Liberate Us From the Liberators
Southern Africa is paralyzed by a hoary old drama—how to persuade an independence leader to go.
Gangs loyal to Robert Mugabe have covertly rampaged across Zimbabwe's countryside for weeks. They wield axes and crowbars as well as AK-47s; some wear Zimbabwean military uniforms. Survivors tell of witnessing awful sights. A villager being lashed to the door of his house and set afire. Another who was draped in flaming plastic before the thugs torched his house, drenched his goats in fuel and ignited them, too.
On the surface, Zimbabwe's meltdown seems to be proceeding at a stately pace: government officials say they need to recount results from the March 29 general elections, and every few days they release a revised total from one disputed constituency or another. But opposition supporters and much of the outside world recognize this as a sham—"If [Zimbabweans] had voted for Mugabe, we would have the results" by now, Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of State for African Affairs, said last week—and with each passing day resentments are hardening. The economy has ground to a halt. (In one five-hour period last week, inflation climbed 5 percent.) And the thugs are able to continue their dark work.
A region that has witnessed unprecedented growth and political stability is now consumed by an all-too-familiar problem—how to persuade a Big Man to go. "It's like the last days of Mobutu," says opposition activist Simon Spooner. It's a scary analogy: by the time Mobutu Sese Seko ended his 30-year reign over the Democratic Republic of Congo (then called Zaire), the country had sunk into a civil war that would kill 4 million people at home and spread across the region.
Mugabe is not likely to leave gracefully. A leader in the bush war that overthrew white minority rule in 1980, he helped make the new nation of Zimbabwe a model for the rest of the continent. His transitional government included two white ministers from the previous regime; he made education a top national priority, and he helped turn Zimbabwe into one of the most agriculturally productive and stable countries in Africa. But he's failed his country the same way so many other African liberation leaders failed theirs—by seeing himself as indispensable. In 2000, to gain support, Mugabe began seizing land from white farmers and giving it over to liberation-struggle veterans who knew nothing about raising food. Today the country is starving, and the war vets have become regime enforcers.
If anything, the fact that the March vote wasn't rigged outright was surprising. "Six months ago people at State were saying there wasn't going to be any significant change in Zimbabwe in this administration's tenure," says Michelle Gavin, a Zimbabwe expert with the Council on Foreign Relations. Western poll monitors were barred from the country during the March vote, but independent African observers were allowed—and many of them were equipped with mobile-phone cameras, to transmit vote counts as soon as they were posted. The coverage wasn't total, but it was good enough to keep challenger Morgan Tsvangirai from being openly robbed.
While Frazer was forceful in her comments last week, Washington knows that only local actors can show Mugabe the door. Zimbabwe's neighbors have been reluctant to challenge a man they used to idolize. But many do not want to be dragged down by some hoary decolonization drama. Mozambique, Namibia and, until late last week, Angola took a huge step by refusing to let a Chinese freighter enter their ports carrying nearly 80 tons of assault-rifle ammunition, mortar shells and grenades en route to Mugabe's security forces. Last week Tanzania's president, Jakaya Kikwete, raised the possibility that his country's troops might be used in Zimbabwe. "We will certainly consider it if asked," says a senior Tanzanian official who asked not to be named on such a touchy subject. "If we get there, to a point where military action is needed, if it's a multilateral project, then we'll do it. At the moment we do not think that will be necessary."
There's one big obstacle: Thabo Mbeki. South Africa's lame-duck president is the most powerful actor in the region, and so far he's resisted any calls to get tough with Mugabe. Mark Gevisser, Mbeki's biographer, says the two leaders have had a deep personal connection since the days when both were struggling against white rule, years after most other African countries had achieved independence. "Mbeki made a point of telling me that he considered Mugabe to be a father figure," Gevisser says, adding that Mbeki (19 years younger than Mugabe) has never emerged from the shadow of his old mentor.
No one knows whether a peaceful transition is possible. "It's going to be difficult to choreograph, very complicated—with one central question being how to manage the security forces," says Mark Bellamy, a longtime State Department Africa hand now at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Tsvangirai, who is widely believed to have won the March vote, has promised that Mugabe will be shielded from prosecution if he steps down, but Mugabe's senior security officials have no such guarantee. "Some of these guys are war criminals or abusers of human rights at the very least," says one well-placed Western diplomat in Harare, asking not to be named on such a sensitive topic. "They definitely know that if Mugabe gets a golden parachute they're not going to get one, and they're doing everything they can to keep him in there." For now Mugabe's enforcers are standing tough. NEWSWEEK has obtained a memo from an internal briefing to a group of police and intelligence officers by Zimbabwe's deputy minister of Home Affairs. "We are a Liberation Movement and will not hand over power," it says. It speaks for itself.
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Scott Johnson was named Africa Bureau Chief in April 2007, after serving two years as Baghdad Bureau Chief since the spring of 2004. In the summer of 2007, Johnson co-authored, with Sharon Begley, Newsweek's July cover story "Slaughter in the Jungle," about a spate of rare mountain gorilla killings in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has also been covering, for the magazine and Newsweek's Web site, the economic collapse of Zimbabwe, health initiatives across the continent and the rise of China in Africa.
Prior to coming to Africa, Johnson worked on assignment in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. He was on assignment in Iraq during the invasion and returned several times during 2002 and 2003 to report on the post-invasion occupation. During his two years as Baghdad bureau chief, Johnson covered the rise of Iraq's sectarian war, the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein and the American military's attempt to quell the insurgency in places like Ramadi and Baghdad. He contributed exclusive reporting on the growth of death squads in Baghdad, Iran's growing influence in Iraq and American military and political developments in Baghdad.
Before coming to Iraq, Johnson covered the war in Afghanistan from October 2001 to April 2002, reporting on the fall of the Taliban from the front lines of Kunduz and Taloqan. Later on, Johnson traveled across Afghanistan reporting on the hunt for Al Qaeda and the resurgence of the Taliban as American forces drew down its presence. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, Johnson has done exclusive war reporting, often under fire and in the most dangerous situations. In Iraq, he covered the hunt for Saddam Hussein with exclusive access to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Infantry Division. He also contributed extensive exclusive reporting early in 2003 on the nascent Iraqi insurgency from Fallujah.
In between posts to Baghdad, Johnson was provisionally based in Mexico City from 2002 to 2006. When not covering the war, Johnson reported on political and economic developments across Latin America. In 2002 he authored a Newsweek International cover story on the rise of China in Mexico. In 2004 he received an Overseas Press Club Honorable Mention for "Best Reporting in any Medium on Latin America" for "Latin America Lags Behind," about economic trends across the hemisphere. In Latin America, Johnson also covered violence along the U.S-Mexico border, the creation of Mexico's freedom of information act and an experimental drug treatment center in Peru.
Previously, Johnson reported for Newsweek out of Paris, France, since October 1998. During that time, he has reported on many of the biggest stories to come out of the continent, including Europe's mad cow scare, the backlash against globalization, and Newsweek's military coverage of the Kosovo war out of southern Italy. He has also developed in-depth investigative pieces from Europe, and he contributed heavily to Newsweek's worldwide report on pedophilia and the Internet. He has also covered North Africa, covering terrorism pre-and-post 9/11.
Johnson is a frequent contributor to radio, most recently from Iraq where he has interviewed on NPR, The World and other national stations, and he has been seen on MSNBC, Fox and CNN. In addition to Newsweek, his writing has appeared in Le Courrier International and Letras Libres. Johnson was also part of the Iraq team that contributed to Newsweek's 2003 National Magazine Award.
Johnson is a 1996 graduate of the University of Washington, where he received double degrees in Comparative Literature and Comparative History of Ideas. Postgraduate work included Arabic language and Middle Eastern Studies in Fes, Morocco. He is a member of the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris.
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