Lord Anderson of Swansea
Main Page: Lord Anderson of Swansea (Labour - Life peer)Zimbabwe
Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, in my two minutes I shall make two points. Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe declined from bread-basket to basket case. It is mired in the corruption and cronyism that have led to national bankruptcy—and it need not have been. As the noble Lord, Lord Luce, said, south of the Limpopo is South Africa, where President Mandela’s national reconciliation gave a very different model. I visited Zimbabwe regularly in the 1980s and saw the apparent prosperity. I confess to having been rather starry-eyed about Mugabe. But I was in good company; so were the international community, the IFIs and even white farmers, who were ready to give him the benefit of the doubt in spite of the Matabeleland massacres. Democracies decline gradually but, as we have seen in Zimbabwe, dictatorships end in apoplectic fits.
Secondly, given that we all want Zimbabwe to move towards a prosperous democracy, how should we now respond? Cynics will no doubt say that the crocodile cannot change its scales and that people who are now ringing the bells will soon be wringing their hands. It is true that the President arrives with much negative baggage, and we should respond with caution and conditionality. Next year’s elections are vital. Private investors will be wary but the IMF, the World Bank, the EU, the Commonwealth, China and South Africa—remembering that the Zulus are cousins of the Ndebele—should be ready to help.
We must proceed with hope. Much is positive. The infrastructure and tourist potential are good, and there is much good will to the UK. My final question is: how do we encourage the many talented Zimbabweans of the diaspora to return and help rebuild their country? Many of course will have built new lives for themselves and their families outside Zimbabwe, including in the UK. What incentives and guarantees, including possibly subsidising their salaries, can we provide? The diaspora can make a major contribution to the new Zimbabwe.