Long after you leave Zimbabwe images linger in the mind, harrowing and
ineradicable. An emaciated old woman making soup from weeds for her
orphaned grandchildren; desperate parents foraging in the bush for a
handful of desiccated berries; young men defying crocodiles to catch a
handful of tiny fish in the Zambezi; the corpses of cholera victims
trussed up in black plastic sheeting; the ubiquitous and debilitated
Aids victims; perfunctory funerals in Harare’s cemetery while, all
around, fresh graves are dug.
The pathetic attempts to grow vegetables on scraps of common land; the
queues desperate to withdraw a few pennies from banks before their
money loses all its value; the listlessness and despair of a crushed
and broken people, the anguish of priests, doctors and aid workers
overwhelmed by this tsunami of suffering…
There are other images, too. Of once bountiful farms plundered then
abandoned by Robert Mugabe’s cronies, fields vanishing beneath the
encroaching bush; of Zanu (PF) fat cats and their playboy offspring
speeding around Harare in sleek Mercedes, or stuffing themselves in
restaurants; of opponents beaten, tortured and killed; of Mr Mugabe and
his profligate wife holed up in their heavily guarded estate, oblivious
to the misery of their people, while Western NGOs inadvertently prop up
a pernicious regime by providing the rudimentary services – food,
water, healthcare – the failed state can no longer deliver.
Enough is enough, Gordon Brown declared as the West worked itself up
into one of its periodic lathers last month. But no one, it seems, is
prepared to contemplate the one guaranteed means of removing Zimbabwe’s
President: military intervention by a multinational force.
Nothing else has worked. Mr Mugabe has shown not the slightest
intention of honouring his commitment to share power with Morgan
Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change. South Africa has
singularly failed, despite repeated international exhortations, to
exert real pressure on Mr Mugabe to step down. Thabo Mbeki, its former
President and the Southern African Development Community’s mediator,
has been downright complicit in sustaining the regime.
There will be no popular uprising against Mr Mugabe – three million of
Zimbabwe’s best citizens have fled the country and the rest are too
weak, cowed and preoccupied with survival. A palace coup is improbable
– the leaders of Zanu (PF)’s bitterly feuding factions appear to
recognise that if Mr Mugabe falls, they all do. There have been no
repeats of the riots by underpaid soldiers that briefly raised hopes
last month. Some advocate a fuel blockade, but that would merely
compound the suffering of ordinary people while the regime would
undoubtedly find ways to circumvent it.
Which leaves military intervention – an idea from which, after Iraq,
the world instinctively and understandably recoils. But is it really so
unthinkable? You could equally well argue that if there were ever a
case for regime change, for using military power to better the world,
Zimbabwe is it.
First, it is eminently feasible. No great force would be required. The
Mugabe regime, like a tree hollowed out by termites, is just waiting to
be toppled. It is sustained by security forces whose middle and lower
ranks are almost as penniless, starving and demoralised as the citizens
they are meant to suppress. You see numerous soldiers and policemen
hitchhiking on the highways, and in the privacy of a car they readily
voice profound disgruntlement. It is inconceivable that they would
fight to defend the regime, even if they had the weapons, fuel and
transport. Most would melt away at the first sight of a foreign force.
Any fighting would probably be over within hours, and the bloodshed
would be minimal.
Second, there is a popular and legitimate government waiting to take
over. Nobody seriously disputes that Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC
comfortably won the presidential and parliamentary elections last March
despite all Zanu (PF)’s violence, intimidation and vote rigging.
Third, it is immoral for the world to stand by, wringing its hands, in
the face of such manifest evil. The 2005 UN World Summit agreed that
the international community bore a responsibility to protect
populations from genocide and other atrocities when their own
governments failed to do so. What is happening in Zimbabwe is not far
short of genocide.
More than half the population would starve were it not for Western food
aid. Life expectancy has plunged to 39 years – the lowest in the world.
Aids, cholera and other diseases sweep away the chronically
malnourished. While the regime loots what is left of Zimbabwe’s wealth,
a third of the population has been driven out, 90 per cent of those
that remain are jobless, and the currency is rendered worthless by an
inflation rate measured in quintillions of percentage points. Any
opposition is ruthlessly crushed.
The arguments against military intervention are easy to predict. It
would set a precedent. South Africa would object. If Zimbabwe, why not
Sudan or North Korea? Intervention would smack of Western imperialism.
To which the answers are, in turn: I hope so; tough; because Zimbabwe
is doable; and that any intervention force would have to include
African troops. Kenya, Botswana and Zambia have all denounced the
regime. Even Ethiopia might be tempted by the prospect of capturing its
former President, Mengistu Haile Mariam, who lives there as Mr Mugabe’s
guest despite being convicted in absentia of genocide.
Once inconceivable, military intervention is still only a remote
possibility. The political will does not exist. Already world attention
has been diverted by Gaza, and Mr Mugabe – the old crocodile – has
survived another crisis.
By Martin Fletcher
Post published in: Uncategorized