Kgalema Motlanthe and Zimbabwe

Eric Witte September 22nd, 2008

Yesterday, Kurt wondered how Thabo Mbeki’s resignation as South African president would affect the tenuous power-sharing agreement in neighboring Zimbabwe.   Today we learn that the African National Congress has chosen party deputy Kgalema Motlanthe to serve out the rest of Mbeki’s term, until elections due next April. 

Motlanthe appears to be more than a mere place-holder for ANC leader Jacob Zuma, who is widely tipped to win the coming presidential elections.  Zuma’s faction of the ANC is reported to have favored the current Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete for the post of caretaker president and may be disappointed that she was passed over.  Motlanthe is regarded as a party moderate who has tried to be a peacemaker between the Mbeki and Zuma factions.

For years Mbeki has been notoriously soft on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, even as Zimbabwe’s economic implosion has been a drag on the South African economy.  Rival Jacob Zuma, with a background in the labor movement, has shown greater sympathy to Zimbabwe’s current prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, himself a union activist and the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change.  Kgalema Motlanthe also has a labor background, having served as the secretary general of South Africa’s mineworkers union. What do we know about his views on Zimbabwe?  A cursory search reveals the following:

  • In 2000, Motlanthe penned a newspaper article in defense of Mugabe’s land redistribution policies, prompting Morgan Tsvangirai to complain: “The ANC’s endorsement of Zanu-PF is counter-productive.  We would have hoped they would have done all in their power to back a free and fair election.”
  • Last year, when UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was threatening to boycott the planned summit between African Union and European Union leaders, Motlanthe argued that the summit should proceed without London and not be “imprisoned and paralysed by dangerous and destructive neo-colonialist ambitions”.
  • Motlanthe was one of the South African officials who participated in July talks with the parties in Zimbabwe, pressuring both sides to compromise.

With regard to Zimbabwe, at first glance it appears that South Africa’s new president may be much like its last.

Zimbabwe deal - but what is it?

Kurt Bassuener September 15th, 2008

Zimbabwe’s bitter political rivals Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai today signed a deal that will divide power between the two of them, with Mugabe retaining his role as President, and Tsvangirai taking on a new Prime Ministership. The ministerial positions will be split with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF holding 15 and the MDC’s two combined wings (the main led by Tsvangirai, and a smaller led by now-Vice President Arthur Mutambara) holding 16.  Al Jazeera English reports the ministerial portfolio split thus:

Zanu-PF, the MDC and the smaller opposition grouping of Mutambara met in Harare on Saturday, agreeing to share out the 31 cabinet seats.

The powerful state security ministry was abolished while the justice portfolio was split into two and a new prisons department was formed.

The parties met again on Monday to allocate ministries, with the MDC reportedly pushing to take control of home affairs, local government, one of the justice ministries, information and finance.

The name of the individual heads of the ministries are expected to be announced later in the week, according to a government minister.

 The whole agreement, courtesy of the Financial Times, can be seen here.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was at the Harare ceremony where the deal was signed, and introduced the main signatories.   The ceremony was attended by the leaders of Swaziland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other regional leaders.  Interestingly, Mutambara, who preceded Tsvangiarai, repeatedly called Tsvangirai “president.”  The differences between the speeches of the main antagonists could hardly be more stark.  Tsvangirai’s speech was mostly forward looking, dwelling predominantly on the dire situation of Zimbabwe’s citizens, and the need to work together to resolve their plight:

I, the prime minister of Zimbabwe, call Zanu-PF and MDC to unite Zimbabwe. Divisions belong to the past.

If you were my enemy yesterday, today we are bound by the same patriotic duty and destiny…

I have signed this agreement because I believe it represents the best opportunity for us to build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic Zimbabwe.

I have signed this agreement because my belief in Zimbabwe and its peoples runs deeper than the scars I bear from the struggle.

I have signed this agreement because my hope for the future is greater than the grief I have for the needless suffering of the past years.

Today, every one of us has a decision to make.

Should we be driven by feelings towards those we blame for the suffering we have endured, or shall we be driven by the hope of a new, better, brighter country - the hope of a new beginning?…

The international aid organisations came to help our country and found our doors locked.

We need to unlock our doors to aid… we need medicine, food, and doctors back in our country.

We need electricity, water, petrol for our vehicles, we need to access our cash from banks…

This unity government will let businesses flourish so our people can work and provide for their families with pride.”

Mugabe’s speech rewound all the way back to the liberation struggle, and tried to place his repression in anti-colonialist terms, implying that the opposition were agents of Britain and the US:

“Are we beginning today? No. We have been walking the same route without knowing it, or not recognizing each other. After all, we are all Zimbabweans and is there any other road, any other route to follow? History makes us walk the same route…

[Looking at Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara] I don’t see any British amongst them. There is no American amongst them.

Let us be allies.

African problems must be solved by Africans.

The problem we have had is a problem that has been created by former colonial powers, who wanted to continue to interfere in our domestic affairs and continue to have a share of our natural resources.

This is what we have resisted.

We have said the land - Zimbabwe’s land - belongs to Zimbabweans…

Democracy, democracy. Democracy in Africa is a difficult proposition.

Because always the opposition will want much more than what it deserves.

The opposition will want to be the ruling party and will devise ways and means of getting there, including violence [jeers].

I am not just referring to you, but I am referring to the system as we see it in Africa. That’s what it is. [Jeers]

I can give examples. What is happening in Mozambique? In Ivory Coast? It will take us some time to get to a position where opposition parties will confine themselves to peaceful ways.

People will want to see if what we promise is indeed what we strive to do… We are committed, I am committed, let us all be committed.”

It is, of course, a risky move on the part of Tsvangirai, but he must have signed when he saw no other way out.  Mugabe, before he strode the podium, looked dejected - not having had to share the stage with a domestic rival since Joshua Nkomo, who he ultimately broke.

The international community is maintaining a wait-and-see stance on the deal, which asks for international sanctions to be lifted.  The US State Department’s reaction in its daily press briefing is below:

QUESTION: My question is about Zimbabwe.

MR. MCCORMACK: Zimbabwe.

QUESTION: Now that the agreement has been signed –

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: — and maybe you know a little bit better about it and whether –

MR. MCCORMACK: A bit more. We don’t have a full picture of it. We have not yet seen the agreement and all of its details. We have had some briefings on it, and from what we have learned from the MDC briefing us on the detail – what – the details of it, then we would welcome this agreement, again, with the caveat that we haven’t yet seen the full agreement. And it is our hope for Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwean people that they could – they can now move forward, that this – the agreement, as we understand it, can be fully implemented, and that the agreement be implemented in such a way that it reflect the will of the people, as expressed in the recent election.

QUESTION: And are you optimistic it will be able to implement?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, we’ll see. You know, you can get agreements and it’s important to execute those agreements, implement those agreements. We’ll see how it’s implemented.

Yeah.

QUESTION: On that subject, the new power-sharing leadership there in Zimbabwe has called on Britain to accept responsibility for compensating farmers who lost their land during the land reform process there. I wondered what you thought of that idea. Should Britain be compensating farmers there?

MR. MCCORMACK: I think that’s for the parties involved to comment on, and not for us. We don’t seem to be an issue in that particular question.

That latter point is apparently a sticking point in Mugabe’s mind, who seems convinced Britain should have financed the buyout of white farmers.

The foreign ministers of the EU, meeting in Brussels, also adopted an implementation first approach (full conclusions here):

The Council will study the details of the agreement and will be attentive to its implementation, which will mean immediate cessation of all forms of intimidation and violence. It stresses that that agreement must provide the Zimbabwean people with the reforms awaited: democracy and the rule of law, including respect for human rights, and the restoration of the country’s economic and social situation.

What is clear is that Mugabe is weakened.  What is less clear is whether he is weakened enough so that Zimbabwe can now begin to dig itself out of the hole he and his cronies dug it into.

UN Secretary General calls for Zimbabwe election postponement, alludes to Chapter 7

Kurt Bassuener June 23rd, 2008

The BBC reports that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called for Zimbabwe’s presidential runoff election on June 27 to be postponed due to the “fear, hostility and blatant attacks” against opposition supporters, which are “against the spirit of democracy.”  He voiced understanding for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to withdraw yesterday, agreeing that “Conditions do not exist for free and fair elections right now in Zimbabwe… There has been too much violence, too much intimidation. A vote held in these conditions would lack all legitimacy.”

After consultation with unnamed African leaders, Ban contacted the Zimbabwean leadership and urged them to cancel the poll until there were conditions for free and fair elections.  It remains unclear how he sees this coming about, but his statement that the Zimbabwe crisis had cross-border implications and is the “single greatest challenge to regional stability” is a clear allusion to the ability of UN members to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which addresses threats to international peace and security, and is the basis for legal international intervention.

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.