In one of his last actions as British Prime Minister, Tony Blair visited Africa to defend his “thoroughly interventionist” foreign policy towards the continent. At the end of his trip, at a press conference with South African President Thabo Mbeki, the PM admitted that when it came to the issue of Zimbabwe, only local pressure would do the job. “An African solution,” he said, “is needed to this African problem.”
Yet as the BBC’s Sue Lloyd-Roberts demonstrated so vividly on Newsnight last week, Zimbabwe cannot any more be seen as an African problem needing an African solution – it is a humanitarian disaster.
The statistics alone are devastating: the average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34 years; for men, it is 37. Inflation rages at 8,000 per cent; the shelves are empty of bread and maize; in the hospitals and clinics, children die for lack of vitamins, food and medicine, while the ravages of AIDS are exacerbated by government indifference.
In the cramped townships now home to those supporters of the opposition whose homes Mugabe destroyed in a frenzy of destruction called “Clean out the filth”, there is no electricity or fresh running water and sewage spews out of the dilapidated buildings. The first cholera deaths were reported last week.
The time has come for Mr Brown, who has already shown himself to be an African interventionist through his work at the UN in favour of the people of Darfur, finally to slay the ghosts of Britain’s colonialist past by thoroughly revising foreign policy towards Zimbabwe and to lead the way in co-ordinating an international response.
The time for “African solutions” alone is now over. Despite his best efforts, President Mbeki has failed to help the people of Zimbabwe. At best, he has been ineffectual in his efforts to advise, cajole and persuade Robert Mugabe to reverse his unjust and brutal regime. At worst, Mbeki is complicit in his failing to lead the charge against a neighbour who is systematically raping the country he leads.
Britain needs to escape from its colonial guilt when it comes to Zimbabwe. Mugabe is the worst kind of racist dictator. Having targeted the whites for their apparent riches, Mugabe has enacted an awful Orwellian vision, with the once oppressed taking on the role of the oppressor and glorying in their totalitarian abilities. Enemies are tortured, the press is censored, the people are starving and meanwhile the world waits for South Africa to intervene. That time is now over.
It is now time for the sanctions and campaigns that brought an end to apartheid in South Africa to be applied to the Mugabe regime. What Britain deemed to be in the best interest of the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith must now be enacted against the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe. The smart sanctions implemented by governments towards terror groups now need to be brought to bear upon Mugabe’s regime.
The appalling poverty suffered by those who queue daily for bread in southern Harare is a world apart from the shops, boutiques of northern Harare, where Mugabe's supporters live in palatial surroundings. Britain must lead the way in calling for targeted sanctions against those purveyors of misery whose luxury is bought at the cost of unbearable poverty.
The Observer