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"In the Hotseat" speaks to British MP Kate Hoey - SW Radio Africa
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
June 21, 2005

Violet: In the programme 'Hotseat' today I speak to Kate Hoey, a British Labour Member of Parliament who has just come back from a secret visit to Zimbabwe. Kate has been speaking and has actually written several articles in the UK media about what she describes as a shocking scene in Zimbabwe. It's extremely difficult for the international media to go into the country and cover the crisis, especially for a British politicians. So I first asked Kate what made her go into Zimbabwe.

Kate Hoey: I went 18 months ago under cover and I wanted to go back particularly now as I'd heard things were getting much worse and also because it's very near to the G8 meeting in Gleneagles in Scotland where the big countries of the world, led by Tony Blair, will be discussing Africa. Thabo Mbeki from South Africa will be there and I thought it was very important to be able to bring out an up to date account of what was happening. What I saw was absolutely horrifying and very, very shocking and I was able to bring some film out, so that people internationally and in the UK can see the effects are on the lives of the poorest people in Zimbabwe of Mugabe's dictatorial policies.

Violet: Can you describe to us what you actually saw with your own eyes?

Kate Hoey: Well, I happened to be in Kilarney on the day that the police moved in with their heavy vehicles and deliberately destroyed the homes of the people living there, giving them a very short time to get out. I was able to see some of that with my own eyes and also to get some film. I then went back into Kilarney the next day with the Churches, many of the Church groups responded by bringing out trucks and vehicles to try and help people move away because the people had been told that if they didn't move their belongings by the next day the police would return with dogs and basically destroy everything. So, I helped some people move out. Many of them had lived there for 25 years, some people I talked to. So no way was it a place where, as the government was trying to say, were criminals and ne'er do wells. It was actually a place where many of them had been there for a long time and they'd been working in Bulawayo.

Violet: And how did you feel?

Kate Hoey: I felt very angry because I had not seen scenes like that. It was sheer destruction and then of course seeing these people, some of whom had already been displaced from other areas , being displaced again. The children, many of the children were moved into the Church Hall, but of course people didn't want to leave their only belongings. So we did what we could to help and they were very, very fearful that the police were going to come back. We then travelled up to Harare where we saw on the way up to Harare, people leaving their belongings trying to get out to keep as many of their belongings with them and then into Harare which, quite honestly, the outskirts of Harare and the surrounding areas, I can only describe as being like an earthquake. It was quite appalling. I'd been to some of those areas before when I'd been in Harare last time so I was able to see the destruction of the informal sector, the small businesses, the markets, the factories that had been built up by people who were keeping themselves in a livelihood by doing work. All of it destroyed. I talked to people who had been forced to knock down their own homes that the Government said were illegal and they knocked them down hopefully to keep some of their bricks, concrete blocks and so on, you know to be able to use again. It was a shocking scene. Very, very frightened people and a country that seems more sinister now than ever before and where the army and the police can do what they like.

Violet: Clearly it was quite risky to go in?

Kate Hoey: Well, I don't think Mugabe would have been very happy that I was looking around, but the risk I took was nothing to the risks that brave Zimbabweans take every day and I am so amazed at how they are prepared to still try and fight back when they want to be peaceful but they want to protest and have to face harassment, arrests and torture. I met some of the people who had been tortured over the past while. The situation, which I can only describe, and I did describe, in an article I wrote to the London Times when I came back, as being equivalent of what Pol Pot did in Cambodia when he decided to move thousands and thousands of people out from the urban areas to the rural areas where they could be controlled. That seems to me what is behind a lot of what Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe.

Violet: And you also wrote in the same article upon your return to the UK, and I quote

" I'm filled with anger at my utter helplessness mixed with shame that although it has provided aid for the people of Zimbabwe, my government has started to back the useless silent diplomacy of Mr. Mbeki" So what can your government do?

Kate Hoey: Well, 18 months ago, that is what I was told when I came back; that behind the scenes, the South Africans were working on silent diplomacy things would change, they would be alright. I'm afraid that has proved to be completely hopeless and wasted and my voice now and many others in parliament here are calling for my government to ensure that at the G8 meeting on Africa Zimbabwe is very much pushed up the agenda there and that we force the South African President to stop turning a blind eye to what's going on. They have, South Africa has, constantly prevented any kind of real discussion at the United Nations, any discussion about the human rights situation. I'm not asking South Africa to do anything positively, what I'm asking them at the very least to do is to stop blocking other people from wanting to raise this internationally. And, for Mbeki to be in Scotland, as I said, wining and dining with the world leaders, he's only there because he gave a promise that he was going to be the African leader who was going to sort out democracy in Southern Africa and in Africa and who was going to work with the NEPAD agreement. That failed miserably. If we can't sort out dictators like Mugabe then we can't sort out governance in Africa which is going to be one of the big issues discussed at Gleneagles.

Violet: And many people feel that Mbeki's silent diplomacy has done nothing but cause great pain. Now, there are some who say that although it will hit the poor, the only way of getting rid of Mugabe is to tighten sanctions like stopping trade altogether. Do you think the British government should consider more than general sanctions?

Kate Hoey: I think when it comes to something like sanctions, I think that's really up to the opposition, the MDC, to say what they would like to happen. I mean, I would like to make sure that any Minister of Mugabe's who has children in schools in London or in England, that they have to go back. Because I don't see why, when the children of Zimbabweans are suffering dreadfully, that the Ministers should be coming to the United Kingdom and having their children educated here. But, in terms of sanctions generally, I think what we want to make sure is that more and more Ministers and their families are not allowed to travel and take money out of the country and that sort of thing. And we need to demand internationally an independent body to go into Zimbabwe and to have free access to do an assessment on the destruction that happened and on the huge humanitarian catastrophe that's happening even as I speak and its got to get into the top 2 or 3 big, big important global jobs that need to be sorted out.

Violet: You did mention earlier about G8 Summit, and again, there's a lack of emphasis on good governance. Now in Zimbabwe, as you've just come back, there's an urgent need for humanitarian assistance and people say money shouldn't go directly to governments like that sort of government.

Kate Hoey: We need the aid to be worked through the Aid Agencies because it's clear that the food that the government has is controlled and used politically and therefore if you are not a supporter of ZANU (PF) you will not get access to food. The agencies have to stand up, I think, and speak out more clearly because they are there some of them, working in pretty intolerable conditions. I think, at some stage, there has to be a showdown as to what more the agencies can do if they are not being allowed to work fairly. That argument has to be brought to international attention.

Violet: Are these the sort of issues that you may be able to bring up to the G8 Summit?

Kate Hoey: Yes, I've got a debate in the House of Commons on Monday on the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe which gives me the opportunity to lay out in parliament what I saw and allows the government to respond. But I will also be talking to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, about what more we can do, and to Hilary Benn the Development Secretary.

Violet: Because the other problem is Mugabe has managed to arm twist his way into doing all sorts of things which the rest of the civilized world watch and that's why people are saying now there's a need for the international community to put pressure that aid and money should be channeled through other NGO's.

Kate Hoey: Yes, I think it needs to be handled differently, the aid issue. But, we also have to stop playing it carefully in South Africa because South Africa is the key to what can happen and the changes. If South Africa decides that Mugabe was not working in the interests of the whole of Africa and actually doing a great dis-service to the rest of Africa particularly when the world is now talking about cancelling debt and about the poorest people. Mugabe is working against all that and South Africa should be doing what they can to make him change his ways and to ensure that he is no longer running Zimbabwe. If they can't do that then we also have to take on South Africa and actually be quite up front that they are not behaving in a way that is making them eligible to be part of a democratic world where people are respecting human rights.

Violet: Now, Kate, how is it possible that in this day and age one man can destroy the lives of millions of people and the rest of the world just stands and watches?

Kate Hoey: Because he's got complete power, he controls the army, he controls the police, anyone who tries to protest is immediately arrested, put in jail, tortured, intimidated. Millions of Zimbabwe's dollars spent on the internal security organisation , those plain clothes people are everywhere. It's very, very frightening and ultimately people are going to have to decide if they want to be ground right down into the ground or whether they are going to stand up. But obviously, that's for the people in Zimbabwe. But he's been allowed to get away with it because the international community, I think, was diverted. This whole thing about the colonial past is something that people in Zimbabwe who fought for freedom, I met many of them, people who wanted to see a democratic Zimbabwe, they are now utterly appalled at what Mugabe has done. We need to speak out and that's what I hope, in a small way, having been in there, seen it for myself, I'll be able to do.

Violet: Zimbabweans hope that there will be more like you, because it seems right now that the rest of the world is just sitting there and watching. You know, people do ask 'aren't there any other mechanisms in Europe or the United Nations that can bring censure on Mugabe'?

Kate Hoey: Well, we've got to get the pictures out; it's so difficult. People have no idea what's going on in Zimbabwe. If the media, - if what has happened in Harare had happened anywhere else or in any other country, the world's media would have been there and would have been reporting it. Because they're not, there is a lack of understanding about what is happening. So the kind of thing we can do is to make sure that the message is getting out of what an appalling situation it is and how the international opinion has to be mobilising to speak out and to get South Africa engaged. I would just like to really pay tribute to those hundreds and hundreds of brave people who in many ways are trying to keep the flag of freedom flying and we will say that we will continue to do what we can in the UK to help.

Violet: That was British Labour MP Kate Hoey.

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