Belmont Club ----My own simpleminded take on all this, without the benefit of special knowledge or experience in southern Africa is that the opposition to Mugabe will be nonviolent for now, but is unlikely to remain so for long. The reason: food. The Washington Post reports that Zimbabwe's granaries are empty and the only prospect of replenishment is international food aid. The UN is on the case: when Mugabe's in need, the UN will heed.
Zimbabwe, facing fears of widespread famine, has welcomed the resumption of international food donations that could feed up to 4 million people, U.N. officials reported Wednesday. President Robert Mugabe had curtailed such aid last year, saying the country could feed itself.
After meeting with Mugabe in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, U.N officials said the delivery of several hundred thousand metric tons of food would begin as soon as supplies were collected and routed to Zimbabwe. The food will be directed to schools, orphanages and work programs because Zimbabwean officials have objected to the creation of centers that would distribute food to the general population, the officials said.
Mugabe's ploy puts the West in the classic dilemma of either propping up a despot with taxpayer-funded food aid or withholding it, whereupon the Left will immediately yell "Bush is using food as a weapon!". For example, last year the Christian Science Monitor ran an opinion piece from a Mennonite Pastor denouncing malnutrition as a "weapon" in the context of Cuba. Why should it be different from Zimbabwe:
Ever since President Carter's discredited sanctions preventing grain sales to Russia, most US politicians have disavowed the use of hunger as a weapon. In 2000, George W. Bush said in a presidential debate, "We shouldn't be using food as a diplomatic weapon." For good reason: Food embargoes don't work. Aiming "weapons of malnutrition" at Cubans will only weaken America's moral standing in an era of great challenge to its foreign policy. The correct path for US-Cuba relations goes in a different direction.
Unfortunately for the Left, even if the evil Bush administration meekly handed Mugabe all the grain he could glom there's a good chance his despicable and corrupt regime would simply sell or hoard it. One way or the other, what is nearly certain is that conditions will continue to worsen. The second probability is that Mugabe will not react gently to Stay Away. He has gotten away with so much, so often from the spineless "International Community" -- you know the one that provides unparalleled "legitimacy" -- that he will odds-on overdo his response. What then? I think Professor Stanford Mukasa, a Zimbabwean teaching journalism at a US college had it right when he said that Zimbabweans could not expect the cavalry to ride over the hill, massacre or no.
“Zimbabwe is not sitting by the rivers of Babylon,” he said. “Many people outside the country cannot understand why there has been an absence of anger for so long. We know how ruthless and brutal the Mugabe fascist regime can be… they are terrorizing the population. But the international community is looking to the people of Zimbabwe … to stage a spontaneous uprising. The question is – can they do it on their own or do we look to civil leadership to play that role?”
Well, maybe not the US Cavalry but George Bush has been looking for a few good men. At a meeting with Thabo Mbeki recently, President Bush said:
the South African leader gave him a briefing on regional efforts to help end the political crisis in Zimbabwe, where Washington says April legislative elections were neither free nor fair. "Obviously, we are concerned about a leadership that does not adhere to democratic principles, and obviously concerned about a country that was able to, for example, feed itself and now has to import food as an example of the consequence of not adhering to democratic principles," he said.
President Mbeki says he told Mr. Bush that African leaders are working with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders to encourage them to look at changing the constitution and the legislature to create the political basis for a stable, democratic system. "What is really critically important is to see in what ways we can support the opposition party and the ruling party in Zimbabwe to overcome their problems," he said. "And clearly one of the critically important things to do is to make sure that you have the political arrangements that address matters of the rule of law."
This suggests that GWB is looking for a regional partner that can actually intervene in Zimbabwe if it falls to pieces, but that Mbeki isn't biting, for now. All the same, I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. European Command, which has responsibility for Southern Africa, isn't drawing up some contingency plan on what it will take to support the RSA if it has to go into Zimbabwe. Bottom line: things are going to have to get a lot worse before Mbeki and the "International Community" get themselves in gear. But when they do success will depend on the groundwork that is even now being laid by the USA. Given Mugabe, it is just a question of when. |
