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What to do about Robert Mugabe?

July 31, 2008
The leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, was reelected president in June despite condemnation from the international community and the threat of sanctions stemming from the "illegality" of the election process.

The United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution proposed by the United States, with support from all the European members, that would have imposed an arms embargo against Zimbabwe and financial and travel sanctions on the leadership of the country's ZANU-PF ruling party. It failed to pass as Russia and mainland China vetoed the resolution.

During last month's G-8 meeting at Hokkaido, Japan, leaders of the world's top industrial nations issued a statement on the reelection of Mugabe and the political uncertainties of Zimbabwe. With the UN vote split, the appearance of consensus regarding how to deal with Mugabe's entrenchment dissipated in only a few days.

The UN vote seems like a replay of the resolution passed by the African Union in early July when African leaders failed to condemn the illegitimacy of Mugabe's reelection and could only "encourage" him to enter into dialogue with the opposition and "support" the creation of a government of national unity.

After the smoke had cleared, Mugabe--Zimbabwe's president since 1980--continued to sit on the throne in Harare, harassing political opponents, violating basic human rights, turning people into refugees and laying a once prosperous economy to waste.

The inability of the international community to deal with Mugabe underscores the complexity of international politics at a time when the fundamental values of human rights, democracy and good governance are being challenged.

Like many African leaders before him, Mugabe was once a popular nationalist because of his fight against colonial rule, and as with other "big men" in Africa, developed an aura of invincibility against imperial powers and more recently, Western intervention.

Mugabe's invincibility derives from the acquiescence of fellow African leaders regarding the mismanagement of Zimbabwe's economy and heavy-handed approach to silencing his critics. The president's position is strengthened by the fact that some of them, for example, Gabon's leader Omar Bongo, consider him a hero for his tough stance against the West. A shrewd ruler of more than four decades in office, Bongo has himself won some controversial elections to stay in power. His support of Mugabe is not unexpected.

The more disappointing approach comes from South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, whose credentials as an opponent of apartheid should have given him the authority and stature to handle Mugabe. Instead, he chose the route of "quiet diplomacy," even when South Africa's former leader Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were openly critical of the Zimbabwean ruler. Mbeki still prefers to call for national dialogue or formation of unity government instead of questioning the legitimacy of Mugabe's "victory."

While "quiet diplomacy" is supposed to be more "effective" in dealing with Mugabe, in fact, it has yielded almost no results. A few years ago, Mbeki wrote a 37-page "discussion document" concerning his "quiet diplomacy" toward Zimbabwe. The paper amounts to a point-by-point critique of Mugabe's handling of the economy, impoverishing of the Zimbabwean people, and resorting to anti-colonialism as a panacea for all his woes. But did Mugabe heed the warnings of Mbeki? No! He kept the channels of dialogue open, ensuring that Mbeki would not come out against him.

The inability of the West to impose sanctions was evidenced by the compromise brokered by the European Union in its summit with African countries held in Lisbon, Portugal last December. The first summit between the two took place in Egypt in 2000, and the second of this triennial meeting was supposed to take place in 2003. Because of the sanction against Mugabe forbidding his passage to Europe, many southern African nations refused to attend the summit if their fellow African leader could not.

This boycott explained why no meeting took place until 2007 when the European Union finally conceded by extending an invitation to Mugabe and granting him a travel visa.

The reason? European countries felt that with mainland China holding the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, Japan hosting the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, India planning an India-Africa Framework for Cooperation, and the United States continuing its annual ministerial meeting with partners of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), they would lose out in the new scramble for Africa's natural and energy resources.

Even when Mugabe is prohibited from traveling to the United States and Europe, he can be seen in Beijing, welcomed by the Chinese mainland's leaders--his most important international backers other than African ones.

It is interesting to note that some non-governmental organizations have used Beijing's Olympic Games to press for a change concerning genocide in Darfur but none have tried to pressure mainland China to exert its influence and assist in the exit of Mugabe.

--Chen-shen J. Yen is a research fellow at the Taipei-based National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations.

These views are the author's and not necessarily those of the TJ.

Copyright 2008 by Chen-shen J. Yen

Write to Taiwan Journal at tj@mail.gio.gov.tw

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