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Zimbabwe

In that case, I hope that Mugabe will not be invited, but I dare to contemplate the possibility that he will be. In any case, I know that we will strongly resist. Then there is the issue of whether the Prime Minister should go, or the Foreign Secretary or a junior Minister. The problem is that it is a summit about Africa and there are other equally important issues that require the attention of Ministers. We can also argue about whether our cricket team should be banned from touring, but the painful truth is that short of putting the hon. Member for Macclesfield in a gunboat and sending him up the Zambezi, there are no original solutions left that we could impose on that tragic situation. The bottom line is that, as has been said this afternoon, this is ultimately an African problem and it requires an African solution. I share the general disappointment at the silence of African leaders—with a handful of honourable exceptions—of the AU and of SADC. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall pointed out, some of those have acted as cheerleaders. They have not merely been silent, but have acted disgracefully. I have had many conversations with African Heads of State and Government about Zimbabwe. Many of them have been very critical of Mugabe in private, but that has not translated in what they have said to the outside world. I remember meeting one Head of State immediately before he was due to go into a session at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Nigeria in 2004 and he was very robust in what he said about Mugabe. He was from a more or less neighbouring country and I suggested he make those points when he got into the meeting. He said that he would, but when I asked the then Prime Minister afterwards whether so-and-so had had anything to say on the issue, he said, ““Not a peep.”” Unfortunately, that has happened fairly often. The Foreign Minister of a west African country once described the problem to me as the great liberator syndrome. He said that Africa was full of great liberators who have gone on to ruin their countries. I shall not name his country, but he added, ““And we should know””—as indeed he should. As I have said, I was present at the Abuja CHOGM in 2004 and I am sorry to say that President Mbeki did not act as some sort of neutral mediator on the issue of whether Zimbabwe should be readmitted—it would have brought humiliation on us had that happened—but as an agent of Mugabe, and the issue dominated that summit to the exclusion of many other important issues. Even at this late stage, however, I hope that South Africa can be persuaded to intervene decisively to bring this catastrophe to an end. It is deeply in its interests to do so, as it has the best part of 2 million refugees from Zimbabwe and that must be having a serious impact on its economy. The South Africans are well aware of the problem and, as my hon. Friend said, some of them are beginning to speak out. My hon. Friend also pointed out that African leaders cannot have things both ways. They cannot make wonderful speeches at the AU about their love of democracy and so forth, then go home and rig their constitutions so that they get third or fourth terms in office and still expect the assistance of the outside world. Neither can they expect to invite the outside world to get involved in a cause such as South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement—and they were very happy to have the outside world’s interest in that—and then say that the things that are happening now on their own doorsteps are no one else’s business. That is completely unacceptable. I look forward to the day when more African leaders come from the new generation. Rightly or wrongly, many people regard Mugabe as a hero of the liberation struggle, but not many more of his ilk are left. He is the last of that generation, so we will probably not face the same problem again. Whatever happens in Zimbabwe, the end is in sight. We can demand that the British Government do this or that, but the truth is that the person inflicting the most damage on the country and its regime is Mugabe himself. He is bringing it down, and it will fall around his ears unless a compromise is found that allows him to be evacuated into a safe retirement. His regime cannot survive the present levels of inflation, and little that we do or do not do will make any difference. The end is close, so we need to spend a little time talking about what comes next, because that will not be easy. When the time comes to try to stabilise Zimbabwe, we will have to work with some of the people who are mixed up with the present regime. That may be distasteful, but it is a fact of life and we have to think about it. I do not know whether or not Mr. Gono should be added to the travel ban, but in the end we will have to work with someone who knows about economics in Zimbabwe. I am not asserting that it will be him, merely raising it as a possibility that we should not exclude. When the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas), sums up the debate, I hope that he will say something about how he imagines that the international community will be able to help when the regime falls. We are within sight of that and, although I appreciate that he will not be able to go into much detail, we need some assurance that plans are being laid and that we are talking with our EU and African partners, and with other international contacts, about what exactly will happen when the end comes. Obviously, we cannot be too prescriptive, as we do not know how the end will occur. We pray that the transition will be peaceful, with no more bloodshed or catastrophe, but we cannot rule such things out. The most we can say to the Zimbabweans is, ““We are with you. We support you. We want your beautiful country to be put back together again, and we stand ready to help. You have not been forgotten.”” However, I hope that we do not get involved in too much posturing about who said what to whom, and who should or should not be banned. In the end, all that is fairly irrelevant to the big picture. We should welcome the fact that the end is coming. On many occasions, hon. Members of all parties, in the Government and on the Back Benches, have made their views clear. We must be ready to help when the time comes.