Will Mbeki’s resignation affect Zimbabwe deal?

Kurt Bassuener September 21st, 2008

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who was elected in 1999 to succeed Nelson Mandela and was re-elected in 2004, resigned this evening after a long and bitter battle with African National Congress President Jacob Zuma that ended in the ANC asking him to step down.  Mbeki denied accusations that he or his government interfered in the judicial process against Mr. Zuma, whose corruption charges were dismissed last week.  His successor until next year’s elections will have to be selected by the parliament - and Jacob Zuma cannot immediately succeed as he is not an MP.  The populist Mr. Zuma will almost certainly run as the ANC candidate in the upcoming presidential election.  What his ascendancy means for South Africa’s domestic and international policies is an open question.  Mbeki’s fall has been described by some African commentators as “regicide,” and certainly falls outside the African norm.

In his resignation speech, he cited progress in economic development, including toward the Millenium Development Goals, as achievements he was proud of.

Mbeki was the SADC mediator for the Zimbabwe political crisis, and was widely criticized, including by the authors of this blog, for not being nearly as proactive and supportive of democratic and civic forces in Zimbabwe as he could have been.  But despite his shortcomings, the relative weight of South Africa in regional and continental affairs cannot be denied, and his personal role in brokering the Mugabe - Tsvangirai power-sharing deal, which appears stalled, was critical.  It is not readily apparent who, if anyone, can fill the void.  One of SADC’s most vocal critics of Mugabe, at least from the electoral crisis on, was the late Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who died a month ago.  Botswana, including Foreign Minister Pando Skelemani and parliamentarian Duke Lefkoho, has been notably vocal for some time within SADC on Zimbabwe.  But in terms of leveraging pressure, the role of South Africa is essential.  The timing of South Africa’s internal turmoil could hardly be less opportune for ensuring that Mugabe stick to the deal and hand over sufficient powers to Prime Minister-designate Tsvangirai.   It is hard to see the AU or SADC as a collective filling this void.

The devil is in the details - Zimbabwe

Kurt Bassuener September 18th, 2008

As I wrote on Monday, the landmark power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and opposition MDC leader and now Prime Minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai drew only lukewarm plaudits from the democratic world, which preferred to see it operationalized and implemented.  A wait-and-see attitude seems to have been the right approach, given the fact that the talks on the structure of the cabinet have now deadlocked over apportionment of ministries.  The MDC claims ZANU-PF wants all the most powerful ones safely in its hands.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said talks on Thursday had been “inconclusive”.

Zanu-PF was “claiming all the powerful ministries” but discussions were continuing, Mr Chamisa said.

“It was a deadlock and has been referred to the negotiating teams for further work to try and find common ground,” he told the Reuters news agency.

Under the terms of the power-sharing deal signed on Monday, Mr Mugabe is to retain control of the army. Mr Tsvangirai is understood to want control of the police by holding the home affairs portfolio.

On Tuesday, Mr Tsvangirai told the BBC that he was working to reassure President Mugabe that he had nothing to fear.

But as was apparent in his “look back in anger” speech Monday, Mugabe is having difficulty with the concept of sharing power with anybody:

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Mugabe described the power-sharing deal as a “humiliation” that would not have happened if the party had not “blundered” in the March elections.

But he said Zanu-PF nevertheless remained “in the driving seat”.

“We are still in a dominant position which will enable us to gather more strength as we move into the future,” he said, according to the state-run Herald newspaper.

Before the parties met, an opposition source said Zanu-PF wanted control of powerful portfolios such as finance, defence and information, while the MDC wanted an “equal share”.

This would include three posts for one of the MDC factions, whose leader Arthur Mutambara will be deputy prime minister.

The African Union and SADC, who got the Kenya-style arrangement they were aiming for from the beginning of the electoral crisis (look for more of this split-the-difference and worry about the details later model in the future), now need to press Mugabe to give the MDC, which has more democratic legitimacy, a greater share of real power.

Zambian President Mwanawasa, Mugabe critic, dies

Kurt Bassuener August 19th, 2008

Today Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa died in a French hospital, having suffered a stroke at the AU summit in Sharm el-Sheikh at the end of June.  The BBC reports:

He came to prominence recently for being one of the African leaders most critical of the violence in Zimbabwe.

US President George W Bush expressed his condolences to Mr Mwanawasa’s family, describing him as “a champion of democracy in his own country and throughout Africa”.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Mr Mwanawasa’s death was “a great loss for the African continent”.

Last year, he quite obviously alluded to Zimbabwe when he said:

“one Sadc country has sunk into such economic difficulties that it may be likened to a sinking Titanic whose passengers are jumping out in a bid to save their lives…Zambia has so far been an advocate of quiet diplomacy and continues to believe in it, but the twist of events in the troubled country necessitates the adoption of a new approach.”

Mwanawasa became increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Mugabe regime through Zimbabwe’s electoral crisis, urging African leaders not to allow a ship laden with Chinese arms for Zimbabwe to disgorge its cargo, stating he sympathized with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai for not wanting to participate in a runoff after an organized campaign of violence aginst MDC supporters and those suspected of having voted for them.  It was widely expected that he would lead the charge to address Zimbabwe at the AU summit earlier this summer, but he suffered a stroke at the venue and never recovered.  The summit, attended by a “re-elected” Mugabe, accomplished nothing other than giving him a stage to strut on, along with probable ICC indictee Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Mwanawasa’s democratic performance could hardly be called exemplary; Freedom House rates the country as “partly free.”  While donors and trading partners admire the anticorruption efforts and improved economic performance, civil liberties and political rights are abridged.  It’s likely that if Zimbabwe had imploded less dramatically, Mwanawasa’s criticisms would have been more muted. 

Yet he did step up, and was audible in a growing, if inconsistent, chorus of African voices at least recognizing the catastrophe next door.  Botswana’s leadership, which has been the most consistent in criticism of Mugabe and in democratic practice at home, will feel all the more alone after Mwanawasa’s passing.

Botswana to boycott SADC meeting

Kurt Bassuener August 15th, 2008

In what the BBC calls an “unprecedented” move, Botswana’s President Saretse Khama Ian Khama will not attend the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) upcoming summit because Robert Mugabe will represent Zimbabwe there:

The country has said that Mr Mugabe should not attend such gatherings until a power-sharing deal has been reached.

It is also urging its neighbours not to give legitimacy to the widely-condemned Zimbabwean presidential elections.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating in the Zimbabwean talks, is hosting the summit.

Correspondents say Botswana’s move to boycott the 14-member Southern African Development Community (Sadc) summit is “unprecedented” and add that it shows growing opposition to Mr Mugabe’s continued rule.

As noted previously on this blog, Botswana has typically been at the forefront of democratic practice in southern Africa and more likely to criticize democratic transgressions among neighbors than others.  This is yet another positive example in sub-Saharan Africa of insistence on rule of law.  Let’s hope others (Zambia?) will follow suit and sit this summit out.

One minute to midnight in Zimbabwe

Kurt Bassuener June 23rd, 2008

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is holed-up in the Embassy of the Netherlands in Harare, where he is seeking protection after the Movement for Democratic Change had its offices raided today, with 60 arrested.  According to the MDC, these were “mostly women and children, victims of political violence.”  Tsvangirai announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy in the Friday, June 27 runoff with incumbent President Robert Mugabe.  In an interview with CNN International’s Jonathan Mann, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has said that Tsvangiarai will receive all he requires.

Tsvangirai made the announcement yesterday afternoon that he would not participate in the “war” that President Mugabe declared in a recent speech.  Tsvangirai did so after a planned MDC election rally was violently dispersed by supporters of Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party.  He asserted that the police were “bystanders” while crimes such as “rape, torture, murder, arson, abductions and other atrocities” were conducted by ZANU-PF supporters, working in coordination with the police. Last week, the wife of Harare’s opposition mayor was found murdered.   In another recent speech, Mugabe openly threatened violence. “We fought for this country and a lot of blood was shed.  We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X (on a ballot). How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun.”  His armed forces, police, “green bomber” youth militia, “war veterans” and other supporters have waged an accelerating campaign of terror against the opposition and its supporters. Tsvangirai claims 80 have been killed and 200,000 displaced by the terror unleashed since the first round of voting on March 29, which Tsvangirai won, and claims to have won outright based on posted polling station protocols. Last week, a “map of terror” plotting the location and type of political violence in Zimbabwe appeared on The Independent’s website. Despite the overwhelming evidence, the Zimbabwean government continues to lay blame for violence at the MDC’s doorstep, and plans to go through with Friday’s poll.In his interview with Al Jazeera English’s Haru Mutasa yesterday (link as yet unavailable), Tsvangirai said that withdrawing was not “handing Mugabe victory;” Mugabe had already made clear he would not cede power.  Tsvangirai now aims to focus on the international factor, calling for international action by the African Union, SADC, and the United Nations to prevent a “genocide.”  He also noted that Zimbabwe was on the brink of a civil war.     In the past week, the level of international condemnation has increased markedly as the violence has mounted.  A UN special envoy from Eritrea, Haile Menkerios, was dispatched last week by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and his report is eagerly awaited.  Ban called the circumstances that led to Tsvangirai’s decision to withdraw from the runoff “deeply distressing.”  But the most important criticism has come from Zimbabwe’s neighbors in SADC and in the AU. Tsvangirai today told National Public Radio in the United States that “if there is a collective position by all SADC leaders, that would be sufficient pressure – that voice is essential.”That seems to be coalescing.  Last week in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, a group of nearly 40 African luminaries, including former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings, and former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano signed a joint letter calling for “free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.”  The letter also called for “an end to the violence and intimidation, and the restoration of full access for humanitarian aid agencies.”  Joining the already critical Botswanan and Zambian governments, foreign ministers from Tanzania, Swaziland and – most shockingly – Angola all condemned the violence in Zimbabwe.  SADC election observers witnessed violent assaults on MDC supporters, even killings.  Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe noted that after the observers witnessed the murders “it scared most of these observers to the extent that they had to pose the question of why are we here then, and what are we doing?”  IRIN very usefully compared current practice in Zimbabwe to SADC’s own 10-point “Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.”  The external expert from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, Khabele Matlosa, gutted the Zimbabwean authorities on every point.  Botswana’s Foreign Minister Pando Skelemani said “If in fact the atmosphere for an election is not free and fair you then can’t have someone having won. It would be the same as if you had been through the election and they are declared not free and fair, then you are back at square one.“ Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga last week called Zimbabwe “an eyesore on the African continent – an example of how not to do it.”  Apparently many of his countrymen agree, as in a Kenya-Zimbabwe football match in Nairobi, Kenyan fans chanted “Mugabe must go” as the Zimbabwean team stepped onto the pitch.  Rwanda’s Paul Kagame also criticized the violence, saying “what is happening is not in conformity with the rule of law.  I do not subscribe to this.  The whole thing is a joke.”As with the first round of elections last spring, South African President Thabo Mbeki has remained shamefully inert, even as he met with Mugabe last week.  As recently as yesterday, Mbeki still called for “the political leadership of Zimbabwe to get together and find a solution.” However, his likely successor, African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma, was not so deferential.  New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark was typically blunt in her assessment of Mbeki’s leadership: “South Africa has in effect sheltered Mr. Mugabe and his regime for a long time…I think if South Africa were to withdraw support that would have a pretty dramatic impact on what happens in Zimbabwe.”

It is worthy of note that there has been unilateral African intervention against a despot whose downward spiral of repression spilled over in the neighborhood:  Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere’s 1979 overthrow of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who unfortunately died free in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, never having had to face justice for his reign of terror.  Given the already massive population flows and disruption to neighboring states, Chapter 7 of the UN Charter to protect “international peace and security” could certainly be invoked – that is, if it could make it through the Security Council, which is unlikely with Mugabe’s backers in Beijing. Then again, Nyerere didn’t seek the UN’s or the Organization of African Unity’s approval before he acted, and it’s well nigh impossible to find anyone now who would say his action was wrong.

As with Burma’s cyclone experience last month, this case is likely to test whether “R2P,” the “responsibility to protect” has any real meaning, and can ever be invoked when governments savage their peoples.  The situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate by the hour, and it is quite possible that MDC supporters will lose their patience and seek ways to fight back against the ZANU-PF/state authorities. 

Zimbabwe Update - MDC waits for runoff date before committing

Kurt Bassuener May 6th, 2008

The African Union is holding talks today in Tanzania to discuss the continuing post-election crisis in Zimbabwe.  While the new AU Chair, Jean Ping, has met with President Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) head, he has yet to meet with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Last weekend, the ZEC finally released results from the presidential elections, held on March 29.  The official tally gave Tsvangirai 47.9 percent of the vote, an edge of nearly five points over Mugabe’s 43.2 percent share.  But the official version contradicts the MDC’s strongly held position, based on publicly posted vote tallies at polling stations, that Tsvangirai won the election outright with 50.3 percent of the vote.  On Saturday, the MDC announced it was not planning to participate in a runoff with Mugabe, which has yet to be scheduled, as it would legitimize the theft of the election.  Yet it appears now that the MDC will indeed participate in a runoff, though it will not announce that decision until a date is set.  It is a risky choice either way.  Mugabe from immediately after the election through today has worked to undercut MDC support by ordering attacks on presumed opposition supporters, intimidating the population to vote “the right way” in a runoff, as well as endeavoring to undercut the MDC’s advantage in the parliament by holding recounts in a number of constituencies.  The MDC has calculated that Mugabe will ensure he “wins” a runoff, and that his violent post-election campaign, combined with the dire economic straits that Zimbabweans are in, will assist him in this.  The fact that the opposition was unable to mobilize mass demonstrations in the aftermath of its proclaimed win must have played into this approach. Yet few countries have claimed that Tsvangirai has won outright.  The US and UK called for Mugabe to step down before the official results were released. The MDC may well end up participating in the runoff, simply to stay in the game and to try and draw greater regional support for their cause, which might be hard to do should the party be portrayed by governments such as South Africa’s as unreasonable.  The country’s neighbors already appear to have endorsed the idea of a runoff, calling on the government to guarantee security for it. Angola chairs the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and at a meeting last weekend, SADC called on Zimbabwe’s political parties to accept the official results and participate in the second round.  SADC’s observers of the vote recount in 23 constituencies hailed the recount, and appeared to blame the opposition for the post-election unrest, as reported in Harare’s government-owned Herald. The MDC maintained its edge in the parliamentary vote, despite fears that the recount would flip the results to the ruling ZANU-PF.  The date of a runoff is still not set, and according to Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga, the Zimbabwean Constitution allows it to be held from 21 days after the announcement of the official first round results to a year after.  Mugabe appears to be running the clock, hoping the economic privation and violent intimidation will help ensure a victory. The intimidation of Zimbabwe’s civil society continues, with the Progressive Teachers’ Union claiming 133 of its members had been assaulted, and 1700 had fled attackers.  A spokesman for the union noted said that teachers “were beaten with iron bars, some have had their legs and limbs and hands seriously injured…Quite a lot have been hit on the head and its quite tragic, it’s terrible.”  The teachers were targeted for their work as polling station workers.  The MDC claims 25 of its activists have been killed and over 2000 hospitalized.  The ruling ZANU-PF party called on its supporters to be calm and “also urging the opposition to avoid violence and respect people’s lives.”  In an epilogue to the story of the Chinese freighter, the An Yue Jiang, laden with arms and munitions destined for Zimbabwe, the ship ultimately turned back to China without unloading, after South African dockworkers refused to unload it, and other potential ports in Angola and Mozambique refused to let it dock.  Reportedly, the shipment was paid for with eight tons of illegal ivory poached in Zimbabwe.  Meanwhile, the East African newspaper of Nairobi, Kenya reports that African lawyers groups – the East African Law Society and the Law Society of the SADC are planning a to approach the International Criminal Court to request an investigation against China regarding the arms shipment.  The groups also announced they would be pressing the AU and UN to be more assertive with Zimbabwe, citing the international community’s responsibility to protect.  The action, as with the resistance by Durban’s dockworkers to unloading the arms shipment, show that Africa’s transnational civil society is becoming more organized and vocal against governments who place a greater premium on mutual support than the do on democracy, rule of law, and human rights.

Democratic and dictatorial solidarity in southern Africa

Kurt Bassuener April 20th, 2008

South African dockworkers show solidarity with Zimbabweans by refusing to unload an arms shipment. Where is their government? Trying to clear that shipment through customs and dignifying an illegal partial vote recount.

Zimbabwe’s dictatorial President Robert Mugabe launched a blistering assault on the West, Britain in particular, in a speech to commemorate the anniversary of Zimbabwe’s foundation out of the racist outlaw state of Rhodesia, accusing them of bribing people to support the opposition.  “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again. Never, ever, shall we retreat.”  Banners surrounding the venue, which contained a handpicked audience to prevent unpleasant surprises, equated the opposition with imperialism, and continued the tired equation of western criticism and political opposition with neo-colonialism: “Zimbabwe has no place for sellouts”.

Unfortunately, this old saw continues to resonate with many African leaders – as does Mugabe’s fear of accountability for his abuses in office, beginning with massacres in the western Matabeleland region by the North Korean-trained 5th Brigade, answerable only to him, in the early-to-mid 1980s. Use of violence for political ends continues to the present day with attacks on the opposition and those suspected to be their supporters.

The ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Popular Front (ZANU-PF) just launched an Orwellian campaign entitled “Operation Mavhoterapapi – where did you put your X?”- i.e., how did you vote? Human Rights Watch reports that a Zimbabwean told them that he was told by ZANU-PF thugs that “next time you will vote wisely, now you know what we can do.”

Not that the official vote results have been released yet, some three weeks after the March 29 poll, which according to unofficial tallies recorded from protocols posted at polling stations – a first – the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, won in the parliamentary race for certain, and perhaps outright in the presidential poll as well. To remedy this unpleasant choice of the people, votes are being recounted this weekend in 23 districts – mostly those won by the MDC, some won by Mugabe’s party by up to 80 percent, presumably to amp-up the margin, as was done in Ukraine’s east in 2004 by “the candidate of power,” Viktor Yanukovych. South Africa’s government has sent observers to watch this flagrantly manipulative exercise. Today, MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti appealed for external intervention, and called the recount “mendacious and illegal,” alleging ballot box tampering.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Saturday asked “where are the Africans? Where are their leaders and the countries in the region, what are they doing?”

He called for African leaders to address the Zimbabwe crisis squarely, referring back to the still fragile case of Kenya, where he successfully mediated between the government, fingered for electoral irregularities by EU monitors, and the opposition, whose leader unfortunately mobilized his supporters for violence which immediately took on a tribal cast against the dominant Kikuyu tribe – or at the very least did little to restrain them. Thankfully, the MDC in Zimbabwe has not followed suit despite being on the sharp end of government assaults, though a senior figure noted ominously today that his party was trying to prevent its supporters from being “seduced” into violence in what he termed a “war situation” in which he claims ten MDC supporters have been killed. “If democracy fails in Zimbabwe, what options are you leaving to the people of Zimbabwe?” The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights states that over 200 people have been treated for serious injury as a result of political violence over the campaign and post-election period. Human Rights Watch yesterday charged that “ZANU-PF members are setting up torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month’s elections.”

Annan’s pointed call was clearly directed at South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, who infamously declared in a visit to Mugabe before an emergency SADC meeting on the Zimbabwe situation that there was “no crisis.” Mugabe himself petulantly did not attend the meeting in Lusaka, Zambia. In criticism that has thus far been a rarity, but hopefully will begin a trend among SADC’s democracies, Botswanan Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani

criticized Mbeki: “Everyone agreed that things are not normal, except Mbeki. Maybe Mbeki is so deeply involved that he firmly believes things are going right. But now he understands that the rest of SADC feels this is a matter of urgency and we are risking lives and limbs being lost. He got that message clearly.” Skelemani called for a far larger SADC election observer mission than was fielded for the first round in the event of a presidential run-off. “People with more credibility need to be sent. If you send the same team you’ll not be able to cover the whole country and you have to make sure that there is an observer at every polling station. The SADC team will need to be beefed up.” Zimbabwe opposition-oriented blogs are alleging detailed government plans to steal these runoffs, slated for May 26, employing organized violence against opposition activists. The African Union today called for election results to be released “without further delay.”

Botswana wants a stronger regional response, feeling the pressure from refugee waves fleeing desperate poverty and hunger, but it seems outnumbered by others who are practicing malign neglect (South Africa) or actively backing Mugabe (Angola, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo). It’s noteworthy that Mugabe has sent troops to each of the latter three countries, most egregiously in Congo a decade ago – a very lucrative proposition for him and his army. Angola reportedly offered to return the favor last year by offering to send 2500 of its infamous “Ninja” paramilitary police to act as a praetorian guard for Mugabe. The Ninjas have been deployed as MPLA President Eduardo dos Santos’ presidential guard since 1979. Angola’s oil wealth is helping insulate it from international criticism for its own dictatorship, closing down a UN Human Rights Council mission which criticized the government for torture and other abuses.

South Africa’s President Mbeki stood by his “no crisis” remarks late last week, calling for dialogue in Zimbabwe, while his own African National Congress (ANC) party’s leader, Jacob Zuma, who defeated him as party leader last year, has criticized the conduct of the Zimbabwean election, calling for the release of the election results on April 9, and also meeting with Tsvangirai.

But South Africa’s active union movement, long supportive of their Zimbabwean colleagues, showed admirable solidarity this weekend by refusing to unload a vessel loaded with Chinese arms and munitions – including millions of rounds of 7.62mm rounds for AK-47/Type56 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and mortar rounds – destined for Zimbabwe’s government, and vowed to stand their ground if others tried to unload the vessel.   “If they bring in replacement labor to do the work, our members will not stand and look at them and smile,” said Randall Howard, general secretary of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union. He rightly called the arms shipment “grossly irresponsible” and that the “South African government cannot be seen as propping up a military regime.”

The South African government protested that there was nothing illegal about the shipment, which may have been technically true, but certainly not responsible statecraft, given the likelihood of the use of these munitions against Zimbabwean civilians. Despite all this, South Africa’s government was working overtime to ensure that the shipment cleared customs. Yet a legal injunction filed by an Anglican archbishop to transport the arms across the border into Zimbabwe was upheld by South Africa’s High Court. The arms were rerouted according to some reports to Mozambique, which would make logistical sense due to proximity and railroad links. Other early reports named Angola as the destination. In neither Maputo nor Luanda is there likely to be similar labor or civic resistance to unloading the arms.

The government of Thabo Mbeki has repeatedly shown – and not just on Zimbabwe next door – that his loyalties are African first and democrat second…if that.