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Should Zimbabwe leave the commonwealth?
The Scrutator The confirmation last week that Zimbabwe is excluded from the Abuja CHOGM (which begins this week) should not be a surprise to any one who has been following the attendant developments over the last few months. Though the authorities in Abuja were doing everything possible to have the Zimbabwe issue behind them in preparation for what they expect to be a major showcase for both country and leader, controversy over the exclusion of the Southern African country persists and threatens to spill into CHOGM itself. As I pointed out last week, Obasanjoâs hurried visit to Harare two Mondays ago this week was intended as part of the process through which to ensure that the subject of Zimbabwe would at worst be a benign one during CHOGM, while simultaneously attempting a public relations exercise designed to win both sides of the divide in the Club. Given the dust that his visit to Harare stirred in both Zimbabwe and the southern African neighborhood, Obasanjo must be quietly regretting that he undertook the mission so close to the date of the Abuja CHOGM. Now, the danger is that the Zimbabwe precedent, much more than the Pakistan, Fiji and Nigerian ones, will become so centre-stage in the deliberations of the Abuja CHOGM that the Commonwealthâs Harare Declaration (of 1991) itself might reinforce the divide between the north and south in the Club. For very good reasons, Nigeria had hoped to have the Abuja CHOGM so bereft of controversy and acrimony that it would go down as being the best in a decade, during which previous summits have threatened the very foundations of a club delicately held together historically, in the relationship between the former colonizer (and its white dominions) on the one hand and its former colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, on the other. âThe arrival of world leaders to the country for the meeting,â beamed Nigerian Information Minister, Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu, last Tuesday, âgoes a long way in telling the international community that Nigeria is safe and peacefulâ CHOGM is a good opportunity to showcase that we have the potentials. We shall ensure that the opportunity is not wasted, especially in the area of investmentsâ what we put out is vital and important as we hope to attract investors through the meetingââ Chikelu added that the hosting of the meeting by Nigeria was âan endorsement of the country by the international communityâ; it also showed that Nigeria had been âaccepted as a major player in the international community.â Also, it has since emerged that a previous plan, presumably sometime in the 1970âs, to have a CHOGM in Nigeria had been spurned due to the Zimbabwe issue. At that time, Nigeria-through none less than Obasanjo himself as military head of state-was one of the African states at the forefront of the support base for the liberation of Southern Africa. Thus, through both the late Murtala Mohammed and his successor Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria had earned the status of being one of the âFrontline Statesâ of Southern Africa, even so geographically distant from the scene. Indeed, Southern Africans in general and Southern Africa and Zimbabwe in particular, owe a debt of gratitude to Nigeria, even if the latterâs commitment to African liberation should be taken for granted. It was Obasanjo as the military head of state of Nigeria, that harangued the British and threw BP Shell and other British companies out of the west African country - all in response to Britainâs failure to deal with Ian Smith and his UDI. In the final analysis, it was Nigeriaâs contribution to the war effort in 1978/79 that would have helped tilt Zimbabweâs struggle towards victory, making it possible for the Lancaster House Talks in 1979 and assisted in the training of military and other personnel in preparation for independence. Obasanjo was at the heart of all these initiatives; now, he will want all concerned to know and understand that he has not changed his stance nor sacrificed the principles of African liberation. On the contrary, he hopes that the occasion of the Abuja CHOGM will be the agency through which to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Marlborough Statement of March, 2002; while simultaneously playing out the occasion itself as a major showcase for both himself and his country. If he succeeds in all this, Obasanjo will emerge as a great international statesman, who is able to transcend the racial overtones that have so far plagued the Commonwealth. It has been clear, particularly ever since March this year that he will not allow the Zimbabwe issue to stand in the way of Nigeriaâs opportunity to host CHOGM. In retrospect, it might account also for the ambivalence while some of his detractors call it âdouble dealingâ, that has characterized Obasanjoâs conduct over the Zimbabwe issue, including, as one of my South African colleagues put it, the Nigerian leaderâs concessions to Australian prime minister John Howard that led to Zimbabweâs suspension at the Marlborough House talks last year. Added to this the behind the scene consultations with Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon last March, and the motives behind his hurried visit to Harare on 17th November, 2003. Regrettably, such a backdrop cannot be exorcised from the deliberations of the Abuja CHOGM nor can it dispel the impression that Obasanjo has failed to reconcile the pursuit of personal and national glory on one hand, and the consistent adherence to principle on the other. There will, of course, be the overriding argument that Zimbabwe has itself to blame and that, with better political calculation on the part of its leadership, she could have assisted Obasanjo and Mbeki in the difficult task attendant to the Commonwealth troika, making possible not only the return to the Club but also re-engagement with the EU and the US. All the same, the following questions will not go away and constitute almost a guarantee that the Abuja CHOGM will be dominated by the Zimbabwe issue, at the risk of generating controversy and acrimony. First, the role of Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon: his partisan relationship with Australian prime minister John Howard; and the extend to which their (McKinnon and Howard) racial response to the land war in Zimbabwe, and neither the breach of the Harare Declaration nor the conduct of the presidential elections in 2002, will have influenced the position against Mugabe and his government. A number of African, Caribbean and Asian member states will seek to demonstrate that McKinnonâs politics disqualified him from being the impartial arbiter expected of a Secretary-General of the club, and that Mugabe was, therefore, justified in rejecting his overtures towards some kind of dialogue over the Zimbabwe crisis. That McKinnon himself appears so oblivious of the reasons behind Mugabeâs refusal to meet him betrays both a poor intellect and (racial) self-indulgence. Likewise, a number of delegates will point out that John Howard has consistently employed the race card as part of his political agenda on the Australian domestic front, not only pandering thereby to the âRhodieâ lobby which is so large in places like Perth and Brisbane, but also using the Zimbabwean issue itself as the means to fly the âwhite flagâ so high over Australia and beyond. More important, McKinnon will have a problem explaining why he intervened, so arbitrarily and in a manner so obviously partisan to the position of the Australian Prime Minister and member of the Commonwealth troika, when Zimbabweâs one-year suspension expired. Even if Obasanjo was not so categorical on the issue, Mbeki insists to this day that Zimbabweâs suspension expired on 18th March, 2003. Already, indications are that most if not all the African, Asian and Caribbean members will confirm at Abuja that Zimbabweâs suspension was lifted in March; and, according to unconfirmed reports, Canada will likewise insist on the formalization of Zimbabweâs status as a full member of the club, have McKinnon condemned, and call for a new initiative towards the resolution of the political and economic standoff in the southern African country. At any rate, McKinnonâs demise as secretary general of the commonwealth is more likely than not to be one of the outcomes of the Abuja CHOGM. He might wish to blame the loss of office to the Sri Lankan challenger on the Zimbabwe issue, but he would have earned himself the notoriety of having been one of the most inept and redundant that has held the leadership position in such an international organization as the Commonwealth. Second, the Zimbabwe issue will cause a more rigorous scrutiny of the Harare Declaration itself, while simultaneously highlighting the truth that it could not have been the honest or reliable basis upon which the southern African country was suspended from the club last year. This is because the Harare Declaration might have constituted the reliable criteria on the basis of which Fiji (where parliament was arbitrarily suspended by the leadership), Nigeria (when Abacha executed Saro-Wiwa and detained many, including Obasanjo himself) and Pakistan (where a military coup overtook a civilian government). However its application becomes controversial in such situations as that is prevailing in Zimbabwe. While it is easy to demonstrate the extent to which Zimbabwe has not yet fulfilled the requirements of the Harare Declaration, it will be difficult if not impossible to identify any one member State of the Commonwealth that has so far done so fully and comprehensively. The members of the white Commonwealth will, of course, take it for granted that they are the epitome of democracy and good governance and implicitly argue that theirs is a model to be pursued by all else in the club. Yet, on the other hand, how many African, Asian and Caribbean member states will claim to have a better governance - or elections - record than Zimbabwe? For example, as in Zimbabwe, there is a petition before the High court in Zambia, challenging the electoral process, which brought Mwanawasa to the presidency. Likewise, elections which earned Obasanjo a second term of office in Nigeria were so characterized by massive fraud and irregularities that, were it not for obvious political expediency, the Commonwealth Election Observer Team itself might have condemned the process as having been far worse than anything they reported upon with respect to the presidential elections in Zimbabwe in 2002. With respect to the human rights record, the annual report of Amnesty International alone would leave almost every Commonwealth member state, especially those of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, as falling short of the principles enshrined in the Harare Declaration. Both Tony Blair and John Howard should likewise receive an adverse human rights report this year, especially with respect to the inhumane and fascist treatment of asylum seekers and other racial minorities in their respective countries. Third, the threat that Zimbabwe might leave the Commonwealth altogether. For obvious reasons, I do not care a damn about the Commonwealth. However, given the nature of globalization and the tendency of the powerful to try and isolate the small, Zimbabwe could still find refuge in the Club, despite the immense problems therein. Also, there are the economic and trade benefits in such an international organization, in addition to those obvious diplomatic and political trappings associated with the club. All the same, the departure of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth will shake the very foundations of the Club, establish a precedent which others will find less daring and courageous to effect, and sound the death knell of an organization whose historical and philosophical bases have, with the passage of time, become exposed as flawed The Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
