President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is fermenting turmoil in southern Africa, and the regional body SADC is, as has always been the case right from the beginning, helpless against him. Answering a question from a journalist in the early parts 2000s on why SADC was not taking stern action against Mugabe who was flouting every international law that SADC stood for, the then President of Botswana Festus Mogae gave a short answer; “he will tell us to go to hell.”
Some twenty years later, nothing about Mugabe has changed since Mogae uttered that painful but truthful statement – except of course Mugabe’s age and also health that has now deteriorated beyond redemption. It would seem like Mugabe would not want to leave this world alone. If that is what it will take, he wants to take Zimbabwe down with himself. With the sacking this week of Emerson Mnangagwa, his friend, ally and longtime aide, Robert Mugabe has put Zimbabwe on a path of no return. As we speak Zimbabwe is on the tenterhooks. With time the situation will become worse for the sub-region. No action can be expected from SADC. But it will with time become clear to SADC that a failure and/or reluctance to rein in Mugabe will mean that the entire sub-region has become captive to events beyond anybody’s control. Events in Zimbabwe are a real geopolitical risk for southern Africa.
It might sound ironic, given the devastation he has wrought on that country, but the only reason why Zimbabwe has not as yet plunged into civil war is because of Mugabe. Every day that passes spells doom for Zimbabwe. Even to infernal optimists a civil war can no longer be discounted. A silent agreement among all of the warring factions inside Zimbabwe’s ruling elite has been to leave Mugabe way above the fray. This has for a long time served the country as a collective, Mugabe in particular and the factions themselves as in a strange way the arrangement guaranteed peace. Yet this week, in a very careless way, the very guarantor of this unwritten scheme chose to tear it into pieces by sacking a leader of one faction. The intention was obvious ÔÇô to endorse the other faction in the succession race match that has for long remained in stalemate. There can only be way outcome; the collapse of the edifice that has up to now held under such tenuous peace. Mugabe’s state of mind does not seem to show if the man’s brain is wired well as to be tuned up enough to be aware of the disaster he has unleashed.
If he is aware of the consequences of his actions, then he does not seem to care. For over twenty years now, Mugabe has never cared a hoot about the stability of southern Africa. Tragically, he now no longer seems to care even about the stability of Zimbabwe. All that matters to him is that his wife should succeed him as president of Zimbabwe. The geopolitical risks posed to southern Africa by events in Zimbabwe are real. Long before Zimbabwe was in the jaws of an untidy succession battle, that country’s institutions were already on their knees. The economy of that country has been so ravaged that people see nothing wrong risking their lives to cross to neighbouring countries. As we speak Zimbabwe is on a brink.
The sacking of Mnangagwa by Mugabe has brought Zimbabwe to a boiling point. The death of Mugabe, a growing reality, will bring Zimbabwe on its knees. And a failed succession will bring a civil war in that country to a forgone eventuality. There is simply no way SADC can intervene in Zimbabwe. Even a gentle call from a friendly leader in the region will send Mugabe up the slopes there to give a long lecture on the Evils of Imperialism and how Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.
