Hope for Zimbabwe?

  In the world press the coverage of the tragedy in Zimbabwe gets scant attention. Zimbabwe is a state in crisis. Its people are starving, its infrastructure has failed, its currency is essentially worthless and it is unable to form a functioning government. It is a tale too familiar to old Africa hands. Mugabe has driven the country into the ground over the last 28 years of his power. He has destroyed agriculture, the economy and the infrastructure. He has pursued his own cruel agenda to remain in power using violence and coercion to achieve his objectives. The Zimbabwean people are known for their kindness and openness. For example, the teachers there are still educating the children, despite the fact that the bus fare to ride to the bank to collect their salary costs more than they will earn in a month. Zimbabwe used to have a thriving tourism industry and as a result access to valuable foreign currency, but no more. There appears little hope for change soon. The world is frustrated at the lack of progress. South Africa, the dominant regional power, has just announced it will stop providing desperately required humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe. This is a final strategy to get the warring political factions to form a government that can function without bitter partisan divides. There is however one faint glimmer of hope that the world is willing to help Zimbabwe if it will accept it. A report from today’s International Herald Tribune carries the story.

JOHANNESBURG:Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former President Jimmy Carter are going to Zimbabwe on a humanitarian mission Saturday despite a front-page story Thursday in the Herald newspaper, President Robert Mugabe’s mouthpiece - - that the government of Zimbabwe has advised them not to come.

In a statement issued Thursday, Annan said he, Carter and Graca Machel, a women’s advocate and the wife of Nelson Mandela, plan to get a first- hand sense of the economic crisis in the country and to assess the help it needs.

“We have sought meetings with political leaders in Zimbabwe and would be pleased to hear their views,” Annan said in the statement. “As we said earlier, we have no intention of becoming involved in the ongoing political negotiations in Zimbabwe.”

But with a power-sharing deal between Mugabe’s party and the opposition in a slow-motion collapse, it seems Mugabe and his government did not accept those assurances.

The Herald quoted an unidentified government source as saying the visit was being made to bolster the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, in hopes of making “the issue a crisis that warrants the intervention of the United Nations Security Council.”

The Herald quoted the same source as saying that some of the threesome were “deemed hostile to Zimbabwe,” accusing Annan of being “openly critical of President Mugabe and his administration” in the past.

The Herald also reported Thursday that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa who is mediating Zimbabwe’s political crisis, had asked negotiators for the opposition and Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, to meet next week in South Africa to discuss a constitutional amendment needed for the formation of a power-sharing government.

The Southern African Development Community, the 15 nation regional bloc, had directed Mugabe and Tsvangirai to on Nov. 10 to share control of the ministry that oversees the police in hopes of breaking a deadlock on the formation of a unity government. But Tsvangirai and his party have flatly refused that condition and say no deal has yet been reached with Mugabe on a fair sharing of the most important ministries. The police have long been part of the security forces enforcing Mugabe’s control. Earlier this year, the police stood aside as thousands of Tsvangirai’s supporters were beaten and more than 100 murdered before a run-off presidential election in June, witnesses and human rights groups said.

Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe in elections last March. He dropped out of the June vote days before the runoff, citing brutality against his party workers and backers.

Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the opposition, said the leadership of the party will meet soon to decide whether to attend the meeting Mbeki has called in South Africa next week.

Chamisa condemned Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, in power for the past 28 years, for using The Herald to tell Annan, Carter and Machel not to come to Zimbabwe. “What did ZANU-PF do?” he asked. “They erected an iron curtain around the prison called Zimbabwe. At a time when the whole nation is on fire ? people are sick, people are dying  ZANU-PF is closing the doors to good will,” Chamisa said.

Annan, Carter and Machel are going to Zimbabwe under the auspices of the Elders, a group dedicated to conflict resolution whose creation was announced last year by Mandela.

A spokeswoman for the group, who declined to be identified by name, would not comment on whether the three have visas. She also said the Elders had written to President Mugabe requesting a meeting, but had not yet received a formal reply.

A statement by the Elders said the three individuals would be going to Zimbabwe on Saturday and Sunday to bring attention to the widespread hunger and humanitarian crisis in the country.

“Relieving the suffering of millions of people must be the priority of Zimbabwe’s leaders,” Annan was quoted as saying in the press release.

The United Nation’s World Food Program appealed more than two months ago for $140 million in donations so it will have enough money to feed a third of Zimbabwe’s population ? 4 million people  at the peak of the hunger season in the first three months of next year. But so far, the WFP has not yet gotten any firm commitments, said its spokesman Richard Lee.

Last month, the WFP fed 2 million people in Zimbabwe, but has had to trim rations to the 4 million people it plans to reach this month to make the food stretch further, and may have to cut them again in December if no more money comes in, Lee said.

“We hope we will get more donations and won’t have to resort to drastic cuts over the next four months,” he said.

Sphere: Related Content

Stay up to date automatically, make sure you subscribe to The Daily Clarity RSS feed!