Zimbabwe

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend and I pay tribute to the work of two experienced parliamentarians who did so much for our understanding—Lady Park and Lord Blaker. Not only do we miss them personally but their absence means that we will have to redouble our efforts to keep this issue high in the public mind. In that context, I welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, whose hard-hitting approach is very much needed on these occasions. All eyes are on South Africa and the World Cup, and it is tragic that, because of an incompetent dictatorship dressed up as a power-sharing arrangement, tourists who should be benefiting Zimbabwe’s economy are largely avoiding the country. However, I know that the more determined game parks and resorts are doing their best to attract attention.

The Foreign Office’s country profile for Zimbabwe reports,

“a reduction in the level of political violence”,

following the formation of the cross-party Government in 2009. There is a widespread perception that the return to the US dollar and an upturn in the economy have also helped to create improvement in household incomes. My noble friend mentioned investment, which is increasing. However, that analysis bears close examination, especially in relation to the more vulnerable and low-income groups. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, mentioned the decay in services and communications. The country profile report also contrasts with reports from human rights organisations and the media that white farmers and MDC activists are still being targeted and, in many cases, victimised. One activist in Mashonaland had his house burnt down only a week ago. A local chairman in Harare was abducted while a rally that he was to address was disrupted. As the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said, most of those attacks are coming from ZANU-PF, but sometimes the police or even the army are directly involved.

The court’s release of Roy Bennett last month was the latest example of the political cat and mouse game. He is a senior member of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC and he was due to become Deputy Minister for Agriculture when he was arrested in February 2009. The Government, knowing that such an appointment would wreck their pretence of power-sharing, will appeal against the decision, but their manipulation of the courts makes a farce of the judicial process.

Meanwhile, white farmers are being constantly harassed. Although some are returning, many are being arrested and detained on spurious charges or are still being evicted in favour of pseudo-farmers and ZANU-PF party squatters. Charles Taffs, the Commercial Farmers’ Union vice-president, said last week that eviction of white farmers had intensified over the past 10 days, further threatening Zimbabwe’s fragile food security. He said that Zimbabwe was producing less than 10,000 tonnes of wheat, which is one-third of national requirements, because of the lack of security, farm evictions and electricity blackouts on the farms.

Farm workers are the subject of a telling recent survey by the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe. It may not be representative, but it provides a glimpse of the suffering of those workers, showing the true savagery and oppression of the Mugabe regime. Of the sample surveyed, 24 per cent of farm workers had been held hostage and three in 10 had been abducted. Twenty-five per cent had seen their pets maimed or killed. In 29 per cent of cases, children were forced to watch beatings and a similar percentage of adults were required to intimidate their colleagues. Forty-four per cent had been assaulted. More than half had received death threats. Two-thirds were severely ill treated or psychologically tortured and a similar proportion forced to join ZANU-PF. On one farm alone, farm workers reported a fractured skull, broken feet, abductions, one man being thrown into a fire, bad bruising from rifle butts from police, imprisonment and torture. Some had been in hiding. Some had had their houses looted and others had watched their houses burn down. Those facts, which come from reliable sources, speak for themselves. More than l million farm workers, estimated to be more than half the population on commercial farms, have been displaced over the years by this violence.

While we watch football games and applaud the sporting achievements of many African states, people are suffering silently in Zimbabwe out of sight of the media. Many are destitute, many live in poor housing in Harare and many more have fled to South Africa. In Harare, hundreds of thousands are still displaced following the senseless mass evictions five years ago. Amnesty recently appealed on their behalf for improved conditions and the UN is helping a limited number with legal advice and emergency aid.

The UK is a key donor to the World Food Programme, besides directly assisting British humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam and Save the Children, but could we be doing more? There are more than 3 million refugees and migrants in South Africa, which has benefited from Zimbabwean labourers working on construction sites during the run-up to the World Cup, but the temporary camps are phasing out and there are fears that many people will be forcibly returned. There is always a risk of xenophobic violence. We have already seen examples of it.

The UN has drawn up a programme to resettle up to 60,000 returnees this year and has opened a new office in Bulawayo. Does the Foreign and Commonwealth Office share these anxieties and have they been expressed in Pretoria? I support what my noble friend Lord Best said about the situation of refugees in the United Kingdom, about which I hope we will have time for a debate.

Having worked for non-governmental organisations, I have a particular concern that NGOs in Zimbabwe, including church groups and even student bodies, are being targeted as though they were militant opposition groups. Funds belonging to NGOs that were frozen by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in 2008 have still not been released and several NGOs report problems in obtaining employment permits. Is our embassy speaking up for local NGOs as well as for international NGOs? The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, warned recently that in countries such as Zimbabwe funding shortfalls are,

“jeopardizing the ability of humanitarian organizations”,

to operate.

Human rights NGOs are also being squeezed if they dare to expose corruption. I have a current example, which has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and other noble Lords in the context of Marange diamonds. Last week, Zimbabwean police arrested the head of the Marange-based Centre for Research and Development, Farai Maguwu. The centre has regularly provided information about ongoing human rights abuse to the Kimberley process, which monitors companies in order to prevent trade in blood diamonds. Mr Maguwu is, in effect, being accused of exposing the close relationship with the Government of Mr Abbey Chikane, the Kimberley process monitor. South African firms such as Mbada and Canadile, which have little mining experience, are being used as fronts by the Mugabe Government, but they cannot officially sell the diamonds until Zimbabwe meets the terms of the Kimberley process. Mr Chikane is widely expected to give the green light before the end of this month. Diamonds are reaching Antwerp via Mozambique even now, so the certification scheme, which is highly regarded in Africa, is in danger of being discredited. This story is well documented and is being widely publicised this week. The MDC has called for Mr Maguwu’s immediate release. Will the Government endorse that call and repeat their assurance that they will not support the export of diamonds from Zimbabwe until they are satisfied that there is no evidence of human rights abuse in the mines?

Finally, knowing that the Department for International Development has taken a close interest in constitutional issues and has considerable expertise in this field, and given the possibility of imminent, and even snap, elections immediately after the World Cup, how will the UK Government step up their support, alongside the European Union, for the democratic process that is already under way under the GPA and how will they help to bring confidence to a potentially healthy and constructive civil society?

Sudan: Human Rights

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I thank my noble friend for his kind remarks and for his advice on my reading list. I will do my best. A number of insightful and valuable studies have been made into the effects—some good and some bad—of the various activities and intentions both of the non-governmental organisations, which are full of dedicated people, and indeed even of Governments, who sometimes, in thinking that their efforts will help, encounter all sorts of side-effects and consequences which had not been reckoned with.

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, given the involvement of the Chinese Government in Sudan—particularly in the oil industry—and remembering what was said in the debate yesterday, what early contact is the Foreign Office going to make with the Chinese, and will they be asked to co-operate in the preparations for the referendum?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We have contact with the Chinese about this and the more general question of the degree to which they should carry responsibility for matters like human rights in difficult areas where they are very active in investment terms. There is no doubt that Chinese oil interests and the money associated with them in Sudan are a factor. We have talked to them. Our Chinese colleagues are reluctant to take a forward position and their doctrine is non-interference in local affairs, but actually they do face some responsibilities and, as we point out to them, will have to adjust to them in due course.

Queen's Speech

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I shall speak mainly about Africa, but first I warmly welcome all our new Ministers to the Front Bench, especially the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who has stood behind the Dispatch Box on both sides for many years, demonstrating great skill and patience. I do not envy any of the new Ministers, who will regularly have to face such a line-up of well informed and sometimes forceful speakers. I am thinking especially of the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, whom we also welcome back to the Front Bench, albeit on the other side.

I am pretty confident that the Minister and the noble Viscount share the view expressed by my noble friends Lady Cox and Lord Alton that the House has a considerable number of experts in foreign affairs and development who could be effectively deployed in a Lords Select Committee on specific issues without antagonising or duplicating the work of the Commons. That is matter for the House, but I am sure that those noble Lords will add their voice to this argument when the time comes and it is discussed in the Liaison Committee.

The Minister said that, in conflict areas, international development, foreign policy and defence often have to work together and be carefully co-ordinated. Afghanistan is the most prominent example of that, but there are three countries in Africa—Sudan, Kenya and Congo— where I know from personal experience that DfID and the FCO have had to be careful not to tread on each other’s toes. At some point in this Parliament—I hope that it will be soon—we are bound to have a full-scale debate on international development. Now that the DfID budget is, we assume, ring-fenced by both coalition parties, I hope that the Government will be careful not to upset the departmental balance.

I welcome the new emphasis on civil society and the funding of smaller NGOs, as has already been recognised by charities. In the coalition manifesto I noticed a sentence, which is potentially disturbing, about stabilisation and reconstruction in Afghanistan. I hope it will not lead to any rebranding of development projects that appear to be more in our own strategic interests than in the interests of that country. The noble Baroness has mentioned that.

The coalition faces a troubled and unstable world in which, I suggest, internal migration is always a key factor. I concur with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, has just said. The latest figures are not encouraging. We now have the highest number of internally displaced people ever, growing from 17 million in 1997 to more than 27 million worldwide. The region most affected is Africa, with 11.6 million. It is significant that Sudan has the highest number of IDPs in Africa, with 4.9 million, more than half of them in Darfur. That excludes nearly 400,000 refugees from Sudan who are abroad. Taking just the most recent numbers, only eight countries account for 90 per cent of the 6.8 million people displaced in the world last year. Of those, 3 million are in Pakistan, 1 million are in Congo and more than 500,000 are in Sudan. These figures come from the Norwegian Refugee Council’s displacement monitoring service.

While world security after 9/11 focused on the Pakistan frontier, relatively little attention has been paid to Africa, particularly the region of southern Sudan and the Great Lakes. One reason for this is that although some of Africa’s more vigorous refugees make it to the Mediterranean ports, migration to the UK chiefly derives from Europe and south Asia so, as a nation, we tend to be more concerned about direct threats to ourselves. We are therefore much less aware of the effects of conflict in east and central Africa, unless we happen to follow closely the work of the humanitarian agencies. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, mentioned Congo. I hope the Minister will confirm that we will support the extension of the vital UN MONUC force there.

This is the year of reckoning in Sudan. In spite of continuing violence, the comprehensive peace agreement has held sufficiently to enable the Governments of north and south to prepare for fundamental change and a referendum next January that is likely to lead to secession. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, referred to the all-party group’s report on Sudan, launched by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, on 18 March. It argued that, because of the elections, there have not been enough preparations for the referendum. It seems vital that north and south draw up contingency plans now. Even if they separate, the south will continue to depend on the north for natural resources and, more specifically, for revenue from foreign oil companies in the south, which still goes through Khartoum and is unequally shared in spite of the injunctions of the peace agreement.

Nearly half of our bilateral aid to Sudan is in humanitarian assistance. A further 37 per cent is in governance, so not much is left for on-the-ground development. Those figures speak for themselves. Without emergency relief from countries such as ours, and without the strengthening of government in the south, the country would be even more destitute. The vast tracts of scrub and savannah in the south are among the least hospitable on earth but, given stability of government, there is potentially sufficient fertile land to feed, house and educate the population, even without oil revenues. DfID and the Government of south Sudan must try to decentralise their assistance away from Juba further towards the states and regional centres where security allows. I wholly endorse what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury said about the role of churches. It is essential that aid agencies make the best use of civil society and the latest techniques of self-reliance to ensure that the south has a secure future after the referendum.

There will undoubtedly be diversion of funds, corruption and a lack of accountability; this is a sine qua non of working in the very poorest countries of the world. However, a new LSE study—I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, was behind some of its work—says that a legal education and enforcement of the rule of law will ensure, in a country such as Sudan, that even a highly traditional tribal society can build up the necessary structures to make development work. Even after years of civil war it is possible to reach agreements based on the latest models of conflict resolution derived from experience in other countries. This strategy is also true of Afghanistan, if only we could follow it.