LARSON: Madness in Zimbabwe

OPINION:

OP-ED:

“The cholera cause doesn’t exist any more,” Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe said recently. It is a statement which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been following his career for the past 28 years. Then a day later, his information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, said the outbreak was a “genocidal onslaught on the people of Zimbabwe by the British.” Mr. Ndlovu elaborated, calling the cholera a “serious biological chemical weapon … a calculated, racist, terrorist attack on Zimbabwe.”

Fortunately, there’s a groundswell calling for Mugabe to step down - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Bush in recent days have all called for his departure. Add to the list within the past few weeks, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and others - enough names of important people that you would think that Mugabe might get the message.

He won’t.

The current raging cholera epidemic has U.N. officials worried not simply because of further contagion within Zimbabwe (16,000 cases and still increasing) but into neighboring countries, especially Zambia and Mozambique, where medical facilities will be unable to deal with the scourge. The cholera has already spread into South Africa, but that country has the ability to deal with the contamination, at least at the moment.

The cholera outbreak is simply the latest example of Mugabe’s inability to face reality. For years, he’s been in a state of denial about his actions and he’s been enabled by other African leaders who continue to believe “Once a war hero, always a hero.” Shortly after he took office in 1980 (after, granted, what was a terrible struggle against Ian Smith’s renegade government), Mr. Mugabe eliminated political opponents and permitted the slaughter of thousands of Zimbabweans in order to put down the opposition. Mugabe has had blood on his hands for decades.

In the last 10 years, he’s appropriated the farms of white landowners and tossed them to his ZANU-PF cronies, who certainly had legitimacy for the land but who also knew nothing about farming. The devastation has led to a continual downhill slope; the so-called breadbasket of southern Africa today has to import food for its starving millions. Millions of other Zimbabweans have fled the country. Huge numbers of others have become infected with AIDS (which Mugabe denied for years). And now cholera.

We are all incredulous about the country’s hyper-inflation, currently at 231 million percent per annum. Recent elections have been rigged. There is massive unemployment, estimated at 80 percent. All social services have broken down - education, health, food distribution - but Mugabe and his henchmen hang in there, as the country slowly takes on the stench of a gigantic graveyard.

Mugabe and his cronies in the upper echelon of the government, including ZANU-PF members, soldiers, and policemen, keep holding on because they realize that once he loses power they’ll have to stand trial in the Hague (like Liberia’s Charles Taylor and, hopefully, Sudan’s Omar al-Basher). They’re willing for everyone else in the country to succumb in order to retain their power. If that isn’t political genocide, what is it? So what can be done?

First, a clear ultimatum like Mr. Bush gave Taylor. Step down or face immediate consequences. And if the West doesn’t have the resolve to make that demand, then cyber assassination. Hire a few computer hackers and empty out the bank accounts of ZANU’s leaders (along with Mugabe’s, of course). Close down the country’s central bank, crash all government computers, destroy government offices from the ability of using the internet and cell phones - all by cyber attacks. Deny landing rights to Mugabe’s presidential jet anywhere outside of the country. In short, stop Mugabe’s government dead in its tracks. All of these tactics should have been employed long ago, but as a Zimbabwean friend of mine once told me, “The West doesn’t know how to deal with African leaders.”

We remember how President Clinton looked on as Rwanda exploded into genocide in 1994. Mr. Clinton admitted years later that the incident was his worst foreign policy failing. Mr. Bush waited way too long before he put pressure on Taylor, and Liberia’s destabilization spread to neighboring countries. Without drastic tactics, the situation in Zimbabwe will only get worse (yes, that is still possible). Cholera will spread into those neighboring countries.

Above all, let Morgan Tsvangirai know that he will be supported by the West and the country will be rebuilt once Mugabe and his devils have been crushed. After all, Mr. Tsvangirai won the country’s last legitimate election.

If we continue to do nothing, the blood will be on our hands also.

Charles R. Larson is professor of literature at American University.