Zimbabwe

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I, too, thank the House for this brief opportunity to debate some of the International Development Committee’s reflections following our visit to Zimbabwe in February. I endorse what the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) said about it being important that we went. Before we went, there was nervousness in some quarters about whether we would be sending mixed messages simply by going there. We were conscious that if things went wrong our visit could be seen as some kind of endorsement of the Mugabe regime or a weakening of the international community’s resolve; we were firm that we could not let that be the case, and I do not think it was.

It is important that we have a clear position on the gross abuses of human rights that went on there and are still going on, and that we make our position absolutely clear. However, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, and as the report underlines, Zimbabwe has huge potential as a country, but also has huge needs in human terms. In October, the United Nations Development Programme released its annual human development index, which puts the country last on the indices of education, health and the income of nations. According to UNICEF’s mid-year report, which was published in July, Zimbabwe had the most severe health-related emergency of 2010—a major measles outbreak in which there were 7,754 suspected cases and 517 people died. That was reported in 61 of the country’s 62 districts. The report states:

“Basic social services, such as access to safe water and coverage of immunization programmes, remain a cause for concern.”

We spent some time looking at those areas when we were in Zimbabwe in February. The report also notes that although schools remain open, the quality of learning “continues to be compromised”, often by

“teachers’ low morale, lack of teaching and learning material, and the poor infrastructure of most schools.”

In a whole range of areas, it is absolutely clear that the country has considerable needs.

UNICEF projects a final funding gap of $44,260,863, which is 40% of its needs. It states:

“If funding requirements are not met the following critical activities may not take place: improving the management of pneumonia and diarrhoea in children under five years, community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM), nutrition surveillance, emergency safe water and sanitation, life skills for HIV/AIDS prevention and health promotion in schools, and the protection and promotion of the rights of children within IDP and migrant-sending communities.”

Zimbabwe is an area of massive need and the evidence of our eyes suggests that we are right to be in there. We have made some suggestions about how the Department for International Development’s programmes could be improved or tweaked, but by and large the impact there is positive and we are focusing on the right things.

Let me endorse what the right hon. Gentleman said about the protracted relief programme. We saw various projects for which funding had started through that programme and it is clear that an impact is being made, but a number of interlocutors we came across were clearly concerned about the administration and costs of the programme. They had other concerns too, and this is where our report almost argues against itself. It says that we want to be clear that the audit procedures for the programme are robust enough, but one concern that was raised with us was whether, given the use of intermediary organisations, funding was being mediated in the right way and whether the voices of grass-roots community organisations that really know what needs to be done, and how it should be done, are getting through the bureaucracy so that programmes can be approved and money got to where it is needed. I do not think we have any great pearls of wisdom that enable us to say this or that must be done to the protracted relief programme—overall, I am comfortable with the shape of it—but I hope that DFID looks at whether the mechanisms for operating the programme are as good as they should be and whether they are getting resources to the places they need to go, and in the best way.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I have only just arrived in the Chamber and realise that this issue may already have been addressed. While in Zimbabwe, what information did members of the Committee garner from the ambassador about the potential for the neighbouring states to increase their role in effectively achieving a better solution for Zimbabwe? Those states are nearby and have a deep interest in doing exactly that.

[Richard Burden]

I hope to conclude my remarks by saying something about neighbouring states, because their role is crucial. The hon. Gentleman asks about the ambassador’s views on the matter. He has provided a briefing, but I have to confess that I have not seen it. Perhaps the Minister will give us a few ideas about the ambassador’s views during his winding-up speech. I shall return to some of the issues on the role of neighbouring states.

We need to engage and we are engaging. By and large, the focus of that is positive. However, it absolutely must be accompanied by our ensuring that measures are taken that express the international community’s—I was going to say displeasure, but it sounds a bit weak—views on what the ZANU-PF regime has been doing and continues to do. We must be clear about that.

Again, the right hon. Member for Gordon made it clear that this is an area where Mugabe uses the media inside Zimbabwe completely to distort what the measures that the international community is adopting are all about. While we were there, it was put about time and again that, somehow, the international community is taking action against the people of Zimbabwe. In many ways, the term “sanctions” is a misnomer for what we are doing there. There are targeted measures against individuals and organisations with a direct and responsible role in what goes on. Large amounts of cash and aid go in—probably not enough, as we have heard from UNICEF—that are directed, in the best way we can achieve, to assisting the people of Zimbabwe.

It is important that the measures taken against individuals who are responsible for some quite ghastly acts in that country remain in place and should be removed—indeed, there is an argument that they should be increased—only when we see clear and demonstrable steps towards democracy and respect for human rights. All the indications are that we are a long way from that.

Many of us who had not been to Zimbabwe before were quite surprised that in many ways we did not see the chaos that we perhaps thought we would see. Not only does that country have massive natural resources and massive potential, but we could see in Bulawayo and elsewhere that if the country were able to get itself together, had an economy that worked and had the right kind of governance, it could turn around really quickly.

The infrastructure that had been built up over many years was still there in many instances. There have been major steps forward. Since the dollarisation of the economy, the work of Tendai Biti has been really useful in putting Zimbabwe’s economy on a more rational basis. However, again, there is a dual view of what is going on there: the chaos that perhaps some of us expected to see was not there, yet we could see that the impact of the land seizures had undermined the economy and caused genuine suffering on a scale that is unacceptable. Just before we went to Zimbabwe, some Committee members saw the film “Mugabe and the White African”, which I recommend to hon. Members because it very graphically illustrates the human cost to and, indeed, bravery of some Zimbabweans in standing up to the Mugabe regime.

The land seizures continue, and a recent report by ZimOnline exposes the reality of them. The President and his wife Grace are said to own 14 farms, spanning at least 16,000 hectares. All ZANU-PF’s 56 politburo members, 98 MPs and 35 elected and unelected senators were allegedly allocated farms, and 10 provincial governors have seized farms, with four being multiple owners. Sixteen supreme court and high court judges own farms, too.