RHODESIA: ABDUCTION OF CHILDREN (Hansard, 31 July 1978)

§ Baroness ELLES
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts)
My Lords, we are aware that substantial numbers of children are being abducted or otherwise made refugees from Rhodesia. We are using our influence through the Botswana Government, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Red Cross to try to ensure that those who wish to return home can do so and that those who do not are properly looked after.

§ Baroness ELLES
My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether it is not an example of the apparently cynical indifference of the Foreign Secretary to the situation in Rhodesia that this issue is never brought up with the guerrilla leaders themselves who are, obviously, perpetrating these deeds daily?

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, that is a most unwarrantable suggestion about the feelings or views of the Foreign Secretary about these tragic incidents. I am rather surprised that the noble Baroness should have made it. I know the Foreign Secretary, as well as most people do, as one who is deeply 1122 concerned about human tragedies of this sort and is working hard to alleviate the situation through the agencies that I mentioned in the reply which I have prepared for the noble Baroness. There is undoubtedly intimidation and therefore forced influx into Botswana and other countries; there is undoubtedly quite substantial voluntary movement which is politically encouraged, in sonic cases politically intimidated. It is an extreme difficulty and, I am afraid, widespread happening. We and other like-minded countries are doing our utmost through the agencies, by representation and also by very substantial assistance, to ensure that at least these children do not suffer unduly if they are kept where they are.

§ Baroness ELLES
My Lords, I should like, again, to thank the noble Lord for that reply. I accept that the Foreign Secretary is making efforts through the agencies. Obviously, the Minister said so; and I do not doubt it. But what I doubt is the assertion that these abductions are not being perpetrated by guerrilla forces; and it would have seemed to me that this was an opportunity for the Foreign Secretary, when talking with Mr. Nkomo, to take this as one of the matters which should be stopped forthwith. I am thinking not only of the children but of the thousands of distraught parents who are waiting for results in Rhodesia. I should be grateful if the Minister were to convey this message.

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, that is very much more like what I had hoped the noble Baroness would say on the first occasion. Now that she has made gracious and generous amends, I will certainly convey what she has said to my right honourable friend. I can assure the House that he, probably more than any other, being a parent himself with small children, feels deeply about this particular aspect of the Rhodesian tragedy.

The Lord Bishop of SOUTHWARK
My Lords, will the Minister agree, since I happen to have been the pastor to the Foreign Secretary and responsible for his spiritual welfare for a good many years, that the remark made opposite is regrettable and untrue and one that ought never to have been made? Secondly, 1123 would not the Minister agree that, had Mr. Ian Smith co-operated with the Conservative Government and with the Labour Government, these tragedies in Rhodesia might not have occurred? And would the Minister agree also that, having said that, it does not mean to say that those who criticise Mr. Smith approve for one moment of the atrocities which are now being carried out by people on both sides in Rhodesia?

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, I find the remarks of the right reverend Prelate both spiritually and politically admirable. I join with him freely and comprehensively in agreeing that nobody in Salisbury, including Mr. Smith, would wish any of these little children or their parents to suffer from the present circumstances.

§ Lord ALPORT
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government recognise that, in spite of the very great difficulties which the situation on the border presents to Botswana, the Botswana Government have done their best to carry out their obligations on an international basis?

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. I should like to join in paying very high tribute to the sense of humane responsibility which has animated the Botswana Government from the start in the situation, and continues to do so.

Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON
My Lords, is not what the noble Lord has said even more remarkable owing to the uniqueness of the attitude of the Botswana Government as compared to the shocking behaviour of Rhodesia's other African neighbours? In view of the sad things that we have heard, has the noble Lord something to tell us more optimistically about the notable victory which the forces of law and order in Rhodesia appear to have won in Mozambique?

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, I am not going to be drawn into an instant appraisal of the actual situation in the guerrilla war, even by my noble friend. As to what he has said about the Government and people of Botswana, I 1124 fully agree and am delighted to see that his somewhat impetuous generalisations about Africans as a whole are now somewhat more tempered.

§ Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS
My Lords, while everybody is aware of and will congratulate the noble Lord for his defence of the Foreign Secretary, is it not the fact that the indecisiveness of the Government in this field is one of the causes which encourages this sort of thing to happen? Is he prepared to face up to the paradox that, on the one hand, we will not accept the de facto situation of the Government in Rhodesia and, on the other hand, we will not accept the responsibilities that should go with our belief that we are the people who are administratively responsible? If we could give greater support to the de facto Government it may be that they could prevent the excesses which we are discussing on this Question.

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, there are two views at least on what he has said. I will not engage in debate with him on these questions today. I gather that the other place will have that opportunity next Wednesday. The noble Lord refers to the indecisiveness of the Government. That might be applied to any Government in the last 13 years in dealing with the Rhodesian situation from Britain. I would not share his view about any Government in Britain in the last 13 years on that point. Perhaps the misguided decisiveness of the Smith Government since 1965 has more to do with it than anything that any British Government are guilty of.