COMMENTARY

Zimbabwe: The need for intervention

by Sir Ronald Sanders, a former Caribbean diplomat, now corporate executive, who publishes widely on small states in the global community

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Conditions in Zimbabwe are getting worse and people are suffering more. A humanitarian crisis already exists and it is more than likely to escalate in the coming months causing large scale deaths and a refugee calamity.

Recently, the government of President Robert Mugabe demolished makeshift homes in the capital, Harare, leaving 200,000 people homeless according to UN estimates. Among the buildings demolished is an orphanage which housed children left destitute after their parents died from AIDS.

These people have been forced to pick up what few belongings they have and to trek on foot to rural areas which are even worse off than the towns.

Last week, the government announced it had extended the destruction of informal homes and businesses from the cities to rural areas.

Mr Mugabe says that he is taking these actions to clean up Zimbabwe’s urban areas and to crack down on those involved in illegally trading foreign currency and scarce foodstuffs, such as sugar.

Opposition leaders say the eviction campaign is aimed at driving their supporters among the urban poor into rural areas, ahead of elections in 2008 so as to re-create a rural peasantry in which voters are brought under the control of local chiefs and Mr Mugabe's militias.

Scenes of this destruction and the suffering being experienced by the affected people have been shown on television across Europe. The response has been round condemnation of Mr Mugabe’s policies and calls for intervention by journalists, charity workers and political activists.

But intervention is not easy, and it is difficult to see how the terrible conditions in Zimbabwe can be addressed unless neighbouring African countries decide to act.

Zimbabwe was once the breadbasket of Africa; today more than half the population of 12 million depend on food aid. Out of the towns, the food shortages are even more punishing. 

Seven in 10 Zimbabweans are officially out of work, with the parallel economy increasingly important. 

Rampant inflation has been put at 526% a year. The currency, the Zimbabwean dollar, is dropping in value rapidly. While the official rate is 825 to the US dollar, the parallel market rate is above 5,000. Foreign currency is in short supply, given the lack of exports. 

These conditions arise from political action.

First, Mr Mugabe’s attempt to correct an ancient wrong of the majority of arable land being placed in the hands of a relatively small number of white farmers. The problem was approached illegally and violently. The result has been the dramatic drop in agricultural production and the rapid decline of the economy.

Second, Mr Mugabe’s obvious determination to eliminate his political opposition through questionable elections, charges against opposition leaders, and violent action against opposition supporters.

Now comes the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of people from areas in which they have built homes and try to eke out a living.

The crisis in Zimbabwe demands immediate attention. But by whom?

The United Nations Security Council has no legal basis for intervening in Zimbabwe even if the all the members could be convinced that UN military action is necessary to stop further death and destruction. Non interference in the internal affairs of states has long been considered an important principle of international order.

When the UN has intervened in Africa recently – as it did in Liberia, Burundi and Cote d’Ivoire during 2003/2004 – it has done so at the request of the UN Secretary-General with the backing of African countries.

Intervention by the US and Europe is unlikely to happen. There is no strategic or economic advantage to the US or Europe committing troops and resources to Zimbabwe, and they would fear that they would be accused of pursuing an imperialist agenda.

Even though, Mr Mugabe’s excesses seem to justify the intervention of outside forces to end the suffering of the Zimbabwe people and to ensure the problem does not escalate, neither the US nor European nations would want to take on such a role unless African nations strongly supported it.

This is why African nations, and particularly the countries of Southern Africa, have the greatest responsibility to intervene in Zimbabwe.

The African Union (AU) has the architecture for doing so. Article 3 of the AU Constitutive Act which was adopted in 2000 identified the maintenance of African peace and security as a primary aim. The AU has a Peace and Security Council (PSC) designed to serve as a decision-making organ for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts.

The problem is that while the PSC has a huge mandate, it has no formal secretariat to do its work.

But there also appears to be a lack of political will to deal with the issue of Zimbabwe, particularly from its most powerful neighbour South Africa. The Southern African Development Committee (SADC), a grouping of the countries of Southern Africa, refrains from critical comment engagement with its member countries. They treat violence and crisis in governance as purely domestic affairs.

In time, this may prove to be a short-sighted decision. As conditions in Zimbabwe deteriorate, people will flee across borders to survive. These very Southern African countries will have to cope with the heavy demands on their own resources and South Africa will probably be the country facing the greatest difficulties.

Additionally, in the international community, the actions of Mr Mugabe’s government casts a stain upon Africa and prevents the world’s industrialised nations from doing more to hep Africa.

Undoubtedly, when the G8 countries, the world’s richest nations, meet in Scotland in July to hear Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair plead for a doubling of aid to Africa, there will be many who will point to Mr Mugabe’s activities, and Africa’s non-condemnation of them, as good reason for holding back. 

In the meantime, the media is already playing an interventionist role in Zimbabwe. At the risk of being imprisoned if they are caught, journalists representing Western media are slipping across the border from South Africa to report on activities such as the bulldozing of homes and forcing people out of towns.

The reports, which they transmit to television screens, in radio broadcasts and in newspaper articles and photographs, are mobilising public opinion against the Zimbabwe government, and putting pressure on governments in Europe and the US to take some form of action.

In turn, Western governments will urge African governments to take the lead in trying to stop a major humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. 

Thus, what happens in Zimbabwe is now firmly in the hands of the African states, particularly the countries of Southern Africa. If they continue a posture of unity and solidarity despite the terrible conditions of violence and oppression in Zimbabwe, they are simply postponing a crisis.

Far better that they talk seriously with Mr Mugabe about implementing a rational plan for genuinely engaging the opposition in the political life of the country, re-establishing democratic institutions and norms and making them function in return for aid, trade and investment from the G8 and other countries that would help to restore Zimbabwe’s economy and save its people. 

(responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com) 

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