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Interview Part 3: Brian Kagoro and George Ayittey
This is Part 3 of an SW Radio Africa interview for the Hot Seat Programme. Violet Gonda talks with lawyer Brian Kagoro and Ghanaian economist George Ayittey:
Broadcast Tuesday October 17, 2006
Violet: Zimbabwe is collapsing and in this final segment of the teleconference with Dr. George Ayittey and Brian Kagoro we look deeper to see what role the international community can play in helping Zimbabwe move forward.
It is generally agreed that to remove the dictatorship in Zimbabwe the opposition forces need to work together. But what exactly are we asking the pro-democracy groups to do? We start off the discussion by taking a look at the role of the International community. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, is putting out fires in other conflict areas.
We asked Dr Ayittey what he made of his fellow countryman’s approach to the Zimbabwe situation?
George: Oh he has been very, very disappointing. Disappointing in the sense that, I mean, you look at, you know, the operation which I can’t pronounce
Violet: Operation Murambatsvina?
George: Ya, you know that resulted in more than 700 000 people being driven from their shantytowns and rendered homeless. You know the United Nations Envoy came up with a report and that report even the African Union wasn’t really pleased with releasing that particular report. In other words, there is general unwillingness. It seems that, you know, something like Kofi Annan is somewhat afraid of Mugabe or something and doesn’t want to take a position, which is contrary to the African Union position. You know the African Union doesn’t want to criticise Mugabe. Thabo Mbeki sees Mugabe as his buddy; he owes him a huge debt of gratitude. You know during the struggle against apartheid the ANC received a lot of support and material from Mugabe, so, they feel they are indebted to him. But, you know, Kofi Annan should have stood fast against the brutalities against Mugabe but he hasn’t done so
Violet: You know, it’s generally agreed, that there’s this sort of African brotherhood that is keeping Mugabe protected. But what should Kofi Annan really be doing, because others feel it’s not enough to just issue statements criticising Operation Murambatsvina and also what about the African Union and the SADC Region?
George: You know, Kofi Annan is your quintessential diplomat and he’s in a very, very uncomfortable situation as the United Nations Secretary General and I’ve been critical of him also, not just the opposition in Zimbabwe. Look, we want to move Africa forward. Kofi Annan, as I indicated, hop-notches around the world, globetrotting or putting out fires in some hotspots; trouble spots. But, as far as I’m concerned, what we need to do is to prevent these fires from erupting in the first place. Kofi Annan hasn’t done that. Look across Africa, I mean we’ve seen countries like Somalia blow up; Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Togo. Time and time again, we don’t prevent these countries from imploding. But we only sort of rush in with blankets and high protein biscuits after their countries have already blown up. Zimbabwe is on the brink of blowing up. What we have to do is prevent the country from blowing up. Not after the country has blown up then we appeal to the international community for bandage and for this.
Look, the international community, to be blunt with you, is fed up with Africa. Look at Sudan, for example, the Dafur region! Look at Somalia. You know, it seems that time and time again we can’t resolve our problems. We’ll always be appealing to the international community and if I were Kofi Annan this is where I’d put my foot down and tell somebody like Mugabe, for example, that ‘look, if Zimbabwe blows, we’ll hold you personally responsible for the mess in Zimbabwe’. You see look, the time has come for some tough talk, alright. Enough argument, enough debates; the people are suffering. We want new direction, we want focus, for example we’re not getting this, and Kofi Annan is not supplying this, the AU is totally useless. You know, the reason I’m saying this is that it hurts my African pride. Look, we struggled very hard for our independence in the 1960’s; we kicked out the white colonialists but in country after country after country after country, we run our countries down an economic sump, so, if the racists look at us they’ll say ‘ Hey look, we gave these things to the blacks and look at the mess they have made.’ It pains me. And, this is why we need a completely new direction in Africa.
Violet: And, Brian, what are your thoughts on this?
Brian: I think that they could have done more to censure the actions of the Harare regime. In fact, they could have taken much more decisive action, especially where the Commission in Banjul; the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, issued reports. You finally had an instrument and authenticated evidence from an African institution, if the fear was that all other evidence was emanating from the West. Clearly, even in the light of that, they allowed the Zimbabwean Government to clasp at technicalities as a way of avoiding obligations that are agreed to.
In fact, the Zimbabwe has become the Achilles heel of the entire NEPAD and peer review and APRM process. It has made a mockery of any pretence that we are moving towards an African Renaissance; because, if it is a renaissance of the people, this is a classical place where misery of the people is ignored for no good reason. I mean, quiet diplomacy; how does one keep silent in the face of murder and violations on human rights. But, we have seen the same lethargic approach to violations of rights within the context of Dafur. Although Dafur is much bigger than Zimbabwe, it is a worrying factor that the African leadership is very loud in making pronouncements but very weak in taking decisive action to bring to bear and to bring to pass the new African vision of a new democratic and accountably governed continent. So, it is a worrying fact that I think Kofi Annan could have done more; I think African leaders could have done more.
Violet: And, you know the West have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, should regional bodies do the same?
Brian: No, that sanctions thing is really some lunatic position adopted by the West. I mean, firstly, let me say, as a Zimbabwean, that the British government is as implicated in the prolongation of the Zimbabwean crisis as the Mugabe regime is. First, there was a clear obligation at Lancaster to make available resources for land reform. The fact that consistently the British government has refused to accept an obligation which everybody knows it assumed at Lancaster is startling because Mugabe has focused on that particular issue and the British reneging on that particular obligation, and of course, the excuse by the Blair government that they gave 47 million British pounds, and, that this should have sufficed, is nonsensical, because, the estimated value was at US $2 billion. So, that’s one issue; the one issue the international community has fuelled and allowed the excuses that Mugabe gives to sustain the repression in Zimbabwe.
But, sanctions, targeted sanctions, were bound not to work. They were bound not to work because there was an assumption that the only thing the elites wanted to do was to shop at Tottenham Court Road in London or in Paris or in some other place where they used to shop especially not within Zimbabwe. It didn’t deal with the question of individual culpability and liability for the human rights violations. It simply sought to embarrass, and Mugabe still flies to New York, still flies to Rome and still goes everywhere else under the guise of attending the United Nations conferences and other international conferences. So the targeted sanctions have not had the impact. In my view, there was a better approach.
Violet: What was the better approach?
Brian: That better approach was to do exactly what Dr Ayittey has been urging the Zimbabwean opposition to do. There was a clear agreed position that you needed to deal with the question of land reform in Zimbabwe. That could have been removed as an excuse. The bi-lateral exchanges that went on between London Whitehall and Harare were un-necessary, the point scoring between the Blair Government and the Mugabe Government cost Zimbabwean pro-democracy forces a lot of ground. But, we can’t blame them; I think the British had the strategic and political interest in prolonging the crisis. So the better approach would have been to deal with that matter so that African leaders would have a stronger foot to stand on in challenging Mugabe. But, as long as that matter remained unresolved, Mugabe would ask the rest of his colleagues in Africa to ignore the Human Rights situation and characterise the entire national crisis that Dr Ayittey has referred to as ‘an economy almost in near collapse’, as a bi-lateral feud between him and London and the Blair regime.
Violet: But, Brian, on the issue of the British reneging on its promises, was it not the fact that the Zimbabwean Government had been given part of the money and the British then stopped the payments when the Mugabe regime failed to account for this money? I know this is maybe a huge topic that we need to discuss on a separate platform, but was this not the case, just on that specific issue?
Brian: Certainly that’s not the prime excuse. The fact of the matter is the first and everything you read on that land reform is the first attempt at land resettlements did not fail due to corruption. It failed due to the fact that there was no clear plan for its sustainability. So this is the fact. But, let’s leave land alone, and simply say there was a duty incumbent on all actors when you can see that the excuse being given resonates with the broad variety of forces that you need to act in concert to enforce international norms. There was a duty incumbent upon Tony Blair’s government to take a decisive position. Now, the question you might ask is should this money have been given to a regime that has proven to be corrupt and repressive? Where would those resources have been taken to? And, I think there were various possibilities with the emerging African Union and the frameworks it has created that could have facilitated this amount.
This money or the resources required could have been kept in trust by this African body for the purposes of achieving this, and then, you could have dealt with the political question, which is mis-governance in Zimbabwe, as a separate issue. Now, the conflation of that political question with historical injustice issues has totally confused issues. But, that does not account for the failure of the opposition in Zimbabwe; that’s a totally different issue.
Violet: And finally, last word from both of you. It is agreed that no single opposition party or group by itself can remove entrenched tyranny from power and that it takes an alliance of opposition forces, as you’ve both said. But, what is it, in a nutshell that we can say we are asking the progressive forces in Zimbabwe to do?
George: First of all, let me thank you for this opportunity and let me say that I am very much, I have been a supporter of your position, not in words, but also in deeds. I have met with several of the opposition leaders here in Washington and elsewhere. I have been to Zimbabwe by the way, and, I know I have been harsh in my criticism, but they should take this criticism in good faith. If you have a dear friend sometimes it is your dear friend or your relative who tells you if you are doing something, which is foolish, and it is in that spirit that I am saying this. Now look, we need to forge a new strategy in Zimbabwe. People are suffering. We must end their misery. We don’t want to be partly responsible for prolonging their misery.
The opposition forces need, first of all -- this is my suggestion to them -- they have to assume, and this is what we also assumed in Ghana, that they are not going to get any help from the international community. They are not going to get any help from the US, or from Britain or South Africa or from any of the African leaders, so they should not waste their time trying to change their minds, ok. South Africa has already made up their minds; if they would have helped the Zimbabweans they would have already done so a long time ago. The debate about sanctions is simply academic. Assume you are going to get zero support from Kofi Annan and from the international community so that you have to rely on your own.
Now, the second point is that, yes, we need constitutional reform, land reform and improvement in governance. Let’s not waste our time on these because there’s no way you are going to have meaningful constitutional reform, meaningful land reform with the tyrant still in power.
The focus must be on removing that tyrant from power. How do we do that? In order to do that, right now the opposition leaders are exhausted; they are weakened. We need to form a small tiny little group, set up what you might call a war room for example, a small group of people say not more than ten who are apolitical so that you can devise a new strategy. Now, the protest marches simply don’t work, we need a new strategy. If a civil servants strike will work, fine, let us try that. All these things have to be done in camera, so that, at least once we decide upon this everybody must be on board so that you level the political playing field. After that, we can play our party politics, but, so long as Mugabe is there, we have to recognise that the regime is very shrewd and it is also very clever; it is always going to throw obstacles our way. But, we need to think ahead and be one step ahead of him. That’s all that I would say for now.
Violet: And Brian?
Brian: I think that the first thing I would say to my colleagues is stop the internal purges, stop the internal squabbling. And, to both Dr. Arthur Mutambara and Comrade Morgan Tsvangirai, whom I know very well, is the only price to pay for freedom would be to swallow your egos and your differences. And, I appreciate there are fundamental value differences, but, there are also fundamental strategic asymmetries in what we are trying to do and I would urge them not only to talk but to explore the possibilities of standing as a united front in action because I think the first thing that must happen is a united leadership front articulating the same agenda. We have wasted a lot of time; Tsvangirai criticising Mutambara. Mutambara criticising Tsvangirai, witch-hunting within the factions, as one might call it.
Number two, to the civic leadership there’s a much more fundamental challenge. One of rebuilding; and rebuilding not around an authoritarian nature that some of us have seen emerge where we are focusing more on distinguishing amongst ourselves; you are elites, we are workers, you are peasants, you are the unemployed. I think, all progressive social forces must be united under the banner of democratic transformation. And, it is important that you have a leadership that doesn’t have a provincial mentality; that only looks at a small cluster. It is also important for civil society to purge itself of the cancer of tribalism, which seems to be emerging.
The third thing that is more important than this is that to discuss strategies in newspapers is foolishness, to declare in newspapers that this is how we will offer change, seems to be foolish. But, finally I think that resourcing of the movement, having a vibrant alternative means of communicating, re-visiting the structures of your system, of your movement, and also re-visiting the articulation; your spokesperson, and ensuring you carry critical constituencies such as women, such as youth, such as the unemployed, such as peasants is important. I think we’ve got to look back and say ‘what is our social base’.
So the only addition I have to add to what Dr. Ayittey has said is that the small individuals yes, the small group of individuals, yes, is important. However, for me, the much more important and missing ingredient is having a very strong social movement base or political movement base and a clear political strategy of how we do this thing. And, of course, we have tried all sorts of tactics; going back to the drawing board is not as painful as staying at the front and using the same thing that is causing incessant and consistent loss. So, I’d urge that the battle is not lost; hope is not lost, perhaps what’s lost is our commitment to work together, and, remembering that we are all one nation, one people, fighting for the same thing, a more prosperous and democratic country.
And, if we remember this, perhaps we will set aside our differences and stop discriminating against each other and also stop trying to sideline each other and embrace the many strands of thoughts that are coming in. And, thanks to Dr Ayittey and others who have been critical of what we are tying to do, critical of the opposition, critical of civil society. Perhaps it’s important that criticism comes from friends and I would urge others within the civic movement to take the criticism that has come; embrace it as perhaps either a frustration amongst our friends and peers about what we are trying to do, or not doing, or, an encouragement by them that we should do more, so that’s all I would say. And, don’t despair, the struggle continues.
Violet: Thank you very much Dr. George Ayittey and Brian Kagoro, thank you very much for participating on this programme.
George: Thank you for having us.
Brian: Thank you.
Audio interview can be heard on SW Radio Africa’s Hot Seat programme. Comments and feedback can be emailed to violet@swradioafrica.com
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