Africa

The incomparable South African political observer and journalist Allister Sparks has an important column in the Cape Times. Here is the introduction:

While everyone is anxious to see the Zimbabwe negotiations succeed in bringing relief to the long-suffering people of that country, it is nonetheless galling that the process should be taking place at all. For it is sending a terrible message to tyrants everywhere.

It is telling them that when you face defeat in an election, the thing to do is to launch mayhem in your country, beating and butchering and bludgeoning your own people until horrified peacekeepers come hurrying to the scene to stop the carnage and you can then negotiate an ongoing role for yourself in the power structure.

Sparks is right. But all along those of us observing the sad situation in Zimbabwe have known that we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.  These negotiations were never the ideal path. We all wish that in a free and fair election Morgan Tsvangirai had been recognized as the clear winner and he would be in the process of governing and bringing Zimbabwe back from the abyss. But we do not inhabit that ideal world, we live in our very real, very messy one. Sparks recognizes as much, but still points out numerous failings within that real world context over the last few months.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, whose health has been in question for some time now (Thabo Mbeki caused a bit of a stir when he mistakenly announced a few weeks ago that Mwanawasa had died) has passed away. Observers fear that Mwanawasa’s death could have two repurcussions, the first being causing political instability in Zambia, the second being that his death might have a ripple effect on the Zimbabwean peace negotiations.

Mwanawasa had become one of the most vocal critics of Robert Mugabe in recent years, and one of the few African leaders willing to speak out about the madness unfurling south of the Zambesi. As head of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had pushed for negotiations in the wake of the election madness that Mugabe had wrought.  

Estimates of Zimbabwe’s rate of inflation now have it pegged at 11 million percent (and, almost inevitably, rising). Those sorts of numbers are nearoly impossible to fathom, and can be attributed in large part to the country’s political stalemate, to Robert Mugabe’s cynical economic and political policies, and to the instability concomitant with Mugabe’s reign.

My latest op-ed is available here. I am especially pleased with this one because The Zimbabwean represents the ultimate example of speaking truth against evil. It is an expat newspaper based in London, but which publishes in South Africa, where most of its print readership is based. My cynicism comes to the fore quite clearly, I would guess.

[Crossposted at dcat.]

The Zimbabwean negotiations continue to provide a constant source of suspense and drama. The recent reports that Mugabe had brokered a deal excluding Morgan Tsvangirai from a new unity government appear to have been the result of confusion (or perhaps represented a trial balloon that lost air quickly upon release). The talks continued through last night, but adjourned with no agreement reached and the most contentious issues still far from decided. It is unclear if or when the negotiations will recommence, and whether the latest impasse represents a failure of either side to blink first in the ongoing stare-down.

Morgan Tsvangirai continues to strike a deserved pose of integrity and honor. He continues to speak out against the country’s humanitarian crisis and to insist that any agreement that he and the other parties to the negotiations reach represents the will of the people. This insistence may well have led to the talk about a deal that excluded his (overwhelming majority) wing of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). But any deal that lacked Tsvangirai’s involvement would have been an utter farce. Tsvangirai also continues to be the consummate politician, asserting that there is no deadlock and that he will continue to work toward a resolution.

Thabo Mbeki too is confident that a deal will eventually be struck, though whether his optimism represents whistling past the graveyard remains to be seen. It is certainly in his interest for the sides to come to an agreement that will in turn make Mbeki appear to be a statesman on an issue for which he has been rightly pilloried for ranging from feckless to ineffectual to diffident hopelessly biased toward Mugabe.

So stay tuned. Continue to watch and to hope. I suspect that this story will still be ongoing when I return from a trip this weekend.

So much for optimism. In a move that embodies the man’s hubris, Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party has negotiated a deal with the Movement for Democratic Change. The catch is that he brokered the agreement not with Morgan Tsvangirai’s wing of the MDC, which represents the vast majority of the party (and thus at minimum a significant plurality and probably a majority of the country’s popular support) but rather with Arthur Mutambara’s breakaway MDC faction. As of right now, the terms of the agreement are unknown but they appear to exclude Tsvangirai entirely.

Hints that something along these lines was developing came yesterday in a story (that I posted in my post) about how the negotiations were faltering and speculating that Mutambara might have a voice when all was said and done. The MDC has been wracked by division in recent years, but not many anticipated that Mugabe would be able to exploit that division so skillfully, though few will be surprised at his ability to act so brazenly and cynically.

This story gets worse before it gets better. 

An optimistic narrative seems to have taken over the commentary and reporting on Zimbabwe. The Wall Street Journal, for example, trumpets how Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, and the other participants in the ongoing talks are close to a power-sharing agreement. Some of the hardened cynics writing at The Mail & Guardian have even dared to believe that a deal might be close.

I remain wary. Every time good news leaks out from the negotiations we learn that all that we really know is that more negotiations are scheduled. And while the extensions may well be good news — the sides are still talking, negotiating, and we can hope, hammering out a deal — they also reveal that Mugabe is not exactly sprinting to reach the finish line, even if Tsvangirai’s continuing participation must qualify as an indication that he believed that Mugabe is there in good faith.

But as welcome as ongoing negotiations may be, the latest reports are not good. The talks are faltering. Robert Mugabe, who  spoke ominously yesterday of the opposition not being “used by enemies,” today admitted that the talks are “not exactly” going well. And if Mugabe does not think they are going well, he may well decide to go his own way. Like it or not, lacking moral authority though he might, Mugabe sits in the driver’s seat. It is possible that he has gone through this exercise merely to put forth an image of good faith in order ultimately to withdraw from the talks and restore his own power as the default. One assumes that if he does so, a crackdown on the opposition is sure to follow.

Even if Mugabe has operated earnestly and in good faith, it is easy to think of him doing so because he is aware both of his mortality and of his seriously damaged reputation. One way to restore the latter at the end of his life might be to engage in negotiations that would cede power even as he knows he is prepared to fade from the stage. But Mugabe is nothing if not stubborn. And rather than cede power under conditions other than those he deems appropriate, he’d rather hold on to power. This is, of course, speculation. But it is about the most charitable speculation I can provide in trying to understand Mugabe’s ways.

Optimists aver that a power sharing agreement might be close in Zimbabwe. I will believe it when I see it. Michael Georgy asks and answers a series of questions speculating about what’s next.

I hope that the participants can reach an agreement, but the questions that Georgy and no one else has answered are what is in it for Mugabe? Why would he yield now? What in Mugabe’s record leads anyone to believe that he is negotiating in good faith? I remain cautiously barely optimistic.

Zimbabwe ordinarily does not much register on the cultural radar in the United States. But just to show how worthless Zimbabwe’s surrency has become, The Washington Post’s travel section this week wrote the following:

These days, however, frequent-flier miles are looking a lot like Zimbabwean dollars. The currency is being devalued with spirit-crushing regularity. There’s less and less to buy with it now that airlines are slashing their route networks and seating capacity. And today’s frequent-flier program managers have been given a mandate from their C-suite bosses: Generate fast cash by squeezing frequent fliers with a battery of fees — even though the new charges are destroying the long-term allure and profit potential of the plans.

The fact that the Post could make such a reference knowing that it’s audience of people overwhelmingly removed from the Zimbabwe crisis reveals just how much of a punchline Mugabe’s regime has become.

Morgan Tsvangirai is walking a delicate balance for very high stakes in Zimbabwe. While trying, ultimately, to unseat President Robert Mugabe (and let there be no mistake that this has been his goal all along, with the negotiations for power sharing merely a stopping point and not an acceptable final resolution) he also has to make sure that he does nothing to cause Mugabe to revert to form, withdraw from talks, and foment a return to the political carnage over which Mugabe has for so long presided.

An example of just how delicate Tsvangirai’s situation is becomes apparent in his comments today. While making clear that he wants Mugabe to make an “honourable exit,” he also asserted in words that could have come from the mouth of Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu during the CODESA negotiations or Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) hearings that Mugabe is “”just as human as every one of us.” Admittedly, Tsvangirai was perhaps less Tutuesque when he qualified his praise by also maintaining “although of course I think he is ignorant, or chooses to be in denial, as far as the violence is concerned.”

As is Thabo Mbeki’s wont, the South African President is still optimistic about the end result of the ongoing Zimbabwean negotiations. Mbeki is a member of a small minority on this front.