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UNITED NATIONS — Tragically another political timebomb is ticking in the Southern African land of Zimbabwe where an entrenched and immeasurably corrupt regime is setting the stage for Presidential elections. While Robert "Comrade Bob" Mugabe has blamed Britain, the former colonial power, for just about everything under the Southern African sun, the fact remains that his Marxist mismanagement, his deliberate stoking of racial hatred and class envy against the white and Asian mirco/minority, and his political buffoonery, places Zimbabwe in dire straits. Importantly the world community is watching what happens.
As much as the past few years have shown signs of encouraging political change from the harassed opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, in the meantime Zimbabwe's once prosperous and self-sufficient economy is on the skids.
Next March, longtime ruler Mugabe will allow elections
– of a sort. If the vote is free, fair and monitored, there's a good change the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) can win. If he plays the old card of political divisiveness, he may win the old fashioned way. Yet "Comrade Bob" is beyond the stage of hosting an election and being assured of the respectable 98.5% landside
– far too many people are watching and that's good.
"Comrade Bob" has made his controversial land expropriation scheme a key election theme; stirring up racial resentment is a long honed specialty of Mugabe's ZANU-PF political party. Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade union activist and leader of the moderate MDC, expects a " bruising election contest."
Harare's still free but oft harassed newspaper the Daily News opined, the issues facing the country are "Governance, economy, land, corruption, and leadership
– the MDC have the distinct advantage of being the alternative to 21 years of misrule and misgovernance."
Importantly the Bush Administration has played this impending crisis carefully. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner explained to ZANU-PF government officials in Harare (formerly Salisbury) that the USA will provide economic aid and incentives in proportion to political liberalization. In contrast, should Mugabe crackdown on democratic groups and newspapers, Washington will respond in kind.
The Bush Administration is correct to use the incentive of carrot and stick
– don't threaten to makes things economically worse for the long suffering people of Zimbabwe just to prove a political point from far off Washington. Both the USA and European Union are set to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, but equally seek to find ways to finesse political change .
A country which once exported food now has allowed illegal farm seizures and occupations in the name of raw political power. ZANU-PF sanctioned farm takeovers have caused a dramatic drop in agricultural production causing food shortages. With negative 7 % economic growth, more than 65% unemployment, and high inflation, a once prosperous self-sufficient land teeters on the brink.
Another positive force for change remains South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki who has unapologetically called the Mugabe regime what it is.
South Africa's logic is based on clear national interests. According to London's Daily Telegraph , "After months of gentle diplomacy interested by critics as inaction, Mbeki appears finally to have been convinced that the threat of civil war in Zimbabwe will spread instability across southern Africa." Moreover with the South African currency, the once mighty Rand in freefall, and food shortages in Zimbabwe, the time to stop the slide to chaos. Already Zimbabwe is dependent on South Africa for electricity, maize (corn) and transport ties.
As Johannesburg's influential Business Day newspaper opined, "Zimbabwe has become a regional security threat on South Africa's doorstep egged on by the likes of Libya's Muammar Gadaffi in competition with Pretoria for continental leadership. There is a lot at stake."
As this column always argued, Zimbabwe must be viewed beyond the dimension of corrupt left wing politics and regime thuggery. Plainly stated, the food producing capacity of Zimbabwe, not to mention South Africa, remains a vital foundation for an increasingly fragile continent where civil wars, famine, and AIDS stalk the land. In other words, further chaos besides creating more refugees and wider food shortages, threatens regional security.
In the meantime, the USA, European Union, and South Africa must work together to defuse this political timebomb in Harare and then just as quickly, stay seriously engaged in restabilizing both the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
