Africa disgraced

by Ayman El-Amir*

After three days of hand wringing and inconclusive backroom consultations, the leaders of the African Union (AU) left the Zimbabwean presidential crisis unresolved. It all began when Robert Mugabe re-elected himself president of Zimbabwe for a sixth term in a one- man election runoff that left the world in shock and outrage. Before the election, nearly five million Zimbabweans had fled the country out of starvation or to avoid the prospect of being bludgeoned by Mugabe's thugs -- code-named war veterans -- for supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Those who remained behind were bullied into marching to polling stations to re-elect the man who ruined what was once one of Africa's most prosperous and most promising newly independent countries.

Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, whose MDC party won the parliamentary elections a month ago, fearing for his life, took refugee in the Dutch embassy until the election was over, calling it "an exercise in mass intimidation". The UN Security Council condemned the violence and murder committed against the opposition by Mugabe's government and Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon first called for the postponement of the runoff and later declared that the results "do not represent the will of the Zimbabwean people". While Mugabe won the elections by what his Electoral Commission called a majority, the UN Security Council is considering sanctions against him and his government. He may have gotten away with election fraud for the time being, but Africa has lost its grace.

Despite the controversy, Mugabe arrived in Cairo and was received with the full honours of a legitimate head of state to participate in the AU's summit meeting in the lavish seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. Most influential African leaders hid behind the cloak of calling Zimbabwe's sham election runoff an "internal affair", or muttered half-hearted statements of regret. But more outspoken participants considered that the elections "did not meet the standards of the African Union" while UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha Rosa Migirio called for the election of Mugabe to be suspended until he allowed the AU to organise free and fair elections.

By allowing his participation in the summit, the AU bestowed legitimacy on President Mugabe's charade. Egypt, the host, could have rallied a consensus that would have forced Mugabe to absent himself from the summit until the situation in his country was resolved in a democratic manner. But by participating in the meeting, Mugabe rubbed his fraudulent re-election into the nose of every participating African leader. As they already have their plates full with intractable problems, African leaders found the Kenyan model of hijacking a presidential election and compensating the opposition with some cabinet posts as a safe exit, despite the strong opposition of Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga, himself the victim of a stolen election. Odinga called for the suspension of Mugabe from the AU. Whether this compromise will satisfy the MDC and the rest of the world is a difficult bet. Whatever the outcome, it is unlikely to cleanse Africa's tarnished image or calm international outrage and the threat of sanctions against impoverished Zimbabwe.

Africa's dilemma is twofold: first, it is mostly dominated by like-minded dictatorial regimes that maintain their rule by a combination of brutality and subtle repression. Second, African leaders have overrun the extent to which they can blame past colonial rule for their own failures. Like brotherly military juntas, they have strong bonds with each other in what appears an unholy fraternity. Autocratic rulers aside, the weak, almost protective reaction of South African President Thabo Mbeki raised eyebrows. This was unbecoming of a country that came into the community of nations on the back of a long and bitter struggle against apartheid, achieved democratic majority rule, proceeded in national reconciliation and achieved a great measure of pluralism. The thick shadow of disappointment Mbeki's position cast over South Africa was only dispelled by Africa's honorary statesman, Nelson Mandela. Old and frail, but never lacking political acumen, Mandela told a small gathering in his honour there was "a tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe". No African leader could usually withstand this condemnation from such a venerated figure, but self-elected Mugabe and his associates did.

No one questions the historical fact that for four centuries Western colonial rule plundered, retarded and ruined Africa. But its indelible crime is that it never cultivated the political culture of democratic self- government that it swore was the ultimate purpose of its centuries of "discovery", invasion and exploitation. The "white man's burden" was a legacy of oppression and manipulation that, in most African countries, turned into a convenient mask with the label of "nationalist leadership", "revolutionary government" or "liberators". After decades of independence, and many dismal failures, this was finessed into sham elections won by leaders in power, or regime change by military adventurers who hoisted the banner of "revolutionary legitimacy". No wonder that in some African countries that have been independent for decades, some colonial-era laws remain on the books, such as emergency laws and other tools of repressive government.

Most oppressive regimes in Africa put the label of "internal affairs" on their repressive practices, even when they grossly violate provisions of universal human rights that they once solemnly committed themselves to. In Africa, notorious regimes refrain from criticising each other and work hard to build disgraceful alliances in international forums to protect their kin. Conventional wisdom is that you do not throw stones on someone else's house when yours is made of glass. This has undermined respect for human rights and individual freedoms, regressed good governance and entrenched autocratic regimes. That is why South Africa's opposition to UN Security Council moves to sanction the government of Zimbabwe is all the more baffling.

Leaders of the member-states of the AU who met in Sharm El-Sheikh overlooked some important historical lessons. When, in 1946, India raised the issue of apartheid laws in South Africa before the UN General Assembly, as they discriminated against its coloured population, the South African government simply dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the UN had no jurisdiction over its "internal affairs" as a sovereign member-state. In 1999, NATO, with no authorisation from the Security Council, went on a massive bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia) to force then President Slobodan Miloöevi¾ to loosen his grip on Kosovo where his government was accused of committing genocide. Kofi Anan, then UN secretary-general, justified the controversial campaign as "humanitarian intervention", telling the General Assembly that no country that commits mass persecution of its population can do so with impunity, hiding behind the pretext of non-interference in internal affairs. It is not that African leaders are unaware of such developments, but that most of them do not want to be held accountable for bad governance, fraudulent elections or violations of human rights.

Self-elected President Mugabe, like several other African leaders, has many failures. But the greatest of them all is that for 28 years in power he failed to achieve the historic national reconciliation between Zimbabwe's black and white populations, as South Africa did. If anything, he deepened divisions by expropriating the property of white farmers in 1998, without compensation, in vengeful retaliation for their opposition in parliament to some amendments that would grant him totalitarian powers. The dismal conditions under which Zimbabweans live speak volumes of Mugabe's failed policies in every aspect of the country's life. His readily available scapegoat is to heap blame on Anglo-American colonialism and to incite a handful of beneficiary followers.

African leaders are not doing their countries, or their continent, a favour by saving Mugabe from the wrath of his people. It is a short-sighted strategy that will trigger yet another civil war in Africa and eventually backfire on southern Africa. With all good intentions, Egypt is trying to regain the role of big brother it once enjoyed in Africa -- a role of mediation, conciliation and crisis resolution. In the case of Zimbabwe's fraudulent elections, it has done Africa a disservice.

* The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.

Culled from Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt.