In Zimbabwe, hope has turned to silent terror

Peter Oborne

12 April 2008

Peter Oborne says that the post-electoral limbo leaves Mugabe with a series of unpalatable options, the armed forces in disarray and Zimbabweans with a sense of grim foreboding

Simba Makoni is Mbeki’s personal choice as the next president of Zimbabwe. There is some evidence that he is also supported by the US state department. A highly intelligent and well-educated man, Makoni was a member of the Mugabe inner circle for many years, while maintaining warm links to foreign observers and exercising care to evade personal responsibility for the worst of the regime’s atrocities. He only stood for the presidency after being given the green light by Mbeki earlier this year. Unlike Morgan Tsvangirai, a former miner of incredible courage but with little formal education, Makoni is the kind of politician who appeals profoundly to the bureaucratic mind.

Mbeki, quietly backed by the United States, hoped to induce Mugabe to step down and get Makoni to stand in his stead. This plan had definite logic. Makoni, though he will never be forgiven by Mugabe for what the President sees as an act of unspeak- able betrayal, retains the strongest links with Zanu PF. This means that he would probably be acceptable to the senior generals and policemen who hold the key to Zimbabwe’s immediate future, and to whom Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change is utterly repugnant.

By the start of this week it was beginning to be clear that the Makoni wheeze was not going to fly. The trouble is that — like many politicians beloved of the official class — Mbeki’s protégé lacks mass support. The failure of the South African intervention means there was stalemate in Zimbabwe as The Spectator went to press. Basically, President Mugabe has only three options, and time is running out very fast indeed.

The first of these is to mount a coup d’état, the solution which is preferred by Mugabe’s inner circle. Significantly, it seems to be favoured by General Constantine Chiwenga, commander in chief of the armed forces, and by Air Force Marshall Perence Shiri, Mugabe’s blood relation and close ally.

It must be borne in mind that senior figures such as these do not merely stand to lose power if Mugabe wins. They also face the prospect of being brought to justice for the crimes of the Mugabe regime. It was Perence Shiri, for instance, who led the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigades in the Matabeleland genocide of the early 1980s.

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Les

April 11th, 2008 10:18am Report this comment

The final result of the election will be violence and chaos as in Kenya(the bright light of democracy in Africa).
It's the African way.

Familiar Clown

April 11th, 2008 1:35pm Report this comment

The SADC meetings have always proved a toothless talking shop. Tsvangirai won the elections full stop. It will be up to the concerted efforts of his countrymen and friends in Africa to boot out Mugabe. He will do it, although, at this stage, democracy as an ideal may have to take second place to sheer survival of the masses.

Mike D

April 15th, 2008 2:44pm Report this comment

This all had to happen.

The 1980 elections were not even vaguely free and fair. The Rhodesian security forces were confined to their bases. Mugabe's terrorist army was not similarly confined to assembly points. Where it was meant to be. Followers were, yes. The hard core were in the townships and the rural areas terrorizing the black population. Doing what they had done throughout the bush war. Killing the headmen, raping their women, mutilating their cattle. Instilling into them the belief that they would know who they voted for and their fate if it was not for Mugabe's Zanu PF.
Soames, Carrington et al were not interested. They wanted out. In any fashion that could be papered over to look respectable. And to be shot of the whole mess. Nigerian oil and a happy Commonwealth were what mattered to them. Not 275 000 whites and a few million blacks. Or what was just.

Mugabe will soon go. But that a minor part of the problem. If Zimbabwe wants to be where it was in the 1990's one thing has to happen. Its agricultural industry has to be reinstated. Which means white farmers, capital and guarantees of safety and security. None of these will happen. Another Zambia, perhaps, and nothing more.

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