Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week’s international media carried reports about the increasing violence that has now become public in Zimbabwe. It is impressive that we are able to have that media coverage of this violence because, at best, there has been sporadic coverage and information about what has been going on in that country. It is no surprise to many of us that there is continuing violence in Zimbabwe. I want to quote from an ABC interview that was done in March 2002, just after the last round of elections which led to the re-election, we believe, of the current leader of Zimbabwe, Mr Mugabe. At that time, after speaking with Morgan Tsvangirai from the opposition party in Zimbabwe, and also with Alexander Downer in his position as Minister for Foreign Affairs in this country, the ABC reporter Sally Sara said:

Zimbabwe’s political turmoil is now entering a dangerous new phase.

But the end of the election is unlikely to bring an end to the intimidation and violence.

That interview was in March 2002. It is now March 2007, and we know that those words are in fact true. I have been very fortunate to meet a number of people from Zimbabwe over the last few years. Tonight I want to put on record my deep respect and admiration for so many of them, in particular, my friend Sekai Holland, who I believe is still in Zimbabwe. She was stopped again from leaving Zimbabwe while attempting to get medical help for injuries that she suffered at the hands of rioters when attending a rally last week. I am not quite sure whether Sekai would be happy at the various descriptions of her in the last couple of weeks as an ‘elderly woman’ and ‘a grandmother’. In fact, she is a grandmother, but I do not know whether she is too happy about being described in that way. As has been pointed out, in a community and a society where elders are venerated, the fact that one of the key victims of the recent public violence is an older woman of a particularly impressive family and a sitting MP of the country in many ways reflects just how off the rails that particular government is and how violence has degenerated in Zimbabwe.

I reiterate: this is no surprise. I have been deeply impressed by comments made by foreign minister Alexander Downer and by the Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd. They acknowledge the thuggery of the Zimbabwean government, that we as a country must play a role in the international reaction to the lack of appropriate rule and the total dismissal of any concept of effective democracy in that country and that we as an international community must make a stand. How we do that exactly is uncertain, because we know that there are limited avenues. Minimal restrictions have already been placed on the country. We are working through the UN process, and I am hoping that we will be able to look to the International Court of Justice for some international focus on the activities of the Zimbabwean government. It is important that we as a community accept that we can at least raise our voices.

The people in Zimbabwe, a country that was acknowledged as one of the most rich and beautiful in Africa, are suffering horrific conditions. We know that, in terms of its economy, there has been a virtual collapse of the agricultural sector and that real gross domestic product has declined by 30 per cent in the last five years. The latest inflation rate figure is over 1,590 per cent. I cannot even begin to understand those figures. What the inflation rate means in practical terms—and this is an example that Sekai talks about—is that on the black market a bottle of milk to feed your family can cost 10,000 Zimbabwean dollars one day and up to 17,000 Zimbabwean dollars the next day. Many people in Zimbabwe are starving at the moment; they cannot afford to eat. The unemployment rate is so high that people have stopped collecting the figures.

This, I repeat, is a country that was once known as one of the most rich and successful countries in the region and where there was great hope. When independence was declared in Zimbabwe, there was international celebration that people would be able to move forward into a new world. That hope has been dashed and what has occurred in Zimbabwe over the last 10 years is a shame to all of us.

There is a feeling that in some way the international press has not been able to cover the situation in Zimbabwe. Australian journalists were kept out of Zimbabwe during the country’s 2003 elections. As recently as yesterday, the leadership of Zimbabwe was again threatening to expel journalists or anyone from other countries who questioned what was going on there. The Mugabe government does not want people to know what is happening inside the country.

The leaders of the country continue to travel internationally—although not here because of sanctions that have been imposed—and to enjoy a very exotic lifestyle while their people at home are starving. Last week we saw the incredible violence—the bashings, people being taken to hospital or imprisoned without trial—in Zimbabwe and that there is no such thing as an effective justice system there.

As a community we can do things to make these issues public and to show our support for the people in Zimbabwe. We can work through organisations like Amnesty International, which maintains a watch over that country. My close friend Dave Copeman, who is now working in the Amnesty International network in East Africa, has close links with Zimbabwe—he worked there during the period leading up to the last elections. He continues to email information to let people know exactly what is happening to friends, comrades and family members who are still in Zimbabwe. That is the kind of international communication that the current Zimbabwean government would like to cease. In fact, it calls people who do that traitorous. That is not traitorous; that is freedom of the press. It is quite clear that we need to know what is going on.

I have been impressed by the amount of information coming out of the country—I think mainly through the operation of the internet. There are a significant number of people from Zimbabwe who are living in Australia and who maintain communication with people there through the internet. Many of us cannot believe the stories that are coming out of that country, because we are offended by the level of violence and the absolute betrayal of people’s freedoms that is occurring there.

Sekai has come to Australia many times. She was a significant activist here during the sixties when she was a student and she has many friends and comrades still in the country. I was very pleased to hear the public statement last week by Aboriginal leaders. Sekai was active in the sixties and the seventies in Aboriginal land rights and other Aboriginal activities.

The leadership in Zimbabwe has misrepresented what has been going on in the country with claims that any condemnation of what they are doing is part of white racism focusing on what is going on in a black nation. So it was particularly heartening to see that a group of Indigenous Australians, who knew Sekai or at least knew of her, made public on 18 March this year their opposition to what is going on in Zimbabwe. Gary Foley, whom some of us know quite well and who has a way with the Australian language, said:

It is particularly ironic that the ANC government of South Africa seems to be propping up the Mugabe regime at a time when the Zimbabwe government is brutalising a grandmother—

that is Sekai—

who once stood beside Australian Aboriginal activists to fight against South African apartheid.

He went on to say:

Mr Mugabe has dismissed criticism from the West as ‘just white racists’. Well, it is time for Mugabe and his thugs to realise that there are black people in the West who also condemn his action. Fascism is fascism whether its face is white or black.

I think that is a particularly important message for solidarity across the country.

My thoughts are with Sekai and her family and also with the many other families who are caught up in the horror that is now going on in Zimbabwe. We can continue to work with the Australian government to ensure that we keep our voices strong at the UN. I think we can do that, but we have a message for those people in Zimbabwe: we have not forgotten them. We will continue to listen to their call for help. Their cry for democracy is one that we share.