Zimbabwe Pays the Price

13^th April 2001

NELSON Mandela came to the presidency in South Africa in 1994 proclaiming "human rights will be the light that guides our foreign policy". His successor, Thabo Mbeki, called for an African Renaissance and an end to the dictatorships that have disfigured the continent's political landscape.

The foreign policy statements enunciated by the two presidents bore testimony that in a globalised world international relations can no longer be divorced from a country's domestic outlook. Zimbabwe's image, which has been tarred by reports of violence, instability and abandonment of the rule of law, has created serious challenges which require astute statesmanship.

Foreign minister Stan Mudenge in a policy document on Zimbabwe's foreign policy in January 1999 wrote that "Zimbabwe's foreign policy objective is fundamentally to help safeguard and enhance the security and prestige of the country and the quality of life of its people by engaging with other countries at various levels in order to influence their behaviour so that an international environment conducive to the attainment of these goals is created and maintained.

"The challenge for our foreign policy is to formulate a series of policies and principles that would help create an international environment conducive to the attainment of that goal," Mudenge said.

He added: "What are those challenges? Security for the country. Peace and stability in the country and its environs to allow and encourage investment and economic development. They also include forming partnerships with others to create larger markets both for attracting greater investment interest from outsiders and regional players and also for our own companies to benefit from the economies of scale that come with those bigger markets."

The sought-after environment has over the past two years evaporated in the heat of President Mugabe's quest for political martyrdom as he implements his inter- nationally-condemned agrarian reform. Allegations that he stole the presidential election last month have peeled off the wafer-thin veneer of legitimacy from his government.

The challenge for the Zimbabwean leadership should be how best to formulate a foreign policy that guarantees global interactions beneficial to national interests of which the prime needs are investment, food aid and balance-of-payments support. But Zimbabwe has continued to lose friends and has elected to engage in a loud war of words with the West as foreign policy is now centred on the ego of one man instead of strategically positioning Zimbabwe in the global economy.

President Mugabe, in a diversionist manoeuvre which stems form failure to come up with candid policies to solve the problems at home, has continued to brandish his threatening fist at the British and Americans and in fact at whoever questions his disastrous policies. But will this attitude "enhance the security and prestige of the country and the quality of life of its people"?

Political commentators have questioned who, in the entirety of Zimbabwe - other than Mugabe - cares whether there are gays in the Tony Blair government or whether the same government consists of "little men" who were in high school during the time of the liberation war in Zimbabwe?

As the situation at home continues to deteriorate, Zimbabwe has continued to lose friends. The country has been suspended from the Commonwealth, a club of former British colonies now largely African/Asian in complexion. The European Union and the United States have applied targeted sanctions. Scandinavian countries, which have supported Zimbabwe's social services, especially health, have cut aid and have threatened to close their missions here.

African states which hope to reap from South African President Thabo Mbeki's New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) have begun to regard Zimbabwe's bad policies as the blight that would fatally poison the plan in its infancy.

The US has promised African countries US$64 billion in trade and investment in exchange for respect for democratic values and an end to civil strife on the continent. Zimbabwe, which has elected to pick a fight with the West, is not set to get a piece of the cake.

As pressure mounts on Mugabe, he now believes that the problems Zimbabwe is facing stem from racism and an attempt to recolonise Zimbabwe by the British. Since the Abuja Agreement arrived at in Nigeria to bring normalcy to Zimbabwe's skewed land policy and relations with the UK, Mudenge has tried to drive a wedge between EU countries and predominately black ACP countries.

"One gets the impression that Mudenge hopes that because the ACP countries are not white they subscribe to de-valued values," said the opposition MDC's Paul Themba Nyathi in an article in the Zimbabwe Independent in January.

"We all know that within both the EU and ACP, there are nations whose records of governance stink to high heaven. However, the Cotonou agreement means that they all at least avoid behaving like Zimbabwe. So for Mudenge to try and invite the ACP countries to participate in Zimbabwe's disregard for the rule of law is misplaced," he said.

Zimbabwe will claim that its salvation will not come from the West but from its Far Eastern comrades under the banner of South-South co-operation. Mugabe believes that relations with countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China and Libya are more beneficial than engaging the West.

But in Zimbabwe's time of need, the so-called friends have been found wanting. Their messages of solidarity have not been translated into assistance. The country still has to see the benefits of going to bed with the former South East Asian Tigers as no real investment has come to Zimbabwe from that source. Independent economist John Robertson said Zimbabwe's foreign policy focus had only derived short-term benefits at a huge price to the nation.

"Relations with countries like Libya, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia have short-term benefits in that they have helped in time of crisis," said Robertson. "This has been at a high price because it depended on them getting something out of it just like Rhodesia depended on South Africa but the help was never for nothing."

Malaysia/Zimbabwe relations will be best remembered by the controversial YTL deal which sought to parcel part of the Hwange Power Station to the Malaysian power utility. The deal appears to have fallen through. The Libyans are currently supplying fuel to Zimbabwe in return for land and a stake in the Jewel Bank. The country desperately needs food aid and the programme being co-ordinated by the World Food Programme (WFP) has failed to raise the required US $60 million, as the international community does not see the need to assist a country that has systematically sabotaged its food security.

No financial support has come from the "friends" and ironically the bulk of the $20 million so far donated to the WFP aid plan has come from the UK and the US. Such is the government's ingratitude that the national broadcaster ZBC in its main news bulletin last Tuesday omitted to mention that the US had donated food at a ceremony in Bindura.

It is no longer clear who Zimbabwe's real friends are or whether the country would be able to court any new friends as long as the internal politics are not right, said opposition MDC shadow Foreign minister Tendai Biti. "If there is no internal neighbourliness it is hard to be friends with any external person," said Biti.

Vincent Kahiya - Zimbabwe Independent