AFTER years of rightly criticizing President Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe, Western countries now face a different, and difficult, set of decisions.
Since February, Zimbabwe has operated under a unity government led by Mr. Mugabe with the opposition’s leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as prime minister. Had last year’s elections been free and fair, Mr. Tsvangirai would have been elected president, but instead of continuing to contest the results he eventually agreed to serve as prime minister. The transition has not been smooth; cabinet posts have been divided up awkwardly, while many people inside and outside the country have criticized Mr. Tsvangirai for seemingly being co-opted by Mr. Mugabe.
As a result, Western governments have been standoffish even though the unity government has taken important steps, notably lowering Zimbabwe’s 231 million percent inflation by abandoning the Zimbabwean dollar in favor of the American dollar and other foreign currencies. Last week, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States wasn’t ready to resume aid to Zimbabwe and urged the ouster of Mr. Mugabe, while other Western donors have said they will not provide significant development assistance until there is firm evidence that the power-sharing agreement is working. Human Rights Watch has gone further by arguing that development aid should not be released until there are “irreversible changes on human rights, the rule of law and accountability.”
The reluctance of Western governments and human rights groups to embrace the current Zimbabwean government is understandable. There is, in particular, no real reason to believe that Mr. Mugabe, after decades of dictatorial rule and abuse, has suddenly embraced multiparty democracy. If he had, after all, he would not be president now.
But Zimbabwe may well be a case where the best is the enemy of the good. Mr. Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, went into the unity government with its eyes open. “We had won the election but we did not have the support of the military,” Mr. Tsvangirai told us this month in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. “We did not want to be the authors of chaos. Instead we need to soft-land the crisis, stabilize the situation through peace and stability and democratic consolidation.” Accordingly, he views Mr. Mugabe as “both part of the problem and part of the solution: we cannot untangle the tentacles of the state without him.”
Mr. Tsvangirai has set himself the difficult task of trying to dislodge Mr. Mugabe’s ousted party from the state apparatus that it has controlled for more than a quarter-century. In many countries that process would require extensive violence against the regime. The “soft landing” that the Movement for Democratic Change has chosen is a difficult path but one which it has firm strategic reasons to opt for, reasons that deserve more careful consideration from international donors.
And Mr. Tsvangirai and Zimbabwe need help desperately. Per capita income is half what it was in 1997. Once the largest economy in the region after South Africa, Zimbabwe is now the smallest, after tiny Swaziland and Lesotho.
[.. more stuff about the dire state of Zimbabwe's economy...]
To consolidate progress, donors should end their ambivalence about the unity government and begin to support Mr. Tsvangirai’s aims. Development assistance can be allocated directly. Replenishing the hospitals and re-equipping schools are measurable and defined projects. More generally, Western governments and nongovernmental organizations should become more publicly enthusiastic about the unity government, especially because they haven’t been able to offer a better option.
What do you think of this argument? Has the MDC been co-opted or not (see post below)? And can donor governments even monitor what aid is really used for? Read the rest.
(Cross-posted)
In a country like Zimbabwe, where corruption has long been widespread and the basic infrastructure of accoutably long been missing, it would seem big ask for any aid-donors to have have any faith in where their aid will end up. Mugabe's government was ablr to build up this fleet of Benz's (mentioned in Xaviers other post) at the cost of what the money should have paid for - hospitals, school, even roads to drive the things on.
ReplyDeleteIts a hard decision for donor governments. Tsvagirai and the MDC have not yet proven themselves to be above the grasping greed of the Mugabe regime but in order to allow themselves to prove that they are foreign aid is needed to allow them to do some good for the country. Can they trust a government that has not proven it is trustworthy?
MDC officials rationalised their acceptance of the luxary cars in various ways, saying if they didn;t they would go to waste, that the ZanuPF people were forcing them to or that the government would not pay for the upkeep pn any other type of vehicle. But by rationalising their acceptance they make a moral compromise. They are aware that Mugabe wants to tempt them and tar them with his own corrupt brush, but all accept one are not prepared to take a moral stand.
It is frustrating that the countries which need aid the most are often the ones where it won't actually make it to the people. I think I agree with the writer of the article though, progress has been made and perhaps it's time to open up to the regime a little and see if we can work with them to help the situation. It's certainly not an easy decision to make with Zimbabwe's track record though.
ReplyDeleteI agree that more support should be shown for the new Zimbabwean government in general and certainly acknowledgement of the progress that has been made would be helpful. However at the same time I don't think that this support should be extended to financial aid.
ReplyDeleteGovernments are supported by money, without money the military is defenseless and the structure of control will crumble. Any resumption of aid will, as people have already noted, not end up being used for what its been intended for. Rather instead it will give Mugabe and his cronies more to play with like spending more on his key electorate and only prolong the dire situation.
Like seems to be the case far too much this is an example of having to choose not between a good and a bad option but a bad and a terrible option.
At the very least there are some indications that the situation is improving, with a democratic foothold (albeit a small one) could Zimbabwe move on from here?
The u.s should provide aid to Zimbabwe. The country is making some progress with Tsvangirai part of the opposition coming to power, transition from authoritarianism involves those in power and opposition making compromises and deals. Also those people have suffered enough, help them out.
ReplyDeleteI think the US should provide aid to the people in Zimbabwe because it is the people who are mostly affected,obviously mugabe does not care at all about the people's interests, he just wants the people to keep supportting him so that he can stay longer in power and he does this by using violence against the people or even using food as a political weapon for example at the upcoming of the 2005 election.yes transition from authoritarianism involves those in power compromising with the opposition but then i think that tsvangirai needs to attack mugabe peacefully on his worst issues, such as the violence and the human suffering they are causing. the MDC needs to encourage the security forces and Mugabe's officials to support democracy, the MDC needs to cooperate with the army in accepting democracy because that's his dominant power. i don't think donor governments can monitor what the aid is used for as mugabe has absolute power over everything in the country, he can use the aid for his own personal satisfaction or campaigns, his government is not trustworthy.
ReplyDelete