The Hindu : Rights activists slam U.K. Govt.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 16, 2002

International

International

Rights activists slam U.K. Govt.

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON AUG. 15. The British Government was today embroiled in an angry row with the Opposition and human rights activists over accusations that it was putting "unnecessary obstacles'' in the way of former U.K. nationals who are fleeing Zimbabwe and want to return home.

Many of the nearly 3,000 British farmers, who have been ordered by the Zimbabwean Government to leave their farms or face forcible eviction under its controversial land distribution policy, wish to come back to Britain to start a new life.

But they have complained that the British Government is ignoring their `plight' and far from treating them with sympathy as `victims' of President Mugabe's crackdown they are being harassed.

Their case has been taken up by the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Michael Ancram, who has written to the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, demanding an inquiry into allegations that the British High Commission in Harare is charging "black market'' exchange rates for passport renewals.

Mr. Ancram who has just returned from Zimbabwe, said if these allegations were true it meant that the Government was actually "helping Mugabe to get his way.''

He said they were U.K. nationals who had been forced by the Zimbabwean Government to renounce their British citizenship in order to settle in Zimbabwe.

Now that they were facing eviction and wanted to reclaim their passports, they should be treated with sympathy. Instead "unnecessary obstacles'' were being placed in their way, he said..

A delegation of the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's main opposition group, is also here to press the British Government to take a more sympathetic view of the circumstances of its own former nationals.

"It beggars belief that the British Government have been so reticent to help British citizens returning from Zimbabwe,'' a spokesman for MDC said accusing Britain of failing to understand the "misery'' of Britons fleeing Zimbabwe.

A Zimbabwe human rights activist, Albert Weidemann, said the farmers were not being allowed to bring into Britain more than £ 500 each, which was not enough.

In many cases, they were also being denied welfare benefits.

``Despite their citizenship, almost all are refused benefits and some have even been forced into going back to Zimbabwe,'' he said.

The Foreign Office, however, denied the allegations but maintained that British Zimbabweans were not entitled to any special dispensation.

"The situation is that British citizens returning to this country will of course be entitled to take up whatever benefits and assistance they qualify for.

The Government does not discriminate between people returning as a result of different international crises,'' it said.

About allegations of "blackmarket'' exchange rates, it was explained that the Government was "obliged'' by Parliament to recover full visa and consular costs worldwide and this involved "using the parallel exchange rate''.

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