BETWEEN MUGABE AND ZIMBABWE

PREAMBLE

1. Following the 11th March police brutalization of
opposition MDC leaders, Baffour Ankomah, the editor of
New African, traveled to Zimbabwe in early April,
ostensibly to obtain the truth. Before he left he
accused Western media and governments of partiality in
the coverage of and pronouncements on the incident.
The journey, he wrote, would avail the key players,
especially the pro-Mugabe camp, to tell their own side
of the story. Mr. Ankomah’s report is detailed in the
May edition of the magazine of which it took 60% (87
out of 116 pages, including Baffours Beefs – 2 pages,
presidential interview – 8 pages, sponsored supplement
on Zimbabwe – 75 pages). Judging by the report, Mr.
Ankomah came away from the trip a radical pro-Mugabe
activist or the President’s chief publicist-at-large.
The report blames all except Dr. Mugabe for the
troubles – in Zimbabwe. The guiltiest include the
Western media who are blamed for their demonisation of
the President and gratuitous exaggerations, and
Western leaders, notably Tony Blair and George Bush.
These leaders are blamed for the so-called targeted
sanctions that have rendered the country’s economy
prostrate. The report says that while Zimbabwe is not
a threat to international peace and security, and it’s
troubles far less than in many other African
countries, such as the DRC, Sudan and Somalia, the
West has singled out Zimbabwe for special treatment.
The other guilty party is the opposition MDC, led by
Morgan Tsvangirai. Mr. Tsvangirai is accused of
betrayal in the face of Western imperialist onslaught.
Dr. Mugabe is entirely innocent in the report’s view.
He is portrayed as an unflagging anti-imperialist hero
and a victim of Western –imperialist conspiracy. The
report, notably, is in denial about the dire economic,
social, political and security situation
overwhelmingly reported in Zimbabwe – which were
confirmed even by Mr. Ankomah’s interlocutors,
including prominent members of ZANU – PF, the ruling
party, holding key government appointments, as well as
opposition leaders.


2. It would seem, judging by the SADC summit in
Tanzania in late March, that African leaders are now
taking events in Zimbabwe more seriously and would
hopefully act more vigorously towards a resolution of
the situation. This development, although seemingly
prompted by the West’s apparently more potent
intervention, is welcome. The summit has quite
naturally revitalized the debate on Zimbabwe. It would
therefore not be out of place to suggest that perhaps
this is the appropriate time to offer a personal
perspective on events there. A good debate on
Zimbabwe, while and if there is time for it, would be
good for any effort towards peace and security in the
beleaguered country.

3. A good staring point would be to review the New
African’s report in its May edition, which was quite
wide ranging and the most comprehensive to date. Mr.
Ankomah, Dr. Mugabe and other Zanu – PF spokespersons
are angry that Zimbabwe is being singled out by the
West. They say that in DRC for instance, more people
are being killed routinely but no one appears to
notice. They say that the West’s reaction to events in
Zimbabwe is entirely out of proportion to whatever is
happening there. They charge that had the victims of
the land reform policy in Zimbabwe not been white, the
reaction of the West would have been different. The
pro-Mugabe camp are unhappy that because Western
diplomats, notably their ambassadors, and their
governments have broken all protocol and international
norms to provide overt support to the opposition, MDC,
thus violating the sovereign rights of Zimbabwe. They
accuse the West, notably Britain and America of openly
canvassing regime change in Zimbabwe. These
allegations are genuine enough and can be verified but
there is more to it than meets the eye. They raise
some fundamental questions, which will be discussed
shortly.

VISITORS TO ZIMBABWE.

4. In Mr. Ankomah’s reports, there are mainly four
groups of interlocutors. The first group consists of
men like Peter Mavunga, described as a Zimbabwean
journalist based in London, the Rt. Rev. Nicholas
Baines, a British clergyman who like Ankomah lead a
team on a fact finding visit to Zimbabwe. The next
person in this group is a man described by Ankomah as
a British engineer he met on the plane on the 13th of
April while both were returning to London from
Zimbabwe. The engineer was on his way from a holiday
visit to a friend resident in Zimbabwe. The last
person in this group is Baffour Ankomah himself. This
group is distinguished by their common testimony that
things are not as bad in Zimbabwe as the Western media
make it to be. But the interesting thing about the
group is that all were visitors to Zimbabwe and it is
noteworthy that no resident of Zimbabwe including the
President, Dr. Robert Mugabe is in such a denial mood.
On page 18 of New African of May 2007, the President
while being interviewed by Baffour Ankomah admitted:
“Yes there are hardships…there are shortages of
drugs…” That’s as far as it could go, coming from the
President himself. There are a number of reasons why
people may take antipodean positions in situations
such as this. They may be seeking the limelight,
taking advantage of a situation in which Zimbabwe and
its leader are weak and desperate. Louis Farrakan does
that all the time, unashamedly. Professional people
including journalists, clergymen etc are forever
looking for fast-track opportunities to enhance their
careers. It may also be simple, plain charlatanism at
work, with people seeking to ingratiate themselves
with a weak and struggling leader. If someone visiting
Zimbabwe is already biased it should not be difficult
for him to contrive a guided tour and deliver a
verdict already implanted in his subconscious, in the
process readily rejecting any evidence that challenges
his cause. Compared with the West Robert Mugabe may
seem like the underdog. But just being the underdog
should not qualify a leader for automatic support of
kith and kin. Rational leaders should avoid working
themselves into a corner, leaving no room for
manoeuvre. If they must take irrevocable stands, they
must make sure that the cause is just, that the whole
nation is behind them and that there are no doubts in
the minds of the public that what is being done is in
their best interests. If these conditions are met, the
leader can be certain that his legacy is secure, even
when the momentum of change sweeps him/her away from
power. Otherwise a single policy error, in a proper
democratic environment can often be fateful for the
leader. A leader whose focus is the national interest
can always manage to finesse foreign or domestic
conspiracy or propaganda where they exist.

5. Evidence around the world confirm that in politics,
you are better off not starting something you cannot
finish unless you are absolutely confident about the
moral justification and eventual positive results.
Mikhail Gorbachev supervised the explosion of the
Soviet empire, to his eternal credit, because he
sensibly chose to ride the wave of the political
current of the day. It did not matter that once the
breakup got underway, he had no control over events
anymore. FW De Klerk made a conscious determination
that apartheid would have to end in the knowledge that
once done, he and white South Africa would no longer
be in charge, probably forever. His predecessor, Mr.
PW Botha, ‘the groot crocodil’, could not muster the
courage to do it. For both Gorbachev and De Klerk it
must have taken some courage and commitment,
regardless of any other pertinent circumstances. If a
leader were unsure of the justness, probable outcome
and the moral integrity of a cause, that project is
probably not worth starting at all. I think it is a
mistake for Dr. Mugabe to think that the situation in
Zimbabwe today is somehow in the interest of the
country. If all that the opposition MDC, lead by
Morgan Tsvangirai has done is to tell Dr. Mugabe that
he is wrong, it would have achieved its purpose.

6. Leaders around the world, everyday face important
choices in their respective national interests. I
think it is fair to say that on the African continent
Zimbabwe’s democracy has been one of the most
progressive until recently. Till date, it still
possesses an opposition that gives voters a real
alternative and actually wins elections at almost
every level. Rule of law and freedom of speech is much
better than can be said of many African states.
Combine these assets with the disproportionately high
international visibility, which can actually be a good
thing if properly harnessed, Zimbabwe has a potential
to be one of the most envied on the continent. To me
the options before government were to develop through
a gradualist, evolutionary process or through a
radical, revolutionary trajectory. The Chagossians,
who were ignominiously expelled from their archipelago
decades ago when imperialism was rife have recently
won a court battle to return to their native lands.
Rather than resort to terrorism or other radical,
coercive modus operandi, they chose to go to the
courts, thus vindicating the fact that imperialism has
lost currency around the world and so anti-imperialist
rhetoric should therefore not be used to distract
attention and mask the real issues. In resolving the
land distribution problem Dr. Mugabe chose the
radical, revolutionary approach rather than follow the
evolutionary approach like the South Africans. The
land problem in Zimbabwe is litigable in the world
court or even in British courts. Zimbabwe could have
opted for the stoop to conquer approach, so to say, by
exploring this option, which has a high probability of
success together with attendant diplomatic goodwill
the country would have received from around the world.
But having made a radical choice, not unexpected for
a Marxist, he now finds himself unable to manage the
fall out. For the sake of 13 million Zimbabweans and
for the sake of the region, whose stability can be
adversely affected by a regressing Zimbabwe, Dr.
Mugabe should do the right thing and leave.

7. African leaders, individually or as a group tend to
go into denial when a policy error has been committed.
This was as much confirmed by the communiqué from the
SADC Summit in Tanzania in March, which tended to
accommodate Dr. Mugabe and sought the unconditional
lifting of the targeted sanctions, although it did its
best to get the opposition involved in the Summit’s
deliberations. In a proper democratic setting, a
single policy error, domestic or foreign, is more
likely as not to spell the end and destroy the legacy
of the incumbent administration. In politics
perceptions are everything. Once a leader acquires a
negative image he is as good as finished. Sometimes
it comes in a tailspin, at other times its demise is
drawn out but the result, either way, is pretty much
the same. For Mr. Bush 43, his undoing is the
American involvement in Iraq and to lesser extent in
Iran and Afghanistan. Ditto for Tony Blair of
Britain. Mr. Bush’s demise is drawn out, obviously
helped by term limit provision in the American system.
The lack of term limits in Britain also explains why
Tony Blair’s exit was less drawn out than Mr. Bush.
One of the earliest causalities of the
anti-terror/Iraq war was Jose Maria Azner of Spain.
For Mr. Clinton it was Monica Lewinisky. The reason
Clinton survived Monica – sort of – was the sheer
weight of the President’s positive achievements in
office, the perspicacity of the American people who
could see that the hugely good side of Mr. Clinton was
more important for them than his personal indiscretion
– and of course, Clinton’s own phenomenal coolness
under fire. The land reform issue is almost certainly
going to be decisive for Dr. Mugabe but he is quite
naturally refusing to accept it, like any unreformed
Marxist demagogue is wont to. He would rather go down
fighting. The task before the world, particularly the
AU and the SADC is to ensure that he does not take
Zimbabwe with him.

8. Many Africans, including African groups, such as
the SADC think it is unfair for the West to want
Mugabe out. But it needs to be pointed out that a
major policy error usually would not go unpunished in
a Western setting. For the government and its top
leaders the system is unforgiving in such
circumstances. In Western societies the media is
unforgiving of political leaders and holds them to
very high levels of accountability. If Zimbabwe were
a Western nation Dr. Mugabe would have taken
responsibility and left. The reaction of the West
should be understood from this perspective and should
not be used as an excuse to keep him in power even
when in all probability there is a need for a new
personality with a new style and new ideas at
government house. Unlike some critics I have no
difficulty separating Dr. Mugabe from the Zimbabwean
people. There is ample evidence that there is a huge
gap between what Dr. Mugabe is doing and what the
Zimbabwean people want or need. I do not believe that
the lopsided land distribution in Zimbabwe is the one
thing that kept the country from moving forward in
these past 27 years. The Zimbabwean people would
love, like every other people, to move on and not get
stuck in their neo-imperial past. Robert Mugabe has
been in power since 1980 and it has been a rather
sanguinary experience for Zimbabwe. The blood of some
20,000 Ndebele, massacred in ’84 is on Dr. Mugabe’s
head. Current newspaper reports indicate that the
Ndebele are once again the target of ethnic cleansing
in the public services. Leaving Dr. Mugabe in power
may very well mean leaving Zimbabwe in a cruise
towards another Rwanda’s ’94. I think it would be a
bigger blackmail than anything the West has done to
claim at this point in time that Robert Mugabe is the
only one fit to continue leading the long suffering
people of Zimbabwe. The question of fighting Western
blackmail must be weighed against the interest of
Zimbabwe as a whole. If Robert Mugabe were to go war
the emphasis should be that he left in the interest of
Zimbabwe and not in submission to Western blackmail,
just like Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic, who
all claimed, against all the odds, to be fighting fors
greater Liberia or greater Serbia, did. National and
international peace and security often dictate such
pragmatism as clearly illustrated above. Even a world
power like Britain occasionally submits to blackmail
and compromise institutional integrity as a pragmatic
response in the national interest. Quite recently the
British government had to call off a two and a half
year old inquiry into a defence contract scandal in
which a 60 million pounds underhand payout was made to
facilitate an arms deal including the supply of 72
combat aircraft at 76 billion pounds to Saudi Arabia.
The action was in response to Saudi Arabia’s threats
of consequences, diplomatic and economic. The official
reason given was that the inquiry threatened 5000
British jobs; and for good measure, national Security
and the anti-terror war-, which were all true enough.
But in taking this line of action Britain had to live
with an apparent blackmail by the Saudi authorities
and a historic compromise of the nation’s criminal
justice system thought to be among the best in the
world.

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY

9. Cynthia Mckinney’s Pro-Mugabe stand was reported in
some detail in New African of May, 2006. As a staunch
Mugabe advocate she belongs to a class all her own-and
it is indeed heartening that an African American
law-maker and African Americans in general continue to
take active interest in their home continent;
following in the footsteps of M .L King Jnr., Leon
Sullivan, Bayard Rustin and others. Her emotive
anti-imperialist support for Mugabe’s government is
evocative of the American Civil Rights movement in is
halcyon days. But challenging Senate Law 494 on the
basis of a historical injustice is one thing and
resolving that injustice one hundred years later, in a
poor African setting using facist methodology, quite
another. Resolving such a conflict was bound to be
complicated. By all accounts the white-skin farmers
who bore the brunt to Dr. Mugabes land reform
blitzkrieg were Zimbabwean citizens who deserved but
were denied state protection. Their main sin, not
their fault of course, was that they were ethnic
whites, as one might speak of ethnic Chinese in
Indonesia or Malaysia, ethnic Kurds in Turkey or Iraq
or ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. They were not, as many
presume, representatives of the British government,
the ex-colonialist power with whom the government of
Zimbabwe disputed claims to the deeds of their real
estates. But of course it cannot be denied that they
inherited disputed property but that hardly changes
the moral and legal situation with regard to their
rights as Zimbabweans. The state sponsored Ku Klux
Klan or janjaweed style evictions violated universal
human rights to shelter at the very least. There were
several physical attacks and some fatalities. No
observer could have missed the spectre of a
humanitarian calamity that loomed. There was therefore
bound to be some justifiable response from sympathetic
authorities around the world. Apart from the Western
world Kwara State of Nigeria and Malawi came to the
aid of the farmers. A thoughtful leader ought to have
been more circumspect. The forceful evictions and
violent attacks smacked of racism. I am sure that Ms
Mckinney would be the first to admit, from the
American experience, that racism in one direction does
not cease to be racism if the direction is reversed.
The land distribution dispute between Britain and
Zimbabwe is entirely litigable in the World Court
system. The Chagossians who were expelled from their
homeland in the sixties the have lately won back the
title to their land in the British court system.
Commendably, they apparently rejected the option of
terrorism or other coercive means to pursue their
claims. A better use of sovereignty and leadership
would have been to avail the land problem as an
opportunity to build bridges across races as is being
successfully done in South Africa where a gradualist,
evolutionary approach rather than a revolutionary,
disruptive one has been adopted by the state. In South
Africa government sponsors the appropriate
legislation, which includes the necessary affirmative
action provisions. This approach would have won
Zimbabwe world wide plaudits as well as keeping the
economy on a progressive trajectory, without so much
as a dent on its sovereignty, of which so much is
being made. The approach would also give time for the
average Zimbabwean or the prospective land owners to
whet and build up the necessary competitive
entrepreneurial skills in economic land use, in
particular, commercial farming and agribusiness.
Merely throwing out the farmers and giving their
holdings over to other Zimbabweans, Idi Amin-Style,
has created an entitlement mentality and the
suppression of the competitive spirit every economy
needs. It should not be a surprise that most of the
farms so taken over have fallen into disuse while the
overall effect on the economy has been dismal.

THE TECHNOCRATS

10. The next group of interlocutors in the May, 2007
edition of New African includes such men as Dr. Gideon
Gono, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe; Dr.
Tafataona Mahoso, the head of Zimbabwe’s Media and
Information Commission; and Godwin T. Mutanga DCP
(operations)- a police officer. These are all highly
placed technocrats in Robert Mugabe’s government and
can therefore be presumed ZANU-PF supporters. But
their candid and even-handed contributions were
encouraging and does show that whatever is wrong with
Zimbabwe is at the political level, not with the
technocrats. It should therefore be a relatively
simple matter to redeem Zimbabwe by giving it a new
direction when it gets a new leadership. The sooner
that gets to happen, the better for all stake holders,
including not just Zimbabweans but also the SADC and
the AU.


MDC MEMBERS

11. The last group of interlocutors in Mr. Ankomah’s
report, besides Morgan Tsvangirai himself, consists
mainly of prominent MDC (opposition) members such as
Professor Arthur Mutambara, leader of the breakway
faction of the MDC; Professor Welshman Ncube, former
Secretary General of the MDC (before the breakup) and
a leading member of the Mutambara-led faction. Trudy
Stevenson, the MDC MP for Harare North; and David
Coltart, MDC MP for Bulawayo South. If the
contributions from these sources were meant to show
that all was not well with the MDC it did the job
rather effectively. Ms Stevenson’s account of her
alleged assault by people believed to be MDC
supporters on 22nd July, 2006 was taken from the
website: newzimbabwe.com. David Coltart’s explanation
of his disillusionment with the MDC leadership was
reproduced from the same site. Morgan Tsvangiran’s
account of his assault on 11th March was culled from a
British daily, the Independent. Professor Ncube’s
views were reported in an interview he granted the
Zimbabwe Sunday news. Professor Mutambara’s press
conference on 2nd April after the SADC summit was also
a reproduction. While these reports did show that all
may not be well with the MDC, it is remarkable that MR
Ankomah did not find it necessary to speak directly to
any of its members as he did to the members of the
Mugabe camp. However, going by the report the MDC is
evidently having teething problems. Part of the reason
could be that Morgan Tsvangirai is becoming a victim
of his own success in building a credible opposition
for the country’s political system that actually gives
voters a real choice. The hope is that these problems
will resolve themselves as the party and system
matures. The evidence shows that there is more
maturity already in the Zimbabwean system than can be
said of several African countries and there can be no
doubt that Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC played a seminal
role in this development.


CONCLUSION

12. At independence the colonialists left hurriedly.
If Nigeria’s experience is anything to go by
independence came 50 years (100 years by some
estimates) sooner than was projected by Whitehall. In
every case it was a struggle that turned nasty and
violent sometimes. In India (‘47) and Congo (’60)
something close to civil war erupted within days of
the colonial authority’s formal withdrawal. India
recovered pretty quickly although there remain
vestiges in the Kashmir region and in the prickly
relationship with Pakistan but Congo has not.
Nigeria’s eruption delayed a bit till January 1966,
most probably because the British GOC and IGP did not
leave with the colonial political establishment in
1960. Within six months of the GOC’s departure,
however, in July 1965, the majors struck and a civil
war followed within the year. At independence there
were many loose ends left untied. It is left for the
inheritors of power in these sovereign states to do
what is necessary to tie up these loose ends without
regressing the status quo. Before independence, the
dominions relied on the colonial power’s democratic
institutional resources to function and to guarantee
law and order. In the case of Britain Whitehall and
Westminster, as well as the Lord Chancellor (Chief
Justice) and the Chancellor of Exchequer (Deputy Prime
Minister responsible for the treasury and domestic
policy) extended their influence to the colonies. At
independence when these structural scaffoldings were
withdrawn there was nothing to hold the new states in
place for the systems to function. There was acute
shortage of manpower in the new states. The newly
minted African leaders were essentially on their own.
Their plight was compounded by the fact that these
states were a patchwork of diverse ethnic, cultural
and in some instances religious entities.
Unfortunately, the new African leaders took the
short-cut approach for regime survival. Instead of
focusing on building virile institutions of state and
the necessary manpower, such as effective and
independent judiciaries, legislatures, and public
services that will deliver egalitarianism and offer
equal opportunity across the length and breath of
their lands, they chose to play on ethnic and other
divisions as well as running errands – hosting proxy
wars – for Cold War powers, leaving their countries
essentially cheated out of world advancement for
decades. Many used the gratuities from the cold war
sponsors to suppress opposition at home. In many
African countries the situation was often described as
internal colonialism. In Nigeria the word ‘hegemonism’
was sometimes used by critics. One result of this
kind of politics, apart from the developmental
regression, was that minorities in these countries
were continually marginalized. What is happening in
Nigeria’s Niger Delta today is that such marginalized
groups have slowly but steadily emancipated and
radicalized, and taking advantage of global
communications, are now ready to force the central
government by all necessary means (militia, thuggery,
blue and white collar grand larceny) to redress these
historical injustices. Previous governments in
Nigeria, after 1966, have been continually perfunctory
with minorities and in the particular case of the
Niger Deltans have used brutal force many times to
suppress opposition. This brutality did much to
radicalize anti-government sentiments there. (It is
heartening to note that President Yar’dua is on to a
good start and is already demonstrating that he is in
for serious change. His style evokes memories of the
late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of blessed memory. I
wish him well but the task ahead is enormous and
daunting. I think that a radical, comprehensive,
constitutional review is extremely important, even
imperative and ought to be a high priority.) All
around the continent these hitherto marginalized
groups are now giving the mainstream behemoths a hard
time, from the Congo to the Ivory Coast. In Rwanda
such tensions resulted in the historic bloodiness of
1994. Some others such as Burundi, Angola and for
that matter, Rwanda have come through the worst and
are now firmly on a correction course, however slowly.
In Zimbabwe the marginalized entities have evolved
into an effective political opposition but the head of
the government who belongs to the old order is
refusing to accept the inevitable, much like fellow
travelers in Nigeria through a few governments back.
In his Independence Day speech of 18th April 2007,
Robert Mugabe said inter alia: “ Congratulations
Zimbabwe, on our refusal to be re-colonized! Let the
sound of the celebrations of our 27th anniversary
reach the ears of Britain and her allies, and let them
know that we shall never, never, ever be a colony
again” I think it is rather sad that after 27 years
of independence the major thing to celebrate is a
demagogic anti-imperialist swan song. Every thing
known about Zimbabwe today indicates that there is not
much to celebrate and the person most responsible for
that situation is doing his earnest best to divert
attention from this reality. The late Julius Nyerere,
one of the few outstanding post-colonial African
leaders and an Independence hero too, may not have
achieved all he set out to do for Tanzania, but what
he did achieve, his candour, readiness to admit his
own mistakes and his well known ascetism, has laid an
exemplary legacy for his country which has thereby
become one of the most stable and progressive on the
continent. In Nigeria, particularly during the
military era the federal government took to
perennially issuing circulars directing that
Independence Day celebrations would be ‘low key’. But
while poor soldiers, civil organizations groups and
peasantry marched and danced their hearts out past the
reviewing dias at Eagle Square or Tafawa Balewa
Square, as the case may be, some of the reviewing
officers were actually mocking the parade in front of
them and the nation at large by stashing billions of
dollars of public money in numbered accounts around
the Western World. One in particular, a self styled
president, was reportedly 9 billion dollars richer on
stepping aside. His military successor was reported to
have similarly stashed up to 5 billion dollars before
he incidentally gave up the ghost during an indulgent
orgy that mocked an impoverished and dispirited
nation. Such was the spirit of an age that hopefully
is now being consigned to history. The future of
Africa belongs to those leaders who will focus on the
national interest to legitimize their governments.
Following the building of democratic institutions of
state they would need to adopt developmental models
which while taking special interest in those at the
bottom of the economic pyramid will also work to ‘lift
all boats’ on the tide of transparent and accountable
governance. The ANC government in South Africa,
although not without problems, is a good example of
what governance in sub-Saharan Africa should be.


Abbreviations:

ANC : African National Congress
AU : African Union
DCP : Deputy Commissioner of Police
DRC : Democratic Republic of Congo
IGP : Inspector-General of Police.
GOC : General Officer Commanding
MDC : Movement for Democratic Change
SADC: Southern African Development Community


By:

Lt.Col. Peter-Egbe –Ulu (rtd)
Okokomaiko, Lagos.
August 2007.