It appears that President Thabo Mbeki’s recent letter on Zimbabwe is designed to achieve two major objectives.
Firstly to stay close to Mugabe as the negotiations on a way out of the Zimbabwe crisis proceed; and secondly to use the politics of Zimbabwe to attack his opponents on both the left and the right in South Africa. However, in attempting to deal with these issues, Mbeki has underlined the problematic nature of both his interpretation of the Zimbabwean situation, and the role of South Africa in defining the way out of the crisis.
On the president’s analysis of the post-independence history of Zimbabwe, it is clear that he has presented what amounts to an apologist account of the 23-year rule of Zanu-PF. One can certainly agree with his position on the enormous strides made by the Zimbabwean government through its social expenditure programme in the first decade of independence, and the unsustainability of such expenditure without substantial changes to the economy.
However, Mbeki’s assertion that the mistakes in economic policy made by the Mugabe government were basically the result of a benevolent elite, committed to the poor, which nevertheless failed to understand ”harsh economic reality” is, to say the least, ill-conceived.
No discussion of the post-1980 period that fails to discuss the increasingly selfish interests of the ruling elite, as well as the destructive effects of the structural adjustment programme of the 1990s, is likely to do justice to an understanding of the Zanu-PF era. Moreover it is inconceivable that an analysis of this period should exclude the increasing authoritarian nature of the state and massive abuse of human rights that has characterised Zanu-PF rule, both during the tragedy in Matabeleland in the 1980s, and in the post 2000 period.
Evidence concerning these abuses is available in abundance, and they have little to do with the needs of a benevolent state trying to maintain ”law and order” in the face of economic factors beyond its control. Instead they relate to a state whose legitimacy has been decreasing since the 1980s, to a significant extent because of its undemocratic style of government, and as a result has had to rely largely on the use of force to remain in power.
It is true, as Mbeki asserts, that people make history in conditions not of their own choosing, and that the processes that human beings set in motion lead to destinations they ”may not have sought”.
This premise, however, cannot absolve us as actors in our society from seeking accountability from those in our midst who have had most influence over the course of events that we are forced to deal with. This is particularly the case when the consequences of their actions have had fatal effects on large numbers of people.
Generalisations about historical processes do not remove responsibility over historical agency, and special pleading for a particular regime because of the difficult constraints it faces will not suffice either. There have been too many
of both kinds of arguments in the Zimbabwean case and the victims are sinking beneath a deluge of such rationalisations.South Africa has an important
role to play in helping to bring pressure on the Mugabe regime to return to meaningful dialogue.
It is likely that the recent visit of presidents Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo and Bakili Muluzi to Zimbabwe has once again proved that Mugabe is likely to toy with them as long as he can. Under such conditions Mbeki may continue to feel that it is better to keep Mugabe’s confidence through continued shows of support.
This strategy has already proved extremely costly, and unless there is a decisive shift in applying more pressure on Mugabe in the very near future, Mbeki and other African leaders may soon find their influence severely decreased.
Brian Raftopoulos is an associate professor at the University of Zimbabwe