Zimbabwe: A Regional Solution?

Pretoria/Brussels, 18 September 2007: The international community must fully support the regional initiative to save Zimbabwe from complete collapse and prevent the destabilisation of southern Africa.

Zimbabwe: A Regional Solution?,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the role of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in facilitating a negotiated political solution for the increasingly desperate country, which faces elections in six months. Inflation in Zimbabwe is now impossibly high, and a quarter of the population has now fled. A military-led campaign to slash prices has produced acute food and fuel shortages, and state-sponsored violence continues unabated. Though the SADC initiative is fragile, South Africa and the other regional countries offer the only real hope.

“If they act decisively, SADC’s leaders can prove that ‘African solutions to African problems’ is indeed a viable concept, not merely rhetoric with which to forestall unwanted Western interference,” says Crisis Group President Gareth Evans.

Following a government crackdown on the opposition in early March 2007, the SADC mandated South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki to mediate between the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), with the objective of securing agreement on constitutional reform ahead of the March 2008 elections. The regime’s request for a rescue package gives the regional initiative crucial leverage if SADC is willing to use it, but the challenges remain daunting. While President Robert Mugabe outmanoeuvred rivals to gain the ZANU-PF nomination for a new term, the MDC is bitterly divided. Some SADC leaders continue to support Mugabe, and there is a risk the organisation would accept cosmetic changes that would further entrench the status quo.

International actors must close ranks behind the Mbeki mediation. SADC should extend an aid package and ask the West to lift its sanctions only in exchange for full ZANU-PF cooperation and implementation of reforms that will allow free and fair elections in 2008. If such cooperation is not forthcoming, SADC should refuse to endorse any election not a product of the mediation and be prepared to isolate Mugabe and his regime.

The regional body should also enlist a panel of retired African presidents to help Mbeki and convince Mugabe to retire in 2008. The wider international community should make detailed preparations to contribute to Zimbabwe’s recovery if the mediation succeeds, but also be ready to apply tougher sanctions if it collapses.

“The next few months present a moment of truth,” says Andebrhan Giorgis, Crisis Group Senior Adviser. “SADC has the capacity to reverse a downward spiral that threatens the region’s stability, but they must be prepared to support the initiative they have begun and Mbeki’s mandate.”