OK, Now It's Time to Talk Zimbabwe

Here's that latest exchange over Zimbabwe in full:

US and British Governments: Robert Mugabe, you must step down now.

Robert Mugabe: No.


A few weeks ago, we noted that US attention --- especially that of the incoming Obama Administration --- seemed to be on the Sudan, rather than Zimbabwe. In the last 72 hours, however, the tone has shifted. American officials, especially Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, began declaring that the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe was "dead" and that Robert Mugabe should step aside. CNN this morning is featuring an interview with Frazer in which she declares that it is time for other African states to step up their pressure on Mugabe and that the US will now take the matter to the United Nations for further sanctions.

The problem is that a shift in rhetoric doesn't mean a significant shift in outcome. Calling the power-sharing patient deceased is only confirming a death that took place many weeks ago. And given Mugabe's tenacity, even in the face of appalling economic and social conditions in Zimbabwe, it is unlikely that any diplomatic measures or sanctions will shift him. Nor, given the apparent loyalty of the security services to the President, is a coup a foreseeable solution. That leaves military intervention, which Frazer explicitly ruled out --- at least with the participation of American forces --- in the CNN interview.

Forecast? Given that Obama's appointment as US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, is an African specialist, Zimbabwe will have its turns in the United Nations spotlight. But the prospects are more for finger-wagging, with the get-out clause that it's the African states who are to blame because they are "soft" on Mugabe, than for any significant change in fortunes for the Zimbabwean population.

Zimbabwe Update: The Ripples Reach America

Almost a week after Enduring America noted that the Zimbabwe story was absent from the US media, in contrast to coverage indicating Sudan as a priority for the Obama Administration, reporters for the New York Times and Washington Post have noticed the crisis in the country.



The Times story is more dramatic with the headline "Cholera is Raging, Despite Denial by Debate" and a personalised story of the five youngest children dying in a family. The Post story is less subjective in framing, "Mugabe Calls Cholera Crisis Over as Deaths Rise to 783", as it --- unlike the Times --- notes:

Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu have called on African nations to use force to depose Mugabe. This week, President Bush, echoing calls from France and Britain, said it was "time for Robert Mugabe to go.

Beyond that reference, however, neither story offers any indication of a change in US policy towards intervention.

Africa: Where to Intervene?

Over the weekend, with the catalyst of the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, the British media played up the possibility of a military intervention to free the country from the rule of Robert Mugabe. There was a consensus from The Observer, with the Archbishop of York's call for the toppling of Mugabe, to the BBC's headlining of Desmond Tutu's call for action to The Daily Telegraph's featuring of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's declaration, "Enough is enough." This morning, the BBC's Today programme ran the story in its prime slot after 8 a.m.

This coverage was absent, however, in the United States.



Apart from one editorial, I could not find a single story in The Washington Post or The New York Times. Shankar Vedantam, who writes the lofty-sounding Department of Human Behavior analysis for the Post, may want to sharpen his finding, "When nearly 600 people in Zimbabwe died in a cholera outbreak a week ago, the international response was far more muted," and look at his own newsroom.

Why the disparity? I suspect in part that it's because any immediate intervention against Mugabe would have to be a show of military force, and the US has no troops --- and, more pertinently, a priority to use any troops it might have --- in that effort.

In part, it may be the Obama Administration is selecting another African country for attention. The Post, while ignoring Zimbabwe, has a long Page One article today, "Sudan's Leaders Brace for U.S. Shift; Obama Team Seen As Tough on Darfur". A lot of the Post's piece is speculation, drawn from past statements of Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton and hanging its hat on a task force report which "recommends, among other things, that the Obama administration create a high-level forum in the White House to direct the government's response to threats of mass violence". Moreover, the paper notes cogently that Obama "has not called for direct U.S. intervention".

So it's not a safe bet to say that the US will be ratcheting up the pressure for a move, direct or indirect, against Khartoum. It is a pretty good wager, however, that the Obama folks will be even less inclined to join others in a march on Harare.

Meanwhile, there is a cautionary tale from the Bush Administration's interventions in Africa. Two years ago, Washington supported the overthrow of the Mogadishu Government, led by the Islamic Courts, through intervention by Ethiopian troops. On Sunday, The New York Times woke up to the outcome of that venture:

Somalia’s transitional government looks as if it is about to flatline. The Ethiopians who have been keeping it alive for two years say they are leaving the country, essentially pulling the plug.

For the past 17 years, Somalia has been ripped apart by anarchy, violence, famine and greed. It seems as though things there can never get worse. But then they do.