Resolving Zimbabwe's crisis - PM walks tightrope
published: Sunday | December 28, 2003

Patterson, left, and Mugabe

Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer

PRIME MINISTER P. J. Patterson has described as a major challenge, the balancing role he had to play at the last Heads of Government Conference in Abuja, Nigeria, when it was recommended that the suspension of Zimbabwe from the councils of the Commonwealth be maintained.

As chairman of a group of six nations (Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Mozambique and South Africa) asked to consider the matter of Zimbabwe's status within the Commonwealth, Mr. Patterson said that he had to carefully note all the relevant factors and the arguments advanced by all sides.

The group, he said, studied the findings of the Commonwealth Observer Group that the last Presidential elections in Zimbabwe were flawed. It also had to take cognisance of the 1991 Harare Declaration, which laid out the principles to which member governments should subscribe, Mr. Patterson explained to The Sunday Gleaner.

In that context, he said that "The reports indicated that serious questions have arisen as to the extent to which the rule of law prevails in Zimbabwe at the present."

SUSPENSION

The committee, he explained, had to determine "whether the situation had changed sufficiently for the better between the time of the initial decision and our meeting in Abuja to warrant the immediate lifting of the suspension, or whether in fact the situation had deteriorated to warrant further action."

Jamaica, in its co-ordinating role on the six-nation committee, the Prime Minister said, had a crucial role to play in maintaining a balance between two extreme views ­ one that Zimbabwe ought not to have been suspended in the first place and should be returned immediately; the other being that tougher sanctions should be imposed to bring the country in line with the official Commonwealth position.

In the end the committee opted not to support stronger sanctions against Zimbabwe, choosing instead to recommend retention of the ongoing suspension from the councils of the Commonwealth, pending confirmation of improvements in the situation in the southern African state.

This, however, was angrily denounced by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who immediately announced the withdrawal of his country from the Commonwealth.

Zimbabwe has been in the full glare of the international spotlight in recent years over the Government's controversial land reform policy, which has seen many large white-owned farms being taken over, mainly by supporters of the governing ZANU-PF ­ the party of President Mugabe.

The situation has been compounded by accusations that the Government has suppressed human and civil rights, including curtailment of press freedom.

FLAWED

The 2002 Presidential elections were adjudged by the Commonwealth Observer Mission to have been too flawed to be certified as free and fair, as a result of which the country was suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth.

In assessing the present situation in Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Patterson said that much of today's problems could be traced back to the question of land tenure, which, he said, has not been adequately addressed.

The land tenure question, he said, was not settled at the time of Zimbabwe's Independence in 1980 because the new Constitution stipulated that a period of 10 years immediately thereafter should be used to properly resolve the matter of how some of that land would pass peacefully into the hands of the Black majority.

Under the Lancaster House Agreement of December 1979, Britain, the colonial power, along with the United States, reportedly gave commitments to provide financial support to buttress the process of land reform.

"During that time (the first decade of Independence) the issue was not addressed because those who were to be forthcoming with the capital to enable the issue to be addressed were not forthcoming," said Mr. Patterson.

RIVAL

The forced occupation of white-owned farms in turn has fuelled the opposition to Mugabe's government, strengthening the rival Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai. The Opposition has found it very difficult to win the respect of President Mugabe, who, according to Prime Minister Patterson, sees it largely as "the creation of and funded very heavily, if not entirely, by those who resisted any change in land tenure."

But in a frank admission of the complex nature of the current situation, Mr. Patterson conceded that, while there may be strong demand for transfer of land ownership to the black majority, "there are areas where such changes have been effected and have resulted in some detriment to the economy".

Ultimately, he said, "We will only see the positive results of all this when somehow, within Zimbabwe there is a process of national reconciliation. In a democracy political parties will always have their differences, but the issue of land is so fundamental that there must be some consensus, a national approach as to how this can be taken to its final stages."