Efforts by three African leaders to broker peace in Zimbabwe were being jeopardised by their continuing support for President Robert Mugabe, a Zimbabwean economist said on Wednesday.
Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi had dented their ”honest broker status”, Tony Hawkins told a Pretoria conference on security.
He said the three leaders had put forward a one-sided negotiation plan. Mugabe was allowed to set preconditions, but the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was not.
He also described attempts to get Zimbabwe reinstated to the councils of the Commonwealth as misguided.
South Africa, Hawkins said, was unpopular with all parties. Its top priority was seen as installing its own man in Zimbabwe.
”Many Zimbabweans believe South Africa is unwilling to see elections under international supervision because it fears its nominee (former finance minister Simba Makoni or parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa) would lose.”
Hawkins said the crisis in Zimbabwe was unlikely to last much beyond the end of the year or the first half of 2004.
The situation would worsen in the weeks and months ahead with deepening civil unrest and increased repression, he predicted.
”Economic conditions will deteriorate even more rapidly as the country moves towards tipping point.”
Civil unrest fuelled by the country’s economic decline was the factor most likely to force political change.
Even with a speedy solution, it would take Zimbabwe at least five years to return to the economic footing it held in 1998, Hawkins said. It could take as long as 10 years to return per capita incomes and employment to their 1991 level.
Skills lost to the country were unlikely to return, confidence would be slow to recover, and donors would be hesitant to finance a ”third honeymoon” after two huge aid injections in the early 1980s and 1990s.
”The damage done to the economy — especially commercial agriculture and manufacturing — is permanent,” Hawkins said.
Gross domestic product in Zimbabwe was down a third from 1998. Four hundred thousand jobs had been lost, and imports and exports dropped by 40%.
Unemployment stood at between 45% and 50%, and the country had the world’s second highest rate of HIV/Aids prevalence.
Inflation was expected to surge from the current 269% to 500% by year-end.
South Africa could learn from Zimbabwe’s problems that largely resulted from its failure since the mid-1980s to deliver on promises of jobs, land, education, health services and higher incomes.
This forced the government into ”increasingly high-risk, panic-driven measures”, Hawkins said.
The South African government should not create the impression that there were quick fixes to the country’s own developmental backlogs.
Such suggestions were dangerous, ”because it leads governments to take steps like those taken by the government in Zimbabwe”.
South Africa should tackle expectations and land crises before they became unmanageable.
It should also be wary of frightening off investors with ”quick fix” affirmative action and black economic empowerment, Hawkins said. ‒ Sapa