SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE has identified Zimbabwe as one of six “outposts of tyranny.” She is certainly right. What remains unclear is what immediate steps Washington is prepared to take to oppose the regime of Robert Mugabe and address the consequences of its misrule–a collapsing economy, the prospect of mass starvation by April, and a swelling flood of refugees in neighboring countries.
Currently, most commentators are focusing on the elections supposed to take place in March. President Mugabe, who with his ZANU-PF party stole the last two elections in 2000 and 2002 by ballot-rigging, intimidation, voter fraud, and many other violations of the constitution, has said he will meet the election requirements laid out by the Southern African Development Community.
The most important of these are political tolerance, freedom of association, equal access to state media, and independence of the judiciary and electoral institutions–none of which is anywhere in sight, according to the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, told me in November that he didn’t expect Mugabe to honor any of the conditions–but that if ZANU-PF reduced the level of violence, he would lead his party into the elections. That now appears in the offing. “Some rogue elements still exist here and there,” Tsvangirai said last week, “but by and large we have witnessed a decrease in cases of open violence against political opponents.”
More skeptical insiders, including Tsvangirai’s adviser Welshman Ncube, said that violence perpetrated by police continues. They stop the MDC from holding political rallies, and leave party activists at risk of being abducted, beaten, and tortured by ruling-party militias and members of the security forces. Furthermore, an analysis of the electoral rolls in 2000 (the last time any independent observer was able to examine them) suggests that there may be as many as 400,000 deceased people available to vote–and, as one MDC activist put it, “the dead don’t vote for the opposition.” In the last election, out of an electorate of less than 5.5 million, some 600,000 government supporters managed to vote twice.
The Independent Electoral Commission is the latest in a long line of sick jokes, being neither independent of Mugabe’s control nor a real commission. For example, it has overseen the drawing up of district boundaries that reduce the number of members of parliament elected in the MDC strongholds of Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the second city, claiming the number of registered voters has fallen, while increasing representation in Mugabe’s rural strongholds in the northeast. The reason the numbers have fallen–Mugabe’s reign of terror, which has caused over 3 million desperate and malnourished Zimbabweans to flee–is never acknowledged.
There are almost no independent media. The last important paper, the Daily News, was bombed out of its offices in 2003. The Standard and the Independent (both owned by Trevor Ncube, who owned the Daily News) still just about operate, but they must self-censor and are nowhere near as robust as the Daily News was. Meanwhile, the ZANU-PF-controlled radio and TV stations spout absurd anti-MDC propaganda, accusing the opposition of the very acts of savagery, including rape and murder, that they commit.
All government meetings feature anti-MDC sloganeering. With some trepidation lest he be perceived as supporting the odious Mugabe regime, my colleague Richard Tren, South Africa director of Africa Fighting Malaria, attended a malaria-control meeting in Kariba, in northern Zimbabwe, in November. His aim was to encourage the use of sensible policies to save children from this deadly disease that claims hundreds of lives a week. Tren left in disgust when the “health” meeting descended into a pseudo-rally against the opposition, who had not been invited. Representatives of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and other multilateral organizations stayed till the end of the event, giving tacit support to the current regime.
So why is Morgan Tsvangirai not boycotting an election he cannot win? There are two possible reasons. The first is the more palatable. If the MDC were to sit out the election, ZANU-PF would certainly win enough seats to be able to change the constitution, which could be crucial when Mugabe either dies or is overthrown. The MDC currently holds 57 seats, and must retain at least 50 to veto constitutional amendments.
This is important, because under the present constitution, elections must be held if the president dies or resigns. Some ruling-party officials would like Mugabe to appoint a successor, who would then have a few years in power before facing the people with all the advantages of incumbency. Even if the MDC does take part, of course, it may not retain enough seats to prevent such political nepotism from occurring.
As for the second reason Tsvangirai will participate in the election, several Zimbabwe watchers who wish to remain nameless say he may be seeking to hold his party together under his leadership, with or without any hope of victory, in order to maintain the support of the international community, which wants the country to be seen as passably democratic. Participation will keep him on the international stage, and prevent South African and international officials, including at the State Department, from being forced to act.
So far, inaction has been the order of the day. Quiet diplomacy–the “talk, talk, and more talk” of South African president Thabo Mbeki–is changing nothing in Zimbabwe, and the West’s support of it has done no good.
Unlike in Darfur or the regions ravaged by the tsunami, the bodies are not piling up under the scrutiny of a video-hungry media. Instead, apart from a steady but relatively small number of victims of political murder, black Zimbabweans are dying out of sight, in rural communities, of starvation and HIV. Harvests are about 15 percent of normal, and there are no drugs to treat any but the very fortunate. With the next harvest expected to be the lowest in decades, the death toll is due to rise around the time of the election. Already most food is allocated only to ZANU-PF voters. Surely the time to act on this betrayal of the most basic of human rights is now.
Secretary Rice is to be commended for addressing Zimbabwe. But the rhetorical battle has only just begun. She must convince southern African leaders that U.S. aid, military support, and other diplomatic favors such as trade deals hinge on their solving the problem on their doorstep. They must believe that unless they enforce the election protocols agreed to by Mugabe, the United States will withdraw support for the region. Business as usual should not be an option for this outpost of tyranny.
Roger Bate is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
