March 30, 2007

A nation is falling apart, and one man is largely responsible.

Zimbabwe is rapidly going to seed, and Robert Mugabe is presiding over its decline with relish.

How the mighty fall! Here is a man who presided over the liberation of Rhodesia from a racist apartheid regime in 1980, and was mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela. To do so now would be unimaginable, except to point out the contrast.

Mugabe governed with at least a semblance of democracy early on in his tenure. But he suppressed the Ndebele Rebellion at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. And as time went on, his desire to remain in power became more insatiable, and his tactics more desperate. At the age of eighty-three, he seems to have no intention of leaving. He needs to give it a rest. He is roughly the same age as my maternal grandparents, and I’m quite certain neither of them would relish the challenge of governing a country.

Or misgoverning it, as Mugabe is doing. Inflation in Zimbabwe is an unbelievable 1,700 percent a year. An estimated 80 percent of the working-age population is unemployed. Basic foodstuffs and fuel are unavailable. Zimbabweans are fleeing their country in large numbers.

Mugabe’s response has been to offer his people repression and more repression. Hundreds of opposition activists have been kidnapped off the streets. Many of them have been badly beaten. The leader of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been arrested numerous times. The offices of the main opposition party have been recently ransacked by government-hired thugs. And in a scorched earth campaign a few years ago, an estimated 200,000 slum residents were driven out. Although conditions were never rosy for the country, things began falling apart around 2000 when Mugabe decided to accelerate the process of land redistribution by forcibly seizing holdings. To be sure, the pattern of land ownership was historically highly iniquitous in Zimbabwe, and some land reform was definitely needed. (A November 2000 piece by Professor Carol Thompson of Northern Arizona State University, written for Foreign Policy in Focus, provides useful background.)

But instead of being concerned with the wellbeing of the rural poor, Mugabe was using the program for his own purposes. He wanted to stave off discontent at economic mismanagement, deflect criticism of Zimbabwe’s participation in the Congo civil war, and keep on rewarding government cronies. His ham-handed effort at land redistribution sent the economy into freefall.

“What he’s done with the land is further consolidated his power,” says Andrew Meldrum, a Guardian correspondent (and Progressive contributor), who has written a memoir of his 23 years in the country before he was kicked out. “And it’s not because he turned the land over to poor black Zimbabweans. He evicted the white farmers and turned over the land to his influential supporters—judges, army officers and other people he wants to keep happy. Most importantly, he has shown that he has the power to bestow people with land and even when they get the land, they are there at his behest.”

So where does it go from here? Mugabe is almost completely isolated internationally. Great Britain (in part because many of the targeted Zimbabwean farmers are of British origin) and the United States have been among his most vocal critics. The Chinese provide him his only significant source of support. So there is no external benefactor that can be leaned on to withdraw assistance. (On the other hand, the reticence of South African President Thabo Mbeki and other African leaders to come out forcefully against Mugabe hasn’t hurt the dictator any.) Also, Mugabe relishes international opprobrium because that gives him a chance to pose as an anti-imperialist.

The best hope is for Mugabe to be ousted by his own party members. Indications are that his misrule is alienating even his base of support. Due to his unpopularity and his advanced age, some of his people are quietly looking for alternatives, and it may not be long before he’s eased out.

It’ll be a graceless end, and he’ll deserve it.