A Murderer Leading The Blind: Crisis in Zimbabwe

Yes, there is a crisis in Zimbabwe Mr. Mbeki...

The severe political and economic problems in Zim have recently been speeding up due to Robert Mugabe's overt statements of declaring war on the opposition who he accuses of violence and treason. According to the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), over 60 of its supporters have been killed in recent weeks, its offices have been ransacked by state security forces and its secretary has been arrested on charges of treason, a crime punishable by death.

The upcoming second-round in the presidential election at the end of the week is as good as dead, destroying the last hope of a relatively peaceful transition of power and at last transforming Zimbabwe into a democracy. It is not meant to be however. Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition candidate, has now fled into the Dutch embassy in Harare for fear of being arrested or worse. (As far as I am concerned he is more than welcome.) The ball is now firmly in the camp of the international community: the UN, African Union/SADC and EU. Mr. Tsvangirai's means have been exhausted and Robert Mugabe has now firmly established his intention to keep a hold on power. Unfortunately there is no ready solution available unless a few individuals make an immediate about-turn.

In an ideal world, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should handle this festering sore in its own, once prosperous and fertile, backyard. Its defacto leader, South African president Thabo Mbeki, would not find it too difficult to reach a consensus on forming a unified block with other SADC members if only he tried a little harder. Several leaders have already spoken out more firmly than in the past but are unable to make a difference on their own. The SADC has to condemn Mugabe's puppet regime and force the resignation of his government through targetted sanctions on him and his government. Boycotting the entire country will do little good and will only put the Zimbabwean population in a more dire situation. The time for a quiet diplomatic solution is passed, Robert Mugabe's not going anywhere, and the SADC has to face up to its responsibilities.

The United Nations have now voiced a "strongly worded" declaration stating their condemnation of the situation in Zimbabwe. Expect little else however. The UN is still painfully inadequate when it comes to good governance control and few people in Mugabe's entourage will worry about a strongly worded statement coming from an office on the other side of the globe. Ideally (in a perfect world...), the UN should be allowed to send election monitors and observers to Zim, either through the AU or SADC, but the time for that has passed. Now it's only focus should be on the human rights situation in Zim: ensuring food supplies reach the people and are not intercepted by Mugabe and fighting (yes, fighting) for reporters to be allowed to return to the country in relative safety.

And finally, the EU. However anything the EU says or intends to do on the issue of Zimbabwe will be used by Robert Mugabe as evidence that we are still "out to get" the former British colony. Quiet support of UN resolutions seems to be the only productive course for Europe.

The diplomat in me is eager for a peaceful transition of power and to do whatever it takes to remove Robert Mugabe as president. However the militant in me is wondering why the hell we did not simply arrest the bastard when he was in Rome?

Oh, and Mr. Mbeki, one more thing: I think I heard your father turn over in his grave.

The Roots of Frustration: A New Wave of Xenophobia in SA

"The screams of the burning Mozambican still haunt me... I have never seen such barbarism..."
Zimbabwean woman

 One of seven improvised refugee shelters.

The Zimbabwe embassy in South Africa is currently helping 700 of its citizens return home. To anybody familiar with the dismal social and economic situation in Zimbabwe this figure will be evidence enough that something is very wrong in South Africa. In the past years thousands of Zimbabweans have managed to enter South Africa illegally in search of a better chance. Now some are actually going back. So what happened?

This latest string of attacks on immigrants and refugees began in a Johannesburg township in the beginning of May and since then more xenophobic violence has taken place in and around major cities such as Durban and Cape Town. According to figures from the Red Cross and OCHA some 70,000 people have been displaced by the attacks: about 38,000 in South Africa itself and over 32,000 refugees have returned home, most to Mozambique (32,082), Malawi (500) and Zimbabwe (123). The result so far: more than 650 wounded and 50 dead, not to mention the collateral damage to houses and shops belonging to refugees. 

The cause for all this suffering appears to be a lethal mixture of poverty, unemployment and high crime rates, most of it focused in the townships. Groups of South African township residents have become frustrated by their going-nowhere-slowly existence and have found the perfect scapegoats in the (il)legal refugees living amongst them. An additional point of frustration among these South Africans is the fact that many refugees do relatively well for themselves by setting up small businesses and using their skills at various trades to get by. One example are the many teachers who have fled political persecution in Zimbabwe. The South African government has recognized the potential to improve on the dramatic shortage of teachers and has begun to speed up the application processes of such refugees and asylum seekers. But seeing foreigners fill up precious jobs has obviously fuelled some people's anger further. 

A final ingredient has been the apparently baseless figure of "three to four million" Zimbabwean, and an estimated five million in total, refugees. These statistics are often used to illustrate a growing threat to South Africa through an invasion of foreigners from all over Africa. However these same numbers were also given out in 2000 by the Centre for International Political Studies of the University of Pretoria, and in their turn were based on a peculiar study by the South African Human Resources Council in which people were asked "Do any people who are not South African citizens live in the houses around this property?". This study was conducted in 1995 by the way. According to the UNHCR, South Africa played host to around 175,000 refugees and asylum seekers in 2007... A recent study by the University of Wits in Johannesburg carefully estimates "around one million Zimbabweans in South Africa". Does anyone else smell some discrepancy? Anyone?

The South African government has stated (rather boldly in my opinion), that there exists "and urgent need to accelerate its programmes for alleviating poverty, unemployment and other forms of socio-economic deprivation". That should be alright then...

Conclusion

Despite my somewhat sarcastic tone I am hopeful that the government will take positive steps to tackle the roots of this problem, which now threatens not only African refugees but also tourism and the much-hailed (and maligned) build-up to the World Cup in 2010. However my hope is built on a uncertain foundation at best because this type of xenophobic outlash has occured in the recent past and clearly very little (if anything) has been done by the government to counter it. Records of this past violence can be found on the website of the South African Migration Project.

This eruption of violence and hatred clearly has two major causes. On one side the influx of refugees and their impact on South Africa, and on the other side the poor socio-economic environment in which most South Africans live. The government has to take visible, tangible and practical steps to manage the tide of immigrants while at the same time making similar, visible progress to improve the quality of life for the poorest in the country. It's pretty easy for me to say this of course, sitting behind a desk in a comfortable room 9000km away, but even the one person who can actually make a difference seems wholly indifferent:

"As to this... inflow of illegal people, I personally think that it's something we have to live with... it's difficult; you can't put a Great Wall of China between South Africa and Zimbabwe to stop people walking across." President Thabo Mbeki, speech to Parliament, 17 May 2007.

Introduction

Welcome to a my blog about current events in Africa. I have had the pleasure of working, living and travelling in southern Africa for over a year and it has now taken a hold on me which I do not expect to shake off soon. The scope of this blog is ambitious, but I will be focusing on the most pressing issues for my editorials in addition to posting short summaries of recent news. 

If you have any questions or comments please let me know. To start things off, here's a map of the great continent in case you get lost.