The Right Line
Reading Morgan Tsvingirai’s article in the Guardian today was enlightening. In particular, this:
We have assured Mugabe that the new government will not pursue him legally through government offices. The work ahead is monumental and we need no further self-made distractions. Recrimination is not on the new government’s job list. Our agenda is to restore the rule of law and good governance; to face up to our dire health problems, including an HIV-Aids epidemic; to reconstruct our once cutting-edge education system; to bring our abundant farmlands back into health; to tackle rampant inflation and over 70% unemployment; to encourage foreign investment and public works spending; to depoliticise our security services; to stamp out corruption and graft. Every day the new government is denied, these problems each get worse.
The new leadership is committed to nurturing democracy in Zimbabwe and to begin rebuilding our shattered country. It is time to make a stand.
(Emphasis Mine)
This is undoubtedly the right line to take. Much as it might comfort those afflicted by his regime to see him tried and hung like the criminal he is, threatening to do so will achieve nothing. An execution would do nothing but christen the new government in blood - hardly a positive when the MDC are trying to set a contrast - and do no practical good.
More importantly at this stage; it’s already unlikely that Mugabe will let go over power without a fight. He certainly won’t if he knows that he’ll face trial for what he’s done. The MDC needs to do as much as possible to return democracy to Zimbabwe. If that means letting the man who took it away get away, then that’s a regrettable sacrifice - but one far less regrettable than him continuing to rule.
It’s a wonder that killing Saddam has not had overtly negative consequences. Killing Mugabe, I fear, would.
Meanwhile, things are still more peaceful in Zimbabwe than they were in Kenya. That’s surprising - and it also might be about to change!
It’s always difficult trying to find governments of national unity after horrific dictatorships. After the fall of Nazi Germany, the Allies killed or imprisoned most of the Nazi leaders and let those lower down the chain continue running the country. This allowed the country to get back on its feet but meant that the scars of Nazism never really healed, with even leaders such as the Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger Party members from ‘33.
After the fall of Ba’athist Iraq again the culpable elites were punished for their crimes, entirely justifiably, despite the misgivings we would have about the death penalty. Of course, the real flaw there was de Ba’athisation - destroying the civil service so there was no one to run the place and making the military unemployed so there was no one to keep order, and indeed many of them actively fought against the occupying forces.
Of course Mugabe is a more difficult case. Despite the obvious vote-rigging, he has at least retained the facade of democracy and unlike Saddam or Hitler has committed the worst atrocities by neglect and mis-management rather than a coordinated attempt at genocide. Therefore, an attempt at retribution could be hugely divisive in a country where he still commands significant rural support.
Whilst the MDC must now be most focused on reaching a deal to get Mugabe out without a hugely damaging civil war, I worry that repeating the strategy of ANC reconciliation without even the symbolic value of punishing the leaders as practised in Germany and Iraq could create tension long into the future.