Need for Soft Landing in Zimbabwe

The crisis in Zimbabwe that stems principally from the continuing fight between the government of Mr. Robert Mugabe and its opponents is getting out of hand, and increasingly so by the day. The recent brutalization of members of the opposition by the Police and other security outfits is not only disheartening. It’s also tragic, and doesn’t bode well at all for society and people in Zimbabwe in both the short and the long runs. The same is true of the recent announcement by the US State Department that it’s actively involved in funding the opposition to Mr. Mugabe’s openly brutal regime.

Unsophisticated assessments would wonder why I would lump both acts—the brutalization of members of the opposition and US State Department's open disclosure of support—to the same trajectory of events and argue that they don’t bode well in the over all for Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans. They belong together because they might back fire and earn Mr. Mugabe more time in power. Anything capable of dragging out the crisis in Zimbabwe in any shape or form is counter-productive for Zimbabwe and its peoples. The battered and brutalized face of MDC faction leader, Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai is a sad metaphor of sorts, with sour implications for anyone who is genuinely concerned about the continuing deterioration of society in Zimbabwe as the crisis sustains. One of those implications is that the MDC factions are riddled with weaknesses so rife that they are incapable of delivering Zimbabwe from the brutal rule that Mr. Mugabe’s government represents. Any anti-systemic entity which is incapable of protecting itself—particularly its leaders—from such brutal man-handling cannot be worth its salt. This immediate point will be mute if in this case the beatings received by Mr. Tsvangirai and his colleagues were deliberately courted to sensitize the world to Mr. Mugabe’s immense capacity for brutality. Even if that were the case, courting world sympathy that way could portray the MDC as an entity being run by individuals who have a cargo cult mentality. A weak MDC will drag out the crisis, while cargo cult mentality is certainly not the mindset needed to repair the damage already done on society by Mr. Mugabe’s regime when it finally ends.

IkengaComments is privy to the boiling anger in opponents of the Mugabe regime. Many of them have proclaimed their readiness for armed struggle. An objective assessment of the hard realities in Zimbabwe points to one harsh truth—chances of initiating armed struggle in Zimbabwe today are next to nil. Furthermore, if armed struggle is initiated, its chances of success are equally nil. The end of minority rule there in Zimbabwe, dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, the end of civil wars in Mozambique and Angola amounted to an era shift that completely voids the possibility of a successful armed struggle project anywhere in that sub-region. If former freedom fighters who are currently in charge of state affairs in most parts of the sub-region have found it difficult to warm up to the idea of supporting the MDC all this while, it will be unrealistic to presume that they will support armed struggle. For one, they all still consider Mr. Mugabe one of their own. The MDC’s continuing weakness derives from some of these variables!

The announcement by the US State will only give Mr. Mugabe more ammunition as he continues to demonize the MDC as agents of the US and the West. He’s after all a seasoned activist. Anyone who refuses to appreciate that a seasoned activist like Mr. Mugabe has all that it takes to play the current situation in Zimbabwe for his own extended survival is being unrealistic. He’s not unaware that he’s incapable of turning society around in Zimbabwe having plunged it this far into decay. He’ll diligently strive to drag out the crisis and make it survive him. He’s in good health no doubt, which indicates that Zimbabwe might go through at least five more years of decay! Mr. Mugabe’s horizontal departure from Zimbabwe’s public sphere would necessarily mean that the other goons who currently assist him now in the regime will not roll over and give up the day after. Look at Guinea after Sekou Toure!

Assuming that the MDC acquires the superior capability over night to out-do the violence that Mr. Mugabe is unleashing at them currently, and ousts him, what is the guarantee that Mr. Tsvangirai and others wouldn’t loose their heads over their new found capacity to wield actionable violence? The dangers exist for that in a future Zimbabwe under the control of an opposition that achieves change violently. Look at what Mr. Meles Zenawi transformed himself into in Ethiopia. The story of the man in Eritrea, Mr. Isaias Afewerki, who fought in the same trenches with Mr. Zenawi to oust Mengistu Haile Mariam from power in Addis in the early 1990s, is not a better copy.

The need for soft landing in the crisis becomes increasingly acute by the day. By that I mean a process that will put Zimbabwe back on the part of sanity without any of the actors in the current dispensation being subjected to prosecution by the victors. South Africa and the other stakeholders in the sub-region must sell a project that has something for Mr. Mugabe by way of immunity from prosecution to both the MDC and the former. It’s sad that Zimbabwe’s White community doesn’t seem to be interested in an amicable resolution of the crisis. Most of them including the farmers prefer to pack their bags and go elsewhere. Ian Smith, the Prime Minister in the White-only minority regime left to live for good in South Africa. He could still be part of the process that will bring about the soft landing from where he is currently though.