AAFFRRIICCAA NNOOTTEESS Number 2 August 2001
Time for Concerted International million in humanitarian relief.) By virtually every macroeconomic indicator, the national economy is at its Action on Zimbabwe worst point ever, and could worsen before it improves. J. Stephen Morrison, Terrence Lyons, and And on top of these trends, Zimbabwe’s prevalence rate Jennifer Cooke for HIV in adults—25 percent—is the second highest in the world, next to Botswana.
Introduction U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell’s public rebuke of Mugabe, delivered while in South Africa in May, signaled Zimbabwe has entered a political and economic crisis that heightened interest within the Bush administration in the could worsen precipitously and destabilize the Zimbabwean crisis, and was preceded and followed by an surrounding region. Pressures for democratic change and active internal review of policy options. The Bush economic reform are steep—indeed growing—as administration has yet to outline publicly what additional Zimbabwe heads, with considerable uncertainty, toward policy measures it will pursue. national elections in the first quarter of 2002. Yet the government of President Robert Mugabe and his cronies The United States and the broader international within the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic community should make every effort to raise the odds that Front (ZANU-PF) party resist genuine reform, Zimbabwe’s crisis can be resolved peacefully through determined instead to use violent coercion to hold onto free and fair elections. At the same time, however, power and privilege. Challenging the 77-year-old realism is needed: Mugabe is highly unlikely to concede Mugabe’s hold on power are a range of mobilized power through a relatively free and fair electoral process, organizations, most notably the opposition political party and highly likely to resort to ever-higher levels of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), along violence. The signs are starkly manifest: already there with the Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade Unions, and have been violent episodes in the run-up to the elections civic organizations associated with the National in early 2002, stoked by the government’s continued Constitutional Assembly and other nongovernmental sanctioning of brutal intimidation of the political networks. opposition, judiciary, media, and commercial farming and other business entities. Although a concerted international Whether the opposition’s remarkably disciplined campaign is warranted to turn Mugabe off this course and adherence to nonviolence can hold under mounting onto a path that bring free and fair elections, one needs to violence is an open question. Equally unclear are the admit that there is a high probability that effort may fail. evolving calculations of the commanding officers and rank-and-file of the military, the police, and the Central Hence a top priority of U.S. policy should be to prepare Intelligence Organization (CIO), whose ultimate political contingencies for alternative scenarios, namely, a loyalties could prove decisive to the next phase of negotiated transfer of power, or, far more uncertain and Zimbabwe’s future. More certain is that Zimbabwe’s potentially dangerous, a chaotic and violent transition margin for economic maneuver has evaporated, impelled by mass popular uprising, a government- compounding national tensions. Agricultural shortfalls declared state of emergency, or a military coup. Until that could total 600,000 metric tons by early 2002 raise now, U.S. policy has not systematically countenanced the specter of mass hunger and internal dislocation and these possibilities. Now, rather than later, is the time to significantly increase Zimbabwe’s dependence on prepare for these nonelectoral outcomes. Where external largesse. (Harare will require upward of $270 warranted, the administration should consciously build on
Africa Program • Center for Strategic and International Studies 1800 K Street, NW • Washington, DC 20006 • Tel: (202) 887-0200 • Fax: (202) 775-3190 • www.csis.org Page 2 the strategy pursued during 2000–2001 in Serbia that and determination to rein in Mugabe. Thus far, targeted sanctions against Milosevic, combined with commitments have been largely rhetorical, yet the innovative support to the opposition, sustained public threatened costs to South Africa and the surrounding diplomacy, and concerted multilateral action. neighborhood should Zimbabwe’s crisis deepen are enormous. Related priorities of U.S. policy should include: Washington should aggressively enlarge its planning for a humanitarian emergency in Zimbabwe, take the Through a stream of high-level statements, testimony, lead in establishing a dynamic international travel, and expanded radio transmissions by Voice of humanitarian coordinating mechanism in Harare, and Africa, Washington should consistently keep press for maximum delivery of assistance through Zimbabwe in the international spotlight while seeking nongovernmental bodies. to shape Zimbabwe’s internal media environment. Washington should strengthen its grasp of the The U.S. administration should initiate dialogue now perceptions and intentions of the military, the police, with the U.S. Congress to strengthen and forge and the CIO and make the case directly to them for a consensus on the Zimbabwe Democracy Act (which democratic, nonviolent, and orderly transition. was approved by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and lays out a package of inducements and Washington should aggressively enlarge contact with punitive measures, including the threat of sanctions reformists, within government and without, and upon Mugabe and his associates). The administration significantly expand the operation of USAID’s Office should initiate discussions now with Congress to of Transition Initiatives and related grantmaking to devise more precise conditionalities and enhanced independent democracy and governance inducements and pressures, rather than hastily organizations. negotiate these points later, should circumstances in Zimbabwe suddenly deteriorate. The Present Crisis