Madam - There was some coverage in last weekend's newspapers ( Sunday Tribune, Irish Mail on Sunday) of the fact that Ireland's National Pensions Reserve Fund holds investments in companies operating in Zimbabwe.
As chairperson of the Irish section of the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA), I should like to place on the record our position on this issue.
There is strong cross-party support from the TDs and senators of the Irish section of AWEPA for stepping up economic measures against Robert Mugabe's increasingly brutal regime.
Our section has been targeting the issue of Zimbabwe for over eight months now and it was one of our members, Barry Andrews TD, who first raised in the Dáil, last December, the question of "divestment" of Irish pension funds from companies operating in Zimbabwe.
We are considering divestment of pension funds as part of a medium-term economic strategy to effect change in Zimbabwe. However, it would be vital that any movement for divestment of pension funds in Zimbabwe spreads from Ireland to other European countries, so that it could have a significant impact on Robert Mugabe's regime. We hope to use the other sections of AWEPA, in each of the parliaments of Europe, as a means of building that momentum.
Like the issue of targeted economic sanctions against Zimbabwe, we first have to assess the impact of these measures. AWEPA began over 20 years ago as a campaign against apartheid in South Africa and at that time we took advice from South African trade unions on how best to impose sanctions on South Africa. We will be doing exactly the same during this campaign by asking for the advice of Zimbabwean workers on the ground.
As the South African dockers showed in their refusal to unload arms destined for Zimbabwe, workers' solidarity can play a key role in guiding this campaign.
It may not be widely known that there is still a lot of revenue being generated in Zimbabwe, particularly in the mining and banking industries. A targeted economic campaign against the élite in charge of those industries, who are linked to Robert Mugabe, may effect change much more quickly than any purely political one. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN HOWLIN TD,
Chairperson,
Irish Section of AWEPA
(the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa),
Houses of the Oireachtas,
Dublin 2.