---

Zimbabwe

My Lords, it is common ground that Zimbabwe is fast proceeding towards becoming a failed state. I was doing the same job as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, 27 to 28 years ago when, as Minister for African Affairs under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, we negotiated in 1979 independence, a new constitution and a trust fund for land resettlement. It gave an opportunity to end a war that had cost 25,000 lives, and for that country to take its own decisions on whether to build or destroy. The tragic thing is that Mr Mugabe has destroyed rather than built. He has built his own power and wealth at the expense of his people, for whom he has shown the utmost contempt. All that is in sharp contrast to South Africa, where Mandela became president under a democratic system and yielded power under a democratic system; or indeed in Ghana, where President Kufuor, president of the African Union, has twice come to power democratically, following the late President Rawlings. I have only one point to make. What can we do after Mugabe has gone? What contingency planning are we preparing? I will make one proposition. The initiative should come from the Commonwealth. After all, it was in Harare where the declaration was signed by all Commonwealth leaders in the early 1990s that they would commit themselves to democracy, to a plural society, to human rights, to the rule of law and to freedom of expression. The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe in 2003, and the Commonwealth should prepare to offer to the Zimbabweans, after Mugabe is gone, subject to the right conditions, the mobilisation of Asian, European, African and Caribbean expertise to help to give the Zimbabweans the tools to enable them to rebuild their country.