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April 25, 2000
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BRITAIN’S WILLING HELPERSTo the credit of Zimbabwe’s inhabitants Mugabe’s tactics are not working. Mugabe is still loathed and it looks that he will lose the next election, if he holds it and if it is fair. The opposition movement is strong in the towns and in the Matabeleland, where Mugabe organised ethnic terror in the 1980s (more people were killed there than under Pinochet in Chile or Kosovo under Yugoslavia). However, there are worries. The main opposition movement is new and it does not seem willing to reach an alliance with older opposition groups. For a movement that professes utter determination to just rid Zimbabwe of Mugabe this is strange. Total victory is not really the language of pluralism. Similarly, the plea to the West to intervene is disturbing, from such an ostensibly democratic politician. This was not the case when Britain attempted to get the other African leaders to ostracise Mugabe; the refusal to do so was obviously barely reported by the BBC. Christine Stone has written on the similarities of the Movement for Change and other "opposition" parties that tended to be an instrument of Western policy. From the British angle, I can see this in the uncritical coverage that the opposition receives and the fact that the views are put out as fact by many of the commentators. THE CURSE OF HAINOne of the characters who deserve attention is Peter Hain, the junior foreign office minister who is taking the lead in the Mugabe bashing. Hain has had, to say the least, an interesting past. A Kenyan who grew up in South Africa before escaping the draft, he was a leading figure in the anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s and 1980s. He then became a Labour MP and started rising up the parliamentary party to his present post in the Foreign Office. There are some odd rumours circulating about him. Many people believe that he was an agent of the South African security service, B.O.S.S., and that he was used as a tool of the regime, to neutralise the growing movement for sanctions. This is an odd point of view, and one to which I do not subscribe; it is purely circumstantial and arises from the far left; a notoriously fractious group. Nevertheless, the one set of sanctions that were imposed, and of which Hain was a prominent advocate, were sporting and cultural links. Although resented by the South African regime they were hardly as damaging as, say, an oil embargo would be. This, say some grumblers, was Hain’s contribution to the antiapartheid movement, side tracking it when it had built up some momentum. If this is true, and I do not believe that it is, then is his outspoken course of action on Zimbabwe really for Britain’s interests, or for that of his home country? RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLEThere is one strategic question, and that is Zaire. Mugabe has committed his country to a ruinous war to prop up Laurent Kabilla in the Congo. Zimbabwe’s army has secured the richest parts of the Congo and treat it like a private estate for the benefit of highly placed generals and government officials. Naturally this war is strongly opposed, especially in the cities. However, this war may bring a clue as to the interest of the West. The civil war in Zaire is also linked to the one in Angola, with troops from the formerly American backed UNITA based in Zaire and the American backed regimes in Uganda and Rwanda also backing the insurgents. Laurent Kabilla has been a disappointment to the West in not opening up the mineral resources of Zaire to Western companies. Mugabe’s intervention on Kabilla’s side (which including arming and training the odious Rwandan Interhamwe militias) may not be the reason for the sudden Western displeasure, but they will not be a reason for approval. BRITAIN SHOULD DO NOTHINGSo what should Britain, and the West do? My short answer is that we should do nothing. Obviously, we should let any refugees in the country, not because they are persecuted but simply because they are proven to be resourceful. Apart from that Britain has no obligations to intervene. Zimbabwe chose its fate when Mugabe was voted in government in 1980. The distribution of land is a purely Zimbabwean affair, of no interest to Britain. A British passport does not guarantee your ability to hold land in a country that declared independence thirty-five years ago. The war in the Congo is not our war and the fight for political rights is a fight that the people of Zimbabwe had best be fighting. There are elections in Zimbabwe, some of which Mugabe has actually lost, and if these elections are rigged it is up to the people of Zimbabwe to throw this rotten lot out. One other thing, why is the BBC paying so much attention to a foreign country where we are not fighting, yet? Please Support Antiwar.comA contribution of $25 or more gets you a copy of Justin Raimondo's Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against US Intervention in the Balkans, a 60-page booklet packed with the kind of intellectual ammunition you need to fight the lies being put out by this administration and its allies in Congress. Send contributions to Antiwar.com or
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