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Zimbabwe: A Regional Solution?
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Sep 23, 2007 (070923)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"Six months before scheduled elections, Zimbabwe is closer than
ever to complete collapse. ... An initiative launched by the
regional intergovernmental organisation, the Southern African
Development Community (SADC), to facilitate a negotiated political
solution offers the only realistic chance to escape a crisis that
increasingly threatens to destabilise the region. But SADC must
resolve internal differences about how hard to press into
retirement Robert Mugabe ... and the wider international community
needs to give it full support." - International Crisis Group
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains the executive summary and
recommendations from the latest International Crisis Group report
on Zimbabwe. Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today contains
a call for Africa to take the initiative in supporting a solution
in Zimbabwe, rejecting the opportunistic appeals to support
President Mugabe out of a mistaken sense of loyalty for his past
achievements.
For earlier AfricaFocus Bulletins and additional background and
links on Zimbabwe, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/zimbabwe.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
Zimbabwe: A Regional Solution?
Africa Report N|132
International Crisis Group
Pretoria/Brussels, 18 September 2007
Executive Summary and Recommendations
Six months before scheduled elections, Zimbabwe is closer than ever
to complete collapse. Inflation is between 7,600 per cent
(government figures) and 13,000 per cent (independent estimates).
Four out of five of the country's twelve million people live below
the poverty line and a quarter have fled, mainly to neighbouring
countries. A military-led campaign to slash prices has produced
acute food and fuel shortages, and conducting any business is
becoming almost impossible. An initiative launched by the regional
intergovernmental organisation, the Southern African Development
Community (SADC), to facilitate a negotiated political solution
offers the only realistic chance to escape a crisis that
increasingly threatens to destabilise the region. But SADC must
resolve internal differences about how hard to press into
retirement Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's 83-year-old president and
liberation hero, and the wider international community needs to
give it full support.
Following a government crackdown on the opposition in early March
2007, SADC mandated South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to mediate
between the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), with the
objectives of securing agreement on constitutional reform ahead of
March 2008 elections and ending the economic crisis. The SADC
initiative is fragile but South Africa and the other regional
countries are the only external actors with a chance to make a
difference. Western sanctions - mainly targeting just over 200
members of the leadership with travel bans and asset freezes - have
proven largely symbolic, and general condemnations from the UK and
U.S. if anything counterproductive because they help Mugabe claim
he is the victim of neo-colonial ambitions.
The regime needs external financial support to maintain its
patronage networks and shore up the economy before risking
elections (or before desperate people riot), and its request for a
rescue package gives the regional initiative crucial leverage if
SADC is willing to use it. Nevertheless, the challenges are
daunting. Mugabe outmanoeuvred rivals in March 2007 to gain the
ZANU-PF nomination for a new term. The party seeks to bypass
Mbeki's mediation by advancing a unilateral constitutional
amendment that would tighten its hold on power by rigging the
electoral process and ensuring it can name an eventual successor to
Mugabe without a new popular vote. The MDC is bitterly divided and
appears unable to mobilise effective opposition.
South Africa and the SADC mistrust the MDC, especially its larger
faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai, and would like to see a
government of national unity emerge led by a reformed ZANU-PF. Some
SADC leaders remain Mugabe supporters, and there is a risk the
organisation will accept cosmetic changes that further entrench the
status quo. The ultimate objective of the reform process, however,
is not regime change as such but to guarantee that all adult
citizens can freely and fairly choose their rulers and that an
electorally legitimated government can reengage with donors to turn
the economy around. There is little likelihood that the opposition
- so long as it remains badly fractured - can win an election in
2008, so the political risks the ruling party and SADC members who
distrust the opposition are being asked to take are relatively
limited.
It is critical that all international actors close ranks behind the
Mbeki mediation. SADC should use its leverage and extend the
desperately needed aid package and ask the West to lift its
sanctions - such as they are - only in exchange for full ZANU-PF
cooperation with the mediation process and implementation of
reforms that will allow free and fair elections as early as
possible in 2008. If such cooperation is not forthcoming, Mbeki
should candidly and promptly acknowledge failure, and SADC should
refuse to endorse any election not a product of the mediation and
be prepared to isolate Mugabe and his regime.
The regional body should also enlist a panel of retired African
presidents to help Mbeki prevail on Mugabe to accept and implement
reforms and most critically convince him to retire in 2008. The
wider international community should make detailed preparations to
contribute to Zimbabwe's recovery if the mediation succeeds but
also be ready to apply tougher sanctions if it collapses.
Recommendations
To South Africa and Other SADC Member States:
1. Pursue mediation to obtain ZANU-PF and MDC agreement on
constitutional revisions and related legislative and regulatory
measures that permit free and fair elections in 2008 consistent
with the August 2004 SADC principles and guidelines, including:
(a) repeal of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), the Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and other
repressive legislation such as the Private Voluntary Organisations
Act (PVO), so as to create a level playing field for all parties;
(b) an independent Electoral Commission and a new electoral law
that provides in particular for:
i. return to the 2000 constituency boundaries for parliamentary
elections, with repeal of subsequent gerrymandering and rejection
of ZANU-PF's proposal to create an additional 90 seats;
ii.merger into one body, with clear responsibilities, of the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the Election Supervisory Commission,
the registrar-general's office and the Electoral Delimitation
Commission;
iii. inter-party consultations and clear procedures for consensual
appointment of electoral commission members with secure tenure as
well as civilian returns and polling officers; repeal of Electoral
Commission Act provisions for secondment of military, police and
prisons service personnel for election tasks; and
iv. extensive voter education;
(c) review of the voters roll by the new independent Electoral
Commission, to include removal of ghost voters and enfranchisement
of citizens in the diaspora;
(d) independent adjudication of electoral disputes by judges who
are vetted in advance by an agreed procedure and have secure
tenure; and
(e) unrestricted access to the media for all political players
during the election period.
2. Inform President Mugabe, the ZANU-PF delegation at the mediated
talks and the Joint Operational Command (JOC) that unless
constitutional and related legal reforms as listed above are
adopted and implemented, SADC will at the very least not endorse
the elections as free and fair and will refuse to extend economic
assistance.
3. Establish a team of retired African heads of state and senior
military officers to discuss with the ZANU-PF leadership and
President Mugabe the terms and conditions for his retirement in
2008 and the guarantees necessary for him and the military
establishment to accept democratic institutional reforms.
4. Extend economic assistance to Zimbabwe and call for the lifting
of targeted Western sanctions on establishment figures only if
ZANU-PF and President Mugabe cooperate fully with the mediation
process and implement the agreed reforms so as to allow free and
fair elections in 2008.
5. Facilitate agreement by the parties to postpone the March 2008
elections to a date later in the year if necessary to put in place
and implement the constitutional reforms and other changes required
to ensure a free and fair process.
To President Mugabe, the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:
6. Declare officially the end of the “Third Chimurenga” (struggle
period) and dissolve the JOC.
7. Engage without reservation in the South African-led SADC
initiative and support the above reforms in order to provide
Zimbabweans with free and fair elections in 2008 and to end the
political and economic crisis.
To the MDC Factions Led by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara:
8. Maintain a united front in the South African-led talks, form a
coalition for the 2008 elections, agree on a mechanism to choose
common presidential and parliamentary candidates and rebuild
consensus with civil society organisations on a joint strategy to
promote democratic change.
To the U.S., the European Union (EU), EU Member States and the
Wider International Community:
9. Support the SADC initiative by publicly clarifying commitments
to assist Zimbabwe's economic recovery once democratic reforms are
implemented and a democratically-elected government is in place and
by refraining from statements undermining that initiative.
10. Consider taking the following steps in the event that the SADC
initiative fails:
(a) expand existing limited sanctions from measures targeted solely
at senior members of Zimbabwe's government, ruling party and
supporting business establishment to bars on their own nationals
and national banking and commercial establishments' engaging in
specified business and financial activities beneficial to the
regime;
(b) refer Zimbabwe for discussion at the United Nations Security
Council as a first step towards finding a UN-backed solution to the
crisis;
(c) insist on renegotiating procedures that require all
humanitarian aid monies to be exchanged at the Zimbabwe Reserve
Bank for local currency at wholly unrealistic rates that allow the
regime to siphon off large profits for its own ends;
(d) if the government is unwilling to renegotiate, explore the
readiness of national and international humanitarian organisations
operating in the country to cooperate in acquiring humanitarian
funding directly without complying with the exploitive Zimbabwe
foreign exchange law; and
(e) if this proves impractical, consider reducing humanitarian aid
programs by the percentage which is expropriated by the regime
through its manipulation of the difference between the official
exchange rate and the free market rate.
To the Commonwealth Secretariat:
11. Establish a working committee or an eminent persons group, with
predominant African membership (from both SADC and non-SADC
countries) and including former senior officials and technical
experts, to explore land reform options that are acceptable to key
stakeholders and would allow donors to reengage on the issue.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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