Section:GDN 1N PaGe:39 Edition Date:190907 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/9/2019 17:25 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Saturday 7 September 2019 The Guardian •
39Analysis
Patrick WintourDebates will rage for
years over why Britain
never got to grips
with Mugabe’s regime
B
ritain’s 40-year eff ort to fi nd a way to either
infl uence or dislodge Robert Mugabe is
one of the country ’s great post war foreign
policy failures. It is a story spanning six
UK prime ministers, nearly £1bn in aid
and every conceivable strategy. Whether
the cause of that failure lies at the door of a colonial
mindset in the Foreign Offi ce, a failed land transfer
policy, the collective weakness of the Commonwealth,
a cowardly African political elite or simply the corrupt
thuggery of Mugabe himself will be a matter of dispute
for generations.
At the heart of the story are misunderstanding and
apprehension, neatly illustrated by Lord Howard de
Walden’s description of Christopher Soames on being
told he was to be made Britain’s interim governor in
Rhodesia during the colonial handover in 1979: “A cloud
passed over his face, as if he could see himself being
plucked of his plumed hat and being eaten by savages.
There was no alternative to agree. Before leaving the
building to face the press, he asked for another drink.”
Fears for Soames’s personal safety in Zimbabwe
proved misplaced, but from the outset the Foreign
Offi ce had doubts about Mugabe and how to respond
to election manipulation by his Zanu-PF party. When
Mugabe indeed won the fi rst post-colonial election by
a landslide, the foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, was
comforted by the tone of his inauguration speech as PM,
which preached reconciliation and forgiveness.
Above all Carrington was reassured that Mugabe
did not seem willing to tamper with the clauses in the
Lancaster House agreement giving protections to white
Zimbabwean landowners for at least the fi rst 10 years
of independence. The warning signs for the British
became unmistakable in 1992 when, with the economy
stagnating, a compulsory land acquisition programme
slowly started. But in many ways 1997 was the decisive
year both for Zimbabwe and its relationship with Britain,
now led by a Labour government with an ethically
driven foreign policy.
Although Mugabe had won the 1995 elections
easily, the arrival of a pressure group of war veterans
demanding land soon made itself felt. In November 1997
Mugabe off ered large one-off payments to each of the
70,000 veterans , in addition to a monthly payment.
Tony Blair and the foreign secretary, Robin Cook,
initially responded by convening a conference to address
the issue, but then pulled out of talks. Mugabe accused
the British of trying to engineer a coup by funding his
political opponents. As the Zimbabwean economy
rapidly deteriorated, tensions over land reform reached
boiling point in 2000, when so-called war veterans
invaded white-owned farms across the country.
Labour believed Mugabe’s programme was not
only unlawful but corrupt. The shutters went down.
Britain imposed an arms embargo against Zimbabwe in
May 2000 and cut aid by a third. An EU travel ban was
imposed on Mugabe and 19 members of his inner circle.
In March 2002 Blair led a call to suspend Zimbabwe
from the Commonwealth. Mugabe never forgave him.
Subsequently, all the weapons of diplomacy – quiet,
megaphone, economic, political, multilateral, unilateral- were used to try to weaken him or strengthen his
opponents. Mugabe was repeatedly protected by other
African leaders, notably the ANC in South Africa.
“Mugabe was one of those people the British empire
created who specialised in knowing how to twist the
British government’s tail,” Lord Hurd, another British
foreign secretary, said. “He was well-trained in the art of
annoying the British if he needed to. He knew our ways.”
Zimbabwe into one of the healthiest,
best-educated and most hopeful
countries in Africa.
The optimism began to sour
in 1997, when Mugabe gave in to
pressure from war veterans waging
violent protests for pensions.
Trade unions and political activists
began organising what would
become the fi rst viable political
threat to Mugabe, the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC). But
it was partly bankrolled by white
farmers, which allowed Mugabe to
whip up militancy against it.
In 2000 Mugabe began a land
reform programme, billed as an
attempt to correct the colonialist
legacy by giving white-owned farms
to landless black people. Many saw
it as a crude attempt to sideline
the MDC, which commanded wide
support among farm workers. White
farmers were forcibly evicted by
self-styled war veterans – many too
young ever to have fought in the
liberation war – and their properties
were handed to Zanu-PF cronies
or black Zimbabweans who often
lacked the skills and capital to farm.
The ensuing chaos undermined
the economy, which shrank to half
the size it had been in 1980. The one-
time breadbasket of Africa became
dependent on foreign aid to feed its
masses. Hyperinfl ation turned the
national currency into a standing
joke – a burger cost 15m Zimbabwe
dollars – and it had to be abolished
as the US dollar became the de facto
currency. Schools and hospitals fell
apart, once-eradicated diseases
returned and life expectancy
crashed from 61 to just 45.
Millions of people moved to
neighbouring South Africa and other
countries, a monumental fl ight of
intellectual capital.
The political environment also
became hostile, with activists and
journalists persecuted, jailed or
murdered. The MDC said that 253
people died in political violence
in the 2008 election. The party’s
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai , widely
seen as the vote’s real winner, was
forced to join Mugabe in an uneasy
power-sharing agreement.
“ He started very well but ended
up disgraced, because he erodedhis own legacy by collapsing a
once-vibrant economy, by violence,
by appearing to tendencies of
dictatorship and one-man rule,”
Tsvangirai told the Guardian in a
2011 interview. “I think the turning
point of Mugabe was when he lost
the support of the people, when it
dawned on him the people no longer
supported him. Then he became
reactionary. He reacted to the
people’s will by enforcing his will
on the people. That was around the
late 90s.”
Denis Norman , a white farmer
who became Mugabe’s agriculture
minister from 1980 to 1985, said:
“He was such a complex character,
who was very diffi cult to fully
understand and analyse. He was a
very intelligent man who ruthlessly
pursued his goals and ambitions,
which during his rise to power must
have injured many who were also
competing for top positions.
“I have always maintained that
his driving force was the desire to
control and remain in power and,
once achieved, to remain in that
position. I am well aware of the
allegations of corruption that have
surrounded him, but without any
evidence, as opposed to rumours,
I don’t believe that the creation of
wealth was ever his motive; the
same cannot be said for many of
those who surrounded him. ”
Another insight was off ered by
Simba Makoni , who toured Europe
with Mugabe in the late 1970s. “I
know of two Mugabes: the early
Mugabe and the later Mugabe.
The fi rst Mugabe of the liberation
struggle and the fi rst 10, 15 years
of independence isn’t the Mugabe
we have today. I didn’t know him
to be cruel, I didn’t know him to be
uncaring in the time that I worked
closely with him in the early years.”
Makoni, a former fi nance
minister, identifi ed three factors
that led to the change in the
leader’s character: the accord with
Nkomo that in eff ect destroyed any
meaningful opposition – “it removed
the only alternative to Mugabe so
he had no reason to look over his
shoulder”; his switch from prime
minister to president in 1987; and
the death of his Ghanaian-born fi rst
wife, Sally, in 1992.
All of these happened after the
Gukurahundi massacres, Makoni
conceded: “I accept, yes, you won’t
fi nd a rational explanation why
a caring, compassionate leader
would allow 20,000-30,000 of his
citizens to be annihilated. That
notwithstanding, I would say the
greater part of Mugabe would come
through as a caring, compassionate,
committed leader who wanted
the best for his people – with the
deviation or the aberration of
Gukurahundi .”
There is one man who will forever
cast a shadow across Mugabe.
Nelson Mandela’s life and career
paralleled Mugabe’s in many ways
until the South African president
relinquished power after one fi ve-
year term. Allister Sparks, the late
South African journalist, recalled
a conversation with Mandela: “We
got to talking about Mugabe, whom
he really profoundly disliked, and I
think it was reciprocated. He said,
‘You know Allister, the trouble with
Mugabe is that he was the star – and
then the sun came up.’”Long life
of a leader- 1924
Born in British-
ruled Southern
Rhodesia.
- 1964
Campaign s for
independence.
Imprisoned.
- 1974
Released
and fl ees to
Mozambique.
- 1980
Zanu-PF wins
independent
Zimbabwe’s
fi rst election.
Becomes prime
minister.
- 1982
Government
forces accused
of involvement
in the killing of
20,000 civilians.
- 1987
Becomes
president.
- 1998
Economic crisis
sparks riots.
- 2000
Thousands of
independence
war veterans
and allies ,
backed by
government,
seize white-
owned farms.
- 2001
US puts fi nancial
freeze on
government.
- 2002
Wins disputed
presidential
vote. Zimbabwe
suspended from
Commonwealth
over accusations
of human rights
abuses.
- 2008
Hyperinfl ation
at 500bn per
cent. Loses
presidential
vote; wins
run-off.
Power-sharing
agreement.
- 2013
Wins disputed
vote. Western
observers cite
electoral fraud.
- 2017
Forced to resign
after army
coup. Replaced
by Emmerson
Mnangagwa.
- 6 September
2019
Dies aged 95.
▲ Mugabe on
the presidential
campaign trail
in Chitungwiza,
near Harare▼ With Grace
by his side,
Mugabe makes a
statement after
his removal from
power, saying hewill not support
his former party,
Zanu-PF
PHOTOGRAPHS:
EPA; TSVANGIRAYI
MUKWAZHI/AP1997 2008
2018
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