Zimbabwe: the next step?
Do you think it might be time to start being nice to Zimbabwe again?
Yes, President Mugabe is still in power. And yes, as you'll know if you've heard any of Mike Thomson's reports on the Today programme this week, the place is still in an appalling mess.
But Morgan Tsvangirai, opposition leader turned Prime Minister, is currently on a six-nation tour trying to drum up some financial support for a government which, on paper at least, he now leads. He's meeting President Obama today; he'll be in London next week - and his message is simple enough: if you don't help out my government now, it'll collapse, and the alternative, in his words, "is too ghastly to contemplate".
But here's the problem: Western governments aren't yet convinced that Mr Tsvangirai is really the man in charge. President Mugabe retains control of security, his cronies are still where they were - and crucially, the much-criticised governor of the central bank, Gideon Gono, is still in place.
Western governments want to make sure that if they do start handing over cash again, it won't be siphoned off into sundry off-shore bank accounts. It might be possible to transfer money directly to, for example, the Health Ministry, which is controlled by Mr Tsvangirai's MDC - but the risk is that that would free up other cash to be misused elsewhere.
Not a big risk, according to Teddy Brett of the Institute of Development Studies at the LSE, whom we spoke to on Wednsday's programme - simply because nothing is currently being spent on health. (Click below to hear the interview.)
Another option would be for donor governments to channel more cash through the international relief agencies. But Mr Tsvangirai isn't keen on that because he wants to be able to show Zimbabwean voters that the MDC in government can make a difference.
The scale of suffering in Zimbabwe defies the imagination. It was once a model for sub-Saharan Africa; it is now a basket case. Millions of Zimbabweans have fled into neighbouring countries, mainly South Africa, to find work and food. No one denies that its people desperately need to be helped.
But the current position in Washington and the EU is that the unity government must do more to convince the outside world that it isn't just a fig-leaf to cover the continuing brutality of President Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. Mike Thomson's interview with a senior MDC minister who says she and her colleagues still get daily phone calls threatening assassination is a stark reminder of political reality.
Bolstering just one party in a fragile coalition government is tricky, but that's what donor nations seem to want to do. If Mr Tsvangirai can go back to Harare and tell his colleagues: "We'll get more help, but only if ZANU-PF backs off", then maybe there's a chance of progress.
But if he goes home with the message: "I failed; I've come back empty-handed", the MDC will look to its supporters as if it has failed in the one thing it promised them ... the chance of a better life.
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"Do you think it might be time to start being nice to Zimbabwe again? "
The question is absurd. Memory is sometimes conveniently short. It's easy to look at the dire humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe and forget that it was of its own making. It wasn't so long ago that Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Southern Africa. In case anyone was living in a cave or not paying attention, Robert Mugabe instituted policies to drive out white farmers, descendants of the colonists who settled in what was once Rhodesia. As I recall, Britain sent Mugabe money to buy these farms. But the money was not used for that. Instead. the farmers and their workers were literally driven off the land. Some were killed outright. Some had their homes looted and ransacked. The workers were beaten, killed, or otherwise driven away. Large numbers of Mugabe's cronies he called war veterans squatted on the land claiming it as their own. These people wouldn't know which end of a hoe was the handle. The reaction to this policy within Zimbabwe itself as I heard it reportedly ranged from staunch support to utter indifference by the majority of Zimbabweans. Nor did governments of other African nations condemn this brutal and suicidal policy. In fact many seemed sympathetic to it.
As a result, the inevitable happened. Food production came to a halt, the economy that had been based largely on agriculture collapsed, and people began to starve. Some rose up in protest and were beaten, imprisoned, or killed, others tried to escape by migrating to other nearby countries. As I said, this has been a self inflicted mortal wound born of ancient hatred whipped up by political cynicism.
Should the world now divert its limited resources to feed starving people to help Zimbabwe out of the jam it created for itself? I don't think so. Those resources should be expended instead on those whose need was created through no fault of their own. There are plenty of such places around the world that are desperate for help.
And if Mr Tsvangirai goes back to Harare with the message: "I failed; I've come back empty-handed" then he should have thought of that when the crisis was being formulated and the outcome was certain. I have yet to hear the people of Zimbabwe say, "we are going to get rid of the people who engineered all this, hold them to account, and then please send us enough food to keep us fed while you teach us how to work our farms so we can feed ourselves again."
No, no help now. Zimbabwe has not evolved sufficiently to warrant such aid even in the face of this humanitarian disaster. Perhaps its suffering will be a lesson to others with similar ideas. Not only should no help be sent but Zimbabweans and the rest of the world should be told exactly why.
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Dr Teddy Brett has spent his entire academic life trying to introduce the idea of good governance to Africa.
with the amount of dedication he and other likeminded academics have given trying to install some form of governance with hardly any postive results why should the British tax-payer donate even more money which will probally be stolen?.
The human suffering which many Africans have to live with is terrible, by all means give money to relief agencies, but only to the non-political agencies, and bring in real accountable procedures to ensure that the relief aid is going to the right people.
I find it amazing that Governments do not have some form of wokflow/process to ensure that checks and balances are in place to stop aid being misdirected to someones pocket.
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Mr.Mugabe is clearly responsible for the dire situation which prevails there. Under no circumstances must he gain access to funds intended to help his people.
This is why I have given money to Christian Aid, in the hope that the right people will get the benefit.
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