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Zimbabwe

My Lords, as someone who, for many years, throughout the efforts of liberation, supported both ZANU and ZAPU, I say to this House—and in the hope that it is broadcast in Zimbabwe—that I rejoice in the coming end of the Mugabe regime. I welcome the very strong commitment given by Her Majesty’s Government to providing sustained, effective, usable support to democratic Zimbabwe, whenever that event really comes to pass, which I hope will be in the next few weeks. Will Her Majesty’s Government strongly emphasise to President Mbeki that it is entirely consistent with the role given to him by the South African Development Community to maximise and intensify pressure on Mugabe to quit now, in order to minimise tension and crisis and provide the possibility of a commencement to recovery to a country whose economy he has utterly devastated but whose spirit, manifestly, he has never managed to kill.