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Zimbabwe

Today's debate gives us an opportunity to discuss the Africa all-party group's latest report, "Land in Zimbabwe: Past Mistakes, Future Prospects". I begin by declaring an interest: the Royal African Society seconds a member of its staff, Alex O'Donoghue, to work three days a week for the all-party group, and I sponsor her parliamentary pass. I thank colleagues from all parties and from both Houses of Parliament who have contributed to the report. I also thank Alex O'Donoghue for her work in collecting the evidence and setting up our oral evidence sessions. Finally, I thank the Secretary of State for International Development for considering our report and its conclusions, and for responding, on behalf of his Department and the Foreign Office, to those conclusions. Our all-party group chose to investigate this subject because it is a pivotal and emotive issue in Zimbabwe. The violence from farm invasions has destroyed the livelihoods of 200,000 farm workers and halved the commercial agricultural output of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's current land reform policy is a barrier to both the county's economic recovery and its longer term development. We also decided to address this subject because of our concern that UK policy is misunderstood in Africa. Many Africans, particularly those from southern Africa, believe that the UK promised to fund land reform in Zimbabwe as part of the deal made 30 years ago at the Lancaster house talks, which brought to an end the illegal unilateral declaration of independence by the white settler regime in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, many in Africa believe that we oppose farm invasions in Zimbabwe principally because it is white farmers whose land is being expropriated, and many believe that we support the European Union's restrictive measures—often referred to as sanctions—because we have political differences with the President of Zimbabwe. I do not believe that any of those views are right or true. For example, the EU's restrictive measures ban arm sales to Zimbabwe because of the human rights violations that the armed forces in that country have committed against civilians. Those measures also freeze the assets of 203 individual members of ZANU-PF, which until recently was the sole ruling party in Zimbabwe, and of 40 parastatal companies. Those assets abroad have been frozen because of the real fear that Government or state property from Zimbabwe was being taken out of the country and used for personal benefit, rather than for the benefit of Zimbabwe's people. I must say, however, that sometimes the comments made by Members of this House about land invasions in Zimbabwe reinforce the belief that our concern is based principally on kith and kin. I do not believe that that is the case. Addressing that concern was one of the reasons why the all-party group decided to write our report.