Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Foreign intervention in Zimbabwe?
Said Adejumobi, Guardian News (Nigeria)
July 02, 2008

http://odili.net/news/source/2008/jul/2/38.html

Listening to Desmond Tutu on BBC on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 calling for foreign intervention in Zimbabwe and liking the electoral crisis in the country to that of the processes leading to Rwandan genocide is to say the least appalling and unfortunate from a man of his status and respect. I am sure that Tutu will recollect that in spite of the criminality of the apartheid regime, its human carnage and destruction, no one ever called for foreign intervention into South Africa to assist the ANC and other liberation movements to wage the anti-apartheid struggle. Ultimately, it was the balance of forces on the ground and the international pressures that eventually paved the way for political settlement in South Africa.

I am not a fan of Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has squandered his goodwill for staying too long in power. Had Mugabe stepped down some five to 10 years back, he would have retired as a hero in the country and the continent. Mugabe's political trajectory is like that of Jerry Rawlings, who transformed his country but stayed too long in power. As the Yoruba idiom goes, filth and flies will greet anyone who stays too long in the toilet. Mugabe is a manifestation of the general crisis of governance in Africa.

But it is also important to appreciate the context of the Zimbabwean crisis, the interests and forces involved and the possible solutions and policy options that may be taken. The electoral crisis in Zimbabwe is a further step in its political crisis, which started with the land question. Many people are familiar with the issue of the land question, but to summarise it. Following the Lancaster House Agreement on Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, Britain was to provide some funds for a land-buy back scheme through which land was to be redistributed in the country to allow blacks and other historically disadvantaged groups have access to land. Hitherto, the minority white population control over 80 per cent of arable land in Zimbabwe.

The obligation was not fully honoured. Frustrated, Mugabe later adopted a militant stance against Britain and forcefully reacquired some of the land. The law was shoved aside, and there was massive invasion of white farms with killings and destruction of their properties mostly by the Zimbabwean war veterans. Britain and some Western countries were displeased and started making a case for regime change in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe's approach on the land question was defective, but the response of most western countries was no less defective and bizarre. In re-acquiring the land, Mugabe made the case that those lands were violently acquired by the colonising power in the first instance, and re-acquiring them through the same means is not morally unjustifiable. This is logical but not necessarily right. Two wrongs will certainly not make a right. Mugabe should have used the instrumentalities of the law and due process to effect any change in the land regime in Zimbabwe. Again, giving land to some poor, helpless and untrained hands is only symbolic but unuseful. A more methodical and legal process should have been relied upon to change the existing land system in the country.

The tacit response of most western countries was that Mugabe had to go for raising the land issue. Sanctions were imposed under the guise of human rights violations, and open support was given to the opposition in the political process making their choice of regime change very clear. Most western countries were no longer impartial arbiters in the political game in Zimbabwe. Mugabe, the once darling of the West became a pariah in the international community!

A tempting counterfactual question, which intrigues my mind, all the time, is; had Mugabe not raised the land question, would he have lost support from the West?

Is Mugabe's case different from many leaders in Africa who have stayed in power for over 20 years? Why is there little spotlight on many of those leaders who ostensibly enjoy the patronage of the West? I am not sure whether the April 2007 elections in Nigeria, the December 2007 elections in Kenya or the 2005 elections in Egypt were any better than the March 2008 elections in Zimbabwe. In the first two cases (Nigeria and Kenya), presidential election results were reportedly announced before the collation of results was completed. The human carnage we saw in Kenya is far greater than what we have seen so far in Zimbabwe, yet the solution from the West to the Kenyan electoral crisis was to opt for a unity government. Kibaki was not asked to leave, but to share power with Raila Odinga. The tune is different in the case of Zimbabwe. Mugabe has to go, no compromise!

The argument is not to make a case for a low threshold on democracy in Africa, but to insist that uniform standards should be applied at the global level to countries in default of democracy. The military junta in Burma and the Musharaf regime in Pakistan do not deserve to be treated differently from the way Mugabe is being treated, talk less of many other African countries with faltering democracy or non at all.

Few people have ever pondered on why the urge for regime change in Zimbabwe has been mostly rebuffed by the SADC and AU leaders. A few months back, Gordon Brown took the case to the UN Security Council (UNSC); many African countries on the council remained mute and did not support it. The case is again before the UNSC. The reasons for the coldness of African leaders are threefold. First, many of the SADC leaders are confronted with the same problem of the land question, which they do not know how to handle it. They may not support Mugabe; but there is a similar problem in their backyards they have to deal with, sooner or later.

Second, the precedent of regime change by western countries through economic sanctions and support for the opposition is too scary for them to contemplate. If this happens to Mugabe, can it not happen to any of them?

Third, the perception is that the people are voting more with their stomach, than with their hearts or conscience. The sanctions have beaten very hard; basic food items have disappeared on the streets of Zimbabwe; inflation is at a rate unknown in any country; and life has come to a standstill in the country. If voting for Tsavangarai can ease the burden (for the west to left the sanctions), why not do so. In a sense, these leaders feel that the March 2008 elections fed into the context of regime change in Zimbabwe. It was not a normal election; the context had been prepared for change!

The June 27, 2008 presidential election in Zimbabwe was a facade, but external intervention is not an option. External intervention in Zimbabwe is only not advisable but may be dangerous and counter productive. Somalia is still up in flames, the wounds in Sudan have not healed, and Liberia and Sierra Leone are just recovering. The options of diplomacy and high-level negotiation have not been exhausted. SADC working in tandem with the AU with support from the UN should establish an international mediating team made up of distinguished Africans to negotiate a political pact. The pact should include a re-run of the elections at a later date and the prospective granting of political immunity to Mugabe in the event of which he loses the run-off elections. Under those conditions, Mugabe may likely acquiesce to new elections.

Mugabe is an octogenarian, whether he likes it or not he would soon become history; we must not use the pains of the moment to further destabilise the country through foreign intervention. The experience of Iraq is too grim to support any form of foreign intervention in the name of propagating democracy!

*Adejumobi lives in Lagos.

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