have fled to South Africa are chilling.
Then there is the economic and social deficit. Zimbabwe's economy is among the fastest-shrinking in the world. Unemployment has risen to more than 70 per cent. As recently as 1997, Zimbabwe was twice as rich as the median sub-Saharan nation, but now it is crashing. Inflation still rides high at over 440 per cent., gross domestic product has shrunk by one third in five years, and the black-market exchange rate still flourishes, despite legislation to outlaw it. At the official exchange rate, £1 is worth 815 Zimbabwean dollars. On the black market, £1 buys 7,000 Zimbabwean dollars.
Now we hear threats of the wholesale nationalisation of agricultural land, even though current land seizures have already led to the collapse of Zimbabwe's once prosperous agriculture sector, with all the attendant consequences on food production.
There is, of course, the humanitarian deficit. Zimbabwe has lived on food aid since 2001. Last year, 6.5 million people, more than half the population, depended on international help. Mugabe is now refusing help from the UN's World Food Programme. Regime officials say that Zimbabwe will have a bumper maize crop this year of 2.4 million tonnes—more than enough to meet domestic needs. People who believe that will believe anything.
A report from the Zimbabwe vulnerability assessment committee—incidentally, that is a Government body—concludes that 2.3 million people in rural Zimbabwe
"will not be able to meet their minimum cereal needs during the 2004–05 season."
We all know why Mugabe lies. He knows that, by keeping the UN and aid agencies out of Zimbabwe, he can ensure that his regime controls all food aid. Mugabe thinks he can feed his people by doing black-market deals to buy grain and then tell the world that it is home grown.
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