High Commissions to Embassies and Back Again?

Ordinarily one cannot accuse the many tourists who walk towards Trafalgar Square in London of being oblivious towards their surroundings. Particularly given the picturesque historical buildings that occupy the Strand, one of the many roads leading to that magnificent symbol of British architecture; Trafalgar Square.

However, sometime during December 2003 Zimbabwe House, on the Strand, was subject to some sort of magical metamorphosis that shook the Commonwealth organisation and its member countries. Zimbabwe House turned from a High Commission into an Embassy.

This political symbolism, irrelevant to your average tourist, was the result of the Zimbabwean government’s decision to leave the Commonwealth on the 11th of December 2003. At the time Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, responded by saying ‘all [Commonwealth] members will be saddened’, he continued, ‘members of the Commonwealth will continue to seek to engage Zimbabwe to promote national reconciliation and facilitate its return to the Commonwealth’.

Despite this, four years later, Zimbabwe is firmly ‘off the agenda’ for CHOGM 2007, the justification for this is the fact that Zimbabwe is no longer a member of the Commonwealth. It does not take an international relations academic, or ambivalent tourist, to question this apparent U-turn in policy. Concerned Commonwealth citizens and civil-society organisations, led by the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS), are beginning to stand up and make their voices heard above the political parapet that dictates the Commonwealth can no longer be engaged with Zimbabwe. Stuart Mole, Director-General of the RCS said, ‘the Commonwealth cannot ignore Zimbabwe. Just as it kept faith with the people of South Africa during that countries anti-apartheid struggle, so it now has a duty to act on Zimbabwe.’

A brief foray into history shows that, as in South Africa, the Commonwealth played a significant role in facilitating Rhodesia’s emergence into a democratic and representative Zimbabwe following the white minority government declaring UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence). In Rhodesia the Commonwealth continued to support and engage with liberation movements; justified by the fact that the government did not represent the people. Therefore irrespective of the government’s decision to leave the Commonwealth, the people of Rhodesia remained part of the Commonwealth family.

A similar challenge faces the Commonwealth today, however the organisation’s inaction cannot solely be attributed to a lack of political will. President Mugabe has cleverly manipulated and played upon the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty, the bastion upon which the international system is based, is viewed as an untouchable within international politics. Mugabe has utilised this perception and made his position clear with regards to the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe’s sovereignty, in his eyes they are mutually exclusive; Zimbabwe cannot have both, ‘If the choice was made for us, one for us to lose our sovereignty and become a member of the Commonwealth or to remain with our sovereignty and lose membership of the Commonwealth, then I would say, then let the Commonwealth go’.

Mugabe is of course wrong; the Commonwealth does not have to ignore Zimbabwe completely for fear of infringing on its sovereignty. The very essence of the Commonwealth and what makes it a force for good in the modern world is its use of ‘soft’ power. To put it simply soft power is the ability to use an attraction to shared values to engender co-operation. Democracy, lacking in Zimbabwe, is one such shared value espoused by the Commonwealth. CHOGM presents an ideal opportunity for the Commonwealth to engage with Zimbabwe, as leaders will be behind closed doors without the plethora of advisors, international commitments, obligations and conventions to stop them simply talking about Zimbabwe.

Those outside the political process may question the effectiveness of soft power in the same way a wide-eyed tourist may question the practical significance of Zimbabwe House turning from a High Commission into an Embassy. As the old adage goes: the first step towards fixing a problem is realising you have one. By fellow Commonwealth leaders publicly acknowledging Zimbabwe is lacking in democracy; countries may not be so afraid to tip toe around Zimbabwe for fear of infringing on its sovereignty.

The writer works for the Royal Commonwealth Society and the article represents the views of the author as an individual and not the views of the Royal Commonwealth Society or any affiliated Commonwealth organisations.