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Shame
on Mugabe-s stooges
Rian
Malan, The Spectator
May 19, 2007
http://www.spectator.co.uk/archive/30648/shame-on-mugabes-stooges.thtml
On the day that Bob Mugabe-s
genocidal regime acceded to the chair of the UN-s Commission
on Sustainable Development, I found myself in the lovely Cape village
of Franschhoek, once a Boer farming town but now more French and
precious than Provence. Even as bitter debate broke out in the distant
UN, I was checking into a luxurious hostelry and trimming my nostril
hairs in preparation for meeting such luminaries as Liz Calder,
publisher of the Harry Potter books, and the glamorous American
novelist Siri Hustvedt, author of Things I Loved. I had come to
participate in the inaugural Franschhoek Literary Festival, but
my thoughts were in New York with the UK Environment Minister Ian
Pearson, who was attempting to explain to African diplomats that
one could not appoint a malignant regime like Zimbabwe-s to
the chairmanship of anything, let alone a committee on development.
The Africans did not take kindly to this. 'It-s an insult
to our intelligence,- explained Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe-s
UN ambassador. The African bloc agreed, and Pearson went down in
flames, victim of what the press called an 'overwhelming-
snub to the West.
I would not presume to
liken my experience to Pearson-s, but I stood at his shoulder
in the righteous fight and paid the price, shouted down as 'pathetic-
by an eminent white liberal at a posh dinner attended by such grandees
as Bevil Rudd, grandson of Rhodes-s right-hand man, and Mrs
Astor, widow of David Astor, for many years publisher and editor
of the Observer. If it seems odd that events in New York should
have almost instant repercussions at posh dinners in Africa, well,
it shouldn-t. The world has grown tiny and the march of history
has turned Franschhoek into a playground for Europe-s civilised
rich. Also resident here is Tokyo Sexwale, a revolutionary turned
billionaire who is often seen dining at Le Quartier Français,
'South Africa-s finest restaurant-, or shopping
for delicacies at shops such as Le Verger. An excited socialite
told me Sexwale was in town for the festival weekend, entertaining
no less a personage than President Mbeki himself. In such rarefied
air, the wise man watches what he says about Zimbabwe. I was not
up to it, however.
I first saw Robert Mugabe
in the flesh at a UN Earth Summit in Johannesburg in 2002. His arrival
on the podium was preceded by US defence secretary Colin Powell,
who was booed and jeered, and by Tony Blair, who met with similar
indignities. Mugabe, on the other hand, was greeted by a tumultuous
standing ovation. I wrote it off as a passing fad. At the time,
black power fanatics were still pumped up over Mugabe-s ethnic
cleansing of white farmers, and one assumed their enthusiasm would
wear off once the consequences of Mugabe-s folly manifested
themselves.
Not so. By 2004, Zimbabwe-s
economy was in freefall and his subjects were growing hungry, but
Mugabe was more popular than ever. No, not in Zimbabwe. His fans
were black people elsewhere. He received standing ovations in many
African capitals, and at President Mbeki-s 2004 swearing-in
ceremony. By then, it was clear that his 'fast-track land-reform
programme- had not significantly reversed his unpopularity
at home, and he had already taken to bludgeoning black opponents
and rigging elections in order to stay in power. His black supporters
didn-t care. Mugabe was giving the whites hell. Mugabe was
therefore a hero. 'Mugabe is speaking for black people worldwide,-
wrote the Johannesburg commentator Harry Mashabela.
One assumed this accounted
for the Mbeki administration-s reluctance to criticise Mugabe
in public. We were told that the situation in Zimbabwe was delicate,
and that 'quiet diplomacy- offered the best shot at
staving off anarchy. For a while this seemed plausible, but in time
it became clear that quiet diplomacy was mostly a cover for covert
support. When Western members of the Commonwealth moved to expel
Mugabe, South Africa helped block them. South Africa also thwarted
attempts to place his atrocities on the agenda at the UN Security
Council and the UN Human Rights Committee. Meanwhile, the rape of
Zimbabwe gained momentum, and Mugabe-s popularity swelled
to rock-star proportions. Last year, the cocky little psychopath
informed an audience of African-American New Yorkers that his rule
had created 'an unprecedented era of peace and tranquillity-
back home. They gave him a standing ovation.
One understands the wounds
of history, but even so one believed there would come a day when
Mugabe-s militant fans realised their behaviour was restoring
the reputation of Ian Smith, who prophesised that Rhodesia would
be 'buggered- if the black took over. By the beginning
of this year, Smith was utterly vindicated. Eight out of ten Zimbabweans
were jobless, and those who had work were screwed anyway, because
inflation was 2,200 per cent and they couldn-t afford anything.
Hospitals and schools were collapsing, factories closing. Millions
were facing starvation. In a report for the Sunday Times four months
ago R.W. Johnson interviewed a game ranger who said Zimbabwe-s
hyenas were developing a taste for human flesh, the result of scavenging
on corpses 'cast into collective pits like cattle-.
He concluded that Mugabe-s misrule had resulted in as many
as two million deaths — twice as many as perished in the Rwandan
genocide — and that 'the number is now heading into
regions previously explored only by Stalin, Mao and Adolf Eichmann.-
It was against this backdrop
that the UN-s Commission on Sustainable Development met to
elect a new leader last Friday. The chair of this body rotates between
regions; this year it fell to Africa to make an appointment, and
African countries were bent on installing Mugabe-s man. Western
diplomats initially thought this was some sort of joke, but as the
day passed, it emerged that Africans were indeed of the opinion
that a body dedicated to fostering development could credibly be
chaired by a murderous regime that had reduced a once-thriving nation
to absolute penury. The West was dumbfounded. 'Beyond parody,-
said an Australian newspaper columnist. 'Appalling,-
said his Prime Minister, John Howard. 'Preposterous,-
said the American human rights lobby Freedom House. But Africans
wangled support from Latin America and their motion was carried.
News of this triumph
cast me into abject gloom, and at the festival I predicted inevitable
catastrophe. This was not what civilised white South Africans wanted
to hear on a lovely autumn day, what with the economy growing at
five per cent and surprising numbers capable of forking out R500
a plate to dine with visiting writers. One such dinner took place
on an achingly lovely wine estate that styles itself Haute Cabrière.
I was seated alongside Bevil John Rudd, a genial old fellow with
a mad-scientist hairdo, whose family once owned a big chunk of De
Beers Consolidated. The aforementioned Mrs Astor regaled us with
stories of her family-s role in the downfall of apartheid,
which consisted of being good chums with Mandela and hiring Anthony
Sampson and Colin Legum to agitate against the dreadful Boers.
Opposite us a spiky-haired
codger was rattling on in a dismissive way about sceptics who doubt
the sustainability of the South African miracle. 'This is
a wonderful country,- said Ken Owen, the esteemed former editor
of South Africa-s dominant Sunday paper. 'I just get
richer and richer. Read this week-s Economist! Our economy
is roaring ahead at four times the rate of New Zealand-s,-
and so on. With several glasses of wine under my belt, I was emboldened
to say, 'Pardon me, but in the light of what just happened
in New York, your optimism seems unfounded.- My fellow diners
looked mystified, so I explained. 'You-d have to be
blind to misread the writing on the wall here,- I said.
It went down badly. Owen
said he-d been reading my scribblings in this very paper,
and hadn-t liked them at all. 'I thought you were just
playing up to the Brits for the money,- he said, 'but
you actually believe this stuff!- Then he explained to the
gathering that ANC policy toward Mugabe was entirely rational and
designed to prevent Zimbabwe imploding. I said, 'Oh, come
on! Zimbabwe imploded years ago.- Jonathan Shapiro, aka the
eminent leftish political cartoonist Zapiro, intervened at this
point. He was willing to allow that the ANC was guilty of double
standards when it came to human rights in Zimbabwe, but I wasn-t
having any of that. 'Screw double standards,- I said.
'Mugabe-s country is ruined and his people are starving,
but he smashed the white farmers, so blacks — our government
included — support him regardless. These people hate us,-
I concluded. 'This is war.- Whereupon Owen lost it entirely.
'You-re pathetic,- he shouted. 'Pathetic!-
It seems to me that last
week-s events in New York render a terrible verdict on well-intentioned
do-gooders and the climate of impunity they create for African dictators.
These thugs and kleptocrats know there is no downside; blacks —
some blacks — don-t care what horrors they inflict on
black people, so long as they can make anti-imperialist noises.
As for whites, they will take any insults you dish out and come
to feed your people anyway, thereby sparing you from the consequences
of your incompetence and criminality. There can be little doubt
that this was an essential part of Mugabe-s calculations.
I mean, the man has something like eight university degrees. It
cannot possibly have escaped his notice that elimination of white
commercial farmers would precipitate a food crisis. But why worry?
He knew that the UN and allied charities would step in to feed the
starving. Indeed, he was so confident of their generosity that he
did not scruple to use donated food as a political weapon, rewarding
loyalists with free grub and punishing rebellious villages by withholding
same while loudly proclaiming that food shortages and spiralling
prices were caused by drought, rather than deranged government policy.
This year the rains truly
failed, and millions face starvation. The response of Mugabe-s
government was dumbfounding: it announced last month that it was
revoking the licences of every aid group operating in Zimbabwe.
Later, the regime relented somewhat: charity would be tolerated
provided donors 'stuck to their core business- and otherwise
behaved themselves. 'Government will not accept food offers
from anyone for political purposes,- said the information
minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu. Furthermore, aid would be accepted only
if it was 'not attached with innuendoes of failure-.
The reason for this, explained Comrade Ndlovu, is that 'Zimbabwe
deserves the same dignity as any other country-.
As I read this I seethed
with outrage. This parasite didn-t even have the manners to
say please or thank you. But this is beyond etiquette. In the absence
of food aid, a ruler who behaved like Mugabe would long since have
been torn limb from limb by his starving subjects. One recalls the
demise of Louis XVI, of Mussolini and Ceausescu. Is it not time
to abandon Mugabe to a similar fate?
Liberals will think this
unfair to innocent people, and they are right: hundreds of thousands
might die if the food convoys do not start rolling into Zimbabwe
soon. On the other hand, as R.W. Johnson reminds us, armies of the
innocent have already perished at Mugabe-s hand, but he continues
to thrive. His party recently announced that his reign has been
extended to at least 2010. He presumes to dictate terms to charities.
Blacks everywhere continue to adulate him, and to insult the West
by appointing his despicable government to positions of honour.
There is only one way to end to end this farce: cut off the aid
and let Mugabe face the music.
No, I am not
advocating anything as dire as regime change. The trick would be
to tie food aid to acceptance of some very modest preconditions
— an end to torture, respect for the rule of law, untrammelled
free speech and no interference in the distribution of food aid.
In other words, conditions so mild and reasonable that even Mugabe-s
most ardent fans cannot dispute their justness. If he rejects them,
his disciples will be left in no doubt as to his moral repugnance,
and his long-suffering subjects will know exactly who to blame for
their hunger pangs. The end, one hopes, should come swiftly.
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