CAMBRIDGE LETTER
A reason to hope
BILL KIRKMAN
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The agreement between Mugabe and Tsvangirai is complex but offers grounds for cautious optimism.
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Photo: AP
Cumbersome: But the agreement is the country’s best chance.
Any view of political change in Zimbabwe will inevitably be tempered by extreme caution. Economic collapse and government by a tyrannical dictator have combined to bring disaster to the country and its people. The news from the country has been invar
iably bad, which inevitably influences any assessment of developments. And yet, the agreement reached in the past few days between Zanu-PF, the party of the dictator Robert Mugabe, and the opposition MDC party led by Morgan Tsvangirai, does offer grounds for hope.
Under the terms of the somewhat cumbersome agreement Mugabe will remain as president and Tsvangirai will become prime minister. The president’s powers will be reduced. Cabinet will be chaired by Mugabe; Tsvangirai will be the vice-chair. A council of ministers chaired by Tsvangirai will supervise the work of the cabinet. Complex the agreement certainly is but, in the words of The Zimbabwean, the well-informed newspaper published in Britain, “the only solution to Zimbabwe’s crisis is to be found in serious negotiations with Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC”.
Three factors
Three factors encourage some optimism. One is the dire state of the economy. Inflation is running at an unbelievably high rate. In a country which is agriculturally one of the richest in Africa, people are starving. Unusually, Mugabe’s government was criticised this week by chiefs, attending their annual conference in Bulawayo. They blamed the government for failing to provide food to the people.
The second reason for cautious optimism is the international pressure on Mugabe which has been steadily mounting. It has come from the United Nations, the European Union, the Commonwealth and, increasingly, from Zimbabwe’s African neighbours. It is no longer possible for Mugabe to shrug it off as a neo-imperialist plot engineered by Britain, the former colonial power. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, for example, welcoming the agreement, expressed the hope that it “will pave the way for a durable peace and recovery in the country and contribute to rapid improvement in the welfare and human rights of the people of Zimbabwe, who have suffered for long”.
The third factor is the age of Mugabe. At over 80, even he, however deluded, must recognise that the future of the country will not be in his hands. Even if the power-sharing arrangement works, it will not provide a quick fix to the country’s problems. In the words of Archbishop Robert Ndlovu, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Harare, at the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference in Pretoria, it will take a generation for the country to heal from years of violence.
Economically, much will depend on outside aid. The European Union is already poised to give some help. Cynics might ask whether what happens in Zimbabwe matters. The answer must be that it certainly does matter, for geopolitical as well as moral reasons.
Why it matters
The geographical position of the country, neighbour to South Africa, economically the strongest country on the continent, makes its stability crucial. South Africa has been badly affected by the situation in Zimbabwe, as a result of which thousands of refugees have fled to South Africa. Both South Africa and Zimbabwe, of course, are countries that suffered in the 20th century from institutional racism: apartheid in South Africa; white minority rule under a racist constitution in Southern Rhodesia (the country that became Zimbabwe).
Rhodesia, ruled then by Ian Smith, determined to retain power in white hands, illegally declared its independence from British rule in 1965. From the ending of apartheid, after years of struggle, emerged today’s South Africa, led first by Nelson Mandela, now by Thabo Mbeki. For all its problems — and they are real — South Africa is a functioning democracy. From the ending of white rule in Rhodesia, after years of struggle in which Robert Mugabe played a key, and courageous, role, emerged today’s Zimbabwe. Sadly, as everyone knows, it is nothing like a functioning democracy.
Sadly, the country has been betrayed by Mugabe. Mugabe’s traditional rejection of such criticism from western countries, and particularly from the U.K., is to an extent understandable. The record of many western countries in supporting apartheid, and the U.K.’s often pusillanimous policy over Rhodesia, were far from creditable.
That, however, cannot excuse the behaviour of Mugabe and his clique. That is not the partial view of neo-imperialists. It is the inevitable reaction of all who recognise the importance of good governance. We must hope that the painfully achieved agreement in Zimbabwe will, at last, set that country on a happier path than it has hitherto experienced.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, UK. E-mail him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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