Back to Index

Crisis group-s Zimbabwe report doubly flawed
Nicole Fritz, Business Day (SA)
September 27, 2007

http://allafrica.com/stories/200709270359.html

The International Crisis Group (ICG) released a new report on Zimbabwe recently titled Zimbabwe: A Regional Solution? Any report issued by the ICG is to be taken seriously. Strangled neither by the grubby compromises of realpolitik, nor inflated by the quixotic visions characteristic of so much nongovernmental organisation activism, the ICG is able to walk a middle ground, often proposing the most sensible and effective solutions for countries in crisis. Yet, surprisingly, its most recent report, calling on the extension of a large aid package to Zimbabwe conditional on full co-operation with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediation process, suffers the flaws of an approach that is both too pragmatic and too idealistic.

Although the report insists that the objective of any Zimbabwe reform process cannot be regime change but must be the guarantee that all adult Zimbabweans are able freely and fairly to elect their next government, the report also contends, without any suggestion that this might be problematic, that SA and SADC mistrust the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), especially the larger faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai. If that is so - given the ICG-s access to various high-level sources there is no reason to doubt this - that hardly suggests that SA or SADC are well positioned to act as good-faith mediators or to best secure an environment in which free and fair elections can be held. The report maintains, also without critical comment, that given the fracturing of the MDC, "the political risks the ruling party and SADC members who distrust the opposition are being asked to take are relatively limited".

In essence: neither Pretoria nor SADC should be concerned about the reform process ahead of the Zimbabwe elections as those elections will almost certainly return to power the party of their preference: Zanu PF. But this would seem, again, quite at odds with engagement in a process aimed at securing free and fair participation. In footnotes, the report attributes suspicion of the MDC to its association with white farming interests, the west, etc, and remarkably suggests that ethnic considerations might lie behind Pretoria-s ostensible preference for the Arthur Mutambara-led faction of the MDC. Allegedly, Pretoria wants the Ndebele, closely aligned with the Mutambara faction, represented in government. If there is any credibility to such claims, it seems to follow that the South African government should at least be called on to explain such preference.

The report-s central recommendation is that President Thabo Mbeki and SADC should require the west to lift sanctions and extend a large aid package conditional on full Zanu PF co-operation with the mediation process and implementation of reforms. And yet, as the report admits, Mugabe has been particularly adept in outmanoeuvring his opponents within Zimbabwe and outside. This leaves the reader to question why, if Zimbabwe under Mugabe were to be offered such relief, he would, in fact, honour any undertaken given. What leverage might be used once the package has been extended? If the ICG report maintains that the best hope for a resolution to the Zimbabwe crisis is a seemingly deeply partisan SADC-driven mediation process, it says too that the only real prospect for change in Zimbabwe comes from Zanu PF itself and not the fractured political opposition.

Here it appears to forget its own insistence on preconditions essential to free and fair elections - such as the removal of ghost voters and the enfranchisement of the diaspora. With those secured, who knows the result a free and fair election might yield and what response the fractured opposition might offer if, combined, it commands a majority? The risk with this type of pragmatism-heavy analysis is that it pre-emptively forecloses on other outcomes, conditioning ways forward on only a very few alternatives. In fact, it is exactly this type of approach - an insistence that SADC is the only way ahead - that may help explain the MDC-s rather surprising recent support for a constitutional amendment that seems only to prejudice its chances in any ensuing elections.

But if the report is too pragmatic it is also unreasonably idealistic. Its premise - that SADC is potentially able to and will exert meaningful pressure and criticism in respect of Zimbabwe, and can avoid the duplicity and hypocrisy of the west - ignores real regional alliances within SADC. As the report itself acknowledges - and then seems to discount - "some members (of SADC), Namibia and Malawi in particular, remain Mugabe supporters; Angola, often a regional rival, would not be dissatisfied to see SA-s mediation fail." But whatever the geopolitical or personal alliances, can it really be expected that SADC states will blithely ignore their own political realities? Can Angola, long overdue elections, let alone free and fair ones, genuinely insist on such a process for Zimbabwe? And will Swaziland-s king, who brooks no political opposition, be meaningfully concerned about the Zimbabwean government-s failure to allow the same?

* Fritz is the director of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP