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Passing parade in Havana, Harare
Paul Moorcraft
August 16, 2006

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A250765

DAILY, far more Zimbabweans are dying needlessly than civilians in Lebanon. This was the dramatic point made by veteran Zimbabwe journalist Michael Hartnack in practically his last words before he died late last month. Despite the power and water cuts, fuel queues and all the rest of the daily hassles in present-day Zimbabwe, Hartnack remarked that he was still one of the lucky ones. "The unlucky ones are out there in the freezing night dying at 3200 a week, which is a lot more than Lebanon."

Robert Mugabe is not directly attacking the west and does not have any oil, so who cares what he does in his own country? And even for those who might do something about one of Africa’s nastiest dictators, Iraq and Afghanistan have drained most of their interventionist tendencies. If the US intelligence agencies weren’t so pre-occupied elsewhere, they might accuse Mugabe of supplying Congo uranium to his old pals in North Korea.

In March 2003, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told a British minister during a discussion about the need to invade Iraq: "If it were down to me, I’d do (invade) Zimbabwe as well."

Like Fidel Castro, Mugabe at 82 is a great survivor. Castro may be trying to create a dynasty by handing over to his brother Raul. Mugabe has less faith in family but has favoured a former girlfriend as a possible successor, Joyce Mujuru or Teurai Ropa ("Spill Blood", to use her nom de guerre).

The Americans tried invasions, blockades, sanctions and assassination but it looks as though Castro will die in his bed. Will Africa’s great dictator enjoy the same fate? Unfortunately, his country may have reached its own terminal state before then.

Zimbabwe has the world’s fastest shrinking economy and the worst inflation rate — now about 1000%. As United Nations humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, put it, the country is in meltdown. Services have collapsed and cannot deal with the AIDS pandemic that has infected one-third of the population.

Life expectancy has dropped from an average of 62 to 38 years. Unemployment stands at 70%. More than 5-million people are on the brink of starvation. At least 4-million have fled, with perhaps 2,5-million Zimbabweans in SA. Most of the professional middle class has left.

Many black Zimbabweans will freely admit that conditions were better under Ian Smith. Smith said that a Mugabe victory would bring the decimation of the Ndebele, then the destruction of the economy by driving out the white farmers. Yesterday, Smith’s stubbornness may have made that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today Mugabe is the problem, but he won’t go. How can he be persuaded?

A military coup is unlikely, partly because a creeping coup has already taken place. The security apparatus is full of Mugabe’s Zezuru clan, and they have been amply rewarded. The boss keeps a tight rein on his military mates in the new National Security Council. Mugabe still has some residual popularity in Mashonaland.

Many within in his own Zanu (PF) party are praying for him to quit or die. Although he is due to leave office in 2008, he may try to stay on.

Mugabe has never named a formal successor, which could mean chaos if he were to die in office. Three key factions jostle for power. Foremost is the group around Vice- President Joyce Mujuru; second, followers of the now disgraced Emmerson Mnangagwa; and those remnants of Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) who hope an Ndebele might get the top job.

Mujuru is a Zezuru, however; another Zezuru victory could upset the clan balancing act, especially among the Karanga, the largest Shona-speaking group. This is where the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, the head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) could benefit. Though he comes from a minority Shona-speaking tribe, he is popular among the Ndebele. But while the electoral system is so fixed in favour of the ruling party, the MDC is unlikely to defeat even the most fractious Zanu (PF)..

So no western invasion and little chance of internal reform; that leaves SA. Pretoria tried to bring the MDC and Zanu (PF) together, to little effect. Then it pinned its hopes on a so-called moderate faction emerging in the ruling party. No such luck with Mugabe’s mastery of divide and rule. The African Union and the Southern African Development Community have been toothless. Commonwealth smart sanctions have been water off a duck’s backside.

More recently it looked as though Kofi Annan might offer Mugabe a deal: an economic rescue package in exchange for a deadline to quit office, maybe at the 2008 presidential election. Crucially, there would also be a deal on immunity from prosecution.

All these forlorn moves indicate that President Thabo Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy has failed. SA has the power to dethrone Mugabe immediately, so why hasn’t it?

In 1976 prime minister John Vorster pulled the plug on his white kin by cutting fuel and ammunition; the rebel Smith had to comply almost immediately by formally accepting majority rule. SA put its own national interest first. So does Mbeki have less courage than Vorster?

In the west, SA is perceived as the regional superpower. SA has the hard power: it could cut off fuel and electricity and bring Mugabe to heel almost overnight. If it did this it might be branded as a puppet of the US.

From a western perspective, quiet diplomacy amounts to doing nothing. Prof Jack Spence, Britain’s leading expert on SA, said this allows western liberals "to argue with some justice that black liberation solidarity of the kind that links Mbeki with Mugabe trumps human rights and profoundly damages SA’s claims to be a good and influential citizen of the international community".

Mbeki’s quiet constructive enga-gement was based on the premise that direct confrontation would ultimately damage South African interests. Ironically, that is what has happened. Mugabe is badly damaging SA, the region and indeed the continent. If Zimbabwe implodes completely, it may be too late.

If Mugabe is the problem, then Mbeki is the only solution. It might be unfair to burden Pretoria with the burden of Zimbabwe’s future, but that’s the way it is.

Nelson Mandela could and did condemn Mugabe and Desmond Tutu could describe him as "a caricature of an African dictator". Unfortunately Mbeki seems to defer to the older revolutionary hero in Harare.

The Zimbabwe crisis is causing major rifts in the ANC but, for the president, the more vocal criticism of Harare by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (natural allies of Tsvangarai) and by the South African Communist Party must be embarrassing.

More important than party unity is the danger of the land issue spiralling out of control. More than 20 times more white South African farmers have been murdered than white farmers in Zimbabwe. SA, where murder is underreported, is a powder keg: the actual number of killings may outnumber Iraq’s.

Also, the flood of Zimbabwean refugees is making South Africans much more xenophobic. Above all, having a failed, or indeed rogue, state on its borders does no good for foreign investors’ confidence in the region. It also affects tourism to SA.

Above all, it is a question of image. The South African government is seen in the west as implicit in all that Mugabe does. The president’s stance over AIDS might have been forgiven as unfortunate ignorance but tolerating Mugabe is seen as either plain stupidity or deliberately condoning the dictator.

I interviewed Mugabe at length for Time magazine when he first returned to the then Salisbury in January 1980. After the dullards in the Rhodesian Front, it was a breath of fresh air to talk to such an intelligent, articulate man.

Above all, I believed his sincerity about racial reconciliation. So how did he become a monster? There were early signs — within a year his army had started to wipe out the Ndebele. Anyone who challenged him was destroyed; the white farmers whom he accused of helping the MDC, then 500000 urban squatters’ homes and shops were destroyed because they might vote for the MDC.

Nothing will stand in Mugabe’s way except death, or SA.

Perhaps it is time for the statesman to emerge in Mbeki.

*Dr Moorcraft is the director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis, London. His accounts of the 1965-80 war, including Chimurenga! The War in Rhodesia, have just been re- released in Canada.

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