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Mugabe's departure not enough to solve Zimbabwe's problems
Comment, Business Day (SA)
April 21, 2007

http://www.businessday.co.za/weekender/article.aspx?ID=BD4A443232

ZIMBABWE celebrated 27 years of independence from British and settler colonial rule on Wednesday. Other than being free from the tyranny of a deranged minority, it is hard to see that there is anything to celebrate in today-s Zimbabwe. It is a country in the advanced stages of implosion.

In the gallery of shocking statistics that tell the story of Zimbabwe, none is more telling than this: at least 4-million Zimbabweans, representing a third of the country-s population, have fled their country of birth to set up home everywhere, from the obvious places such as the UK and SA, to the less likely locations of Taiwan, eastern Europe and the Far East. Apart from the obliterated country that used to be Iraq, this is the biggest displacement of any country-s population in the world.

There is no doubt a bigger Chinese, Indian or even Nigerian diaspora flung across the world, but those are large countries. As a proportion of the country-s population, Zimbabweans- flight from home is the second largest in the world. And Iraq is in a state of civil war, occupied by an uninvited foreign force.

It is bad enough that one in three Zimbabweans lives far from home. But among Zimbabwe-s reluctant migrants are engineers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, nurses, teachers, economists, journalists, musicians and, yes, farmers, both black and white.

All the good work that Zimbabweans put into making themselves Africa-s most educated population has gone to waste. Other countries now prosper from Zimbabwe-s investment of the 1980s.

Almost three decades after the attainment of freedom, Zimbabwe-s elite has left home. While many long to return, they have found new homes in their host countries. With every passing day they cease to be Zimbabweans and become less inclined to return there. They have had families, built careers, founded companies and done all the things that a settler community does to establish itself in a new home. Zimbabwean children born in SA are to all intents and purposes South Africans. Even if things were ever to turn around north of the Limpopo, they have no incentive to return there. They have only known SA as home.

This is the biggest challenge in the attempts to "solve" the problems of Zimbabwe. Especially in the west, the Zimbabwean situation is spoken about in simplistic terms. It is as if the only problem there is the presence of a violent and illegitimate government. But this is only the most identifiable problem. It is by no means the only one, nor is it the most intractable.

Let us suppose that Mugabe-s date with mortality is as felicitously timed as that of Sani Abacha, who dropped dead of a heart attack just when Nigeria needed it. Mugabe-s exit from the scene would be no magic elixir.

For a great number of reasons, democracy, least of all economic prosperity, will not simply follow the old tyrant-s departure. So the latest "mediation" initiative that the Southern African Development Community has dumped in the lap of President Thabo Mbeki looks suspiciously like a stillborn effort. Mbeki is charged with facilitating dialogue between Zimbabwe-s warring parties, from the ruling Zanu (PF) and its state security apparatus, to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and civil society.

However well-meaning he is, he will not bring back 4-million escapees. He cannot reverse Zimbabwe-s brain drain and its inexorable economic slide, nor stem the rot of its institutions of governance. He can do nothing about the social ills that have resulted from Zimbabwe-s meltdown, such as unemployment and worsening HIV/AIDS burden.

The politics of Zimbabwe are emotive, but let us be honest enough to admit that politics is now the least of Zimbabwe-s problems. There can be no turnaround without a massive economic rescue. There can be no salvation without social and moral renewal.

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