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Zimbabwe

My Lords, I shall make two brief points. First, I urge support for the work of the Zimbabwe Phoenix Trust, created by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, to provide training, skills and motivation for professionals now in the UK as refugees or settled residents, so that people with expertise are ready to return to that country when the task of rebuilding it begins. Secondly, in relation to the notorious Operation Murambatsvina, in which the Government violently bulldozed people from their shacks and stalls in the areas of political opposition to Mugabe, I commend the work of the UK’s Homeless International. Against all the odds, with support from DfID, the EU and Comic Relief, Homeless International is empowering local communities and demonstrating what can be achieved through in situ upgrading of slums, land sharing and sanitation initiatives if only there is some political stability. I ask Her Majesty’s Government to make strong representations to the new Secretary-General of the United Nations suggesting that Anna Tibaijuka, the under-secretary of the UN, who made the original highly critical report on the mass evictions, should now be sent as his special envoy again to report on what has happened following this catastrophe of enforced homelessness for between 700,000 and 1 million of the most bitterly poor people in Zimbabwe.