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Mbeki’s backing for Mugabe may make West change tack

London: South African President Thabo Mbeki’s attempt to blame Britain for Zimbabwe’s problems may convince fellow leaders at the Southern African Development Community’s summit in Lusaka. But it is unlikely to bring a peaceful resolution of the country’s crisis any closer - and is certain to deepen misgivings about perceived anti-Western tendencies in South Africa’s international outlook.

The SADC asked Mr Mbeki to mediate between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change after a brutal crackdown on Government critics, including the beating of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, caused international repulsion earlier this year.

But regional analysts say that despite claims to the contrary, Mr Mbeki has made little substantive progress in bridging the gulf between the two sides. According to leaks to South African media, Mr Mbeki’s report backs Mr Mugabe’s claims that British-orchestrated sanctions are the principal cause of Zimbabwe’s woes, including hyperinflation and accelerating economic meltdown, and that the Government is effectively the target of a “regime change” plot hatched in London with U.S. backing.

Characterising the situation as a “bilateral dispute with Britain”, the Mbeki report states: “The most worrisome thing is that the U.K. continues to deny its role as the principal protagonist in the Zimbabwean issue ...”

The U.S. until now has accepted South Africa’s contention that “quiet diplomacy” is the way forward with Zimbabwe. Mr Mbeki’s failure to deliver is being set alongside a series of other foreign policy positions adopted by the African National Congress-led Government that run contrary to wider U.S. and Western interests.

According to The New Republic magazine’s James Kirchick, these include recent, friendly contacts between South Africa’s Intelligence Minister and Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader; South Africa’s public support for Iran’s nuclear programme; its defence of Sudan and Myanmar against proposed U.N. sanctions; and its siding with Russia and China on these and other issues.

Mr Mbeki and colleagues were the willing heirs to an “anti-imperialist intellectual tradition heroically opposed to the Western democracies”, Mr Kirchick said in the Los Angeles Times. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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