Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I remember the heady optimism of 20 years ago in Zimbabwe when I was a school child humming along to the words of Stevie Wonder, "Peace has come to Zimbabwe". Sadly, those words were optimistic and there are enormous difficulties in that country. Even in the past ten years there has been a steady decline in the economic and social life of Zimbabwe. Today, 60% of the population live on less than $1 a day, unemployment is at 70% and inflation is over 100% annually. The land redistribution programme is disrupting agricultural production and leaving farm workers without homes or jobs. Mass hunger is a real possibility as the Government has neither the funds nor the credit to replenish its food reserves.

There is strong evidence that there will be very unfair tactics in the forthcoming election. We know that Mugabe is making it harder for some people to vote and easier for others. The effect of all this will be to consolidate his power over Zimbabwe. Even election observers in previous elections there have been intimidated and have had their fluorescent jackets with the words "election observer" on them ripped off their backs. Others were arrested.

Some time ago, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that Mugabe has become a cartoon figure of the archetypal African dictator. We must send a clear signal from Europe that we want democracy in Africa, in Zimbabwe, that we want fairness and rule of law and that we do not want to see scare tactics used to intimidate parliamentarians and others.

I do not for a moment condone the actions of Mr. Bennett — I suspect that what he did was not unlike scenes I have witnessed in the chamber of Dublin City Council over the years. I have not witnessed them in this Chamber but I am sure some Deputies have seen something similar at local level. We accept the rough and tumble of politics. None of us would like to see someone pushed into a corner. My colleague, Deputy Sargent, was shoved into a corner by some of his colleagues when he held up a cheque in the Dublin City Council chamber a few years ago but those people were not sent to jail for a year. Some people might have been happy if the Deputy's then colleagues had been sent to jail and some of us are hoping that through the good work of the Mahon tribunal people will be sent to jail for much more heinous crimes than pushing people about in a council chamber.

I do not condone the actions of Mr. Bennett but I do not believe for one second that he should be sentenced to hard labour for a year as a result of his actions, nor do I believe that a personal vendetta should be put in place by the leader of Zimbabwe to ensure that he is silenced and that his wife is stopped from running in the forthcoming election.

Motions such as these have real value. They send out a strong signal of concern. While it is easy for us in a Chamber far from Zimbabwe to criticise, we simply want to send out a message that we want to see democracy and rule of law, and that we want to see Zimbabwe not as a dictatorship but as a paragon of democracy. Despite the concerns of recent years, that can still happen.

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