Zimbabwe's crisis: seeking a solution.

The Day After Mugabe Prospects for Change in Zimbabwe

Africa Research Institute 

ISBN 978-1-906329-00-6

This book, we are told in the introduction, is not a partisan project. Rather, the book's stated objective is to assess the prospects for lasting positive change in Zimbabwe, a country once seen as one of Africa's most vibrant and promising economies but which now suffers rocketing inflation, plunging incomes, and the loss of political and economic direction.

Published by the Africa Research Institute in close co-operation with the Royal African Society, Royal Commonwealth Society and International Bar Association, according to its own description, The Day after Mugabe considers Zimbabwe's current crisis from diverse perspectives--as seen from Harare, Pretoria, London, Washington and Beijing. In general, the contents could best be described as less an anti-Mugabe diatribe than a debate that is supportive of the Zimbabwean peoples as a whole.

Some of the chapters previously appeared in South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper. They ask questions such as what will become of the ruling Zanu PF party when President Robert Mugabe is no longer at the helm; whether the divided Movement for Democratic Change can recover to mount a credible challenge either in opposition or as part of a unity government; how has industry survived and what opportunities lie ahead; what steps can--and should--the country's neighbours take to prepare this year's parliamentary and presidential elections; and what effect has Zimbabwe's crisis had on the new African institutions created to bolster democracy and good governance?

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Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth

Shortly after this book was published in November 2007, Commonwealth Heads of Government met in Kampala, Uganda at their biennial summit (Chogm). While there was much speculation as to what exactly would be discussed at the leaders' private summit at the Munyonyo resort on Lake Victoria, most observers believed that Pakistan would probably top the agenda.

Yet there is little doubt that the issues surrounding Zimbabwe's crisis would also exercise the thoughts of the assembled leaders. A dozen of the 14 Southern Africa Development Community member states are, in fact, Commonwealth members and even as 2007's Chogm met, the ghosts of Chogms past were stirring. Nearly 30 years ago, in 1979, Chogm was hosted by Zambia in that country's capital Lusaka, and the meeting formulated a strategy to end Southern Rhodesia's liberation war.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who would be sworn in as Zimbabwe's first prime minister a year later, was the leader of the Zanu liberation movement--although it was Joshua Nkomo, leader of Zapu, who was generally considered the most likely post-war election victor. The two were partners in the Patriotic Front that negotiated a settlement agreement at Lancaster House to end the war.

Derek Ingram, the renowned writer on Commonwealth affairs who has attended every Chogm meeting since 1969--and is one of 44 writers, activists, political actors and policy experts who contribute to this book, expresses his incredulity that no mention was made of Zimbabwe in the minutes of the 2005 Malta Chogm nor in the 2005 report of the Commonwealth secretary general.

But all the signs were that last November's Chogm meeting would pay closer attention to the Zimbabwe question. The death in South Africa, even as the Commonwealth leaders met, of Ian Smith at the age of 88--Rhodesia's rebel prime minister and the man who steadfastly refused to accept majority rule--might not have influenced the leaders' agenda, but it did have a perfectly ironic timing.

Probably more relevant to the agenda was that this meeting was on African soil and the host president, Yoweri Museveni, who has never publicly lent his support to Mugabe's more vocal critics, would undoubtedly welcome a resolution to Zimbabwe's crisis as being in the interests of Africa and Africans as a whole.

Museveni would also be aware of the oft-aired criticism that his own rule, that enjoys the support of many Western governments and development agencies, is hardly a paragon of democratic virtue. If a breakthrough on the Zimbabwe question could be negotiated in Kampala, the theory held, it would go some way to countering the criticism of Museveni as well as dissipating accusations of double standards that are often levelled at the Commonwealth.

Not only is the body charged with double standards over Pakistan compared to its stance towards Zimbabwe, which walked out of the Commonwealth in 2003 prior to the Abuja Chogm, it is also accused of double standards in its treatment of Uganda itself. The argument is that the Commonwealth is simply a rich man's club that allows its poorer counterparts the illusion of equality but, in reality, perpetuates a neo-colonial mindset--and that it is heavily weighted towards serving the interests of its members with larger economies, i.e. the UK, Canada and Australia.

These powerful, developed economies have considered Pakistan, whether or not a military government, a vital ally in the West's 'war against terrorism', and a nuclear power to boot. That meant that Pakistan had to be given a special dispensation to be kept 'on-side', until former army chief General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on 3rd November and imposed virtual Marshall law--weeks before scheduled elections--which forced the Commonwealth to suspend the country.

Uganda, meanwhile, could be accommodated within the Commonwealth family as its liberalised economy perfectly suits international capital. By contrast, Zimbabwe's land reform programme posed a direct threat to the West's 'kith and kin'--the country's white commercial farmers.

Undeniably, the land reform issue is central to Zimbabwe's current crisis. Recovering the land that the whites took from the indigenous peoples of this central, southern African country was the principal motivation of the independence struggle in the first place.

One of this book's most interesting chapters is an interview conducted by the book's editors, Guguletho Moyo and Mark Ashurst, with Shridath 'Sonny' Ramphal, former Commonwealth secretary-general between 1975-90, who advised Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, the aforementioned leaders of the independence movement, during constitutional negotiations at Lancaster House.

Moyo, a Zimbabwean lawyer who works on southern African issues for the International Bar Association; and Ashurst, former BBC Africa business editor and correspondent for the Financial Times, The Economist and Newsweek, title this chapter Sleights of Hand at Lancaster House.

Land and liberation

As Ramphal makes clear regarding the Zimbabwe question: "It was about land in the beginning; it was about land during the struggle; it has remained about land today ... it is not ancient history. It is modern history." The former secretary-general also concurs with Ingram's analysis that it was the Lusaka Chogm that was pivotal to the Lancaster House talks ever taking place.

The 'sleight of hand' referred to in the chapter's title, Ramphal explains, arose when Mugabe and Nkomo threatened to walk out of the talks unless the land issue was dealt with in a way that would allow for land re-distribution. Ramphal recalls: "They were told 'you will be helped to pay the compensation that the constitution requires to be paid'. It was such a standard provision, but it was not a provision designed to deal with historical wrongs."

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So just why did Mugabe and Nkomo agree to stay in the talks? It would appear that Ramphal managed to persuade them both with two arguments. The first was that they should not let the talks collapse or, even worse, continue without their participation. Secondly, Ramphal told the leaders "you are not going to be on good ground if the reason for the break-up [of the talks] is attributed to your refusal to have a clause protecting private property in the constitution of Zimbabwe. This is a clause that is in every constitution. So we have to find another way."

Interestingly, Ramphal's 'other way' involved seeking not only a guarantee of financial support for land redistribution from the UK government but also telling the US ambassador to the UK: "If you don't help now, Lancaster House will break up: all that we have achieved will be lost and that will only strengthen the hand of apartheid South Africa."

The US ambassador secured a promise from then US president, Jimmy Carter that the US would support the establishment of an agricultural development fund and make a 'substantial' contribution to it, matching whatever funds the UK government committed. Furthermore, the US agreed to recognise the right of Zimbabwe's government, after the elections, to use this fund for land redistribution.

When pressed by Moyo and Ashurst whether he, Ramphal, had been confident that guarantees obtained had satisfied everybody, Ramphal says: "I was. And I think the Patriotic Front [i.e. Mugabe and Nkomo] was." However, there is no further mention, in this chapter or elsewhere in the book, as to what happened to this agricultural development fund and whether the US's promised funding ever materialised.

A human disaster

Concluding this interview, Ramphal makes the telling observation that while he has been talking about governments and their leaders "it is the people of Zimbabwe that this is all about, and I have a deep consciousness of the terrible plight of those people. I'm not on the Commonwealth scene now but I believe the Commonwealth has an ongoing responsibility to those people. Forget leaders and all that: It is a terrible human disaster in Zimbabwe."

Negotiations over Zimbabwe's crisis are ongoing, even if taking place well away from the public's gaze. South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, although much criticised for his softly, softly approach in dealing with Zimbabwe's president, is understood to be working hard behind the scenes to secure some sort of resolution to the crisis.

However, as Moyo comments in her own chapter Process Matters as much as Substance, then as now, those at the negotiating table were political leaders, all men, from rival factions: Prime Minister Abel Muzorewa; his deputy, Silas Mundawarara; Ian Smith, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, and the British government's foreign secretary, Lord Carrington.

She goes on to caution: "Zimbabwean politics has suffered a crisis of legitimacy at least since the elections of 2000. A constitutional process that includes a broad spectrum of political and civil society actors and restores confidence in the political system is necessary to overcome the legitimacy deficit." Even if it is not clear whether President Mbeki shares this view, a crucial question remains: Whether this crisis of legitimacy will even outlive Zimbabwe's octogenarian president.