Lord Richard Cecil well established links with Rhodesia, the capital city of which was named Salisbury after the third Marquess (it was renamed Harare in 1982 on the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence). The family had extensive land holdings in the country and the fifth Marquess (Lord Richard's grandfather) was a leading British supporter of the white minority UDI government that ruled Rhodesia from 1965-1979. Lord Richard was the eldest of the younger brothers of Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, who has been both an MP and the Leader of the House of Lords. In 2003, Cranborne became 7th Marquess of Salisbury upon the
Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth of Nations in the Harare Declaration, issued at the 1991 CHOGM in (ironically enough) Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. After the Zimbabwean people rejected Mugabe's proposed new constitution in a February 2000 referendum, the situation deteriorated rapidly, as violence against opponents increased. To address these issues, in September 2001, Zimbabwe sent a delegation to meet with the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), which is responsible for upholding the Harare Declaration. Zimbabwe promised to end the violence and defend human rights, as required of them as Commonwealth members, but failed to do so. As a result, the United Kingdom pushed to suspend Zimbabwe from the