Bill Corcoran has a piece in Slate that illustrates the dilemma Mugabe poses to the civilized world -- what to do in the face of absolute and contemptible cynicism.
Last week, Zimbabwe's government asked international donors and nongovernmental organizations to step in and assist the hundreds of thousands of families it has made homeless since May 19, when it began a controversial "clean-up campaign." Using bulldozers, the Zimbabwean army has destroyed the makeshift houses and flea markets that were the homes and businesses of Harare's urban poor.He then goes on to point out that all of this suffering is part of Mugabe's plan to maintain absolute power.
To ensure the [ZANU-PF] party's political superiority, it must keep the opposition weak. The Movement for Democratic Change, the leading opposition party, has its support base in poor urban neighborhoods, so diluting their numbers by moving people to rural areas makes it more difficult for the MDC to organize.For six years now Mugabe has pursued insane redistributionist policies, straight out of a Marxist playbook, that have bankrupted the national economy and produced widespread destitution. As a result the nation has become dependent on outside aid that is administered by the government and is dispensed to its political supporters. Those who do not support Mugabe's mad regime are rendered increasingly desperate. Now their last support, the pitiful black market enterprises and vegetable gardens on which they subsist have been taken from them and destroyed. They wander the countryside destitute and dying.
And now Mugabe calls on international organizations to supply food much of which, of course, will be distributed under the supervision of his regime so that they can further consolidate their control of the population.
But Mugabe is not alone in his sins. Corcoran notes:
Many despots who have wreaked havoc across Africa over the past few decades have sought to control who receives aid. Donations have repeatedly been stolen and used to support armed conflict in Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.What, then, should the international aid community do?
[S]hould international NGOs remain in Zimbabwe if they are being used as pawns and if people are being allowed to starve despite their donations? In the short term, a refusal to provide aid could well lead to starvation and even death for many thousands of Zimbabwe's poor, but in the long term, it could force Zimbabweans to stand up for themselves.Corcoran's solution is harsh and brutal -- perhaps no less so than the actions of the African tyrants.
Without action against Mugabe, Zimbabweans will receive no debt relief or financial aid from G8 member states, which are currently focusing on the continent as never before. And it should be noted that, without assistance, hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans will die from AIDS rather than starvation. The United Nations estimates that one in four Zimbabweans is HIV-positive and few of them receive medical treatment.
Change for Zimbabweans must be wrought from within, either by an opposition group or by disgruntled members of the ruling party. If international aid is denied to the masses, leaders with the courage to instigate such a change have a much better chance of success if they can rally citizens that have absolutely nothing to lose except the starvation and poverty forced upon them by their own government.
Read it here.
There are no attractive, or even morally acceptable, solutions to the problem of African tyranny. Withholding aid so as to increase immiseration to the point where revolution becomes possible is heartless and cruel to the point of insanity. Providing aid to be administered by corrupt administrations simply makes the situation worse, though it allows donors to pretend that they are absolved of responsibility for the suffering that ensues. Waiting for the African governments themselves to clean up their act is also unacceptable -- they will never respond. South Africa, the only state in the region able of influencing Mugabe has actually supported his programs and the African Union, responding to intense diplomatic pressure, is willing only tosend an observer. And what of the UN? It has sent an observer with the following result.
The Mail and Guardian reports:
A special United Nations envoy sent to investigate Zimbabwe's controversial campaign of shack demolitions praised President Robert Mugabe's government for its "vision", the state-run Herald newspaper claimed on Friday.Read it here.
One solution, suggested by the Zimbabwe opposition itself, is to impose sanctions on South Africa in order to force it to take action against Mugabe.
SW Radio Africa reports:
As international pressure mounts for African leaders to get involved in the Zimbabwe crisis, Zimbabwean exiles and human rights campaigners in the UK have launched a campaign to boycott South African products. As the big brother of the southern African region, President Thabo Mbeki's support of the Mugabe regime has come under heavy fire.
Read it here.
A boycott of S. Africa's black leadership -- I wonder what Jesse Jackson's position is on that? Maybe he could organize one of his [in]famous intervention missions to the region.
As I noted in an earlier post [here] President Bush has already called on South Africa to intervene, but to no effect.
And, need I add, current initiatives such as those proposed by Tony Blair and supported by grandstanding entertainers like Bono and Bob will be of little benefit to Africa's oppressed millions. Is there anything that can be done?
Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of S. African President Thabl Mbeki, last week proposed a solution based on the economic theories of Hernando DeSoto.
He said:
The real freedom Africans need is not just shows of democratic reform but real institutional reforms: property rights and the rule of law, allowing them to produce and trade freely, to save and to prosper, free of overbearing officials and institutional corruption. The real trade "justice" they need is free trade with each other, within their countries and with each other's countries, free of compulsory-purchase marketing boards, of customs barriers and of preferential licences. The real aid Africans need from the west is free trade without tariff barriers and other protectionist distortions - which happen to be burdens on western taxpayers, too. In fact, the money value to Africans of lifting these subsidies would far exceed the amount they receive in sterile aid. The real help Africans need is from business and industry, investing in production and investing expertise.
Read the New Statesman summary here.
Audio of Mbeki's address here.
This is precisely what President Bush and newly installed World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz have proposed -- making aid conditional on political and trade reform [see for instance here] -- and it is heartening to hear these policies being endorsed by a member of South Africa's political elite. Just the fact that such ideas are being taken seriously by prominent Africans spurs hope that they might possibly be effected.
As Matthew Parris has pointed out [here]
[I]t is commonplace to remark that Africa needs village banks, co-operative societies, book-keeping courses, etc. But the great thrust of development aid — not least the debt relief the G8 are discussing — misses that target by a mile. It is almost the only target worth hitting.
Indeed!
And we must hit that target hard. International aid must be aimed at establishing a market system that operates independently of the state, promoting freehold tenure of land, and making capital available for individual entrepreneurship. Such reforms, and only those reforms, promise to promote a solution to the current dilemma posed by monsters like Mugabe.
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