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Mbeki's dangerous liaison with Mugabe
Gavin du Venage, Cape Town
July 18, 2005

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,15960950,00.html

FEARFUL of alienating African leaders already wary of South Africa's growing dominance on the continent, President Thabo Mbeki will ignore calls from world leaders such as US President George W.Bush to end "quiet diplomacy" and come down hard on Zimbabwe.

But in trying to sell his policy of quiet diplomacy to the world, Mr Mbeki has found few are listening, least of all his tyrannical neighbour Robert Mugabe.

Frustrating as this is to Mr Mbeki, who has claimed leadership of the African renaissance, the risks of standing up to Zimbabwe's Mr Mugabe are grave.

So high are the stakes that Mr Mbeki would rather put up with the endless criticism from international leaders, and even his own countrymen, rather than be branded the George Bush of Africa, and thus alienate South Africa from a continent already wary of the southern neighbour.

"The stakes for South Africa are very high - it is easy enough to make suggestions when you are sitting an ocean away from events, but Zimbabwe is right across the border here," says former US diplomat and now head of the international relations department at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, John Stremlau.

Mr Mugabe may be isolated from past allies such as Britain, the US and Australia, but he still enjoys a loyal following throughout Africa.

He sent troops to fight on the side of the Congolese Government in the country's bloody civil war, for which he is remembered fondly in Kinshasa.

Angola, Africa's emerging oil giant, joined Mr Mugabe in the five-year-long campaign and the two countries enjoy close ties as a result.

Many still see him as a hero for standing up first to white Rhodesia and now to former colonial master Britain.

For South Africa to abandon its quiet diplomacy, however ineffective it may appear, would alarm other African states, few of whom do not routinely flout human rights values to some degree.

If this were to happen, countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Ivory Coast would wonder if they were next in line for censure.

Consequently, such countries could freeze out South Africa diplomatically and politically, ending Mr Mbeki's growing influence on the continent.

Peacemaking efforts in the Great Lakes region or West Africa, where South Africa maintains an army of diplomats charged with getting people to talk rather than shoot each other, would be jeopardised.

"All of us are justly proud of the role our country has played and is playing, which has contributed to Burundi's advance to peace and democracy," Mr Mbeki said this weekend in his regular online newsletter.

References to peacemaking efforts are a common theme of his speeches, even as they gloss over his glaring failure in Zimbabwe. Peace and stability may still be on the horizon for much of Africa but such efforts have already borne fruit for South African companies, who now regularly do business the length and breadth of the continent.

To continue to compete against the army of non-African construction companies, mining houses and even retailers pitching for business as the oil boom takes hold, they need a diplomatic climate that favours their presence.

Lately there appears to have been some wavering in his adherence to quiet diplomacy. Some hoped that the latest outrage in Zimbabwe, the mass demolition of shelters that housed up to 300,000 urban poor, driving them out into the chilly African winter, would force Mr Mbeki to act.

Even Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change sensed a change in attitude.

"What he (Mbeki) can do, and what he assured me he is going to do, is change strategy about how to influence the course of events in Zimbabwe," Mr Tsvangirai told reporters in Harare soon after the two met in South Africa earlier this month.

At the recent G8 summit, Mr Mbeki's silence on the evictions rang out starkly in contrast to world condemnation.

Countries including Australia, Britain, the US, Russia, some African countries such as Botswana and even the UN's Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke out loudly against Mr Mugabe.

If any had hopes that the deafening chorus of world opinion on the matter would sway Mr Mbeki, however, they will be disappointed.

Mr Mbeki's personal dismay at events in Zimbabwe is unlikely to steer him from his course.

The tone was defiant at a news briefing held in London after the G8. "Loud diplomacy hasn't worked either," South Africa's pugnacious Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, told reporters who challenged her that quiet diplomacy was dead.

Publicly Mr Mbeki has said nothing to indicate he is about to change his position.

If he does, Mr Tsvangirai is unlikely to be in the know; Mr Mbeki does not appear to regard him with much respect, viewing his management of the opposition as incompetent.

The capture of a South African spy some months ago who had tried to recruit senior members of Mr Mugabe's ruling ZanuPF suggests Mr Mbeki is becoming desperate and that attempts are being made to influence events from behind the scenes, without putting the wind up other African leaders.

"The big picture often missed by others, but not Mbeki, is that South Africa's fortunes are tied to Africa itself," says Professor Stremlau.

If Mbeki hopes to secure South Africa's leadership on the continent, his best course may be to stick with quiet diplomacy.

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