Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/06/02/mugabe_out_of_africa.php
Thursday, June 2, 2005
"Zimbabwe, long destitute, teeters towards ruin." So went the headline of a recent New York Times article on the South African nation that is now, just weeks later, barreling towards destruction—"ruin" coming in the form of famine, bankruptcy, and widespread disorder that might erupt in civil war.
You won't hear about Zimbabwe's plight from its people. Ordinary citizens are too busy either fleeing or scrambling for food; approximately 3 million have left for surrounding countries, while, of those that remain—nearly half, or over 5 million—are on the verge of starvation. Politically active Zimbabweans, meanwhile, speak out against president-cum-dictator Robert Mugabe at their own risk; merely being a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is sufficient to get one tossed in jail by Central Intelligence Organization thugs.
Mugabe, president since black majority rule began in the former Southern Rhodesia in 1980, was once a revolutionary hero. However, since the defeat of a constitutional referendum that would have consolidated his power in 2000, Mugabe has ruled his people with an ever-tighter iron fist that has now become a choke-hold.
The centerpiece of this reign of terror was the armed seizure of 4,000 farms from remaining white settlers. In principle, this was a popular redistribution of wealth. In practice, it was a means of rewarding political elites loyal to the regime while leaving the Zimbabwean people on the brink of starvation, for the farms' new owners have neither the desire nor the ability to productively work the land. Mugabe nonetheless turned away donations from the World Food Programme last year, promising a bountiful harvest; now Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, is left begging for handouts from the United Nations.
The political situation is almost as bad as the economic one. Mugabe's narrow re-election in 2002 was made possible by widespread violence and voter intimidation. In parliamentary elections in March of this year, he found it easier to rig the contest outright, giving his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Popular Front (ZANU-PF) a decisive victory that unbiased international observers agree it did not win.
However, this victory was not won without widespread suffering, which is where Becca Heller comes in. Heller, a Dartmouth senior who is in close contact with the MDC, might seem an unlikely mouthpiece for the Zimbabwean opposition. But, as one of the only Westerners willing and able to visit the country, she has proved exceedingly adept in this rather accidental role.
It all began in the fall of 2003. At the request of a Dartmouth professor, Heller, who was planning a trip to southern Africa with classmate Sally Newman, agreed to take medical supplies donated by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to a Zimbabwean charity. After the pair smuggled the medicine—along with a hitchhiking Namibian soldier—into the country, Heller was amazed at how much food they were able purchase for so little money. Hiking in Lesotho a few weeks later, Heller vowed to fundraise and return.
After applying for and receiving a Senior Fellowship—which allows a select number of Dartmouth students to complete an interdisciplinary project in lieu of a major—Heller returned to Zimbabwe in January 2005, seeking to enhance food security. After working with various charities, she decided to establish community gardens aimed at improving the health and nutrition of the sick—particularly those with AIDS—on the rationale that they suffer the most during food shortages.
All this seems fairly nonpolitical, but Heller soon came to the conclusion that the only sustainable long-term solution for food security was regime change. Remaking on the old proverb that, "If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day; if you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime," she says, "That misses the point if someone else owns the pond and won't let you fish there." So it is in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe used food as a political tool before the most recent election, withholding food from anyone thought to be supporting the opposition. Meanwhile, after months of long lines—Heller says the country was virtually without drinking water—he released large stores just before the vote in an attempt to deceive people about the severity of the current crisis.
"Do you want to do something interesting?" These were the words that marked Heller's transition from food to politics during her January visit. They were uttered by her host while she was discussing her conviction that Mugabe must go, and, upon replying in the affirmative, Heller found herself living and working with Zimbabwe's shadow minister of justice. The world of intrigue she soon entered was surreal: "I am attending midnight underground human rights meetings with the executive board of the opposition where I am the only woman and the only child under the age of 50," she wrote in a January dispatch.
Yet, "for some reason people are listening to what I have to say" Heller also wrote. With her experience on numerous American political campaigns, she was soon became a trusted political consultant for the MDC. When she returned to the states, she smuggled out an interview with the wife of jailed former MP Roy Bennett, a white farmer who has sustained literally dozens of attacks on his farm and who was sentenced to a year in prison for shoving a ZANU-PF colleague. Currently, she is planning a fall university tour for opposition leaders that would double as a fundraising trip for the MDC.
That is, of course, if Zimbabwe doesn't erupt into violence. The food shortage has crippled the country's exports, depleting its foreign exchange reserves and bringing virtually the entire economy to a grinding halt. Unemployment stands at around three-quarters; inflation is 350 percent per annum. According to Heller, youths regularly roll tobacco with banknotes; Zimbabwean currency isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
For the past week, security forces have ravaged the informal sector, the last functioning remnant of the economy, by destroying the stalls of thousands of street traders. The rationale: eliminating "illegal" competition for the Chinese, whom Mugabe has encouraged to invest in the country in a desperate bid for money and weapons. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of squatters have been forced from their makeshift homes. Small skirmishes have broken out in some urban neighborhoods, and tension is nearing the breaking point.
Who cares, you may ask? Things are equally bad in many countries throughout Africa, and Zimbabwe has, so far at least, experienced minimal fatalities. But that is exactly the point: while little short of military intervention can be done to stop, say, the ongoing genocide in the Sudan [see TDR 5/13/05], civil war in Zimbabwe can be prevented quite easily. While other African nations have been war-torn for decades, Zimbabwe—once the crown jewel of Africa—was peaceful and prosperous until just a few years ago. And, if Mugabe is removed, it can be so again.
How, then, to do this? Mugabe is already a pariah in the West. Though Zimbabwe has rarely appeared on the radar screen of global issues, President Bush has denounced its president as a despot, imposing travel restrictions and other sanctions. The only solution is to convince African nations who have stood by Mugabe to do the same.
The target then, because of both its vulnerability to the West and influence in the region, should be South Africa. The necessary measures are straightforward: South Africa supplies 100% of Zimbabwe's electricity, so cutting off the power, along with restricting the travel of regime leaders, would destabilize the Mugabe regime almost instantly.
Effecting them, however, will require diplomatic muscle. South African President Thabo Mbeki is a longtime ally of Mugabe's, and his parliament's observer team to the March poll recently came to the startling and patently ludicrous conclusion that "the 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections represented the will of the people of Zimbabwe" (Mbeki is no stranger to fantasy; he once decreed that HIV does not cause AIDS).
South Africa has its own economic struggles, and Washington should employ a combination of the carrot and the stick in persuading Mbeki to change his tune—offering economic assistance if South Africa puts pressure on Mugabe, while threatening to withhold that it does provide if Mbeki fails to comply. Moreover, while denouncing Mugabe any further would be ineffectual, President Bush should be prepared to speak out against Mbeki and other African leaders if these incentives fail, not relenting until free and fair elections are held.
Meanwhile, Heller, who has returned to Dartmouth, corresponds frequently with her Zimbabwean friends. She complains that MDC leaders lack the courage to take on Mugabe directly and believes an under-fed and fed-up people would overthrow him if only someone would lead them. People are willing to bear any cost in order to avoid a civil war, she says, but, at this point, they might not have a choice.