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Foreign Affairs and Defence

I am very grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way again. It is undoubtedly the case that some innocent people would die if there were an oil and electricity embargo, but that argument would have much more force if there were not already tens of thousands of people dying, and that number is likely to multiply if this policy of inaction by the international community—I am not criticising the British Government; I am talking about the international community—were to continue. I would be the last person to argue for what is in effect regime change for a political objective, but we are dealing with an overwhelming humanitarian objective. I recall the extraordinary paradox that it was the Vietnamese who got rid of Pol Pot when they intervened in Cambodia and ended that ghastly regime. I suggest that, with the authority of the UN and the AU, a similar objective could be achieved in Zimbabwe, with minimum loss of life and to the enormous relief of the people of Zimbabwe as a whole.