In the past few weeks there have been calls for Mr Mugabe to step down as president of Zimbabwe. The calls are not just coming from the usual Mugabe foes – Britain and America but some Africans are also making the call very forcefully. Much of the cacophony has been instigated by the cholera outbreak in the country which has so far claimed over a thousand lives and is threatening to devastate the whole Southern African region. The calls are not surprising in the least because they only confirm what the Zimbabwe people have already stated using their votes in the elections held last March.
What is surprising is that it has taken this long for some of the world leaders to begin to side with the oppressed people of Zimbabwe. What is also surprising is that the call has not received much support in Africa other than from those like Botswana and Kenya whose views are already known. However it is important to acknowledge that South Africa, long the defender of Mugabe’s rule, have started accepting the merits of the idea that Mr Mugabe needs to go, or more precisely, to be retired. This is a significant move which, no doubt, puts more pressure on the belligerent dictator.
While Mr Mugabe’s departure will be celebrated (when and not if it happens), I have my serious doubts that the event of his departure alone will resolve the many, many problems that now afflict the country. My own view is that the problems have morphed beyond Mugabe into something much bigger and more sinister. Whether Mugabe goes or not, the country is in a very deep hole from which it has to be dug out. My own assessment is that there are three big challenges which Zimbabweans have to tackle to reverse their misfortunes, turn the country around, prosper and once more become a respected member of the international community. These are how to handle the issue of immunity for human rights abuses, how to deal with Mugabe’s power structures and how to facilitate the return of those in Diaspora.
The issue of immunity from prosecution of Mugabe and his henchmen is likely to be the most difficult and controversial. There is a general feeling that Mugabe can be exonerated and allowed to serve the last few years of his life in peace somewhere. That position is also necessitated and influenced by the realisation that there is a need to provide some incentive to him to loosen his grip on and relinquish power. The acceptance of immunity for Mugabe is likely to be a hard-sell to and very bitter pill for the many victims of the abuses of his rule but, in the final analysis, they may just be prepared to swallow it.
However the same cannot be said of immunity for the rest of his henchman and foot-solders who perpetrated the hideous crimes and many of whom are known to the victims. The issue to consider here is how far down the line the immunity should go. It must be remembered that the actual physical commission of abuses took place at the lowest hierarchical levels occupied by youth militias and junior officers of the army, police and intelligence services such as Joseph Mwale. Should all these people be forgiven and allowed to “get away with murder” so to speak? This will not just be unpalatable, it will be unprecedented and undesirable. Historically, justice has been allowed to prevail even it is in some convoluted form such as truth and reconciliation commissions. Even now the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda are still being tried for their crimes.
The second issue is how to deal with Mugabe’s power structures so that they do not pose a future risk to the country. It should be remembered that Mugabe is the visible element (or the face) of a military-civilian junta that are controlling the country. From many credible accounts, Mr Mugabe is no longer fully in charge of the country. The Joint Operations Command (JOC) is the de facto authority in the country. They are calling the shots and they are the ones who decided to overturn the mandate of the people following the March elections. They are also the ones who initiated and directed the savage brutality inflicted on the Zimbabwean people in the run up to the farcical June re-run elections.
The departure of Mugabe will not yield anything substantial unless it is accompanied by the disbandment of the JOC and the retirement of its members. Members of the JOC are a real and credible threat to the future of Zimbabwe – much more so than Mugabe has been and will ever be. But so far their blood-socked hand has been hidden behind the image of Mugabe. I recall someone saying to me, not so long ago, that there are powerful forces which are so desperate to keep Mugabe in power that he could be dead for months and they would still pretend he is still alive and in charge. These structures and institutions which have been the power behind the Mugabe throne will need to be neutralised and disbanded so that they do not pose a threat to any future dispensation.
It will also be necessary, in this vein, to address the issue of chiefs who have been so corrupted and compromised by the ruling party. The chiefs have always been manipulated by ruling elites to provide a cloak of legitimacy to unpopular regimes. During the Rhodesian era, Ian Smith used chiefs like Chirau and Ndiweni to try and subvert the Africans aspirations for freedom and independence. Mugabe continued with this policy and went much further. He subverted the chiefs to the extent that they had become integral elements of the ruling Zanu-PF party. In any future dispensation the role of the chiefs will need to be re-examined and there may very well be need to “de-frock” some of the more obnoxious characters.
The third issue is how to attract back into the country the millions of people who have fled abroad. It should be remembered that many of these diasporians are skilled people who are desperately needed in many critical social and economic sectors such as health, education, agriculture, manufacturing, etc. Until the country is able to attract these people back in sufficient numbers there is little chance that the country will recover. It takes more than three years to train a competent nurse and a similar period to train a teacher. There is absolutely no chance that Zimbabwe can meet its skilled manpower needs through training and development and will thus have to put in place a mechanism for attracting them from abroad and retaining the skills that it desperately needs.
In the early 1980s the newly independent Zimbabwe was able to attract many of its progeny from abroad because the economy was generally sound, there were jobs to offer them and the health and education systems were strong. This time it is different. All the fundamentals are pointing the other way – there are no jobs, no medical facilities, a broken education system and no food. It is wrong to believe that just a sense of patriotism will be enough to encourage the people who have left to return. Many of them have now established alternative lifestyles where they have settled. They have started new professions and businesses, bought houses and other property, enrolled their children in new schools and have become full and important members of their new communities.
To attract these people back to Zimbabwe will take strategy, ingenuity and perseverance. They have to be convinced that there is a meaningful future for them in a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. They need to be assured that what the country offers is much better than what they already have and this is always going to be a tough call. To expect that the people in Diaspora will return to the country simply because Mugabe has gone is either an act of self-deception or misplaced optimism. Of course, Mugabe’s departure will be a useful beginning but nothing more than a beginning.
Sunday 21 December 2008
Tuesday 16 December 2008
The tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe
Celebrating his 90th birthday at a dinner in London in June this year Africa’s foremost and most famous son, Nelson Mandela, decried the tribulations which had befallen his northern neighbour and described the problem as a “tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe”. The words echoed a similar statement by another of Africa’s iconic figures Chinua Achebe who, in his famous treatise The Trouble with Nigeria (first published in 1983) concluded that “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership”.
While Nigeria is working hard at correcting its leadership failures in order to improve its society and achieve measured improvements in the welfare of its people, Zimbabwe has fallen into the deepest mire of failure with a leadership which is not only a failure but which is also discredited and illegitimate in the eyes of the world. The evidence of failure have been there for a long time now – from the late 1990s when Mr Mugabe dolled out billions of dollars in unplanned expenditure to pacify his increasingly restless former comrades-in-arms and then unilaterally led the country into an unpopular and un-winnable war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
By the time the illegal farm invasions escalated in 2000, the downward spiral had started in earnest. It has been one way to hell ever since with the only difference being the pace and scope of the decline which have accelerated and deepened with the passage of time. The present cholera disaster afflicting the nation has become the most damning and visible evidence of failure – not just because people are dying (many more died from political violence over the many years of Zanu-PF rule and many others have died from AIDS and other diseases which could have been easily treated) but because for the first time ever, the disease is threatening to engulf and emasculate the whole Southern African region.
The tragic failure of leadership which Mr Mandela refers to is manifest in an economy which has completely collapsed with unimaginable and incalculable inflation rates, empty store shelves, stratospheric rate of devaluation of local currency, chronic shortage of money and the complete collapse of economic infrastructure. The latest and most desperate, if not bizarre, attempt to address the shortage of money has been to issue yet another high denomination note printed on cotton. Maybe there is a message in this somewhere – that when the currency has once again become valueless, one can stitch the notes together and sew a dress. If it were not so tragic one would think this is one of the most innovative approaches to recycling ever devised.
Leadership has always been important for survival of society. Even in animal kingdoms and colonies, leadership plays an important role in the survival and thriving of the species. In insects, the queen mother provides critical leadership to her progeny and many animal colonies have defined and clearly identifiable leadership hierarchies which serve to guide and protect the colony. When these leaders fail or are killed, the colony becomes disoriented and vulnerable. If another leader does not emerge quickly to mobilise cohesion, the colony could disintegrate completely. If animals and other tiny creatures can recognise the importance of leadership, why is it difficult for us human beings, who are infinitely more intelligent than other animal species, to appreciate that without good leadership we are doomed?
The other day I was having a discussion with a colleague about what causes the sort of failures which we are experiencing in Zimbabwe. I suggested that there may be three reasons for this: the first is failure to recognise failure; second is failure to achieve consensus on whether there is failure or not; and third is failure to accept failure. Let me expand on these reasons a bit using the context of Zimbabwe.
Failure to recognise failure has occurred in Zimbabwe over the many years in which Mr Mugabe and the Zanu-PF leadership have simply not recognised that the main cause of the problems afflicting the country is their own incompetence and inability to lead the country. They have sought to attribute the country’s failures to every conceivable detractor – the British, the Americans, Tony Blair and George Bush, the opposition MDC, nature and God. The cholera epidemic which is currently raging in the country has now been blamed on the British who are allegedly engaged in chemical warfare against the poor citizens in order to precipitate a regime change.
The point is really not who or what has caused the cholera. The streams of putrid sewage gashing from blocked and overflowing sewers which traverse the urban areas and lack of clean and treated drinking water suggest themselves as more plausible causes of the outbreak than any subterfuge or machinations on the part of the British, but I am not about to engage in this futile blame apportionment exercise. The issue really is what are the leadership doing to protect their people from harm and relieve them of their suffering, notwithstanding the cause or source of the afflictions? The answer is nothing, almost. One may wish to be generous and credit government’s advice to people not to shake hands as an acceptable and appropriate endeavour.
As people lie dying in understaffed and under-equipped hospitals, as children are denied education because their schools have closed because there are no teachers and no food to feed them, as women die in delivery because the maternity hospitals have closed, the cry for urgent government intervention is loud and deafening. But the government is not responding or chooses to simply ignore them. In widely reported remarks Ms Graca Machel recently said that either Zimbabwe's leaders do not understand how deeply their people are suffering "or they don't care."
Failure of consensus on whether there is failure or not has happened at the international level. From the UN, to the AU, down to SADC, member states have failed to agree not only on the nature and extent of the failure of the leadership in Zimbabwe but also on ways to address the failure. What little acknowledgement and condemnation of failure there is by small surrounding states like Botswana and Zambia has been drowned out by the deafening silence and outright denial of wrongfulness by South Africa and other global powers like Russia and China. Even at this moment the debate on Zimbabwe at the UN is being stymied by a lack of consensus on how to censure Mr Mugabe and the leadership cabal in Harare.
Mr Mugabe has in turn sought ways and means to fully exploit any such dissentions to his advantage. To him the fact that there is no consensus on his wrongdoing is a seal of approval to continue to repress his people and to commit other despicable acts. In other words, he has managed to adroitly turn what is patent failure into something of a celebrated success. Consensus is sometimes very hard to achieve, even in the best of times. In more controversial circumstances, such as those obtaining in Zimbabwe, it is nearly impossible to achieve. Even if the situation deteriorated into the likeness of Rwanda, there will still be some states that will argue that there is nothing amiss in a sovereign state butchering its own people.
The above failings culminate in the final cause of failure – denial. Mr Mugabe and his cabal are simply denying that they have failed. They believe that they are still the heroes who liberated the country and who still attract admiration and reverence from their people – if only the damn British, Americans and the bad white farmers could stop negatively influencing them. They contend that their economic policies have been sound if it were not for economic saboteurs who needlessly raise prices to make goods unaffordable or the black marketers who hoard scarce goods for resale at extortionist prices. They even believe that the land reform programme has been an outstanding success where it not for God who has withheld the much needed rain.
In their minds and in their deeds, everyone and everything has failed accept themselves. They have done nothing wrong and they demand the right to continue doing whatever they have been doing under the misguided expectation that somehow the results will be different. Unless and until Mr Mugabe and company and those states that will not challenge him recognise that leadership failure is at the root of the country’s tribulations, the suffering of the people will continue. The extent of the tragedy will only become apparent when there is no one left in the country to lead.
While Nigeria is working hard at correcting its leadership failures in order to improve its society and achieve measured improvements in the welfare of its people, Zimbabwe has fallen into the deepest mire of failure with a leadership which is not only a failure but which is also discredited and illegitimate in the eyes of the world. The evidence of failure have been there for a long time now – from the late 1990s when Mr Mugabe dolled out billions of dollars in unplanned expenditure to pacify his increasingly restless former comrades-in-arms and then unilaterally led the country into an unpopular and un-winnable war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
By the time the illegal farm invasions escalated in 2000, the downward spiral had started in earnest. It has been one way to hell ever since with the only difference being the pace and scope of the decline which have accelerated and deepened with the passage of time. The present cholera disaster afflicting the nation has become the most damning and visible evidence of failure – not just because people are dying (many more died from political violence over the many years of Zanu-PF rule and many others have died from AIDS and other diseases which could have been easily treated) but because for the first time ever, the disease is threatening to engulf and emasculate the whole Southern African region.
The tragic failure of leadership which Mr Mandela refers to is manifest in an economy which has completely collapsed with unimaginable and incalculable inflation rates, empty store shelves, stratospheric rate of devaluation of local currency, chronic shortage of money and the complete collapse of economic infrastructure. The latest and most desperate, if not bizarre, attempt to address the shortage of money has been to issue yet another high denomination note printed on cotton. Maybe there is a message in this somewhere – that when the currency has once again become valueless, one can stitch the notes together and sew a dress. If it were not so tragic one would think this is one of the most innovative approaches to recycling ever devised.
Leadership has always been important for survival of society. Even in animal kingdoms and colonies, leadership plays an important role in the survival and thriving of the species. In insects, the queen mother provides critical leadership to her progeny and many animal colonies have defined and clearly identifiable leadership hierarchies which serve to guide and protect the colony. When these leaders fail or are killed, the colony becomes disoriented and vulnerable. If another leader does not emerge quickly to mobilise cohesion, the colony could disintegrate completely. If animals and other tiny creatures can recognise the importance of leadership, why is it difficult for us human beings, who are infinitely more intelligent than other animal species, to appreciate that without good leadership we are doomed?
The other day I was having a discussion with a colleague about what causes the sort of failures which we are experiencing in Zimbabwe. I suggested that there may be three reasons for this: the first is failure to recognise failure; second is failure to achieve consensus on whether there is failure or not; and third is failure to accept failure. Let me expand on these reasons a bit using the context of Zimbabwe.
Failure to recognise failure has occurred in Zimbabwe over the many years in which Mr Mugabe and the Zanu-PF leadership have simply not recognised that the main cause of the problems afflicting the country is their own incompetence and inability to lead the country. They have sought to attribute the country’s failures to every conceivable detractor – the British, the Americans, Tony Blair and George Bush, the opposition MDC, nature and God. The cholera epidemic which is currently raging in the country has now been blamed on the British who are allegedly engaged in chemical warfare against the poor citizens in order to precipitate a regime change.
The point is really not who or what has caused the cholera. The streams of putrid sewage gashing from blocked and overflowing sewers which traverse the urban areas and lack of clean and treated drinking water suggest themselves as more plausible causes of the outbreak than any subterfuge or machinations on the part of the British, but I am not about to engage in this futile blame apportionment exercise. The issue really is what are the leadership doing to protect their people from harm and relieve them of their suffering, notwithstanding the cause or source of the afflictions? The answer is nothing, almost. One may wish to be generous and credit government’s advice to people not to shake hands as an acceptable and appropriate endeavour.
As people lie dying in understaffed and under-equipped hospitals, as children are denied education because their schools have closed because there are no teachers and no food to feed them, as women die in delivery because the maternity hospitals have closed, the cry for urgent government intervention is loud and deafening. But the government is not responding or chooses to simply ignore them. In widely reported remarks Ms Graca Machel recently said that either Zimbabwe's leaders do not understand how deeply their people are suffering "or they don't care."
Failure of consensus on whether there is failure or not has happened at the international level. From the UN, to the AU, down to SADC, member states have failed to agree not only on the nature and extent of the failure of the leadership in Zimbabwe but also on ways to address the failure. What little acknowledgement and condemnation of failure there is by small surrounding states like Botswana and Zambia has been drowned out by the deafening silence and outright denial of wrongfulness by South Africa and other global powers like Russia and China. Even at this moment the debate on Zimbabwe at the UN is being stymied by a lack of consensus on how to censure Mr Mugabe and the leadership cabal in Harare.
Mr Mugabe has in turn sought ways and means to fully exploit any such dissentions to his advantage. To him the fact that there is no consensus on his wrongdoing is a seal of approval to continue to repress his people and to commit other despicable acts. In other words, he has managed to adroitly turn what is patent failure into something of a celebrated success. Consensus is sometimes very hard to achieve, even in the best of times. In more controversial circumstances, such as those obtaining in Zimbabwe, it is nearly impossible to achieve. Even if the situation deteriorated into the likeness of Rwanda, there will still be some states that will argue that there is nothing amiss in a sovereign state butchering its own people.
The above failings culminate in the final cause of failure – denial. Mr Mugabe and his cabal are simply denying that they have failed. They believe that they are still the heroes who liberated the country and who still attract admiration and reverence from their people – if only the damn British, Americans and the bad white farmers could stop negatively influencing them. They contend that their economic policies have been sound if it were not for economic saboteurs who needlessly raise prices to make goods unaffordable or the black marketers who hoard scarce goods for resale at extortionist prices. They even believe that the land reform programme has been an outstanding success where it not for God who has withheld the much needed rain.
In their minds and in their deeds, everyone and everything has failed accept themselves. They have done nothing wrong and they demand the right to continue doing whatever they have been doing under the misguided expectation that somehow the results will be different. Unless and until Mr Mugabe and company and those states that will not challenge him recognise that leadership failure is at the root of the country’s tribulations, the suffering of the people will continue. The extent of the tragedy will only become apparent when there is no one left in the country to lead.
Wednesday 10 December 2008
Zimbabwe government should admit failure and step down
In 2002, soon after Mr Mugabe’s disputed win of the presidential elections in Zimbabwe, a professional friend sought my views on what the future held for the country. In response, I outlined to him two possible scenarios. The first, an optimistic one, was that the country would overcome the political setbacks and rise up to its former glory as the jewel of the region. I even dared to add that the difficult experiences would make the people stronger and more determined to succeed. The other and more pessimistic scenario was that Zimbabwe would degenerate further and become a failed state just like Somalia.
Six years later and much to my disappointment (but not perhaps too much surprise) the latter prediction appears to have been fulfilled. In almost every respect, Zimbabwe has become a failed state. The latest indications are the cholera that is decimating the nation fuelled by a collapse of state institutions and services including health, water provision, transportation, education, banking and whatever else you can think of. So dire is the situation that a few weeks ago three leading humanitarian personalities (former US president Jimmy Carter, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and Mr Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel) were denied entry into the country for fear of what they may witness. This week the South African government is sending in a high-powered delegation to assess the humanitarian situation in the country.
In denying Messrs Carter and company entry into the country, the foreign affairs minister, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi stated that the Zimbabwe government took exception to the notion that foreigners do care more about the livelihood of their people than the government itself. Well the South Africans are coming in and it will be surprising if they are similarly rebuffed. Somehow, I doubt that and in the event that the South Africans have their way, it will be an open admission that government has failed. It is tantamount to the social services department walking into your house to assess how you are looking after your own children.
In the normal scheme of things, when one fails they leave a position voluntarily or are forcibly relieved of their positions. In the case of Zimbabwe the failure is much too apparent. This failure is manifested into three main areas – governance failure, economic failure and social failure. Governance failure is manifested in the current lack of constitutional or legitimate government in the country. The previous government was dissolved prior to the March elections and, given what has transpired after the elections, there cannot be said to be any government which is ruling the country at this stage. Mr Mugabe is laying claims to the leadership of the country but the claims are being strongly resisted.
Progress of some sorts was achieved in September when an agreement was signed by the main contending parties to form a government of national unity but that was about the best that happened. Since then it’s been disappointment all the way with Mr Mugabe refusing to cede any meaningful power to the opposition. Consequently the agreement is now all but dead. It will take a miraculous change of heart from one of the contending parties to allow the GNU to become fully established and operational. In the meantime the country is drifting around directionless and leaderless.
Economic failure is the most evident, pronounced and irrefutable failure of the moment. Inflation is measured in billions of percentage points, the national currency is unavailable and valueless and the infrastructure has collapsed (there is no electricity and treated water in urban centres). People spend endless hours queuing up to withdraw their money and what they are allowed to withdraw is not enough to buy a loaf of bread. Less than ten percent of the people remain in formal employment and these very fortunate few are not earning enough to cover the costs of their transport to work. The situation has got so bad that transactions have been reduced to barter trading with many services being paid with fuel coupons and other negotiable instruments.
However it is in the social sphere that the failure is most acutely and painfully felt. Starting with the dispersion of over four million of its citizens who have sought refuge anywhere they could be received across the globe, to the millions more who have remained at home to endure the worst case of deprivation and misery – the Zimbabwean people have been brutalised like very few other people have in the modern era. Other places like Congo, Darfur and Somalia may have experienced similar hardship – but Zimbabwe is the only place where such hardship has not been caused by war. The people have remained peaceful and brave in the face of the most brutal and consistent onslaught of personal liberties and violation of human rights ever witnessed.
This massive migration of people has had a debilitating effect on the social fabric of Zimbabwe including the breakdown of many family ties. Husbands have been separated from wives, parents from children, brothers from sisters and friends from friends. Some of those who have left have been fortunate to find new opportunities in their lives but many more live in poverty, suffering and humiliating conditions. Other less fortunate ones have become victims of xenophobic attacks for which they have paid with their lives, with serious bodily injury and with psychological pain.
For those who have remained in the country, they have seen themselves reduced to paupers as their life savings and pensions have been wiped out by inflation, they are stalked with hunger as food has disappeared from the fields and from shop shelves, they are afflicted with preventable disease as hospitals have closed or run out of medicines and people to staff them, and their children have become illiterates as schools have closed down due to lack of teachers and teaching materials.
It is impossible to imagine any worse failure than what is being witnessed in Zimbabwe at the moment. Yet, very tragically, no one is owning up to the failure, much less acknowledging its existence. The failed leadership in the country have their heads firmly planted in the sand pretending that all is well or, at the very least, things are not as bad as being purported. The international community is paralysed by misplaced notions of Pan-African solidarity and by the restrictions of political and diplomatic correctness.
Under any normal circumstances, the Zimbabwean government would have admitted that they have failed and stepped down to allow others to try their hand on correcting the situation. What we have got instead is a group of megalomaniacs who believe they have the right to rule the country in perpetuity regardless of how much suffering and deprivation is caused by their rule. They do not have respect for human lives and see the suffering of their people as a necessary sacrifice for their own continued tenure in power. In the circumstances it appears both futile and overly optimistic to expect any good to come out of this bunch. It is now time to force a change.
If Zimbabwe was a business organisation, it would have been forced to close its business a long time ago. It would have been declared bankrupt and the doors would have been bolted shut for any operations and trade. Although the country may not be a business organisation, it is time that the principles applied when dealing with failed business organisations should be invoked at this stage to stop the rot and the suffering. The people of Zimbabwe cannot wait one minute longer.
Six years later and much to my disappointment (but not perhaps too much surprise) the latter prediction appears to have been fulfilled. In almost every respect, Zimbabwe has become a failed state. The latest indications are the cholera that is decimating the nation fuelled by a collapse of state institutions and services including health, water provision, transportation, education, banking and whatever else you can think of. So dire is the situation that a few weeks ago three leading humanitarian personalities (former US president Jimmy Carter, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and Mr Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel) were denied entry into the country for fear of what they may witness. This week the South African government is sending in a high-powered delegation to assess the humanitarian situation in the country.
In denying Messrs Carter and company entry into the country, the foreign affairs minister, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi stated that the Zimbabwe government took exception to the notion that foreigners do care more about the livelihood of their people than the government itself. Well the South Africans are coming in and it will be surprising if they are similarly rebuffed. Somehow, I doubt that and in the event that the South Africans have their way, it will be an open admission that government has failed. It is tantamount to the social services department walking into your house to assess how you are looking after your own children.
In the normal scheme of things, when one fails they leave a position voluntarily or are forcibly relieved of their positions. In the case of Zimbabwe the failure is much too apparent. This failure is manifested into three main areas – governance failure, economic failure and social failure. Governance failure is manifested in the current lack of constitutional or legitimate government in the country. The previous government was dissolved prior to the March elections and, given what has transpired after the elections, there cannot be said to be any government which is ruling the country at this stage. Mr Mugabe is laying claims to the leadership of the country but the claims are being strongly resisted.
Progress of some sorts was achieved in September when an agreement was signed by the main contending parties to form a government of national unity but that was about the best that happened. Since then it’s been disappointment all the way with Mr Mugabe refusing to cede any meaningful power to the opposition. Consequently the agreement is now all but dead. It will take a miraculous change of heart from one of the contending parties to allow the GNU to become fully established and operational. In the meantime the country is drifting around directionless and leaderless.
Economic failure is the most evident, pronounced and irrefutable failure of the moment. Inflation is measured in billions of percentage points, the national currency is unavailable and valueless and the infrastructure has collapsed (there is no electricity and treated water in urban centres). People spend endless hours queuing up to withdraw their money and what they are allowed to withdraw is not enough to buy a loaf of bread. Less than ten percent of the people remain in formal employment and these very fortunate few are not earning enough to cover the costs of their transport to work. The situation has got so bad that transactions have been reduced to barter trading with many services being paid with fuel coupons and other negotiable instruments.
However it is in the social sphere that the failure is most acutely and painfully felt. Starting with the dispersion of over four million of its citizens who have sought refuge anywhere they could be received across the globe, to the millions more who have remained at home to endure the worst case of deprivation and misery – the Zimbabwean people have been brutalised like very few other people have in the modern era. Other places like Congo, Darfur and Somalia may have experienced similar hardship – but Zimbabwe is the only place where such hardship has not been caused by war. The people have remained peaceful and brave in the face of the most brutal and consistent onslaught of personal liberties and violation of human rights ever witnessed.
This massive migration of people has had a debilitating effect on the social fabric of Zimbabwe including the breakdown of many family ties. Husbands have been separated from wives, parents from children, brothers from sisters and friends from friends. Some of those who have left have been fortunate to find new opportunities in their lives but many more live in poverty, suffering and humiliating conditions. Other less fortunate ones have become victims of xenophobic attacks for which they have paid with their lives, with serious bodily injury and with psychological pain.
For those who have remained in the country, they have seen themselves reduced to paupers as their life savings and pensions have been wiped out by inflation, they are stalked with hunger as food has disappeared from the fields and from shop shelves, they are afflicted with preventable disease as hospitals have closed or run out of medicines and people to staff them, and their children have become illiterates as schools have closed down due to lack of teachers and teaching materials.
It is impossible to imagine any worse failure than what is being witnessed in Zimbabwe at the moment. Yet, very tragically, no one is owning up to the failure, much less acknowledging its existence. The failed leadership in the country have their heads firmly planted in the sand pretending that all is well or, at the very least, things are not as bad as being purported. The international community is paralysed by misplaced notions of Pan-African solidarity and by the restrictions of political and diplomatic correctness.
Under any normal circumstances, the Zimbabwean government would have admitted that they have failed and stepped down to allow others to try their hand on correcting the situation. What we have got instead is a group of megalomaniacs who believe they have the right to rule the country in perpetuity regardless of how much suffering and deprivation is caused by their rule. They do not have respect for human lives and see the suffering of their people as a necessary sacrifice for their own continued tenure in power. In the circumstances it appears both futile and overly optimistic to expect any good to come out of this bunch. It is now time to force a change.
If Zimbabwe was a business organisation, it would have been forced to close its business a long time ago. It would have been declared bankrupt and the doors would have been bolted shut for any operations and trade. Although the country may not be a business organisation, it is time that the principles applied when dealing with failed business organisations should be invoked at this stage to stop the rot and the suffering. The people of Zimbabwe cannot wait one minute longer.
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