Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, the architect of this humanitarian disaster, refuses to stand aside as half the population starves and the country descends into economic ruin.
This deepening devastation cannot be resolved without a concerted effort by the international community speaking as one voice to pressure the South African Development Community to toughen its stand against Mugabe.
Talks resumed earlier this week, but late yesterday, with no progress made, they stalled. The US has already retracted its support for Mugabe and the power-sharing deal orchestrated four months earlier between ZANU-PF and the two factional leaders of the opposing Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara.
Yet, in contrast to the robust diplomacy of Britain, the US and the European Union to galvanise international support for the isolation of the brutal Mugabe regime, Australia’s Prime Minister has had nothing to say about Zimbabwe since June 2008. The Prime Minister has been uncharacteristically coy on the unfolding humanitarian disaster spreading throughout Zimbabwe.
For example, in December, in the week marking the 60th anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Rudd Government sought to reaffirm "Australia’s strong record in the protection and promotion of international human rights". Yet the Prime Minister had nothing to say about protecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean children threatened by malnutrition, a lack of clean water and the risk of disease.
And as the Government made much of a $1.5 million contribution to promoting democratic freedoms in the Asia-Pacific, Rudd expressed no view about what more Australia should be doing to stem the cruel and callous policies of one of the world’s most despicable regimes.
In fact, the Rudd Government’s only contributions in recent months have been largely limited to small increases in food aid to Zimbabwe through UN agencies in November and a $1 million boost in funding for emergency relief in December.
Under the Coalition, Australia took a leading role in international efforts to exert diplomatic and financial pressures on the Mugabe regime. We froze the financial assets of key figures in the Mugabe regime, restricted visas for travel to Australia by Mugabe’s ministers and senior officials, and banned adult children of leading regime figures from continuing their higher education studies in Australia.
In contrast, Rudd’s silence exposes Australia to the perception that it is a mere bystander, timid and disengaged on this humanitarian crisis.
Australia should be doing more.
By establishing a special envoy to make representations to the SADC, for example, Australia could add to its diplomatic muscle. Rudd should also declare unambiguously Australia’s strong support for pressure to bring the nightmare of the Mugabe regime to an end. This should be reflected in direct representations to South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, before they again attempt to broker a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai this week.
The Rudd Government has stated publicly that it wants broader and deeper links with Africa. Yet on a critical humanitarian challenge facing southern Africa, Rudd has refused to speak out.
Worryingly, this is feeding a perception that the Australian Government’s reluctance to involve itself more forcefully and directly in the international efforts to bring change to Zimbabwe is related to Rudd’s personal campaign to garner votes for a seat on the UN Security Council for
2013.
Instead, Rudd should be at the forefront of international efforts to rescue Zimbabwe from the misrule of a discredited and dangerous regime. Prime Minister Rudd should not only be saying so forthrightly, but the Australian Government should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other governments determined to ensure the regime is held to account for its many outrages against its own people.
If the people of Zimbabwe are to be saved from disaster, Mugabe must go.
Helen Coonan is the Opposition spokeswoman on foreign affairs.