E&OE
17 December 2008
Radio Interview with Howard Sattler, 6PR
Subjects: Zimbabwe
HOWARD SATTLER: Well, like most people I'm sure you get absolutely upset when you see the pictures coming out of Zimbabwe every day. The papers run them, there's some television coverage. We regularly talked about it and talked to people over there. Robert Mugabe has to go, but he won't. He's hanging in despite having lost the elections, the most recent elections. He lost as the president first time, and he also lost in the general election. But still he's there and his people are doing it absolutely shockingly at the moment. Now cholera has broken out all over the place, 1000 or so dead from that. People are starving, five million people at risk there. And they just continue to repress the population there.
Well, today the Australian Government announced we'll strengthen our sanctions against the regime in Zimbabwe, and joining me is Stephen Smith, the federal Foreign Affairs Minister. Hello Stephen.
STEPHEN SMITH: Good afternoon Howard, how are you?
HOWARD SATTLER: What does that mean, they will strengthen the sanctions? Won't that hurt the people in Zimbabwe?
STEPHEN SMITH: No. We've done two things today which is consistent with what we've done all this year. We've increased the number of members of the regime, or close supporters of the regime who are subject to financial and travel sanctions so it hurts the regime members' pockets and it hurts their travel capacity.
We're adding about 75 individuals and four companies. So we now have over 250 individuals on our list and a range of companies, and that sees them subject both to financial and travel restrictions.
At the same time, because of the terrible cholera situation, I've announced another million dollars of immediate assistance to non-government organisations to help address cholera in Zimbabwe and also on the border areas because we now know it's spreading to places like South Africa and Botswana.
HOWARD SATTLER: So we don't give the money to Mr Mugabe's regime?
STEPHEN SMITH: Absolutely not...
HOWARD SATTLER: Because it would go straight into their bank accounts.
STEPHEN SMITH: No, we've done two things. We continue to give humanitarian assistance to the Zimbabwe people through non-government organisations, the aid organisations, and also United Nations agencies like UNICEF. And that focus this year has particularly been food and more recently water and water sanitation for cholera.
We've now contributed, with the announcement today, over $20 million this year to assist the ordinary Zimbabwe people for the terrible circumstances that they're in. And we take the view that we don't want to punish the Zimbabwe people; we want to try and punish the regime to move them on.
We're now the fifth largest donor after the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the Netherlands who have all taken the view...
HOWARD SATTLER: Stephen, surely the key to all this is to remove Mugabe and his henchmen. I know what you're talking about, sanctions and all that sort of thing, but how do we actually extract him from the houses of government over there? What's the United Nations going to do about this?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we were pleased in the last couple of days the United Nations Security Council for the first time in a long time actually had a discussion about Zimbabwe, and we strongly support that. I've been in communication with David Miliband, the UK Foreign Secretary, urging the Security Council to continue to take an interest.
But the real lever on Mugabe is South Africa and the neighbouring African states, and we continue to urge the African Union and the Southern African Development Community states to put pressure on Mugabe to get him to move on. And in recent times we've seen very strong statements and urgings from Botswana who have been very strong against Mugabe's regime, but also from Kenya, from the Prime Minister of Kenya.
HOWARD SATTLER: Well, the Prime Minister of Kenya wants local forces. He wants some African Union forces to go there and physically extract him, doesn't he?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, he says that he would favour military intervention by the African Union states. Our position on that is that military intervention, if it's to occur, should occur only under the auspices of the Security Council.
HOWARD SATTLER: Isn't that the only way out because this bloke just won't go. And even though that may cause some fighting and military action over there, could the people be any worse off than they are now?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, if the United Nations Security Council endorsed military intervention under Chapter Seven of the United Nations charter to intervene, then we would strongly support that. But frankly that's unlikely to occur given the various veto powers sitting around the Security Council.
But Howard, you know, no-one is as frustrated as Australia and Australians. We've been at the forefront of trying to put pressure on Mugabe all year, both through the sanctions which are effective but also through the urgings we've been making on the neighbouring African states. The regrettable truth is that when Mugabe was at his weakest which was in the immediate aftermath of the first parliamentary and presidential ballots earlier this year...
HOWARD SATTLER: Yeah.
STEPHEN SMITH: ... in March, April of this year, South Africa and the African Union states didn't move when they could have.
HOWARD SATTLER: Well, Mbeki actually supported him.
STEPHEN SMITH: That's right. And that was a matter of great regret and we made that point clear at the time.
HOWARD SATTLER: I had the bishop of Harare sitting in this very studio about two weeks ago, or even less, telling me he's going back probably to die with his people. This is the bishop of Harare. I mean, it just - it's got to the point of an absolute disaster, hasn't it?
STEPHEN SMITH: It is an absolute disaster and unfortunately it's getting worse. And, like you, we're tearing our hair out. But that same feeling of frustration is shared by very many countries around the world, in particular the United Kingdom and the European Union and Canada, what we regard or describe as like-minded states, well developed nation states who hate to see the economic and social destruction that's being wreaked upon Zimbabwe and its people when...
HOWARD SATTLER: So if the Security Council said, right, we're going to send in a force, a UN-backed force, we'd go along with that?
STEPHEN SMITH: Absolutely, we would support that because...
HOWARD SATTLER: Would we send troops?
STEPHEN SMITH: In the first instance you'd expect that the United Nations would look to African Union and Southern African Development Community member states to make that contribution, so I wouldn't expect that that would fall to us. But we are certainly, as we have been all year, as I say, the fifth largest humanitarian donor to the Zimbabwe people. We're certainly in the market for humanitarian assistance but also making a contribution to help rebuild the economic and social fabric of Zimbabwe because Mugabe inherited a world class agricultural economy when he...
HOWARD SATTLER: The food bowl of African, wasn't it?
STEPHEN SMITH: Exactly, exactly. And he's now wreaked havoc on that and, worse, he's not shy of using food and food shortages as a political weapon against his own people. So, you know, we do nothing but condemn him. We've been saying all year that the solution is for him to walk away and to leave the stage. And we're as frustrated as everyone that he continues just to ignore all of those urgings.
HOWARD SATTLER: Finally, what would you say to him if you came face to face with him?
STEPHEN SMITH: Go.
HOWARD SATTLER: All right. Go now.
STEPHEN SMITH: I shouldn't tell you this, but I will. I was in Rome for a Food Security conference...
HOWARD SATTLER: Oh yeah.
STEPHEN SMITH: ... and Mugabe was - this was earlier in the year - and Mugabe was there. And he had a meeting with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. And I had a subsequent meeting with Ban Ki-moon, and the Secretary-General told me that he'd met with Mugabe and all the advice that he'd given him about moving on. And I said to him, I said, Secretary-General my advice would have been much shorter and quicker. He said, what was that. I said, well if I'd met him my advice would be, Mr Mugabe, having come to Rome you should stay in Rome, you know, don't go home. That's the best solution.
HOWARD SATTLER: Yeah. Maybe go for a swim in the Tiber River, I think.
Stephen, thank you for joining us.
STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks Howard, thanks very much. Cheers.
HOWARD SATTLER: Take care. Yeah, something has got to be done about this. This is unbelievable. We will - if nothing is done we're going to be reporting on not 1000 people dead from cholera, we'll be reporting on a million people dying from cholera and starvation in the next two months. That's how close it is, that's how close it is. And the United Nations, for goodness sake, will you do something about this bloke.
[Ends]
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