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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/04
Zimbabwe: The Politics of National Liberation and International Division
October 2002
Abstract
Despite the rising humanitarian costs of the crisis in Zimbabwe, the international community remains deeply divided about its response, allowing President Mugabe to believe that he can exploit the policy fissure between - broadly - the West and Africa. The foreign media's emphasis on the plight of white commercial farmers plays into the regime's liberation rhetoric, reinforcing the erroneous but widespread belief in Africa that the West is concerned about Zimbabwe only because white property interests have been harmed. What is happening in Zimbabwe and the lack of a continental response have damaged perceptions of Africa in the wider international community, weakening in the process the promising but still embryonic New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union (AU).
Zimbabwe's crisis of governance is the primary cause of its economic tailspin and food emergency. The ruling ZANU-PF party has consolidated nearly absolute political and economic power in the aftermath of the stolen March 2002 presidential election and the similarly flawed 28-29 September local elections. Both were marked by systematic state-sponsored violence and intimidation, but ZANU-PF officials went even further in the latter case, telling local chiefs and headmen in some areas that if they did not produce a ruling party victory, they would not receive food. Indeed, food is increasingly being used as a political weapon to undermine opponents and reward loyalists.
