Dr Knox Chitiyo, Tony Baldry MP, Michael Ancram (GSF Chairman) and Dr Richard Cockett

Debate panellists

Tony Baldry has been a Member of Parliament for 27 years (elected in 1983). He was a Minister for some eight years, appointed to Government by Margaret Thatcher, and he served in the Conservative Government throughout the whole of John Major’s premiership. From 1994-1995, he was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where his responsibilities included South Asia, Africa, North America and the West Indies; and from 1995-1997, he was Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. During the 2001-2005 Parliament, he chaired the Select Committee on International Development and he continues to take a close interest in international development and foreign affairs. Tony Baldry is Chairman of the Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission. He is also a practising Barrister and Head of a commercial Set of Chambers in the Temple. He is a director of a number of companies. He is a Member of the Council of the Overseas Development Institute, a Member of the Council of Chatham House, Patron of Friends of Africa and a member of the Royal College of Defence Studies. Dr Knox Chitiyo is a Zimbabwean researcher. He was the first RUSI Nelson Mandela Visiting Africa Fellow and now heads the RUSI Africa Programme. He was a Senior Lecturer in War Studies in the History Department at the University of Zimbabwe (1994–2003). He was also the Deputy Director (and co-founder) of the Centre for Defence Studies during the same period, and edited the Journal of African Security and Conflict. Currently based in the UK, Knox has since published in journals which examine Zimbabwean, southern African and broader African defence and security/developmental issues. He is a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper and is an African Affairs commentator on the BBC, Al-Jazeera and other international news media. He is the founder/editor of the Southern African Diaspora Review journal and is particularly interested in the armed/security forces of southern Africa and how they intersect with issues of development and political transitions. Dr Richard Cockett is Africa Editor at The Economist. He joined the publication in 1999 as Britain correspondent and later became bureau chief for Central America and Caribbean. He returned to London to take on the role of Africa Editor in 2005. Prior to his career as a journalist, Richard was a British Academy junior research fellow and a lecturer in history and politics at the University of London. He has recently returned from Sudan where he was covering their first multi-party election in 25 years, which forms the final chapter of his new book ‘Sudan: Darfur and the Failure of an African State’.

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