Posted on 12/16/2003 5:03:25 AM PST by Clive
One major change emerges from the events at Abuja that led to Zimbabwe's continued suspension and subsequent resignation from the Commonwealth. Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo will now take over from President Thabo Mbeki as the lead player in trying to bring about political change in Zimbabwe.
Until now Obasanjo has deferred to Mbeki's policy of "quiet diplomacy", taking the view that Zimbabwe was within South Africa's sphere of influence and it should therefore take the lead in dealing with this problem - just as Nigeria has taken the lead with its regional problems in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
But now Obasanjo emerges from the Abuja summit as chairman of the Commonwealth and head of a special seven-man committee mandated to try to implement a "road map" to bring Zimbabwe back into the club.
At the same time Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy" has manifestly failed, and he has emerged from Abuja with his international prestige and influence damaged.
Mbeki's strategy was based on the belief that the best way to persuade Robert Mugabe to leave office was to enable him to retire in dignity; that condemnation and isolation would make him more bloody-minded and aggressive.
Mbeki may have been right in this, but his approach was complicated by the fact that he did not want to see the ruling Zanu-PF party ousted from power and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) take over. He seems to have an innate dislike of the MDC, perhaps a doubt about its ability to govern, but more likely because he didn't like the prospect of a liberation movement being ousted by a post-struggle opposition party spawned by the country's labour movement. A discomfiting precedent for the leader of the ANC alliance.
In addition, Mbeki seems to have been haunted by a fear that other African leaders might label him a stooge of the white Western world if he appeared to be siding with it against an African liberation leader of Mugabe's stature.
He believes emphatically, and wrongly in my opinion, that the West is upset over Zimbabwe only because some white farmers have been maltreated, and that the white world generally cares little about much worse atrocities elsewhere in Africa.
To him, therefore, it is a racist issue of discriminatory outrage. And that angers him.
Whatever the merits of these views, the fact is they inhibited Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy" to a point where, in the words of Wits University's Tom Lodge, the policy became so low-key, so nuanced, so subtle that it became invisible.
The result was that Mugabe played Mbeki for a fool. With no meaningful pressure on him, Mugabe carried on as usual leaving Mbeki to bat for him on the international field with repeated assurances that talks were taking place between Zanu-PF and the MDC and that Mugabe would be gone by next June.
In fact, no negotiations were taking place. At most there were some informal one-on-one discussions earlier this year between MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube and the Minister of Justice, Patrick Chinamaso, about a possible new constitution, and a group of three Zimbabwe bishops shuttled briefly between Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Nothing substantive, and even these flimsy contacts broke off nearly four months ago and there has been nothing since.
Meanwhile violent repression and intimidation of opposition supporters has intensified rather than receded, peaceful protest demonstrations have been broken up and leaders arrested, the independent Daily News has been closed in violation of a court order, partisan distribution of food aid continues, the trial of Tsvangirai on patently trumped-up treason charges goes on, and the country's precipitous economic decline continues.
The human rights situation in Zimbabwe today is considerably worse than it was when Zimbabwe was first suspended from the Commonwealth.
To have readmitted it in the face of that would have been a travesty.
This Obasanjo realised when he made a recent visit to Zimbabwe. It was then that he decided, as the conference host, not to invite Mugabe to Abuja.
At the conference itself he won over seven of the 18 African Commonwealth countries to vote against South Africa's attempt to unseat the organisation's secretary-general, New Zealander Don McKinnon, which was a test run for the bigger contest to come.
Obasanjo won over the entire West African bloc - Ghana, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Gambia and his own Nigeria - plus Kenya, Botswsana and Mauritius. No vote was taken on the Zimbabwe issue, which had to be decided by consensus. In the end South Africa was the only country holding out for Zimbabwe's admission, finally yielding only after Britain's Tony Blair met privately with Mbeki and presumably uttered a few warnings about the future of Nepad.
Now Obasanjo comes away from Abuja specifically charged with trying to implement the roadmap to get Zimbabwe back in the Commonwealth. It is a daunting task given Mugabe's stubbornness, belligerence and oversized ego.
But Obasanjo is an experienced negotiator. He played an important early role in South Africa's own transition when he came here as co-chairman of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group in 1986 and, after shuttling between the exiled ANC in Lusaka, the PW Botha regime in Pretoria and Nelson Mandela in Pollsmoor Prison, enabled that organisation to establish for the first time that there was the possibility of a negotiated solution.
He later played an important role in his own country's recovery from the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha, who imprisoned and nearly killed him. More recently he was the key figure in removing the murderous Charles Taylor from Liberia. Taylor now lives in exile in Nigeria.
Most important though, is that Obasanjo will almost certainly follow a different strategy from Mbeki's. We can expect to see him try to expand the base of African states which have already rallied behind his tougher position, beginning with the other 11 Commonwealth members.
His objective must be to try to confront Mugabe with a united front of African leaders urging him to leave office for the sake of his stricken country. If he can make progress in this direction, I believe Mbeki will fall in line with the general trend - albeit quietly, as he has done on the HIV/Aids issue. He is unlikely to go out on a limb and campaign for Mugabe if the African tide begins to turn.
Obasanjo will have another advantage as well. As chairman of the Commonwealth he will not be as easily thrust aside as his predecessor, Australia's John Howard. Mugabe dismissed Howard contemptuously as part of the "racist white" Commonwealth. He cannot do that to the leader of Africa's most populous nation, and certainly not if Obasanjo can rally other African leaders behind him.
Their case must be simple. It is not just a matter of a few thousand whites being badly treated, although that in itself is a contemptuous violation of human rights. But Zimbabwe today is a major African tragedy in progress with an authoritarian government oppressing its people and an economy in a state of collapse, causing widespread suffering, with millions of people starving, millions more fleeing into exile, and hundreds of thousands dying from the interaction of AIDS and malnutrition.
The longer Mugabe stays, the more that catastrophic situation will worsen exponentially. Africa must save one of its own.
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