The Mugabe problem

by Leader published on December 08, 2003 in The Guardian

The case for lifting the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth was not persuasive, and yesterday's decision to continue the ban should be supported. If President Robert Mugabe now carries through on his threat to quit the organisation, that will be deeply regrettable but hardly cataclysmic.

It seems certain that when he leaves office, as eventually he must (and the sooner the better), wiser heads in Zimbabwe will want to rejoin - and will be encouraged to do so. What would have been truly disastrous, however, would have been to allow the Zimbabwe issue to split the Commonwealth along artificial black-white, north-south lines. That was Mr Mugabe's aim. That outcome has been avoided, although at the cost of not a few political bruises.

Following last year's stolen presidential election and the rigged parliamentary polls of 2000, Mr Mugabe has done nothing to earn a lifting of the suspension - or of EU and US sanctions that have targeted him and his cronies. Unofficial contacts notwithstanding, he has ignored calls by his neighbours, including his main protector, South Africa, for a national dialogue. He has continued the persecution of his main political rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, and his Movement for Democratic Change.

On the eve of the Abuja summit, Mr Mugabe rebuffed its host, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, who went to Harare to mediate. He preferred instead to invoke the era of anti-colonialist, anti-racist struggle to defend, as Tony Blair says, the indefensible. The Commonwealth has shown that for the most part, Africans and imperialism's heirs have moved on. Sadly, Mr Mugabe has not.

It is true that many other members of the 54-country group have a far from perfect democratic record - and not just the African members. The continuation of Pakistan's suspension is justified in this context, given General Pervez Musharraf's retention of sweeping powers. Zimbabwe's dismal human rights record is also far from unique. As Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, argued in the Guardian last week, a lot of other Commonwealth countries could do a lot better in this regard, too.

The media attention paid to the plight of white Zimbabwean farmers, brutally dispossessed of their land by the licensed thuggery of Mr Mugabe's "war veterans", has intensified the international spotlight on Zimbabwe to an unusual degree. Far more prosperous and fortunate members such as Britain and India have also infringed human rights of late, in the name of counter-terrorism.

It is certainly true, as the non-governmental Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative maintains, that the organisation needs to work harder to "mainstream human rights in all its work". Yet it is also true that Mr Mugabe's regime stands out over its relentless, systematic undermining of the independence of the judiciary and other institutions, its gross economic irresponsibility, and its attacks on individual liberties and the free press.

The regime tried to victimise the Commonwealth this weekend - and failed. But its chief victims remain Zimbabwe's impoverished, oppressed and neglected people. Their woes still go unaddressed. If Mr Mugabe ignores proffered incentives to reform and quits the organisation, they will be more alone than ever.

Despite his physical absence, Mr Mugabe's extraordinary capacity for division and destruction found a wider field of action at this summit. The Mugabe problem diverted time and attention away from crucial issues for Africa like poverty reduction, fair trade and HIV-Aids. When they go home, leaders like Mr Blair can to some extent leave such problems behind. Africans cannot. They live them every day. To the extent that Abuja was a missed opportunity, Mr Mugabe and his apologists were to blame. All Africans should draw the obvious conclusion.