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Breakthrough
in Kariba
Stephen
Chan, Prosepct Magazine
November 2007
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9844
It happened
on the second weekend of September, a few weeks later than the South
African mediators had hoped, on a houseboat on Lake Kariba. In a
way it was reminiscent of Kenneth Kaunda's effort to mediate
the Rhodesian crisis in 1975, a little further upstream in a railway
carriage on the Knife Edge Bridge above the Victoria Falls. The
Zambian border has always been the site of negotiations and, in
Kaunda's day, the Zambian and Zimbabwean nationalists had
sat at one end of the carriage, above Zambian soil, and the South
Africans and white Rhodesians had sat at the other, above Rhodesian
soil. A line ran across the narrow conference table. No lines on
Lake Kariba, but the beauty of a boat is that there is only one
way off, so the delegations were there for the duration -
and there was a stock of drinks on board.
The South Africans were
led by senior political figures from the ANC liberation wing. This
was important, as the entire Zimbabwean government posture had been
that a liberating revolution was still being fought - first
to free the land, and now to resist a globalisation that privileged
Western pressure. The breakthrough was when the Zimbabwean delegations
were persuaded to drop their public posturings for the private talks.
This had never happened before - and then a flow of concessions
on both sides and agreements began to flow.
In a sense the South
Africans had been consciously awaiting this moment. They always
knew the way into the future had to be technical, not declamatory,
rhetorical, and - in the minds of black audiences -
abusive. The entire Blairite approach had been successfully spun
by Mugabe as racist. But, in fact, to huge sections of the African
continent, it was.
To be sure, the South
Africans were slow about it - painfully so. But the Blairite
rhetoric was an impediment to them too. And they were subtle enough
to remark only in private that Europe too had found it hard to intervene
in the Balkans, taking years and very great suffering to do so.
Even now, the Kosovo question is unresolved. It is harder to intervene
in one's own backyard than it looks. And the entire thrust
of African nationalism had centred on independence from external
intervention.
2008 is, however, election
year not only in Zimbabwe, but in South Africa. Talk-back radio
is dominated by complaints about the 3 million Zimbabwean refugees
on South African soil. Like illegal migrants anywhere, they take
the menial jobs and, when they are not available, they turn to crime.
Quite apart from the economic effects of Zimbabwe's meltdown
in what had been a slowly integrating region, the issue of Zimbabwe
was going to become an internal election issue.
As soon as the Lake Kariba
breakthrough occurred it was leaked by all concerned to the media.
It was leaked by both sides of the Zimbabwean quarrel, government
and the two opposition parties, and the surprising thing about the
leaks was how unified the stories were. No one was spinning. Everyone
who heard it was distrustful of course. Apart from anything else,
the technical details had not yet been agreed. But it turned out
that all those on the houseboat, over quite a number of drinks,
came to that liquid realisation that they could indeed share a common
future. And that is the rub as far as Britain is concerned: it is
a common future for the government and opposition parties, even
a residual future involving Robert Mugabe - although his eventual
package of immunities was not an issue settled at Kariba. There
will have to be some bargaining with Western governments about that.
The British response
was obdurate. Both Gordon Brown and Malloch Brown continued the
Blairite line. Prime Minister Brown said he would boycott the Lisbon
EU/African summit scheduled for December if Mugabe came. David Milliband
offended a representative of one of the two opposition parties,
sent to sound him out, by lecturing her on the wisdom of not being
taken in by Mbeki's soft diplomacy. This prompted the leader
of her opposition faction, Arthur Mutambara, publicly to rebuke
the Brown government. If no engagement was possible, he asked, what
future was possible? Others, such as the esteemed International
Crisis Group, had thrown their weight behind the South African mediation
as 'the only show in town'.
And this was right. For
the British posture had been built around a Plan A: get rid of Mugabe.
There was no Plan B. So, the longer Mugabe was successful in staying,
the longer the British were found to have no plan in place to help
the millions of Zimbabweans who fell into penury and malnutrition.
The Zimbabweans are ingeniously helping themselves, but that depends
on 3 million of them scavenging and stealing in South Africa so
that they can send money home. The up to 1 million in Britain represent
a much smaller problem to this country, but are also assiduous in
sending money home.
The absence of British
policy, and the projected absence of Gordon Brown from the Europe-Africa
summit in Lisbon, has allowed another European power to step into
the vacuum. This represents a sizeable own-goal on the part of the
two Browns, but Germany's Angela Merkel saw the gap and moved
to fill it. In a meeting between Merkel and Mbeki in South Africa
on 5 October the discussions were said to have been even more heated
and forceful than the diplomatic code-words, 'frank'
and 'candid', usually betoken. But Merkel left convinced
by Mbeki that a breakthrough had been achieved - and, after
technical issues had been resolved, would probably be announced
in Lisbon - and she gave a press conference in which she pointedly
said that Mugabe was entitled to come to Lisbon.
Not that Mbeki has it
all his own way in South Africa. The day before the Merkel/Mbeki
meeting, a senior ANC figure, Kader Asmal, broke ranks from his
party and president by likening Mugabe to Pol Pot. Mbeki knows that
Asmal's views reflect a growing feeling in the ANC that Mugabe's
continuing presence in Zimbabwe has become counter-productive to
any sense of African interests.
But the mood has turned
not into a 'dump Mugabe' attitude but, in the words
of veteran editor, Trevor Ncube, who has himself - together
with his staff - suffered much at the hands of Mugabe's regime,
the time for megaphone diplomacy is over. Basically Ncube, in the
same week as Merkel's visit, was saying that the future lay
in negotiation with the moderates and technocrats in Mugabe's
party. Mugabe can be bypassed, is the message of all and sundry.
At this stage, the scenario
looks like this: for the March 2008 Zimbabwean elections, which
will be both Parliamentary and Presidential, Zimbabweans outside
the country will be able to vote. These are likely, though not guaranteed,
to support the opposition. Internally, the oppressive Public Order
and Security Act will be revoked or ameliorated. There will be a
more independent electoral commission. There will be a greater number
of MPs, but all of them must be elected - the President's
present powers to appoint some of them will be revoked. And, importantly
for Mugabe, Parliament will be able to choose the next President,
should he stand down; in short, he will not be saddled with Joice
Mujuru, his Vice President, as successor as the constitution now
demands. The two have quarrelled bitterly and, given Mujuru's
well-won battle-name of Spill Blood, there is little mercy to be
expected from her revenge on him.
The South African expectation
is that, even with a diaspora voting largely for the opposition,
the opposition cannot win. It is divided, ineffectual, and has lost
huge amounts of credibility and support. What little morale was
left within it was carefully beaten out by Mugabe's thugs.
So it is likely, even without rigging, that Mugabe will win again
- both the Presidency and Parliament (although Parliament
might be a closer-run thing). Then, the scenario goes, having been
validated one last time, the ageing and ill President will stand
down, his preferred successor endorsed by Parliament. That successor
will declare the need for a Unity Government and bring the leaders
of both opposition parties, Arthur Mutambara and Morgan Tsvangirai,
into the cabinet. Foreign direct investment will begin to flow again.
The technocrats of the present ruling party will emerge and flourish
and - this last aspect being spoken of only in closely-guarded
privacy - the South Africans will dominate and guide, once
and for all, the future of their problematic neighbour.
Whether it works like
this remains to be seen. Maybe Mugabe will decide he will not go
- or that he doesn't like his retirement and immunities
package. Maybe, at Lisbon, the Africans will fail to persuade Europe
to guarantee that Mugabe will not be indicted at The Hague. In Brown's
absence, Merkel should be able to swing that one. But the technical
problems remain. For instance, if the Zimbabwean diaspora is allowed
to vote, that is no problem in the UK. Every refugee here, whether
a successful or failed asylum seeker, carries official papers. They
have Zimbabwean passports, otherwise they could never have entered
the country. But, in South Africa, the bulk of the 3 million refugees
have no papers. They just crossed the border wherever and whenever
they could - and they didn't do it at passport control.
How these possibly decisive voters will be able to prove they are
eligible Zimbabweans remains to be seen. But they may be the final
battleground for the future of the spoiled jewel of Africa.
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