Daily, far more Zimbabweans are dying needlessly than civilians in Lebanon’s recent war. Zimbabwe is a rogue state that could also drag down its neighbor, South Africa (where the murder rate is already higher than Iraq’s).
Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe — which the U.S. has dubbed an “outpost of tyranny” — is a world-class troublemaker. He has cosied up to China and calls Iran “a critical partner.” If U.S. intelligence agencies weren’t so pre-occupied elsewhere, they might openly accuse him of supplying Congo uranium to his old pals in North Korea.
The dictator recently encouraged speculation that America had caused droughts by unspecified “chemical weapons.” Famine, however, is largely the result of Mr. Mugabe’s seizures of productive white-owned farms. Despite his abuse of America, Washington has been a big donor of aid — $300 million of mainly food aid was given in 2002-04.
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But the region is now off the media map (partly because journalists are banned).
True, in 2003, Washington imposed sanctions, including travel bans on Mr. Mugabe and his immediate cronies. Mr. Mugabe laughed and continued with his disastrous land reforms, fraudulent elections and hobbling of opposition parties.
Zimbabwe has the world’s fastest-shrinking economy and the worst inflation rate — now 1,000 percent. Services have collapsed and cannot deal with the AIDS pandemic, which has infected one-third of the population. Life expectancy has dropped from an average of 62 to 38 years. Unemployment stands at 70 percent. More than 5 million are on the brink of starvation. At least 4 million have fled.
Many black Zimbabweans will freely admit that conditions were better under the last white ruler, Ian Smith.
Like Fidel Castro, Mr. Mugabe, at 82, is a great survivor. Mr. Mugabe has favored not his brother but a former girlfriend as his possible successor, Joyce Mujuru (“Spill Blood” to use her nom de guerre).
After 26 years in power, Mr. Mugabe won’t go willingly. A military coup is unlikely, partly because a creeping coup has already taken place. The security apparatus is full of Mr. Mugabe’s Zezuru clan, and they have been amply rewarded.
Many within in his own ruling Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party — are praying for him to quit or die. Although he is due to leave office in 2008, he may try to stay on. Mr. Mugabe has never named a formal successor, which could mean more chaos if he were to die in office.
Three key clan and tribally based factions jostle for power inside the ruling party. Foremost is the group around Vice President Joyce Mujuru. The main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, runs the MDC (the Movement for Democratic Change). This former trade union activist has considerable cross-tribal support. But while the electoral system is so fixed in favor of the ruling party, the opposition is unlikely to defeat even the most fractious ZANU-PF.
That leaves South Africa. Pretoria failed to bring Messrs. Tsvangirai and Mugabe together. Then it pinned its forlorn hopes on a so-called moderate faction emerging in the ruling party. Regional organizations, such as the African Union, have been unsurprisingly toothless.
More recently it looked as though U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan might offer Mugabe a U.N. deal: an economic rescue package in exchange for a deadline to quit office. Crucially there would also be immunity from prosecution.
All these unsuccessful attempts indicate that South African President Thabo Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy has failed.
In the West, South Africa is perceived as the regional superpower. Admittedly, Pretoria does have to contend with regional suspicions about its throwing its weight around. Nevertheless, South Africa has the hard power: It could cut off fuel and electricity and bring Mr. Mugabe to heel almost overnight.
Mr. Mbeki’s quiet constructive engagement was based on the premise that direct confrontation — public condemnation, let alone any use of economic leverage — would ultimately damage South African interests. Ironically, that is exactly what has happened.
Nelson Mandela condemned Mr. Mugabe. Unfortunately, the current president defers to the older revolutionary hero in Harare. The majority of Africans may well buy into the anti-imperial discourse of Zimbabwe’s rhetoric against the Anglo-American conspiracy. Mr. Mbeki should not.
The Zimbabwe crisis is causing major rifts in South Africa’s ruling African National Congress. More important is the danger of the land issue spiralling out of control. Recently, 8,000 white farmers were given six months to sell their land or be forced to quit. Twenty times more white South African farmers have been murdered — many for political reasons — than white farmers in Zimbabwe. Also, the flood of Zimbabwean refugees is making South Africans much more xenophobic. And allowing a failed state on its borders does no good for foreign investors’ confidence in the region.
Above all, it is a question of image. The South African government is perceived in the West as implicit in all that Mr. Mugabe does. The president’s medieval stance on AIDS might have been forgiven as unfortunate ignorance, but tolerating Mr. Mugabe is seen as either plain stupidity or deliberately condoning the dictator. It is time for the statesman to emerge in Mr. Mbeki.
Maybe the same could apply to Washington. In 1976, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger finessed regime change in what then was Rhodesia. The U.S. still has real economic clout in South Africa. By leaning discreetly on Pretoria, President Bush could do much good in Zimbabwe. In the long run, getting rid of one mad bad dictator in Africa might bestow a far nobler political legacy than Arabian adventures.
Paul Moorcraft, author of a seminal history of the Rhodesian war, is director of the Center for Foreign Policy Analysis.
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