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Zimbabwe: Who'll Save Poor Country From Mugabe's Ravages?
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The Nation (Nairobi)
OPINION
28 March 2008
Posted to the web 28 March 2008
Jackson Mwalulu
Nairobi
THE WORLD'S EYES ARE ON Zimbabwe this weekend as the country plunges into a historic election. For the first time in its history, the southern African country is conducting presidential, parliamentary and civic polls at once, thanks to a constitutional amendment of October 2007.
Zimbabwe has acquired a special place in this part of the world over the last decade or so. With a strongly anti-West leader who has made it his pastime to kick white Zimbabweans around, Zimbabwe is a powder-cage in the literal sense.
The inflation rate is more than 100,000 per cent, and over 4.5 million Zimbabweans (out of a total population of 12.3 million) are in economic and political exile all over the world. The majority vow never to step in Zimbabwe as long as Robert Mugabe remains president.
What intrigues many observers is the ease with which Mugabe, the country's leader since independence from Britain in 1980, gets away with impunity.
IN 1983, HE CARRIED OUT WHAT HE cynically termed Operation Gukurahundi (get rid of chaff), against the Ndebele ethnic community. The operation, carried out by a special army brigade trained by North Korea, recorded 20,000 civilian deaths, mass destruction of property, and other crimes against humanity.
That was Mugabe's idea of consolidating power in the newly-independent Zimbabwe: force the Ndebele to change their loyalty from Joshua Nkomo's Zapu to his Zanu-PF. It worked.
Three years ago, and if the Ndebele massacre was not enough, and sensing his waning influence over a restive population, the independence war hero and one of Africa's most learned heads of state identified the capital, Harare, as the source of his political nightmare.
According to the UN, during the government-initiated Operation Murambatsvina (urban cleanup), over 700,000 slum-dwellers were kicked out of Harare, and their businesses destroyed.
International condemnations and sanctions have not moved Mugabe an inch. Indeed, it would appear he gets a kick from international pressure, especially when the source happens to be Britain or America. He dismisses the two as an unholy alliance inspired by imperialism.
As Zimbabwe faces tomorrow's elections, everyone is crossing his or her fingers. The collective prayer by the world community is, first and foremost, that the election be peaceful, free and fair. Above all, the world's wishful thinking is that Mugabe loses.
Realistically speaking, however, this could be a tall order. Clever dictators like Mugabe, rig elections well in advance. In this case, isolating Harare, war-cries by his generals (they won't salute traitors before, during, and after elections), threats by the police to shoot anyone who tries to replay the Kenya scenario, and intimidating language by Mugabe himself, are all red flags.
Matters are made worse by a split opposition. During the 2005 (presidential) elections, whose logistics were far much less complicated than Saturday's poll, Mugabe trounced his only major challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai.
This time round, Tsvangirai and the other candidate, Simba Makoni, are rated as being of equal strength. This is all a sitting African president needs to romp home.
Of importance is that while Mugabe has no incentive to quit, he is not faced with any substantial threat should he force his way back to State House. The international community has never been hard enough on Zimbabwe.
THIS SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT THE country's importance to the West. Is it because Zimbabwe, unlike Kenya, is landlocked? Is it because the West's interests can better be accommodated by the neighbouring, wealthy and economically whites-dominated South Africa?
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When Kenya plunged into a post-election pogrom recently, the whole of the Western establishment came down on us. The veiled and overt threats issued against President Kibaki and rival Raila Odinga by the EU and US forced the country into power-sharing talks. Calm returned and life moved on again.
It is plausible to argue that Mugabe's don't-care stance, the West's half-hearted onslaught on him, and the Africa Union's policy of non-interference have over the years immunised Mugabe against internal criticism.
The danger is that with the country already in a sheer drop, it is anyone's guess where else it could end, especially if the opposition elects to take a "victorious" Mugabe head-on in the streets.
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