The Telegraph (UK)
One of my Parliamentary colleagues in the Movement for Democratic Change is Fletcher Dulini’Ncube. A veteran campaigner for human rights and a former detainee in the Rhodesian era, he is diabetic. Last November Fletcher was detained by the Mugabe regime on trumped-up charges and held in solitary confinement for over a month under atrocious conditions, including the denial of adequate medical attention.
As a result he had to have his right eye surgically removed last week. The day after the operation Fletcher was dragged from his sick bed and placed under arrest by the Mugabe regime’s so-called Law and Order police. This weekend he lies in a Bulawayo hospital in leg irons under prison guard after a legal application to secure his release was dismissed by a recently appointed ex-war veteran judge.
The inhumane treatment of Fletcher is but a small part of the regime’s crackdown on its opponents. Thousands of farmers and their employees this weekend face summary arrest and eviction from their homes. We in the leadership of the MDC, the main opposition party to Mugabe, have been warned that our passports will shortly be withdrawn to prevent us from travelling abroad. Thousands of crimes committed against the opposition, including murder and rape, have not been investigated let alone prosecuted. The judiciary has been all but destroyed; independent journalists have been arrested.
Even education has not been left alone: new laws will ensure the regime’s control over the appointment of headmasters in private schools. Food is being used as a political weapon against thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans who oppose the regime. In short, Zimbabwe increasingly resembles Cambodia under Pol Pot. The regime’s intention seems clear: to turn Zimbabwe into a nation of 12 million peasants dependant on its small super-rich, corrupt ruling elite.
Mugabe, however, desperately needs the support of his neighbours and other countries to survive. Unlike Pol Pot, the Mugabe regime craves international legitimacy and, after 22 years in power, the ZANU (PF) elite have become accustomed to the good life. Having got away with even worse atrocities in the 1980s against Joshua Nkomo’s supporters they assumed before the election in March, that the world would simply look the other way. Accordingly the regime has been stung by its partial suspension from the Commonwealth and the extension of targeted sanctions by the EU and other countries. Mugabe’s response has not been to address the concerns of the West. It has been to travel to Cuba and Malaysia, while some of his colleagues have been to Libya and Iran. Clearly he is trying to secure an international coalition which will force the West to relent and accept his regime, warts and all.
No one can seriously believe that the regime has any intention of normalising the situation (as has been suggested by some in the Commonwealth recently). Just as the regime was prepared to use any means to secure victory in the presidential election so it will use them to retain power. The tragedy is that now, given the scale of the man-made famine combined with the Aids pandemic, that determination could well result in hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans losing their lives in the coming months.
The only way that catastrophe can be averted is by the restoration of the rule of law in Zimbabwe. This alone will ensure that a massive summer maize crop is planted and irrigated by experienced farmers and that the exodus of thousands of talented Zimbabweans of all races stops. However the rule of law will only be restored through holding a fresh election that complies with acceptable standards.
There appears to be much hand wringing in the West about what to do. Food aid has been increased but that will deal with the symptoms, not the cause, of famine. Pleas have been made to Zimbabwe’s neighbours to act but few African states have the political will to deal with the crisis. Mugabe has shown in recent weeks that he is quite prepared to divide the African Union and the Commonwealth to remain in power. The regime has not hesitated to play the racial card both domestically and internationally and the crisis is constantly portrayed as a spat between Britain and her former colony. Mugabe’s purpose is to raise the stakes in the hope of deterring the West from taking sterner measures for fear of, for example, splitting the Commonwealth.
The crisis is now so grave, however, that the West must not be deterred from taking decisive action. Two distinct courses of action should be followed. First, those in Zimbabwe guilty of torture (as defined by the International Convention) should be investigated and prosecuted. Aside from the abuses of the past two years, food is now being used as a political weapon which is already resulting in thousands suffering. Many could die unless those responsible know that they will be held accountable for their actions. The vast majority of those who may die will be MDC supporters denied food solely because of their political beliefs. That is clearly a crime against humanity.
Second, the West, in conjunction with its democratic African allies, must now seriously consider its responsibility to protect Zimbabweans. The report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty published in December 2001 points out that where a population is suffering serious harm as a result of repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling to halt the suffering, the usual principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.
The principle of state sovereignty, so readily used by the Mugabe regime to protect itself, is not absolute. With sovereignty comes a responsibility for the state to protect its people. But more than six million Zimbabweans face starvation as a direct result of the state’s failure and its use of food aid as a political weapon. In these circumstances the civilised world has a responsibility to protect the Zimbabwean people and to do so it should intervene in the manner proposed by the International Commission.
If future famines are to be avoided and if what was once the jewel of Africa is not to become another Somalia, governments in the West must act urgently with their African colleagues to address the root cause of the catastrophe now unfolding in Zimbabwe.
· The author is Zimbabwe’s shadow Minister of Justice.