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Commonwealth

My Lords, I begin by welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Vadera, with particular pride and pleasure. A fellow Somervillian, she brings energy, commitment and wide experience to this House. We are also fortunate in having the noble Lord, Lord Luce, to open the debate. The Commonwealth needs advocates with stamina—he has certainly shown that tonight—as well as vision. I speak in the context of the imminent collapse of Zimbabwe, only prevented so far by the extraordinary courage of its civil society. The UN has failed, despite the urgent representations of Anna Tibaijuka and Jan Egeland, in its responsibility to protect, both within the country where it was inhibited, and still is, from any intervention, and in New York, where it has allowed the African Union to prevent any discussion of Zimbabwe in the Security Council, the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The African Union’s policy of peer scrutiny, because it is voluntary, has effectively inhibited any action, and we have chosen to respect this. There is, however, one potentially powerful and entirely legitimate source of support for Zimbabwe’s civil society, and that is civil society in the Commonwealth. The SADC countries, Zimbabwe’s neighbours, are members of that Commonwealth. Their economies are deeply vulnerable. We do not know the result of the economic report that they were mandated to make at the Tanzania conference in March. We should be encouraging the lawyers, trade unionists, teachers, doctors and students within Zimbabwe by funding initiatives—some of which are already contemplated—to take them to Commonwealth countries for training. Those initiatives could be used to encourage Commonwealth leaders to move to the next, vital step of putting Zimbabwe on the agenda in Uganda in November. Nothing could send a clearer signal to the people of Zimbabwe, and to the world, that we believe that their country has a future. Our country and the US are generous givers to the many aid programmes inside Zimbabwe. Let us now give for the future of a country well able to restore its economy and its society by its own efforts, once it is free. The Commonwealth, in words cited by Judith Todd, left the candle in the window for the people of South Africa when Verwoerd took his country, but not his people, out of the Commonwealth. As my noble friend Lord Blaker said, both the Harare declaration and the Millbrook agreement require us to do the same for Zimbabwe. Let us not forget that the Commonwealth countries united could do much to secure action in and by the UN, as they did at the time of the Falklands. I rejoice to hear that our Prime Minister has already sent one encouraging signal by telling the Portuguese Prime Minister that if President Mugabe is invited to the conference in November, he will not be there. Today, a country is being destroyed from within before our eyes. The Commonwealth must now set a bright light in the window for the people of Zimbabwe to see.