Botswana-Zimbabwe relations have hit a new low after President Festus Mogae joined the barrage of cross-border accusations and Zimbabwe pulled its high commissioner out of Gaborone.
It is not clear whether Zenso Nsimbi, Harare’s top man in the Botswana capital, was withdrawn in protest against Mogae’s remarks to African Business magazine.
Mogae has made it clear that he is not part of the school of thought within Africa favouring quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe.
Interviewed for the latest edition of the London-based magazine he said Mugabe, and not the lack of rain, was the real problem facing Southern Africa.
”It is a drought of good governance that is much more difficult because you have neighbours like Zimbabwe,” said Mogae.
”We try to engage them. We are not the United Kingdom, we are not the United States, we are not the European Union,” said the president, citing those proponents of smart sanctions against President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
”We are just their neighbour. There are 14-million of them, there are less than two million of us. We say if we were you, this is the way we would have done it and it would be preferable if there was less controversy about land reform, which we support,” said Mogae.
”You have to take this seriously,” said Richard Cornwell of the Institute for Security Studies. ”Mogae is the first African leader to break ranks and publicly express concern about the political turmoil in Zimbabwe.”
There was no diplomatic note explaining Nsimbi’s withdrawal, but Mugabe was making it clear he would not brook criticism from a neighbour.
It is suggested in Zimbabwe political circles that Nsimbi may have paid the price for not being tough enough about what his government regards as maltreatment of its citizens in Botswana.
Zimbabwe will doubtless send a hardliner able to make a more spirited defence of Mugabe’s governance — and a stronger protest about treatment of the thousands of Zimbabwean economic migrants in Botswana. Mogae addressed this too in the interview.
”We have a lot of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe. There are also those who are authorised to come here officially. Some of them are teachers, builders and nurses,” he said.
”We constructed some security fences, enclosures to hold the illegal immigrants. Journalists came, photographed them and said there are concentration camps.
”We tried to explain that these were not. They were just waiting places where, while we make arrangements with the authorities on the other side, we can look after them,” said Mogae.
”What can we do? This is a humanitarian crisis. We are trying to handle it as humanely as possible. But within the limits of our capacity, or our resources, we have no choice.”
Western diplomatic sources said Mogae’s frankness put pressure on South Africa and other countries adopting a softly softly approach to Zimbabwe.