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By Sir Ronald Sanders |
April 10, 2005: WHEN Zimbabwe became an independent African nation under majority rule it owed much to the Commonwealth in particular and to the independent Caribbean states at the time.
President Robert Mugabe has now squandered the struggle of the African majority in Zimbabwe for a place of respect in the international community, and Caribbean governments should speak out and act against him.
Mr Mugabe and his political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF), are not only claiming a victory at the March 31st general election, they say that they have secured a two-thirds majority in Parliament which will allow him to re-write the country's constitution according to his divine will.
The purpose of re-writing the Constitution is to create a second House of Parliament whose members he, as President, would appoint. Should this happen Mr Mugabe could perpetuate himself in power, or, at the very least, continue his influence should he either choose to step down or, miraculously, lose a Presidential election.
The claim that the ZANU PF has won the election fair and square is hotly rejected by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and by independent observer Zimbabwe groups not represented by Mr Mugabe's government. They assert a series of actions by Mr Mugabe to fix the outcome of the elections. These actions include intimidation of voters, packing the voters' list with 'ghost' voters, and widespread discarding of the votes of opposition supporters.
It is also significant that Mr Mugabe refused to allow both the Commonwealth and the European Union to send missions to observe the elections.
It could be argued that a losing party always claims rigging by a winning party in government. But, the history of Mr Mugabe's terror tactics against the opposition party is too glaring and too well documented to dismiss.
Mr Tsvanagirai was arrested and tried for treason, and only barely escaped the death penalty because foreign governments and international human rights groups kept a close watch on the proceedings. Other incidents of repressive laws, harassment of opposition supporters, including beatings and false arrests have been researched and recorded by international bodies such as Human Rights Watch.
All of this is a great shame for Zimbabwe and the ordinary Zimbabweans whose freedoms and rights were won by a tough struggle against the infamous Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain by a white minority government under a Constitution that gave black Zimbabweans little or no rights in their own country. Now, Mr Mugabe is denying African Zimbabweans the right to live in a free and democratic society.
DISGRACEFUL YEARS
UDI was promulgated under a white minority government led by Ian Smith with the tacit complicity of the governments of both the United Kingdom and the United States. It went on for 16 disgraceful years.
The UK government was prey to the argument that the whites in Southern Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe then was) were 'kith and kin'. And, the U.S. government regarded a white government there as a safety measure against communist activity in nearby Angola and Mozambique.
At the domestic level, this oppression of the majority black people in Zimbabwe provoked a robust response in the freedom-fighting movements of Mr Mugabe and Mr Joshua Nkomo. But, at the international level, the cosseting of the white minority government by the UK and the U.S. found its strongest voice in the councils of the Commonwealth where the governments of the independent Caribbean countries played a strong role with the African front-line states of Zambia, Tanzania and Nigeria to persuade the U.S. and the UK to turn away from the Ian Smith regime and to contemplate independence for Zimbabwe under majority rule.
It was not as easy task. The Conservative government of Britain's Margaret Thatcher and the Republican administration of Ronald Reagan came to the table only in the face of overwhelming Commonwealth advocacy in every theatre of the world.
When Mr Mugabe assumed the Presidency of an independent Zimbabwe under majority rule, he owed much particularly to African and Caribbean nations to respect and uphold the democracy, freedoms and human rights that were previously denied.
The Caribbean had spoken out and acted against racial discrimination, political oppression, and the denial of political, civil and human rights in Zimbabwe. They expected that Zimbabwe would become the model that South Africa could follow in ending Apartheid and establishing majority rule there.
Instead, Mr Mugabe dashed those hopes. He quickly cut down political opponents in his own government an early casualty being Joshua Nkomo who led the rival ZAPU PF movement and who was included in the first national government of Zimbabwe.
Then, when an active opposition was created, Mr Mugabe repressed it. Eventually in 2002, Presidential elections were so marred with violence and intimidation that although Mr Mugabe was dubiously declared the winner, the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe from the Councils of the Commonwealth.
Ensuing efforts by South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria's leader, Olesegun Obasanjo, to "encourage the climate of reconciliation between the main political parties of Zimbabwe" floundered, and Mr Mugabe stepped up policies that laid waste to the Zimbabwe economy and reduced his country once a net exporter of maize to begging for food aid.
ANCIENT WRONG
In recent years Mr Mugabe set about correcting an ancient wrong the ownership of the majority of arable land in Zimbabwe by a minority of white farmers. There would be few who would have quarrelled with Mr Mugabe that this wrong needed to be righted. But, the way in which Mr Mugabe handled the problem deserved no support.
His government encouraged the illegal seizure of land by his own supporters. Large tracts of land were handed over to party backers and high officials with no consultation with the owners and no system for land re-distribution and compensation.
In the result, the Zimbabwean economy has declined to a state of almost catastrophe. Continued disregard for property rights and the absence of an agreed system for land re-distribution and compensation has seen a very sharp reduction in agricultural production, capital flight, no new foreign investment, and emigration of much needed skills and talent.
Real GDP declined by 7.9% in 2000, 2.8% in 2001, 11.1% in 2002 and 9.3% in 2003. Between November 2003 and February 2004, year-on-year inflation reached a mammoth 600%, and the value of wages and salaries were eroded significantly. Even worse, Zimbabwe's unemployment has soared and its arrears to the International Monetary Fund amounted to US$306 million or about 57% of its quota in the IMF.
The Executive Board of the fund is now contemplating the compulsory withdrawal of Zimbabwe from the IMF, and this is likely to happen within the next five months.
Mr Mugabe is making himself and his government pariahs. He withdrew Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth in anger over the decision to suspend his government from Commonwealth Councils. Now, the IMF may ask for the country's compulsory withdrawal from the fund.
It is sad that a country which offered the prospect of being one of the richest in Africa is today at the point of economic collapse, and is riddled with such widespread disregard for democracy and human, civil and political rights.
Caribbean governments who did so much to bring Zimbabwe to independence and democracy under majority rule should speak out and act against Mr Mugabe's excesses.
Sanctions and isolation were once applied to make Ian Smith change his ways in Southern Rhodesia, sanctions and isolation directed at Mr Mugabe's government should be applied to make him change his ways for the sake of the people of Zimbabwe.
(responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com