Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, his eyes fixed on his legacy, has engaged President Thabo Mbeki to broker ”dialogue” with Britain that could end hostilities with its former colony. Mugabe accuses his arch-nemesis, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, of being the major driver of mobilising international opposition to his rule.
Mbeki, it is understood from foreign affairs and information department sources in Harare, ”indicated his willingness to break the impasse” after he met Blair in South Africa last month. A week after the Blair visit, Mbeki, the Mail & Guardian has learnt, dispatched an envoy to Harare.
The rapprochement has yet to be put to the Zimbabwean Cabinet or the Zanu-PF politburo. Insiders have told the M&G that Mugabe has delegated the ruling party’s influential secretary for information, Nathan Shamuyarira, and Chen Chimutengwende, the Minister of Interactive Affairs, to set up a ”series of meetings”. The two have been ”tasked to work it out with friends in London and diplomats accredited to Harare”, a highly placed Zimbabwean government source confided.
Direct talks with the British were first mooted at the Zanu-PF Congress in December 2004 but party heavyweights felt it was ”unnecessary” at the time.
But since late last year there ”have been more powerful voices to open up negotiations with the British”.
As part of the plan, Mugabe is said to have agreed to meet Blair in Mbeki’s presence at a date and in a country yet to be decided. Moves are also under way to rally opposition and civil society groups — with the sweetener of agreeing to a new constitution-making process — as well as the churches. However, a huge climb-down by Mugabe is not expected.
Despite Mbeki’s failure to get the ruling party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to negotiate a political settlement, he is regarded as an ”honest broker” by Zanu-PF. ”We believe he would want to leave a legacy of a Zimbabwean political settlement he is proud of … We feel he can help build the bridges, not through the MDC, but the MDC’s political principals in London,” said a highly placed government source.
On why the government thinks Blair would play ball, given Mugabe’s oft-repeated vitriolic attacks on him — likening Blair to Hitler and calling him a liar and Unites States President George W Bush’s puppet — there is a feeling that the ”British were very much interested in Zimbabwe of all African countries… [Britain would] not want to lose grip of its former colony to the Chinese,” a source conveyed.
”Certainly there are still substantial British economic interests in Zimbabwe, for example, Old Mutual and Anglo American. There are many companies that are subsidiaries of British companies,” economic consultant Eric Bloch pointed out. ”While there has been no new meaningful investment since 1997, the extent of disinvestment has been minimal.”
Bloch explained that the British have never been major players in the mining sector but have been serious players in manufacturing and banking. ”But because of the land expropriations since 2000 there has been disinvestment in agriculture.”
Eldred Masunungure, a political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe does not view Mugabe’s overture to the British as a policy shift. Whatever position Mugabe took his party would follow, he argued. ”Mugabe does not have a problem with the British as a people but with Tony Blair’s Labour government.
”They [parties represented at the Lancaster talks] did not demand a written undertaking [on funding land reform] from the two [UK & US], it was a gentlemen’s agreement and the British fully exploited that loophole. The conservative government [of Margaret Thatcher] honoured part of the agreement but the Labour government [of Tony Blair] refused to take responsibility.”
Mugabe told the new British ambassador, Andrew Pocock, after he had presented his credentials last month: ”We need a bridge with the British. We politicians come and go, but the people are there at all times.”
Three senior Zanu-PF politburo members, perceived independent of the factions in the party, noted that new pro-Senate MDC president, Arthur Mutambara, while critical of Mugabe’s handling of land reform was equally scathing of British complicity in the land crisis.
”We wouldn’t mind taking him on board for talks with Blair,” sources confessed. Roping in Mutambara would also deepen the division within the MDC. ”He [Morgan Tsvangirai] will be isolated, that is what we want.”