How the World failed the people of Zimbabwe by Graham Barrett The Age 2:29pm 14th Jul, 2003   July 14 2003    Mugabe's wickedness has been allowed to destroy a country that promised much, explains Graham Barrett.    While the world's attention is focused on the Middle East, Africa continues to slip quietly into darkness. Many sub-Saharan countries are in serious decline, from the forces pulling Nigeria apart and the appalling conflicts of Sierra Leone, Liberia and, above all, Congo, to the impending failure of Zimbabwe.    When the collapse comes, as it surely will in one way or another, the Zimbabwe that should have been an example to many other post-independence states will have to start all over again. The quarter-century since independence has been wasted in the wickedness of Robert Mugabe's retreat into corruption, paranoia and ruthlessness.    Yet no one will have derived greater pleasure from the brief glare of George Bush's visit to Africa than Mugabe, who has now been told, in effect, that the United States is busy elsewhere, does not regard Zimbabwe as strategically or economically significant, and is therefore sub-contracting to South Africa's Thabo Mbeki the task of achieving change.In doing so, Bush has flattered Mbeki as the "point man" and eased a period of strain in bilateral relations with Pretoria.But he has sent a regrettable diplomatic signal that humanitarian principles are negotiable.    He has also undercut his key allies Tony Blair and John Howard, both of whom have been active in seeking tougher action against Mugabe only to run into difficulties with Mbeki and other African leaders.This suggests that Africa resents outside interference on issues such as Zimbabwe yet is unable or unwilling to assume the responsibility itself.    Mugabe blames his country's problems on Blair and white Zimbabweans and the political figure he cheated out of office, Morgan Tsvangirai; everyone, that is, except himself.Zimbabwe's neighbours know this is nonsense, yet they say and do little to correct it. This is tragic for Zimbabweans, but sad and damaging for the biggest and strongest regional power, South Africa, which one day will endure the embarrassment of explaining to a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe why so little was done.    Mbeki has plenty of his own problems, to which must now be added an influx of several hundred thousand refugees from Zimbabwe and declining confidence of international investors in southern Africa as a whole. A recent study concluded that Zimbabwe's economic failure has cost South Africa billions of rands. More is to come.    Mbeki - unlike his predecessor, Nelson Mandela, who is publicly upset about the situation - practises what he describes as "quiet diplomacy", when it is apparent that over the years its sole outcome has been to give Mugabe more time to destroy his country.If Mbeki has a plan to ease Mugabe out, he has left it dangerously late to implement.    In the earlier years of what the Zimbabwean-born novelist Doris Lessing has called "this frightened little man", Mugabe's party headquarters in Harare occupied a commanding position on a street called Rotten Row. Perhaps it has been renamed by now. Or maybe the name is intact in a sign that the party just doesn't get it. Australians feel a special sense of concern for Zimbabwe, for which much was done during Malcolm Fraser's day and because it was once home to several hundred thousand people of British background.    Few remain. Most of the professionals of all races have gone, some now quietly contributing their farming and other skills to Australia. Back in Zimbabwe, their former compatriots face 300 per cent inflation, 70 per cent unemployment, permanent shortages of key commodities such as food, medicine and fuel, an HIV-AIDS epidemic, random brutality and the air of a gangster state that began in the early 1980s with the dispatch of a borrowed North Korean brigade to bludgeon the Matabele south into submission.    Much international attention is focused on farms being confiscated from whites and given to black cronies of the regime. Little attention has been paid to the hundreds of thousands of black farm workers who as a consequence are now without a living, not to mention the beatings many have suffered at the hands of "war veterans" who in a lot of cases were unborn when the conflict took place.    This was once, despite the racism of white rule, a bountiful and prosperous land, voted the one most likely to succeed in the lottery of African independence. But that was before the plundering. It began in relatively innocent ways. It was not uncommon, in one example, for an Air Zimbabwe flight to or from Europe to be cancelled at short notice so that Mugabe family members and their cronies could use the 767 for a private shopping trip to London or Paris.    The scene is grimly familiar to the many millions of people around the world who live and die at the mercy of dictators: it is one in which gangster governments come to regard their countries as personal property.    Doris Lessing thinks that blame for him came late. "Nothing is more astonishing than the silence about him for so many years among liberals and well-wishers - the politically correct," she puts it.    Just as astonishing, perhaps, is that South Africa is in the unique position of being able to cut Mugabe's supply line, and has chosen not to. Without South Africa on side, there is little more the West can do.Zimbabwe's failure is Africa's failure, too.    ( Graham Barrett is a former foreign correspondent and foreign editor of The Age and was an external affairs adviser at the World Bank from 1995 to 2003). Visit the related web page
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