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Brown policy on Mugabe will meet sure failure
By Innocent
Chofamba Sithole
BRITISH Prime
Minister Gordon Brown has come out badly in the stand-off with Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe over the latter's invitation to attend the Europe-Africa
summit in Lisbon later in the year.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is on a tour of Africa, has indicated the summit must not be held back because of Mugabe's possible attendance. The suggestion of a fissure within the EU over this matter is something the Mugabe government must be feeling quite chuffed about.
It also deals a blow to EU efforts to foster a common foreign policy. It appears that Brown had struck out on his own without having secured the support of his European counterparts, who are overwhelmingly of the view that problems with Zimbabwe must not be allowed to sabotage trade relations between two continents.
Brown should not have taken this position in the first place. Rather, the proposal to have Zimbabwe discussed as a human rights issue at the summit should have been marketed as the quid pro quo that secured Mugabe's attendance. The African Union would have had no reason in principle to boycott the summit, and Mugabe would have felt under pressure to forego the trip to Lisbon of his own volition if he was not keen on being taken to task over his human rights violations.
Britain's symbolic gestures and moral hectoring of the Mugabe government, which were the mainstay of Tony Blair's policy towards Zimbabwe, have not produced any positive results in over 10 years.
If at all, they have been used by Mugabe to criticise British foreign policy as influenced by colonial hubris and kept his African peers staunchly buffering him from western condemnation. A new approach, one inspired by diplomatic engagement, starting perhaps at a lower level, would have been more effective in stalling repression in Zimbabwe and ending the crisis.
Through the agency of South Africa, Britain could have arranged contact with both Zanu PF and the MDC and underwritten any agreement between the two political foes with pledges for economic assistance whilst avoiding the temptation to revert to megaphone diplomacy. The reason why this approach would have produced real results on the ground is that despite the rhetoric and ideological posturing, the Mugabe government is keen to be on good terms with Britain and the west once more in order to staunch the economic recession which, if it continues unabated, will inevitably torpedo it from power.
Mugabe's Look East policy is not producing any meaningful economic dividends with the country having suffered a massive trade deficit with China in the first half of this year.
The appearance of taking a moral stand against the Mugabe government plays well with the British public but sadly, it does absolutely nothing to end the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe nor has it weakened Mugabe's dictatorship. The evidence available shows that Zimbabwe is in a worse position today than it was when New Labour came to power in 1997. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is now a new thinking emerging on the Zimbabwe question which favours giving dialogue a chance.
Respected think-tank,
the International Crisis Group (ICG), has in its latest report on
Zimbabwe called on the international community to support current mediation
efforts on Zimbabwe being carried out by South African president Thabo
Mbeki.
The Commonwealth has also weighed in on the EU-Africa summit in favour of Mugabe's attendance if only to facilitate dialogue on how to end the crisis in his country. It is instructive to note that the Commonwealth secretary, Don Mckinnon, who was previously in favour of Zimbabwe's isolation until it reformed, has now come round to the idea of opening up pathways for a negotiated disposition of this long-standing crisis.
If Brown continues with the same policy that has failed to produce positive results for New Labour in Zimbabwe since it came to power, there is no doubt that he will certainly meet with failure. Britain's diplomatic influence on Zimbabwe and prospects for future, mutually beneficial relations would suffer dismally.
As Mugabe battles his endgame, engagement should now replace isolation as the UK's Zimbabwe policy. That would also act as dissuasion against the adoption of yet more disastrous economic policies such as the proposed seizure of foreign-owned companies by the government, which has been made possible by the recent passing of an ostensibly black empowerment bill by parliament.
It's an opportune time for the Brown government to suss out the potential leaders of a post-Mugabe dispensation and to start engaging them on possible programmes of action for economic revival and the restoration of democracy.
Chofamba Sithole is a Zimbabwean journalist. He can be contacted
on email: chofamba@gmail.com
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