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Zimbabwe on the edge of the precipice

posted by impuku | 20.12.2008 15:42

by Mary Ndlovu (2008-12-17)
Mary Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean human rights activist.
 http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/52784




With its power-sharing agreement manifestly failing, Zimbabwe is on the
brink of collapse, writes Mary Ndlovu. The author argues that in the
face of an entrenched kleptocratic elite, life grows ever more difficult
for the country’s population, a situation markedly exacerbated by a
broader political culture of selfishness undermining the development of
any form of effective collective action. Without an internationally
sponsored, technocratically based transitional authority to replace
ZANU-PF as soon as possible, Zimbabwe may yet be spoken of in the same
breath as Somalia and the eastern DR Congo, she concludes.

Soldiers go on the rampage against civilians, nurses steal medicines to
sell to patients, teachers abandon their schools, the government spends
money to buy judges plasma screen televisions, while the nation starves
and dies of cholera. Civil servants obtain their ‘salary’ by charging
for ‘services’ provided, police arrest suspects only to get the bribe
required before releasing them. Groups of unidentified men, undoubtedly
state agents, kidnap and abduct people from their homes and offices. And
party politicians – rejected by the electorate – masquerade as
‘ministers’ issuing threats, denials and insults even as the waves of
disaster lap around their feet.

Surely this is a moral crisis above all else, a crisis of leadership, a
crisis of citizenship, a failure of human beings to demonstrate the
human spirit in any form. Zimbabwe has joined the league of societies
whose collapse demonstrates how a venal, self-interested leadership can
destroy an entire nation; political structures, economic structures,
families and many individuals all crooked, twisted, debilitated and
dying as expressions of any positive human endeavour. And we the people
have allowed our most precious institutions to be destroyed and our
nation to disintegrate.

On the one side we have a kleptocratic elite sucking the oozing
lifeblood out of the economy they have wounded, clinging to the corpse
like leeches, and refusing to be dislodged until no sign of life
remains. On the other we have a stunned citizenry, incapable of making
any strategic response, and looking for individual salvation when only a
collective answer will bring the change they so desire. The contest
can’t even be elevated to a struggle between good and evil – evil is
everywhere, but where is the good? To be sure, any form of good is
difficult to recognise in the timid opposition, which has only managed,
correctly or incorrectly, to present an image of self-interested
ditherers. Meanwhile, the population flounders, leaderless and adrift in
a life-and-death crisis.

A few years ago, when our current crisis was just developing,
commentators identified a worst-case scenario: the country’s total
breakdown into anarchy or warlordism, probably to be avoided, but
ultimately possible. Today, this scenario is about to become a reality
and a senior United Nations official has already declared Zimbabwe a
failed state. We have no functioning government, little revenue, a
shadow of a civil service, play money which surfaces on the black market
before it reaches the commercial banks, sewage in the streets, in
houses, even in clinics, and increasing numbers of ‘disappeared’.

Responsibility lies with ZANU-PF for governing solely in their own
interests, using every crude tactic to remain in power when they have
been rejected by the people at the polls. But the victims of tyranny
have choices in how they respond. The opposition, while gaining
overwhelming support, has failed to translate this backing into
effective power of any kind. Civil society is divided, careerist, and as
ineffective as the opposition in producing positive results from unified
action. Numerous creative and competent individuals prefer to work from
outside the country, distancing themselves from the people for the sake
of their families and their careers. Individual choices must be
respected, but there is no doubt that collectively we have failed. A
failed state, a failed opposition, a failed nation, and now possibly a
failed region.

Today, Zimbabweans look at each other and shake their heads. How could
we have allowed this to happen? But even more critically, what can we do
about it?

At first, the opposition MDC’s efforts seemed to be well placed: take
the electoral route to challenge the dictator, remain non-violent, stay
on the side of morality, and stay the course. When all this proved
inadequate to dislodge a tyranny, instead of taking the more difficult
route of mass mobilisation, they appealed to other regional governments
to resolve the problem. This turned out to be a fatal blunder, at least
for the Zimbabwean masses. The response from African governments was not
sympathy but prevarication, stony hearts and cowardly policies. And
while the MDC leadership has spent their time in negotiations in South
Africa or jetting around Africa and the Western world to press their
cause, they have neglected their followers at home, leaving them to face
the deepening crises of hunger and disease without any hope or any
direction.

In spite of their diplomatic offensive, the MDC has failed to convince
African governments of what seems patently obvious, that there is not
much point of an election if the loser gets to stay in power and share
it – unevenly at that – with the winner. This is clearly neither
democratic nor fair. But it was the best that African governments could
offer. Hence we arrived at the power-sharing talks of the past five
months, which have squeezed out a GPA (global political agreement) which
purports to create an ‘inclusive’ government under a new interim
constitution. But this African government policy has also failed because
it is clear that ZANU-PF has no intention of genuine power sharing, and
the opposition refuses to be led into what they perceive as a trap.

Hence we carry on at frenetic speed towards the precipice, as the
negotiators dilly dally on the sidelines, becoming increasingly
irrelevant to the problems of daily life. While politicians may believe
they are standing on principle, people have lost faith in almost all of
them. What people want is a government that functions to bring piped
clean water, food, medical care, schools with teachers, banks with money
that can actually buy things, and the overall decent standard of living
that these represent. They want a government that serves the people
instead of exploiting, oppressing and terrorising them.

There are now only two possibilities: either we fall over the precipice
and crash, or someone snatches our sinking craft just before it smashes
onto the rocks below. That crash would be the last final spasm bringing
death to Zimbabwe as we have known it. It would herald the
disintegration of all semblance of order, the descent into a
free-for-all grab for food, water, medicines, and homes – any and all
resources – by those who take the law into their own hands. That would
be the classic finale which has come to be synonymous with Somalia –
warlords and armed might in place of government and law. And no one
should carry any illusion that it could be reversed without years of
Herculean effort.

The other possibility is a rescue. Who would rescue us and how could it
be done? Could the power-sharing agreement still be the answer? The MDC
now has little choice but to participate on whatever terms they can
squeeze out and attempt to make something of it. Certainly this carries
a risk of becoming irrelevant, trapped in a situation they do not
control. But they appear to have no other strategy to save Zimbabwe from
total destruction, so they must cooperate with the regional presidents.

However, it looks highly unlikely at this point that power-sharing can
work between ZANU-PF, a pernicious monster excoriated by all Zimbabweans
who are not part of it, and MDC, once hugely popular but now
considerably discredited after failing to match ZANU-PF’s clever
manipulations. If they do reach an agreement, however unsatisfactory for
the MDC and for Zimbabweans, and form something which can be called a
government, will they be able to achieve anything? Will they be able to
work together in any way to stem the rising tide of cholera, restart the
economy, and reform the civil service?

Hardly. ZANU-PF has made it crystal clear that they will frustrate MDC
at every turn. The recent spate of abductions of opposition and civil
society activists leaves no doubt about their intentions. Weeks and
months will go by as the players test each other out, jockey, manoeuvre,
undermine and frustrate each other, while little will be done to deal
with all the problems driving Zimbabweans to the borders in search of
food, medicine, jobs and survival. Little will be done to rein in those
who take the law into their own hands, and anarchy is likely to prevail
even in the presence of a power-sharing government.

If our politicians cannot rescue us, who can? The international
community? So far, they have been unwilling. But cholera is a powerful
little virus. Not only can it kill, it can wake up sleeping politicians.
Cholera is threatening the region. South Africa in particular has
billions of rand of investment at stake – investment in the 2010 soccer
World Cup, for a start. Can they allow political niceties such as
‘sovereignty’ to hold them back when cholera, which has the audacity not
to respect sovereignty of nations, storms their borders? Possibly,
cholera, while taking its victims, may yet be our rescuer. The South
Africans have already sent personnel and materials to assist in the
fight to curb the disease, a fight spearheaded by UNICEF and the World
Health Organization (WHO). But as long as they try to work with ZANU-PF
we know that there will be interference, corruption and ultimately failure.

The signs are, however, that African governments, while gaining a
greater sense of urgency, still appear to believe power-sharing can work
and are calling for renewed negotiations while sending band aid
assistance to deal with the cholera. If they believe in power-sharing,
then they must make sure that they place enough pressure on ZANU-PF to
ensure that ‘sharing’ does not become a dead word like ‘comrade’. They
must impose deadlines for effective forward movement and insist that
they will not tolerate continued prevarication by ZANU-PF. They must
stop placing pressure on the perceived soft target, MDC, and learn to
face the real obstacle, Robert Mugabe, and stare him down with strong
words and credible threats. Even then, however, ZANU-PF is highly
unlikely to change, and MDC would simply waste more time and eventually
be forced to return to the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
with a story of failure.

Is there an alternative to power sharing? There is, but it would require
even more backbone from the regional governments. Many members of
Zimbabwe’s civil society were calling a year ago for the formation of a
transitional authority. They believed then that ZANU-PF should be out of
the equation if the country was to stop its slide into chaos and begin
to build again. Many of these members now feel that we have wasted more
than a year holding elections which ZANU-PF never intended to allow
themselves to lose, and trying to share power with an entity which can
imagine nothing beyond their own greed. If the international community
could now realise that we need an internationally sponsored,
technocratically based transitional authority, and move quickly to
install such an authority, we might yet be rescued. It will require
cooperation on the part of the Zimbabwean opposition to stop playing
power games and allow those who can do the job to move into place –
doctors, nurses, engineers, administrators who can restore clean water
supplies, tackle sewage and transport, while distributing massive
amounts of food aid, treating the sick, and assisting farmers to prepare
for next winter’s agricultural season. This technical approach must be
spread to the entire governmental sphere and it must be coordinated by a
temporary administration.

Such a transition would need at least two years to get underway,
re-establish basic services, get food production going, and then deal
with governance issues through providing a framework for constitutional
reform, and elections at the end of the period.

We hear that today the UN is moving out of Kosovo after ten full years
of developing an administration – can Zimbabwe not expect to benefit
from at least a mere two years? Should we not demand that we should be
treated with equal consideration?

But this solution requires a new understanding and a new approach by
regional governments. It cannot be promoted by timid African government
leaders who are afraid to stare down Robert Mugabe in a meeting, but
simply bow to his bullying. It would need a no-nonsense, heavy hand to
convince ZANU-PF that they have no option but to step aside, and if they
refuse, the region would have to be prepared to force them. The chorus
of voices calling for just that is growing and is now heard in
throughout Africa.

So neither of these options looks promising, whether it be power-sharing
by Zimbabwean political parties or the installation of an
internationally supervised, technocratic administration, any solution
requires much stronger commitment from regional governments to deal
emphatically with Mr Mugabe, something we have yet to see.

Zimbabweans simply cannot understand the apparent perversity of the
South African government. Why can they not see the obvious, even when
they are themselves in danger? Are they blinded by the 1990s success of
their own political history? Are they mistaking Robert Mugabe for
another De Klerk? Or are they too absorbed in their own political
survival to deflect their attentions to the north?

If effective power-sharing or coordinated international administration
does not replace ZANU-PF within the coming weeks, the alternative could
be calamitous for the region. We could see the increasing flight of
Zimbabweans to neighbouring countries, bringing with them disease of
various kinds, desperation, and crime, along with the country’s coming
to resemble the eastern DRC or Somalia, with lawless bands of armed men
preying on the population, disappearances rising from dozens to
thousands, and a haven for all kinds of international criminal activity,
including drug running, illegal diamond trading, human trafficking,
illegal small arms trading, and even terrorist training. The choice
seems now almost beyond the reach of Zimbabweans. Having preferred
individual over collective responses to our tragedy, we have passed on
the collective response to the region. If the region fails to take up
the challenge to insist on effective administration, preferably by an
internationally supervised transitional authority, they will also suffer
the consequences. Within a few months Zimbabwe will have tipped over the
edge, and the failure to intervene to prevent further tragedy will bring
disaster on all of us.

posted by impuku

Comments

Display the following 5 comments

  1. Alternatively — S
  2. Precisely! — I. Smith
  3. oi smithy noooooooooo — disgusted
  4. Ironic? — Norville B
  5. PAC condemns Zim invasion calls — insidejob
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