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"
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