Zimbabwe

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps it is because we are originally from near each other in the Highlands that I share the pessimism of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I fear that we are guilty of wishful thinking on Zimbabwe. There has been no regime change; evil still prevails. I had hoped that Mugabe would have died 20 years ago and been given a warm welcome in that special place in hell reserved for genocidal monsters. That might have spared Zimbabweans some of the years of starvation and cruelty which they have suffered, but only if all of his vile regime was brought down with him. But dying 20 years ago would not have saved the 20,000 people of the Matabele who were hacked to death, burnt alive or thrown down the wells by him and the commanders of the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade. That genocide happened within two years of Mugabe taking power.

Mugabe ordered the genocide, but who masterminded it? Why, none other than Emmerson Mnangagwa, the new President. All the senior army officers are desperate to keep the land, property and goods that they have looted. That is why they have moved against Mugabe, not because they want a new democracy.

Let us have no rose-tinted spectacles about Zimbabwe rejoining the Commonwealth or lifting sanctions in the near future. Indeed, I think we need hundreds more sanctions against all the leaders of this vile regime in Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa and all his ZANU-PF cronies are equally evil as the Mugabe family. There must be no concessions to Zimbabwe at the moment, but a redoubling of our efforts to bring them down and get them before the International Criminal Court charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. Mladic and Milosevic killed 7,000 in Bosnia. They were evil. They went before the criminal court. Mugabe and his cronies killed 20,000 Matabele.

It is only then that Zimbabwe can emerge from the darkness of mass murder, looting and starvation into a new world of hope.