This is an earlier opinion piece that appeared in 'The New Vision'.


'Mugabe Not As Bad As Portrayed By West'

New Vision (Kampala)

OPINION
6 January 2008
Posted to the web 7 January 2008

By Andrew Kanyegirire
Kampala

THE demonisation of President Robert Mugabe by Western leaders, commentators and their local comprador agents in Africa, masks their refusal to engage with the question of land reform in Zimbabwe. In addition, their calls onto African leaders to vilify Mugabe portrays their disregard for the region's geo-politics.

For instance, in the article titled: "African leaders must condemn Mugabe" (New Vision, December 11, 2007) the author advises African presidents to stop 'hero-worshipping' this 'evil' and 'barbaric man' and to make him feel 'unwelcome at civilised meetings' such as the recent EU-AU summit.

This portrayal of Mugabe are in line with Western media views of him as a villain and a power-hungry brute that is curbing human rights against his own people so that he can stay in power.

Trouble started when Mugabe embarked on a campaign to expropriate land from white commercial farmers for redistribution to the rural black poor.

Human rights organisations declared the campaign to be an illegal exercise of farm seizures through murder, rape and arson. The so-called 'land grabs' basically re-awakened white fears of black barbarism and racist views about uncivilised blacks and their inability to control their own destiny.

Faced with low food production levels and international restrictions, Zimbabwe is now going through an economic crisis. Official inflation has hit 8,000% although real inflation is closer to 90,000%. There is starvation, fuel shortages and forced unemployment. There are also threats, imprisonments, disappearances and even murders against people that oppose ZANU-PF.

Despite the crisis, some Zimbabweans, even those who oppose the Mugabe regime, agree with him on the farm seizures. My repeated visits to Harare, Gweru and Bulawayo have led me to conclude that while Mugabe may not have fulfiled the aspirations of his people, especially those that are landless, they still feel that he has at least attempted to undo the colonial structures of land ownership.

In fact, many Zimbabweans, including those in the diaspora, are skeptical about any new land reform proposals, say, from the British, given that such attempts would simply leave the settler community in control.

This would only serve to entrench the colonial land ownership structures. In addition, there is also the belief that Western calls for external intervention and regime change in Zimbabwe have had nothing to do with human rights and democracy, but everything to do with attempts to secure advantages for US and European corporations, banks and investors.

The repercussions of the crisis in Zimbabwe are being felt throughout southern Africa with large numbers of Zimbabweans leaving their country for the likes of South Africa and Botswana.

Under such circumstances, one would have expected SADC leaders to be openly critical of Mugabe and to even be in favour of a quick fix military solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Instead, Mugabe is continuously being received by his fellow heads of state with rapturous rounds of applause at various events, as in the cases of the recent COMESA and SADC summits.

However, African presidents are not doing this simply because they support what he is doing to his people, but rather because he supported many of the liberation movements.

This sentiment was articulated by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni during his October 2004 state visit to Zimbabwe, where he said: "When I hear these people trying to demonise President Mugabe, I say you can't demonise a leader of the liberation struggle and expect support from us. You are just stupid".

The one-time guerrilla leader against British colonialism is also still being respected by his comrades because he, similar to Cuba's Fidel Castro, represents one of the few seasoned leaders in the Southern hemisphere that can defy Western imperial interests whilst also reminding us of their continuing history of curbing self-determination in Africa.

In addition, African leaders are hesitant to publicly humiliate Mugabe at summits because they know that such tactics will only serve to drive him further away from any mediation efforts.

This is why African leaders, with South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki as the chief negotiator, have preferred quiet diplomacy and behind-the-scenes arm-twisting in the negotiations between ZANU-PF and MDC. Besides, public condemnations and support for regime change in Zimbabwe would make them susceptible to accusations that they have sided with the imperial powers.

African presidents have also steered clear of the Western calls for the less viable option of military intervention given that some SADC leaders are also yet to carry out any meaningful land reforms in their own countries. To advocate Western intervention would put them at the risk of having to go through the same experience in their own countries in case they ever decided to return the land to the people.

Mbeki's approach of quiet diplomatic mediation between ZANU-PF and MDC may have scored some success. Both parties have agreed on a draft political accord, which should clear the way for presidential elections in March 2008.

The accord attempts to look into the stringent media and security laws that are preventing the opposition from carrying out election campaigns.

Therefore, it is not surprising to find that African leaders are showing their solidarity with Mugabe at various regional meetings and that they also prefer quiet diplomacy as the preferred route. It is not because they agree with him as such, but rather its part of an attempt to negotiate and balance a plethora of competing factors such as the sensitive issue of land reform without losing sight of their mediation attempts.

The continuing vilification of Mugabe only serves to eschew the more pertinent and nagging question of how to carry out genuine land reform in the country. More pertinently, it also serves to foster a Western-led quick fix solution that would ultimately deter Zimbabweans from taking charge of their destiny.