(STICKY) (FT) Time for Britain to start talking to Mugabe

Saturday, June 04, 2011

(STICKY) (FT) Time for Britain to start talking to Mugabe

COMMENT - This article is posted for comment, under fair use rules, as are all the articles on this blog.

Time for Britain to start talking to Mugabe
By Michael Holman
Published: May 29 2011 22:43 | Last updated: May 29 2011 22:43

Time is running out for Robert Mugabe. The combination of advancing years and poor health are taking their toll on the 87-year-old despot. As mortality catches up with Zimbabwe’s president, so an opportunity should be opening for Britain to re-engage with its former colony.

On the economic front, there is a modest easing of a crisis that began some 10 years ago with the seizure of commercial farms, abetted and enforced by paramilitaries. Inflation has been brought down to double figures after the astronomical level of the past. Goods are back on supermarket shelves (albeit at a price beyond the reach of many).

But political tensions put economic gains at risk. As promised elections draw nearer, voter intimidation by the ruling party is on the rise and a nervous population seeks assurances about post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. If ever there were a time for constructive external advice, it is now.

[Sorry Michael, but the violence does not merely come from the ruling party, it comes from the MDC as well, if not mostly. - MrK]

Yet rather than encouraging contact, London appears to have ordered its embassy in Harare to do little more than keep a diplomatic death watch, as if Mr Mugabe’s demise will mark the removal of the obstacle on the country’s road to peace and democracy. Maybe. But there is also a case for fearing that his death will be a catalyst for violence. Expectations of his imminent passing have created a febrile atmosphere in the ranks of his Zanu-PF party, which shares power in an uneasy coalition. Far from seeking to restore honest governance, Mr Mugabe’s would-be successors plot and scheme, seeking ways to protect vested interests.

[So do his detractors. And they have never been fans of democracy. - MrK]

On the other side of the political divide, opponents anticipate revenge for those who lost their lives at the hands of state-sanctioned thugs and mourn the hundreds of thousands who died as a result of hunger and disease, brought about by gross mismanagement.

[Brought about the economic sanctions whose name you dare not speak. The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, which froze the Zimbabwean government's lines of credit at international financial institutions, and caused hyperinflation in the year they went into force. There was no economic collapse during the first two years of Fast Track land redistribution, 2000 and 2001. - MrK]

Others bitterly recall the army’s slaughter of some 20,000 civilians in the southern province of Matabeleland in the early 1980s – and their demand for retribution could well exacerbate ethnic tensions between the country’s Shona majority and the Ndebele.

[The catholic commission on justice and human rights' report on the events in Matabeleland state 3000+, it is to you to substantiate the 20,000 number. My source:

Report On The 1980's Disturbances In Matabeleland & The Midlands - Compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, March 1997 - MrK]

Meanwhile, efforts by southern African leaders to resolve the crisis are again running into the sand. The commitment to “free and fair” elections, the cornerstone of a fragile agreement that brought the opposition into government, has been fatally undermined. There is convincing evidence that Mr Mugabe’s agents have fiddled the electoral register.

[Convincing to whom? - MrK]

The need to ease these tensions, encourage contacts that go beyond the formal and official and break a deadlock seems clear. However, when a senior British politician this month indicated his willingness to respond to an overture from Harare and meet Mr Mugabe for a private exchange, provided such an initiative had the Foreign Office blessing, the response from London was unequivocal.

If there were to be any contact, said an official, it would be between the two governments. But as matters stood, ministers were “determined” to have nothing to do with the regime “directly or indirectly”.

This London-knows-best attitude contrasts starkly with the treatment of the white minority regime of Ian Smith, which issued a unilateral declaration of independence in 1965. This act of defiance led to a guerrilla war, which ended with an independence constitution negotiated at London’s Lancaster House in 1979.

[That is because they were both on board with the exploitation of Africa's resources. The ultimate sin for an African leader is to put his own people first in any kind of meaningful way. That is why Lumumba, Nkrumah, Kabila had to go. The real break between Zimbabwe and Britain was not in 2000, when the Fast Track land reform program started, but in 1996, when the Zimbabwean government said not the World Bank's structural adjustment program. According to Clare Short's adviser Soni Rajan, the new Blair government wanted to get rid of Robert Mugabe as early as 1997.

To quote from Heidi Holland's book, Dinner With Mugabe, giving Soni Rajan's view of his experiences at the time:

“It was absolutely clear from the attitude of her [Clare Short’s] staff towards my recommendations that Labour’s strategy was to accelerate Mugabe’s unpopularity by failing to provide him with funding for land redistribution. They thought if they didn’t give him the money for land reform, his people in the rural areas would start to turn against him. That was their position; they wanted him out and they were going to do whatever they could to hasten his demise.”

So, what happened between 1994 when President Mugabe received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II (knight commander in the order of Bath) and 1997? The only thing I can think of is the Zimbabwean government turning away from the disastrous ESAP.

It also shows 'New Labour's neoliberal colours for all to see. They were after punishing a truly leftwing leader, for not adhering to Structural Adjustment. I would say that Labour has been hijacked, using the boyish charms of the sociopathic Tony Blair. - MrK]

During these years, scarcely a month went by without a diplomatic initiative of one sort or another, in which the way had been paved by a succession of intermediaries and honest brokers. Today, the need for reconciliation is almost as urgent.

[I disagree. There is nothing Britain has to offer that Zimbabwe needs. They are doing just fine on their own, especially with the overt and covert sabotage coming out of the UK and US (see Soni Rajan's comments above, for instance, and read the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, especially sections 4C, 3 and 5 (the part about retreating from the DRC should peak anyone's interest - it's all about DIAMONDS; Russ Feingold's ZTDERA is even more explicit and mentions the Kimberley Process). - MrK]

The agenda might include the merit of an amnesty for those who admit and repent their political and economic crimes, for example; or urging the Commonwealth to play a greater role; or seeking the support of the governments of Mozambique and Zambia to provide land for the resettlement of Zimbabwe’s commercial farmers.

[Repenting ones political and economic crimes should start with acknowledging the existence of economic sanctions like ZDERA, and not denying they exist, or if that doesn't work, denying that the credit freeze has any economic impact or constitute economic sanctions. - MrK]

Far from keeping a distance from such discussions, Britain should be active in promoting them – not just biding time until the passing of Zimbabwe’s leader. The experience of Lancaster House should be kept in mind. Three decades later, it is time that talking began again.

[I think the Zimbabwean people would be well served without more interference by it's former colonial overlord.

I have a few suggestions though, which apply to all of Africa.

1) Raw materials can only be sold to the government, at cost only.
2) The government can only sell raw materials at international market prices.
3) Demand side economics replaces supply side economics

Points 1 and 2 will end all wars, conflicts and interference in Africa by outside forces. Point 3 will ensure putting people at the center of the economy and development, and will cement social stability. - MrK]

The writer is a former Africa editor for the Financial Times

Labels: LAND REFORM, ROBERT MUGABE