South Africa’s approach to the Zimbabwean crisis is increasingly becoming one of the great mysteries of the modern world. For more than three years now, the South African government has been reassuring its citizens, the business sector and the international investment community that it is doing all in its power to help Zimbabwe out of its quagmire and guide the country back to political stability. Government ministers and functionaries have stoically defended the strategy of quiet diplomacy.
Despite assurances that this quiet diplomacy route is the best (and only) option available to our government, Zimbabwe is entering 2003 in the worst shape it has been in since independence in 1980 and with every sign that things are rapidly deteriorating.
Famine is stalking Zimbabwe, with about six million people facing starvation — a result of government policies exacerbating the effects of a harsh drought. The country is facing severe food shortages: so much so that the more well-off are forced to cross the border to buy basic groceries, a luxury not available to the poor. The Zimbabwean dollar has been reduced to a useless currency. Social services have collapsed. It goes on …
On the political front the Mugabe government is stubbornly proceeding with its campaign of political repression: harassing opposition politicians and civil society activists, arresting journalists and squeezing the privately owned media out of existence, unleashing militias and war veterans on political opponents and the farming community, and strong-arming the judiciary.
Yet the South African government (and its neighbours in the region) appears wedded to an approach that has proved a dismal policy failure. It is extremely odd practice for a government that has in the recent past chalked up impressive success on the foreign policy front.
The message emanating from South Africa is that Zanu-PF is a “progressive” organisation that should be embraced by progressive-minded people. That Zimbabwe is a “sovereign nation” whose government should be left alone to violate human rights and starve its people. And that those who speak out against Robert Mugabe’s tyranny are agents of Western imperialism. Ministers and other officials have even suggested that calls for the return of the sports boycott tactic, which was successfully used to coax the Nats towards abandoning apartheid, is inappropriate as politics and cricket do not mix. While we understand that South Africa cannot actively support a cricket boycott in Zimbabwe, we should not be seen as an active defender of the Mugabe government.
Seeing that this is the year that Mugabe’s hold on power will be tested, it just might be timeous for South Africa to change its tactic to loud disapproval — if not for the sake of Zimbabweans, then for the sake of our credibility as a major player on the international political scene.
We do not want to go down in history as the people who tried to rescue the cruel emperor as he disappeared into quicksand with just his middle finger protruding.
Quality, not quantity
It is hard not to feel a certain grim satisfaction over the spectacular setback suffered by the African National Congress’s KwaZulu-Natal leader, S’bu Ndebele, this week. The ambitious Ndebele wants the provincial premiership so badly that when he thinks of it his tongue dangles on the ground. It was he who, in 1999, came up with the brilliant idea of bribing Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi to surrender the premiership by offering him the deputy presidency. That failed. Now the jakkelsdraai by the IFP and the Democratic Alliance, which forced the national ANC to amend the floor-crossing law or face the dissolution of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, has again put the prize beyond his reach.
It is tempting to think that the failure of Ndebele’s putsch by statute, and the rapprochement between the IFP and DA, are good for South Africa because they leave the opposition stronger, more confident and more united. This is, however, a superficial view. The IFP has not ruled KwaZulu-Natal well; the departments it controls, like education and welfare, are almost without exception the most scandal-prone and worst managed. And it is hard to see what values would bind an urban-based liberal party of ethnic minorities and a party rooted in Zulu traditionalism, other than the negative one of shared hatred of the ANC.
Yes, South Africa needs stronger opposition — but not opposition of any kind. Bigger battalions do not necessarily mean greater firepower, as highlighted by the sorry history of the DA. Real strength comes from political coherence and a shared commitment to creating a decent society. Such opposition, we contend, will only come from a political force that wants to hold the ANC to basic tenets of the pact that we South Africans committed ourselves to on April 27 1994: upliftment of the poor, deracialisation of society, entrenchment of democratic values and respect for human rights and good governance. These values are unlikely to be championed by a coalition that speaks largely for racial minorities and a semi-feudal elite.