Zimbabwe

Written by Vincent Cable MP and published in Informer on Wed 6th Nov 2002

With the world worrying about war with Iraq, for whatever reason, Africa and it's problems has fallen out of the media spotlight.

Zimbabwe, in particular, was of great concern to the media in the run up to the rigged election of Mugabe, and it is still of great concern to me and many of my constituents who have contacted me. Some of them have relatives and friends in Zimbabwe, and tell of terrible stories of torture and destruction.

What we do know is that together with 10 million other Southern Africans, the people of Zimbabwe face starvation due to drought, poor governance and the appalling policies of Mugabe, which have lead to the cessation of food production in his country; a country that used to export all over Africa.

To make matters worse, he is diverting food aid to his own Zanu PF supporters and denying it to others. This is particularly acute in Matabeleland, where he conducted a massacre in the 1980's. This massacre was largely ignored by the rest of the world and thousands of men, women and children were slaughtered.

Will the world react this time, before it is too late to prevent millions of people dying? I hope so.

We react swiftly when our own economic interests are threatened and even more swiftly when Westerners are killed, but not so swiftly when millions of lives are threatened in Africa. The world was so slow to react to the genocide in Rwanda when 1 million were killed; until oil was discovered in Sudan, little was done to end the civil war in that country which has lasted for 40 years.

Sometimes, it seems our lives are more precious than those in Africa. Please bombard the Prime Minister and Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, with letters, as I am doing and perhaps we can avert disaster.