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Zimbabwe: Forget About Fast Resolution to Country's Horror Show
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
COLUMN
9 July 2008
Posted to the web 9 July 2008
Allister Sparks
Johannesburg
DON'T expect any early resolution to the Zimbabwe crisis. Thanks to the pusillanimity of the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), insufficient pressure has been brought to bear on Robert Mugabe to force him to agree to an acceptable power sharing deal.
So the crisis will bleed on for many more months, as the collapsed economy leads to mass starvation and hundreds of thousands more desperate refugees flee into neighbouring countries, particularly SA. A huge new exodus has already begun.
So it is to be hoped President Thabo Mbeki, whose timid mediation is largely to blame for this alarming situation, has a plan in mind to accommodate this human flood so that we don't have a recurrence of the xenophobic violence that did so much damage last month to our already battered international image.
What was needed at the AU summit in Egypt was a resolution based on the organisation's own observer team as well as those of the SADC and the Pan-African Parliament declaring Mugabe's run-off election to be null and void and his presidency thus unrecognised.
It should have gone on to call for a panel of high-calibre mediators, including the likes of former United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan, to negotiate the appointment of an all-party transitional executive council such as we had during our own transitional phase here in SA, backed up by an AU peacekeeping force, to hold the ring and arrange for a new runoff election to be held under UN supervision.
Reports indicate that Levy Mwanawasa, Zambia's aged but gutsy president, had prepared a proposal along these lines. As chairman of the SADC, Mwanawasa carried some clout and is said to have won the provisional support of several countries, including Botswana, Tanzania, Mauritius, Kenya and Rwanda. The hope was that acting in unison they would be able to get some momentum going at the summit.
But fate intervened, with Mwanawasa suffering an incapacitating stroke. Without him, the initiative faltered. Only Botswana, under its feisty new president, Ian Khama (son of the great Sir Seretse), had the courage to speak out in forthright terms against Mugabe's sham election. The others went to ground and Mbeki had his way with his call for a government of national unity. That enterprise, I believe, is doomed to failure for three reasons:
- Mugabe will not agree to serve in a unity government of which he is not the leader - and certainly not in one led by Morgan Tsvangirai;
- Tsvangirai will not agree to serve in a unity government led by Mugabe, whom he beat in the March 29 election. He is not fool enough to be emasculated the way the old Zapu leader, Joshua Nkomo, was when Mugabe sucked him into a unity deal in the 1980s. He also knows his party would reject him if he headed that way; and
- There will be no economic assistance for Zimbabwe from any of the western powers or financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as long as Mugabe heads the government. And without that there can be no economic recovery in Zimbabwe. The whole exercise will be pointless.
So the stalemate will continue, as will Zimbabwe's precipitous economic collapse. Two weeks ago Zimbabwe's inflation rate was estimated at 1-million percent. This week it is 4-million percent. Next week it will be 8-million percent. Yesterday the Zimbabwean dollar was 8-trillion to the rand. Supermarket shelves are empty. A whole range of businesses are collapsing. The country's largest chicken producer closed down last week because it can't get food for its chickens.
So starvation is staring the country in the face.
Yet the ruling elite still live high on the hog. They have exclusive access at an absurdly favourable exchange rate to what little hard currency is still coming into the country. The reserve bank is their private piggy bank. They are still building huge mansions and buying top of the range sports cars.
It is obviously an unsustainable situation, but the question remains: "When and how will the crunch come?"
That's a conundrum. The ruling elite are obviously reluctant to give up their fancy lifestyles. Even more compelling is their fear of prosecution for crimes against humanity during the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland during the 1980s - compounded now by the atrocities they have committed during the brutal election runoff campaign.
Yet a starving population living on the bedrock of absolute deprivation has seldom been known to rise up in revolt. The lives of such people are focused entirely on the day-to-day struggle for survival. They tend to be politically submissive.
It was the prospect of that condition of a dominant elite, a demolished middle class and a passive peasantry arising in Zimbabwe that led me to suggest three years ago that Mugabe was following a course of "Pol Pot in slow motion". Well, the Cambodian tyrant's objective has now reached full measure in Zimbabwe.
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Of course Pol Pot came to a sticky end. He was overthrown and imprisoned by other leaders of his Khmer Rouge party, and died in his bed hours after hearing they had agreed to hand him over to an international tribunal.
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POL POT ...DID I HEAR CORRECTLY? THE HANDWRITING WAS ON THE WALL MORE THAN 2 DECADES AGO...WHY HAS EVERYONE BEEN SLEEPING?
They aren't asleep. Except for the Presidents of Botswana, Zambia and Kenya - and maybe 1 or 2 more - they are just too cowardly to act.
I agree completely. The so-called 'leaders' of Africa are not asleep. They know EXACTLY what is happening in Zimbabwe. They are too cowardly, corrupt and utterly inept to do anything to stop a true criminal mastermind such as Mugabe. Mugabe is a giant among them---but not in a good way. He is a man among boys and they have no solution and certainty no moral scruples to tackle such a beast. With the exception of Ian Khama and Levy M. the remainder of the current crop of African 'leaders' is a total loss----with Mbeki at the... [Read Full Text]
Other views on 54 states called "Africa"
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, offering to help resolve the stand-off as he did earlier this year in Kenya, urged the West not to let Zimbabwe's situation strengthen the image of Africa as a continent in crisis.
"Zimbabwe shames most Africans, but at the same time it's wrong to judge the whole continent on what is happening there; it is not a litmus test for the region," he told the Observer newspaper.
"Mozambique came through a civil war extremely admirably. You have Botswana doing extremely well, Malawi is making great steps to... [Read Full Text]
AFRICA THE BEAUTIFUL OR IS IT AFRICA THE SHAMEFUL
It seems that the oppressed have a very hard time learning from their difficult and often tragic past. Centuries of colonialism, oppression, wars, corruption, famine and genocide – to just name a few - appear to have done very little to help most African countries extricate themselves from their troubled past. Too many African countries continue today to be run like dictatorships or banana republics where the rulers keep the masses in the dark and under deadly control. Little seems to have changed over the last 150 years other than the... [Read Full Text]
Blondie, I do not share the hyperbolic views on Africa that you have. Even if there were 10 really bad African countries, that would still be only 20%, while 80% of the African countries are doing fine or Ok!
Despite the hyperbolic focus on Zimbabwe, there has been some progress in Africa. Serrea Leon, Liberia, Kenya, DRC have gone thru a similar situation as Zimbabwe and are beginning to do well.
Nigeria and Ghana went thru a worse situation than Zimbabwe, and yet they have had relative peace and have changed leaders. That is progress and Zimbabweans should aspire to... [Read Full Text]
Phiri - I agree with your points; it is important to keep things in perspective and above all not to lose sight of the many positive developments in Africa. Telling Britons to tone down the volume on Mugabe will, however, not be successful. The patience of the world in general is exhausted; the time for quiet diplomacy is over and firmer action is required. Do not forget that the collapse that has occurred in Zimbabwe is almost unprecedented in a non-war situation and that if firmer action by SADC and the AU had taken place 8 years ago when the... [Read Full Text]
Who on earth is Blondie? Hyperbolic?! White Briton?! Let's go for stereotypes and cheap attacks in order to mask the facts: more than a 1,000 people die every day in Africa because of hunger, wars, etc. If 80% of Africa is doing fine, why is it that and why is every NGO on this planet is short of resources to come to Africa's help? Why is that 80% of African nations have economies in near-bankruptcy. Misinformation and disinformation have been the favored tools of people who prefer to ignore the facts. China and Russia are pwerfect examples. Both now oppose... [Read Full Text]
Blumie (blondie), you are again going after hyperbolic statements that do not add anything as far as solving or discussing continental African problems.
100,000 people die every month in the USA, and some die of poor health because they cannot afford health care. I'm also going to tell you the truth you never wanted to hear. NGO's contribute very little to Africa, in fact sometimes they stand in the way of real development! It's nice to be in the first world and really convince yourself that you are doing a lot of good in Africa, alas data does not... [Read Full Text]
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