FIRST POSTED MAY 23, 2007
Wherever Mugabe spends his retirement, he won’t be short of a penny, says A S H Smyth
When recent calculations revealed that Zimbabwe's hyperinflation had shot past the 2,000 per cent mark, Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party blocked the release of the doomsday statistic.Ordinary Zimbabweans, however, will hardly have failed to notice that despite the country's economic meltdown, Mugabe's cronies have all managed to stay plenty rich.
In fact, many of the Zanu-PF elite have become richer, often through the despicable smoke-and-mirrors tactic of filtering their American dollar salaries through the two tiers of the domestic economy - the 'official' rate of exchange vs the real rate - thereby profiting from the very economic collapse they have brought about.
But however the Zanu-PF officials have enriched themselves, one thing is certain: they aren't storing their nest-eggs in Zimbabwe. Robert I Rotberg at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government says that - rather embarrassingly - "much of Mugabe's own wealth is stashed in the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Man." Rotberg also claims Mugabe owns several large properties in mainland Britain. Others have suggested Mugabe's friendly relationship with President Hu Jintao makes China (Macau, perhaps) a possible repository for some of his personal wealth.
So where should we expect to see Mugabe & co setting up in retirement, if and when Zimbabwe experiences the long-awaited second coming of democracy? The French Riviera is a traditional choice among African despots, with perhaps an apartment or two in Paris to facilitate trips to private clinics. This is a reflection on French foreign policies over the years: Congo's Mobutu Sese Seko ended his days in Morocco (via Togo), but enjoyed frequent personal meetings with President Chirac during his exile.
Many others simply shifted to a neighbouring country (Charles Taylor, Hastings Banda); but Mugabe has so overwhelmingly blotted his copy-book that it seems inconceivable any southern African nation would accept him as a permanent guest (though fraternal Namibia has more than once been connected with potential hosting duties).
Thabo Mbeki is a slight concern; it might be a kindness to the South African president to make Mugabe et al's permanent exclusion an explicit condition of Commonwealth membership. But despite Mbeki's misguided personal affinity for the Zimbabwean hero of yesterdecade, I strongly doubt Mugabe will end up in South Africa.
There are regular protests outside the Zimbabwean embassy there, and a third of Mbeki's own ANC party (the trade-union third) are closely connected with Zimbabwe's MDC opposition, and object vehemently to Mbeki's stalling. The political cost of a wholesale Zanu-PF influx would be higher than the shrewd Mbeki is likely to tolerate.
As for all the expropriated riches of the Zanu-PF elite, a future Zimbabwean government might be able to repatriate some of the wealth, but it is very tricky. The tangible assets - the cars, villas, yachts - are a simple enough matter, assuming a new parliament passed laws enabling the seizures. But unless Mugabe's mob were internationally convicted of a criminal act (the precedents for which are not good), the funds they have purloined are lost to Zimbabwe.
The EU and US have frozen (some) accounts and refused visas in order to restrict their ability to spend their stolen monies; but it's not enough. The AU nations have yet to impose matching measures; and finances of this nature find ways of moving around, especially when registered in tax-havens and under false identities.
Should retirement day dawn soon, I suspect Mugabe will remain right where he is. Keen to avoid prosecution by his successors (like Zambia's Frederick Chiluba), he will install a compliant second generation of Zanu-PF leaders, then settle into his £5m mansion in Harare's suburbs and live on as a thorn in the paw of whichever government succeeds him the very option chosen by Mugabe's own predecessor, Ian Smith.
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