Zimbabwe: Why African Leaders Are Silent

Tchaka Ndhlovu, an economist who works in Tanzania, opines:

"African leaders are not ostriches. The basic reason is that most African incumbent governments are facing political showdowns from opposition parties.

When opposition takeover threats reach boiling point, African leaders would play Mugabe’s political survival card. To this end, African leaders are justified not to tell Mugabe off as this would mean they are supporting opposition parties, that are giving them headache in their own backyards.

Mugabe is therefore their hero not because of his ill-conceived and ill-timed land reform programme but because he has taught them how to survive political tornadoes.....That the land inequality between natives and non-natives was severe in Zimbabwe is not disputable.

What is disputable, and discredits the whole land reform programme, is the timing, the manner and political circumstances under which it was implemented. Mugabe knew that his political ship was sinking and had to find a quick solution. He knew that the bulk of cultivable [crops] was in the hands of white commercial farmers and that the majority of the people were still nurturing the hatred against whites, through years of colonialism.

Given this background, Mugabe just needed some political propaganda that could convince a few souls that white farmers wanted to recolonise Zimbabwe through their support of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

"It continues: "Traditionally, our leaders have not been bold enough to find African solutions for African problems. They wait for donors to sort out African problems. How do we expect outsiders who have little knowledge of the root causes of Africa’s economic and political problems to find a solution for us? When we have floods, we send distress signals to the West for food relief instead of mobilising our own resources.

If genocide is happening in Darfur, we’re holding conferences that yield no tangible solution, then kneel before the international community for a solution. If the international community is not forthcoming, we blame them for starvation or genocide. Come on African Leaders! This is the twenty first century! Let’s get the hell out of the cocoon of denials and irresponsibility and learn to find African solutions for African problems."And more: "The East, especially China, shares the blame for the spread of Mugabeism in Africa. The West was quick to impose travel bans and freezing of assets of top government officials of Zimbabwe not because the political and economic crisis is victimising Zimbabwean[s] but because white farmers were involved.

If the Mugabe mania was only targeted at Zimbabweans, the West would have dilly-dallied on imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe. China is increasingly supporting and doing business with corrupt and repressive regimes in Africa. Its huge appetite for natural resources, which can be sourced from Africa at rock-bottom prices, has forced it to disregard poor human rights record of its bedfellows."