Zimbabwe

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St John, on securing this debate so early in this new Parliament and so soon after the formation of the new coalition Administration. As always in this Chamber, we have benefited from a broad range of knowledge and opinions on the subject. I listened intently to the somewhat hard-edged contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, which was very solid, and compared it with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Luce, and his optimism regarding the role of the Commonwealth. I particularly enjoyed his contribution, given that I am the chair of the international board of the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit. I endorse his views in that regard.

This is a valuable opportunity for Members of this House to raise some very pressing concerns about developments that have taken place recently in Zimbabwe—and, unfortunately, concerns in some areas about the apparent lack of developments. This is also a very useful opportunity for us to hear from our new coalition Administration about the approach that they will adopt alongside our partners in the region and among donor nations on finding ways to assist the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle for democracy, justice, human rights and economic progress.

Before I became a Member of this House, when I was in the other place, I was a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and we spent a considerable amount of time on a series of detailed inquiries on Zimbabwe. More recently, as vice-chair of the Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group, I was engaged in the inquiry mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, into land in Zimbabwe. It concluded among other matters that the UK had a particular obligation to Zimbabwe and that once there was political stability, Britain should seek to re-engage with the Zimbabwean Government on the issue of land reform, but with an appropriate degree of caution.

Our then Government conceded, as the report noted, that one of the major challenges facing Zimbabwe in the coming years will be how to devise a land reform process that takes account of the lessons from the past, but avoids polarisation on historical rights and wrongs. I appreciate that there have been steps towards real progress and that the political landscape has changed. However, I am struck by how many of the concerns that we grappled with six or seven years ago, underlined in our more recent inquiry, remain the same today.

When President Zuma of South Africa came into office, he appointed an impressive and very able team to facilitate the continuing negotiations around full implementation of the global political agreement. The GPA, which was signed in November 2008, led to the formation of a Government of national unity, or GNU, in February 2009. Earlier this year when President Zuma paid his state visit to this country, it was clear that he and the Ministers and officials accompanying him had the crisis in Zimbabwe and the impasse over the GPA high up on their agenda. It was encouraging to hear President Zuma speak in detail about the negotiations and also that the Minister for International Relations and Co-operation found time to come for an extensive dialogue on the issue with members of the Zimbabwe All-Party Parliamentary Group.

Very shortly after his return to South Africa, President Zuma travelled to Harare and spent two and a half days on an intense round of meetings with political leaders and other figures in Zimbabwe. Together with his negotiating team, he was appointed to facilitate negotiations between the three political formations represented in the Zimbabwe Parliament—that is, the MDC faction led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, and the ZANU-PF, led by President Robert Mugabe. What is frustrating is that, despite clear timetables and deadlines being set, weeks, and now months, have slipped by with little progress. I hope that the Minister will tell us what soundings have been taken within the region about how the process of implementation might be expedited.

It is important to bear in mind that economic restructuring, investment in industry and many other initiatives vital to the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe are to a large degree in suspense while there is uncertainty around political progress. It seems to me that there needs to be a far greater sense of urgency over these matters within the region. Although there will be protestations to the contrary, this is a legitimate matter of concern to this House and to the people of this country. The bill for humanitarian aid and, in due course, the huge amount of aid needed to rebuild the infrastructure and economy of Zimbabwe will be drawn very substantially from DfID—that is, from UK taxpayers. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us what assistance we are able to offer directly, and through the EU and the Commonwealth, to strengthen the Parliament in Zimbabwe.

Both Houses of the Zimbabwe Parliament adjourned in March for three months to allow MPs and Senators to participate in the outreach consultation on a new constitution. However, the outreach exercise failed to start on time and, when it does eventually start, it is expected to take more than three months rather than the two months that had originally been planned. This means that valuable parliamentary time is being lost when it could be used to introduce important legislation and a repeal of repressive measures. These delays undermine confidence in the whole process of reform, they affect the confidence of donors and investors, and they deter Zimbabweans in the diaspora from returning home. Meetings between President Mugabe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara have been delayed time and again. This in turn means that the vital progress report on the implementation of the global political agreement that President Zuma is due to make to SADC has also been very seriously delayed.

In a reflection of the frustration felt among grassroots Zimbabweans, the National Council of the MDC met on 16 May and called for SADC immediately to convene a summit to resolve the outstanding issues, as well as to discuss the road map to an election and guarantees of the legitimacy of this election. Similarly, a statement following a recent meeting of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the ZCC, and the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance, the ZCA, expressed grave concern that, two years on from signing the GPA, it is still not fully implemented.

Among the urgent concerns that the churches say need to be addressed are deepening and widening poverty, the inaccessibility of food to the majority of Zimbabweans due to lack of income, the high unemployment rate of more than 90 per cent, which has been referred to in previous contributions, the failure to create new jobs and the seven-month delay in the constitution-making process.

In a communiqué the ZCC and the ZCA call upon the SADC heads of state summit to be held in Namibia in August 2010 to prioritise addressing,

“these concerns from the people of Zimbabwe”.

The communiqué also called on the Government to respect people’s natural rights, the security and integrity of persons and to dismantle all structures that perpetuate political violence. The church leaders urged the Government to reform the country’s security sector as a,

“critical component of creating a peaceful transition”,

and to create the mechanisms necessary to enable independent commissions to function effectively and ensure that free and fair elections are conducted by the end of 2011.

The news this week is not encouraging. On Tuesday the MDC issued an alert accusing ZANU-PF of unleashing a targeted crackdown on MDC officials and supporters across the country. This comes just as the national outreach consultation on a new constitution is about to begin on Tuesday of next week. In the past week scores of MDC officials and supporters have been arrested on spurious charges such as undermining the President. The alert says that there is an upsurge in persecution, intimidation and arbitrary arrests, especially in the volatile provinces of Mashonaland East, West and Central.

The MDC sees this as an attempt by ZANU-PF to cow the population and recreate the violent environment that caused Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from the presidential run-off in June 2008. In this context it is important to reflect on concerns expressed a week ago at the Oslo meeting of major donors and international financial institutions known as the Friends of Zimbabwe. This is only the latest in a series of meetings that this donor group has convened and I know that the UK has played a key role throughout. The communiqué issued after the Oslo meeting underlines the fact that several long-standing concerns remain, including a continuing lack of respect for the rule of law or protection of fundamental freedoms and the slow pace of progress in improving governance.

It urges the parties to accelerate the implementation of their outstanding commitments under the GPA and stresses that the lack of progress hampers full re-engagement with Zimbabwe by the international community. Donors also stressed the concern shared with the private sector, both international and domestic, about the negative consequences of the recently published regulations on indigenisation for the already fragile investment climate. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso. The communiqué reaffirms support for genuine empowerment and says that the return of millions of skilled Zimbabweans to their homeland is best achieved by respect for the rule of law and the creation of an enterprise-friendly environment. That includes respect for bilateral investment protection and promotion agreements. It urges Zimbabwe to pursue the extraction of its natural resource in a manner that benefits its citizens. I hope that in this context the Minister will tell us what options are open to the UK and other donor nations to hold the Government of Zimbabwe to their obligations under the Kimberley process certification scheme for rough diamonds, including their obligation to implement the joint work plan agreed to in November 2009.

The concerns expressed in Oslo echo to a large extent the anxieties expressed in March by the International Development Committee of the House of Commons in its report on DfID assistance to Zimbabwe. Paragraph 61 of the IDC report notes that member states of the Southern African Development Community—SADC—are the guarantors of the global political agreement—GPA. The committee recommends that the Government should urge SADC collectively, and South Africa in particular, to continue to work with the Government of national unity towards full implementation of the GPA. Finally, it seems to me that this is something that the SADC heads of state might be encouraged to address in the forthcoming summit in Namibia. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that in our diplomatic dialogue with SADC member nations, and with South Africa in particular, these concerns will be fully expressed.