Christopher Dell, the United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, did not mince words. President Robert Mugabe’s government was guilty of gross mismanagement and corruption, Dell said in a speech last week. ”No wrongs are righted. The rule of law [is] in a shambles.”
Zimbabwe’s economic collapse was due primarily to the seizure of 5 000 white-owned farms, not drought or limited western sanctions, he said.
The ”astonishing” nosedive in agricultural production had reversed 50 years of progress in six years.
Dell is not alone in his criticisms. Thirteen western governments including Britain issued a joint statement in Harare at the weekend demanding Mugabe accept that Zimbabwe faced a deepening crisis, caused in part by the government’s urban clearance operation, Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order).
”Tens of thousands of people [are] still homeless and in need of assistance five months after the eviction campaign began,” the statement said. It urged Mugabe to reverse his decision to reject international aid as unnecessary. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, made a similar appeal, saying he was ”deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation”.
Whatever the Mugabe government may say, Zimbabwe’s position looks increasingly perilous. Various estimates suggest food shortages now affect half the population; four million people face famine. Average life expectancy has halved in a decade, the economy has contracted by 30% in six years, and unemployment is about 70%.
A special UN inquiry last summer condemned Operation Murambatsvina as a ”catastrophe” that violated international law. It had displaced 700 000 people and affected another 1,7-million. Unicef estimated 250 000 children were made homeless.
Human Rights Watch said the evictions had disrupted treatment for people with HIV/Aids in a country where 3 000 die from the disease each week and about 1,3-million children have been orphaned. The operation was ”the latest manifestation of a massive human rights problem that has been going on for years”, said Amnesty International.
”Zimbabwe’s governance has reached a low point which it is now almost impossible for its neighbours to ignore,” the independent International Crisis Group said in an investigation, Zimbabwe’s Tipping Point.
But all these statements and reports have yet to bring an effective international response – and have been flatly rejected by Harare. State media reported on Monday that the US ambassador faced expulsion ”for interfering in the country’s internal affairs”.
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, the foreign minister, accused Britain last week of manufacturing a ”fictitious crisis” and mocked its failure to take Zimbabwe before the UN security council. Mugabe continues to accuse ”hypocritical” Britain of masterminding an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy against its former colony.
Critics of British and western policy say a tougher, more proactive approach is needed if the UN’s ”responsibility to protect” principle is to have any meaning, and if many Zimbabweans are to be saved from catastrophe this winter.
”Mugabe’s brutal expulsion of white farmers was only a trial run. He has since persecuted and starved hundreds of thousands of black Zimbabweans,” Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, said on Monday.
”The government should be doing more to coordinate a response with what used to be called the frontline states, the UN and other African countries, particularly South Africa.
”You try everything. You don’t take no for an answer. What Mugabe is doing is immoral and wrong.” – Guardian Unlimited Â