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The Colour Bar 23rd June 2003 This is what happens when a five-year-old child goes hungry. He needs 1,400 calories a day and should weigh about 2st 12lb. If his weight falls by more than 9lb he loses his resistance to disease. He may get measles and go blind. Or worse. He will be in severe pain. He stops playing. If sanitation is poor his stomach will be full of worms - sometimes enough to fill a large bowl. If it continues he will die. If he survives his mental health will be damaged. This is a form of torture just as foul as anything that happens in the darkest of dungeons in any police state. It is happening today in Zimbabwe. Yet surely torture is a human perversion and famine a result of perverse nature. Well, the rains have been poor in southern Africa and the crops have suffered. But that has happened before and people have not starved. Rhodesia was the breadbasket of the region and produced more than enough food for its own people even in lean years. Now it is a basket case because of the incompetence, greed, corruption and cruelty of Robert Mugabe and his henchmen. They are as responsible for the suffering of the hungry as if they had hung them from a hook and beaten them with a club. It is monstrous oppression by a tyrannical regime. And we are allowing it to happen. Mugabe should be turfed out of power by force if necessary and his whole rotten crew with him. That is an easy sentence to write. Yet any half-competent diplomat can come up with a string of reasons why it cannot be accomplished. Let me list some of them. For a white, former colonial power to depose a black leader would be unthinkable. It would risk rallying the entire black population against the attackers. There might be riots on the streets - not just of Zimbabwe but of South Africa and other black African nations. The neighbouring states just would not wear it. It would create turmoil in a region that has quite enough problems already. Who knows what terrorism might be inspired by such action? There would be real military problems in mounting an attack. Zimbabwe is landlocked and South Africa and Zambia would never allow their territory to be used to stage an invasion. And anyway you can't invade another nation just because you don't like the nature of its rulers. Regime change is not a legitimate reason for military intervention. International law does not allow it. Now where have I heard all this before? Ah yes, Iraq. So let's take another look at that little list in the light of what has happened in the Middle East. Britain was once, in effect, the colonial power in Iraq, too, but that did not stop us setting ourselves up as the liberators. There have been no riots on the streets of Arab cities to protest against the invasion. So far as it is possible to judge, most other Arab leaders are perfectly happy to see the back of Saddam Hussein even if they cannot say so publicly. True, there has been some resistance to the military occupation in parts of Iraq, but British and American occupiers tell us that it is no more than expected and easily containable. Mostly, they insist, they have been welcomed as liberators. Certainly there has been no popular uprising against the removal of Saddam. Nor has there been any obvious increase in terrorist activity. Neighbouring states are not up in arms and nor is the region in any greater turmoil than usual. Militarily, the invasion went as smoothly as could reasonably have been expected, even though Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used. As for international law . . . why worry? The second United Nations resolution turned out not to be necessary and the government's lawyers said it was okay. So that's fine. The diplomatic repercussions looked pretty serious at one stage, but things are already beginning to settle down. Yes, Saddam was an unelected dictator and Mugabe has democratic credentials. But does he really? The last elections were blatantly rigged, as even the South Africans and Nigerians now acknowledge. When the people try to use their democratic right to protest in the streets or stay away from work, as they did earlier this month, they are terrorised by Mugabe's bully boys. By now the list of objections is beginning to look a bit thin. Take the colonial point. If Britain were to intervene it could not possibly be seen as an attempt to recolonise. We would be in and out faster than Mugabe's ministers can steal another farm. Iraq has no history of democracy. Zimbabwe does. There is even a reasonable party structure with a viable opposition. Riots in the streets? To anyone who knows Zimbabwe at all, that idea is simply risible. Nor is there the slightest risk that military action would increase any potential terrorist threat. By toppling Mugabe we would simply be restoring democracy. Not even the most fanciful could interpret that as a crusade against a religion or an ideology. South Africa could probably end Mugabe's rule simply by cutting off his energy supplies. It won't do it because President Mbeki does not want to be seen to be turning on his old comrade in arms and having to take the moral responsibility for his actions. He would tut-tut a little if someone else did the deed but would secretly be relieved to be rid of his troublesome neighbour. Mbeki's own brother has told me he wants to see him thrown out. Mugabe's rule costs him more than political embarrassment. A vast number of penniless Zimbabweans have fled across the border to seek sanctuary in South Africa. The collapse of Zimbabwe's economy has caused enormous disruption in the region and, according to the Zimbabwe Research Institute, cost the area $2.5 billion. That's a lot of money for a poor region. As for creating turmoil in the region, the opposite would happen. The economic regeneration of Zimbabwe would be the key to unlocking much greater western investment in the region, especially from the United States. Would intervention create military problems? Hardly. Mugabe's army makes Saddam's look like a Nazi panzer division. Many of his senior officers are already said to be near revolt. It could be just the opportunity they want to throw him out. So we come to the legal situation. Certainly there would be outrage at the UN. So what? There was outrage over Iraq and it was brushed aside. Nor was there a UN mandate for the action taken by Nato over Kosovo. It was justified on humanitarian grounds. The suffering inflicted by Mugabe on Zimbabwe is worse than anything Slobodan Milosevic managed in Kosovo. The latest reason offered by ministers to justify the war on Iraq is the mass graves uncovered since the invasion. Doesn't it count if the graves are dug in the brown earth of Africa? No, if there were a will to intervene it could be done. But there is not. It may simply be a question of double standards. To put it brutally, for all our talk of the brotherhood of man and the scar of Africa on our conscience, we simply do not care as much when black people kill each other. That's what they're always doing, isn't it? And it's not as if we are watching the suffering of Zimbabwe on our television screens every night. Mugabe has seen to that by the simple expedient of keeping out the cameras and reporters. Or it might be that the whole humanitarian thing is a bit of a cover story. What matters are strategic and "security" interests. The sad thing for the people of Zimbabwe is that Mugabe has not been mad enough to set up a few laboratories and manufacture the odd drum of ricin. Not to mention the absence of oil. Or a neighbour like Israel. But this is all academic. There will be no intervention. The people of Zimbabwe will be left to their fate. Excellent organisations such as Save the Children will do what they can to feed the hungry - to "stabilise" them, in the jargon. Britain and others will fork out a few million here and there to ship in some aid while Mugabe's henchmen steal what little grain is still being harvested to get even richer and use it as a political weapon to hold onto power. Mugabe's wife will pop over to Paris occasionally with her husband to do a little shopping. And the West will sigh deeply and do nothing. Enjoy your lunch. Comment:
John Humphrys - Sunday Times (London UK) |