The African Wall of Silence Must Crumble: My Exchange with Thabo Mbeki Over Zimbabwe

Thabo Mbeki inherited the South African presidency from Nelson Mandela. Though not of the same stature, Mbeki was a leading activist with the African National Congress against European colonialism and white supremacy.

Working mostly from abroad, Mbeki was a comrade of Robert Mugabe, who was engaged in a similar struggle in neighboring Rhodesia.

Their determination to end oppression is undisputed. But oppression comes in many forms. It is not exclusively British, Western or white.

The triumph of Mugabe's Zanu PF party in 1980 that turned Rhodesia into Zimbabwe was rightly hailed around the world. But 30 years later, still clinging to power with an iron fist, Mugabe has proven that a one-time, ardent fighter for liberty can morph into the very bastion of repression that he once overthrew.

Mbeki has been the recognized mediator in the dispute between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who has pulled out of Friday's runoff presidential election and taken refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare.

Mbeki hides behind his mediator status to steadfastly refuse to criticize his comrade Mugabe, despite the mounting state violence against the opposition, not to mention Mugabe's disastrous handling of the economy.

Mbeki even refused to say Zimbabwe is in a political crisis. The South African president was recently at UN headquarters in New York where I got to confront him at a press conference.

I asked him: "Do you feel you can be objective about Robert Mugabe, given his legendary status as a fighter against colonialism and the loyalty you might feel towards him that may make you unable to see what he is today, 30 years later?"

Mbeki scoffed at my question. "No, I've heard that story told. I think that one thing that could happen is that the people might credit us with the capacity to think. I know as much as you do," he said, "that when something is wrong, it is wrong. The fact that I came from the liberation struggle doesn't mean I can't recognize a wrong thing. So this argument, that because all of us come from liberation struggles, when something goes wrong, even in our own movement, we won't recognize it because of some loyalty to ourselves ... We are perfectly capable of recognizing something that is wrong."

Mbeki defended his "quiet diplomacy" to the hilt, widely denounced as enabling Mugabe. The furthest he would go with my question was: "There are many things wrong with the politics of Zimbabwe, otherwise why go mediate something that is right?"

That colonialism and indigenous dictatorships cannot both be denounced as evil seems to be lost on the generation of Mbeki and Mugabe. The revival of colonial-style US and British invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have not helped. But the crimes of the West in the developing world cannot be used as an excuse to cover up the crimes of a man like Mugabe. Agreeing with the US and UK on Mugabe does not mean embracing the entirety of Anglo-American foreign policy.

It is really about time that Thabo Mbeki and liked-minded Africans realize that.

Mandela got into trouble in 1995 with other African leaders when he called for Nigerian strongman Sani Abacha's downfall. But this has gone on for too long. The African wall of silence must crumble.

Joe Lauria's new book is A Political Odyssey, The Rise of American Militarism and One Man's Fight to Stop It, written with former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel.

Comments

[Stoyver]

Where intervention would help our standing on the world stage, we do nothing. Where invasion and occupation are seen by the world as odious, our leaders lie to us to get us to go along. This says it all about our motives.

[RasAlula]

I think its time the author and other "like-minded" whites stop writing about Africa and Zimbabwe. Its too much for me to read, time and again, the same talking points: "Mugabe is repressive and against democracy... He is what ails Zimbabwe. Before him, Zimbabweans (white Zimbabweans) were prosperous." Its a fallacy. If not Mugabe, then there will be another. My point is that as long as we fail to address the real problem (yes, in fact it has mostly to do with "white supremacy", western imperialism and western ideas that somehow white people matter more) then we can sit around and make villains out of individuals (I concede that Mugabe is a terrrible dictator) while letting those really doing the damage escape freely. What has enabled Mugabe is decades (post-colonial decades, mind you) of "white supremacy", western abuse and the neglect of a society that was destroyed by its colonial masters. So stop with the blame of Mbeki. That man has his own worries in his own country and should not be tasked with soothing the collective conscience of the western world.

[Deparis]

Thanks for your post. At least someone who understand geopolitics.

[Torus34]

When a nation's government becomes corrupt or repressive, there are two current 'solutions'. One, with the invasion of Iraq as an example, is military intervention -- war, if you wish. The other is economic sanctions such as those imposed on Zimbabwe. In a very few cases, most notably in the case of South Africa, economic sanctions can be effective in changing or modifying the behavior of a government. For other nations such as Cuba, Burma, North Korea, pre-invasion Iraq, Iran and Zimbabwe, the imposition of economic sanctions have resulted only in hardship for the general population.

The nations of the world have yet to evolve a body which can effectively and humanely safeguard the basic human rights of a country's citizens. The horror and sorrow that is Zimbabwe today is the inevitable result of that inability. We, as a species, have yet to evolve a political body which considers us as a species rather than as a collection of individual nationalities.

[LegolasGreenleaf]

Funny how everyone is ready to blame Mbeki for Zimbabwe's predicament.

Zimbabwe would be better served by placing some blame on (big surprise here) Israel's unflinching support of that regime. Mossad has entire department devoted to keeping Mugabe in power by any and all meas necessary, including vote-rigging and assassination:

http://www.cogniview.com/convert-pdf-to-excel/post/from-programmer-to-puppet-master-how-i-didnt-rig-the-zimbabwean-elections-with-a-pdf-converter/

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11811:mugabe-pays-us25-million-to-rigging-experts&catid=31:top%20zimbabwe%20stories&Itemid=66

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12675

[openhand]

Its ironic that Mbeki dreamed of Africa but never manged to cross the Limpopo. His failure -quiet diplomacy which gave Mugabe the space to decide on his own if he would reform. Now we know that he never intended to. Mbeki refused the chance to back democratic forces inside the country to instead give them the space to sideline Mugabe. As such he has lost the chance of being Mandelas moral successor and I think the world and Africa will now look to Obama to take up where Mandela left off.

Wait for a trip to the U.S. by our greatest president to support both Bill Clinton and Obama, it should be a show stopper. Aluta continua.

Before you Westerners adpot the moral high ground, just 2 points.

1. Mbekis greatest critic is his own brother, the brilliant Moletsi Mbeki, along with his own party, the ANC.
2. If we measure suffering in lives, Bush makes Mugabe look like a churchmouse.

[jeanrenoir]

Mugabe is an African Hitler aided and abetted by Mbeki's jackal-like Mussolini behavior. Both of them are reducing "normal" African corruption, evil, and savagery to absurdity in Zimbabwe. So much of black Africa is simply permanently lost in a fog of inhuman madness. Naipaul always had Africa right.

[Danny]

Mugabe will soon fall with or without Mbeki's assistance. What Mugabe has done is beyond the pale. But the "leadership" from this once beacon-of-democracy ( Bush's United States) isn't going to get involved. Imagine a Jimmy Carter as President in these circumstances. Wait, even as ex-President. Mr. Carter???
What Tsvangirai has done is noble, and will be recorded by legitimate history.

[BayAreaResident]

It's hard to persuade other foreign leaders not to resort to violence against their perceived political enemies, while US itself is bending backwards to go after whoever it deems politically expedient, wiping out along the way hundred of thousands of people.. Such violence is simply wrong on any scale, and the US is hardly a guiding star of human decency for others to follow just as Mugabe himself is these days.

[angalcina]

Thanks for this article. Mbeki is bad for South Africa and african diplomacy, and there is no denying now that Mugabe is pure evil.

[batguano]

Thank you for this piece. It may be that Mbeki cannot see or will not speak out against the abuses and tyranny of Mugabe because he has been negligent in his own leadership and South African reform. Mbeki is clearly not in the same league as Nelson Mandela and never will be. It has been years and the same poor still have nothing. Mugabe has become the oppressor who clings to power by any means, even numerous killings and vicious brutality. Mugabe's "veterans" seem of the same stripe as the "soccer club" thugs of Winnie Mandela, but committing more widespread violence and killings. Mr Mandela himself should speak out against Mugabe and his seeming madness, not only Mbeki. Only a madman or irretrievable despot commits the outrages of Mugabe and then sends his sycophant mouthpieces out to speak the most laughable denials and fantasy in support of his actions. It is time for change in Zimbabwe, and if Africans do not take the lead, then the west must pressure for change. Justice and Democracy for all can be championed by either white or black; likewise dictatorship and oppression.

[rudyinbama]

Black, white, left or right, tyranny is tyranny. Mugabe may have once been a hero, but he has since transformed into one of history's greatest villains as a butcher of his own people.
Mbeki's policy sounds embarrassingly like Reagan's so-called "Constructive Engagement" which Republicans preached while the rest of the world was boycotting South Africa's apartheid government.
Shame on him.