Zambian Finance Minister Ng’andu Magande thinks there may be only one way to influence defiant Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe — enlist the help of African liberation giants like Nelson Mandela.
”Perhaps with a bit of pressure from President Mugabe’s good friends like Kenneth Kaunda [Zambia’s founding father] or old people like Mandela, perhaps you can see that things can be done differently without anybody losing out,” he told Reuters.
Magande’s comments were tacit recognition that Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders failed during their meeting last week to pressure Zimbabwe’s long-time leader into enacting political and economic reforms.
Critics say that inaction has tainted regional leaders, raising questions about their commitment to democracy and easing the suffering of millions of Zimbabweans struggling to survive the world’s worst economic crisis outside a war zone.
”SADC has a credibility problem because of its failure to adhere to democratic rules,” said Chileshe Mulenga, head of the Institute for Economic and Social Reseach, a Lusaka think-tank.
”It is a club of presidents who support each other regardless of the suffering of the people because they all behave like monarchs. There are no real principles which guide SADC and this is why they are showing solidarity for Mugabe, because of a lack of free and fair elections.”
The group, experts say, is also awed into silence by Mugabe’s place in history.
To the Western world, Mugabe is a ruthless dictator whose people are victims of his mismanagement of what had been Southern Africa’s breadbasket.
But Southern African leaders look up to him as a respected liberation hero who still takes on the United States and former coloniser Britain, even though he is accused of bringing Zimbabwe to its knees in the process.
His past is one reason Mugabe received the loudest applause when he stood up at the SADC summit, and it insulates him from criticism by leaders who grew up regarding him as a legend.
”Mugabe is far more experienced than this younger generation of leaders and he knows exactly what he is doing,” Zambian Information Minister Mike Mlongoti told Reuters.
”What can they do? They can’t pressure Zimbabwe because it is a sovereign state. Sanctions have not achieved anything and only hurt Zimbabweans,” Mlongoti added.
‘He is isolated’
As the new chair of SADC, Zambia will be under more international pressure to face up to Mugabe.
President Levy Mwanawasa was the first African leader to speak out against Mugabe, saying Zimbabwe was a ”sinking Titanic” earlier this year.
But he has since toned down his position. Western diplomats say he is deeply worried about the turmoil in Zimbabwe and is seeking the help of SADC countries to resolve the issue.
But it didn’t take Mwanawasa long to realise how difficult that may be.
”He raised the subject of Zimbabwe at the summit and got no support at all. He is isolated,” said a Western diplomat. ”All of this proves that SADC can’t work.”
Asked if SADC had confronted Mugabe on human rights, Mwanawasa suggested it’s a taboo subject, as a nearby Zimbabwean official looked on at a news conference: ”We have discussed them and we are satisfied with the answers which were given.”
Mugabe has succeeded in mixing emotionally charged political issues with economics, making it more difficult for Southern African leaders to criticise his policies.
His argument that Western sanctions are in retaliation for his controversial policy of seizing of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless black Zimbabweans stirs emotions in a region scarred by colonialism.
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa spent two hours at the summit explaining how all of the country’s problems — the world’s highest inflation and severe food and fuel shortages — were linked to land stolen by Britain since the late 1800s.
Few SADC leaders could argue with him. To do so would be a betrayal of the collective suffering of the region.
Mbeki
Magande is seen as one of the region’s best economic managers. But he, like others, argues that a hands-on approach by SADC in Zimbabwe would only backfire. It’s up to Mugabe and opposition groups to resolve their differences, he says.
That is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Analysts say the more Mugabe is pressured, especially in public, the more he digs in. Even South Africa, credited with breaking decades of apartheid and introducing a successful democracy, seems to have little sway over Mugabe.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been mediating between Mugabe and the opposition, delivered a report on his efforts to the summit, which ended on Friday. Heads of state described it as positive and encouraged both sides to accelerate talks, language used several times before.
”The only one that can influence Mugabe is Mbeki,” said the Western diplomat. ”But he can’t do a thing.”
Mugabe, who is known as a great speaker, is likely to keep getting loud applauses at summits.
”I have heard him speak. It doesn’t take him long to get people eating out of his hands,” said another Western diplomat. — Reuters