It wasn’t clear over the weekend how the Zimbabwe crisis could manage to get more complicated but now we know: Morgan Tsvangirai has taken refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare. It seems that he was left with little choice since, far from seeing his withdrawal from Friday’s “election” as a concession, the state security apparatus was taking the opportunity to crush the MDC. A few things now seem clearer. First, the EU is now drawn into the crisis more than before. The US and UK are probably relieved that it wasn’t their embassies. Second, the regional approach to crisis resolution has failed i.e. leaving it to the Southern African Development Community. And it has failed because of Thabo Mbeki [Incidentally, I once heard a South African political comedian observe that you can’t spell Thabo without Botha].  Any notion that Mugabe had enough reasonableness left in him to ease towards a compromise is gone — his plan was to unleash all the thugs this week, no matter what.   Anyway, one hopes that the EU can look up long enough from the Irish dossier to see a crisis looming.
A Fistful Of Euros
European Opinion
But what is the EU to do? When can fly out Morgan Tsvangirai but that is essentially everything.
“When” should actually mean “we”. I wanted to say “We can fly out Morgan Tsvangirai but that is essentially everything.”
From a distance of course they are very handicapped. But the quiet diplomacy of letting Mbeki sort it out is going nowhere. It’s not even clear that Mbeki has put much thought into the question of where millions of Zimbabweans will be headed as the place further implodes. So I would say that Step 1 for the EU is to identify lame ducks where they see one.
Step 1 would be to figure out why we care.
The countries that would take the refugees will have to act anyway.
The Mugabe problem is for the Africans to solve. The EU has no business tdo meddle in that mess. Did it mix up with Idi Amin or Charles Taylor ? Not to mention Issène Habré and other African dictators
Mbeki’s problem is that if there’s a civil war in Zimbabwe, even more people are going to head over the border. Perhaps those begging him to kick one off might remember that.
Probably now the best bet is to declare a wide-ranging amnesty for all those outside the top 100 of ZANU, Zim army and Air Force leaders, then watch the middle layers fall away and come to terms. The people who have to reach a united front on that declaration are Africans, not Europeans (though to be credible the amnesty would probably need a Security Council resolution backing it up).
The best thing for the UK government to do here is to shut up, and keep its head down within any EU effort (perhaps unconditionally and quietly throwing in the Lancaster House funds to any settlement). Those who profess to care could, for example, offer to underwrite the costs to the South African economy of the ongoing Zimbabwean refugee influx. Otherwise, it’s all the worst kind of posturing.
Of course, Europe was very heavily involved in South Africa during the transition to apartheid.
It seems to me that there are a lot of things Europe could do that wouldn’t involve armed force that it isn’t doing. Paying high-profile visits to Botswana, for example, while snubbing South Africa. Issuing statements in support of South African trade unions, who know state repression when they see it.
Ultimately, Mugabe is going to die, and then things will change, though maybe that will just mean another genocide of Nbedele.
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All of these suggestions for diplomacy are fine, except for the fact that people are dying. This is the problem with diplomacy.
The alternatives to diplomacy are comprehensive sanctions and/or war. These kill people too, always in numbers larger than ZANU have managed since 1983. Often they kill people in numbers larger than ZANU have ever managed.
NB – I have no brief for ZANU, who have royally screwed up the lives of several of my friends.
Chris,
From what you are suggesting, there is nothing that can be done. The people of Zimbabwe should just resign themselves that they are going to die from either Mugabe thugs killing them, or they are going to starve to death.
Well Tom, you might want to scroll up the thread to where I suggest that there _is_ something that can be done: indict the top 100 ZANU criminals, pardon the rest, and wait for the coup. But it’s the AU who need to make the first move. Meanwhile, us UKnians who proclaim that it’s morally horrible to stand by could perhaps keep ourselves busy by lobbying our government to overthrow the house of Saud.
Chris,
Since the AU has not made a move, the people of Zimbabwe are either going to be killed by Mugabe, or they are going to starve to death. That is some choice that you suggest.
Yeah, you’re right Tom – let’s bomb them. That always works.
Chris,
If you were to ask a typical Zimbabwean who is either under threat of death from Mugabe’s thugs or is starving to death, my bet is that they would vote for military intervention to remove Mugabe. Your liberal view that there should never be war is naive, and people in Zimbabwe are dying because of that viewpoint.
Tom
I don’t hold a liberal view that there should never be war. This might be because I’m not a liberal. I can, however, count. This year in Zimbabwe hundreds of people have been killed by ZANU-PF. I can’t get any easy figures for current rates of excess deaths from famine – can you help me? But nobody’s coming out with them, either, which would imply that the threatened (and all-too-likely) famine has yet to arrive.
Any conceivable war in Zimbabwe would kill hundreds: it’s likely to lead to a crisis of subsistence which would kill tens of thousands. Thus I can’t accept your logic, which is to argue that people are dying and thus war should be welcome. War kills people too. You need to shift your argument to different grounds (perhaps, ‘freedom is worth some deaths’) before I’m going to take it seriously.
And if a majority of Zimbabweans were in favour of an actual war, we’d probably see some signs of it: I have not come across any evidence that (for example) MDC groups, or even Ndebele nationalist groups, are themselves attempting to engage in armed struggle against ZANU-PF. If you’ve got any I’d be happy to see it. Any response to that point which argues that they’ve not started shooting because they are totally cowed by the ZANU-PF apparatus brings into focus the fact that dismantling that apparatus is going to cost lots of lives. Do you have any suggestions as to who’s going to be doing the fighting and dying to get rid of them?
Here is an article talking to Busani Ncube of the Bulawayo project calling for military action.
http://www.africanloft.com/zimbabwe-time-international-military-intervention/
So killing ZANU-PF members is not worth it to stop them from killing innocent people? By this logic, despots around the world should never be confronted because killing them is costing lives. If you negotiate with them long enough, the killing will stop because the despot will die of old age. I am having an extremely hard time understanding the liberal mindset.