Zimbabwe has SADC (and Mbeki) to Thank. Ditto Afghanistan.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There has been relatively limited discussion about a longstanding narrative that at some point the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK once considered a military intervention in Zimbabwe. This was allegedly under the leadership of former Prime Minister, Tony Blair.  It is a narrative that was put forward by former South African president Thabo Mbeki in an interview with AlJazeera in 2013.  This was also after he had been the Southern African Development Community (SADC) appointed mediator in the Zimbabwean political impasse. 

I have raised this issue particularly  in the wake of the collapse of the American occupation of Afghanistan. Mainly because it reflects what could have become a Zimbabwean reality but more significantly because at that time, the idea of liberal interventionism was a fad across many global and local activist circles.  Including what the United Nations office on Genocide Prevention defined as the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). 

To argue that there were strong inclinations toward either liberal interventionism and R2P in Zimbabwe’s context would probably be an understatement.   This is mainly because the narrative of Zimbabwe’s political challenges were couched in failed and pariah state languages.  At a global scale.  And as the actions of the then Mugabe government had riled equally global capital and its assumed universal private property rights.  

Add to this base a mix of a lack of domestic popularity of the incumbent government and leader, together with serious cases of political violence, salvation from outside the country was never out of the popular or some intellectual imaginations.   More so in the wake of what the United States of America (USA) and the UK together with their allies had already been doing in either Iraq, Afghanistan or Sierra Leone and eventually Libya. 

What also emerged was a hostility toward regional mediation by the Southern African Development Community (SADC).  Or even that of the continental body, the African Union (AU).  With some of the main reasons being it was either too accommodating of Mugabe or it was not yielding the populist result of his resignation/removal from office. 

And these were fair concerns depending on which political side of the fence one sat.   Personally I was never a supporter of liberal interventionism.  Especially the kind that anticipates the arrival of a foreign army to liberate a people.  But my opinion then and even now are beside the point.

What is important is that we look at the dynamics that then informed SADC and the AU to insist on a more contextual and non-military intervention in the Zimbabwean political situation.  And why SADC, including its appointed mediator Thabo Mbeki eventually prevailed. 

Zimbabwe’s placement in international relations particularly after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) had (and probably still has) essentially two strands to it. 

The first being that it was a state that had gone rogue by violating private property rights and also limiting other freedoms.  But with the former being the motivator for the observance of the latter.   What Mugabe had done for whatever reasons he gave was probably considered ‘unforgiveable’ not only by private global capital but also neo-colonial mentalities of global political establishments.  It probably still remains ‘unforgivable’ that Mugabe undertook the FTLRP.  And his successor appears to understand this hence his courting of private capital and former white commercial farmers. 

The second strand to the narrative is largely found on the continent and its remembrance of anticolonial struggles.  Particularly as it relates to land restitution and redistribution.  And this is significantly within the Southern African context.  Hence SADC’s ambivalence at the idea of liberal interventionism in Zimbabwe.  This is also compounded by the strong historical ties between Southern African states based on the Frontline states and former liberation movements that are still in power in a majority of countries in the region.  As well as the legacy of the Organization of African Unity now the AU together with the principles that guided the former’s African Liberation Committee.   

But these narratives alone were never going to be enough.  It was the juxtaposition of one against the other  and the insistence by SADC that saw and thought beyond what a military intervention would mean for Zimbabwean society. As well as for the stability of the region. 

While the AU eventually made some huge misjudgments in the case of Libya later on, in Zimbabwe’s instance we were helped by SADC to avoid a similar catastrophe. 

As is now evident with the case of Afghanistan and the departure of the Americans, interventionist wars generally do not end well.   They cause untold suffering to ordinary people and in most cases the latter never remember fully why the wars were started in the first place. And these wars often times bring back those that were assumed to have been ousted into the political milieu in one form or the other. 

You may ask, was Zimbabwe really that close to a possible external military intervention?  I do not have a technical answer to that question.  The point however is that where it was thought of, it was rejected.  And for this we have SADC and its appointed mediator Thabo Mbeki to thank.  Whatever we have, however we differ in viewing it, it is far better than being a country under either direct military occupation or at war with itself. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)