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Comrade Bob: Part 1
27/03/2008 08:15 - (SA)
Ahead of the March 29 Zimbabwe election, News24 will be publishing an extract from William Gumede's Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC (Zebra Press). In a Chapter called "Comrade Bob", Gumede deals with the issue of SA's quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe.
Barely a year after he was sworn in on the majestic lawns of Pretoria's Union Buildings, an imposing legacy of formidable colonial architect Sir Herbert Baker, Thabo Mbeki's first term as president was on shaky ground.
The ANC's impatient left wing was muttering about blood on the floor, and it was Mbeki's they had in mind unless promises of change to a policy of real redistribution were realised soon. Mbeki's vision of black economic empowerment and a substantial black business class was widely derided within the ruling ANC alliance, as well as outside, for seemingly enriching only a few well-connected oligarchs.
An air of rebellion hung over provinces where Mbeki had hand-picked the premiers, while younger and fresh recruits to the ANC's parliamentary wing were noisily demanding more independence. At municipal level, ANC councillors publicly balked at implementation of cost-recovery measures demanded by the central government's tight macroeconomic policy, GEAR, which would lead to water and electricity supplies to the poor being cut off for non-payment of increased tariffs.
During the elections in 1999, the mainly white opposition DA's 'fightback' campaign had raised the spectre of South Africa being plunged into a black&white confrontation after all. Bitter white expatriates carried the message to foreign lands that the country was coming apart at the seams as criminals ran amok. Meanwhile, Mbeki was desperately trying to persuade notoriously suspicious African leaders to rally behind his Herculean attempt to launch an ambitious programme of economic and political renewal. Many Western powers, businesses and African despots, keen to keep the continent divided in furtherance of their own interests, were working equally hard to spike his ambitions.
A frustrated Mbeki was feeling unappreciated, misunderstood and besieged. Alone at night, smoking his trademark pipe and sipping his beloved cognac, tapping away at his computer keyboard or sharing a private moment with intimate friends such as the Pahad brothers, Joel Netshitenzhe and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, he would ask rhetorically: Why did I take this job?
He must have been aware that some ANC factions were already talking in hushed tones about replacing him, looking with new eyes at the deputy president, political journeyman Jacob Zuma. Perhaps he would not be such a bad choice after all, said some, while others secretly sounded out Mbeki's old rival, Cyril Ramaphosa. Bruised from the bitter leadership battle against Mbeki, however, Ramaphosa made it clear that he was entirely content with his new role in the business community.
As the storm clouds gathered, Mbeki's closest ally and best friend for almost forty years, Essop Pahad, the minister in the presidency, lashed out at the media, which he believed were guilty of stoking the political fires that were breaking out over a wide front.
At precisely this juncture, the head of South Africa's northern neighbour threw his full support behind an obscure, ragtag group of 'war veterans' embarking on a controversial and violent campaign to seize white-owned farms.
It was the reckless act of a man determined to cling to power. Zimbabwe's once thriving economy was teetering on the brink of collapse due to monumental mismanagement, kleptocracy and corruption. The country's fiscus was being sucked dry by a doomed military misadventure in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a war that was costing Zimbabwe $1 million a day.2 Robert Mugabe's post-independence paradise, the erstwhile breadbasket of the region, was becoming so dependent on international aid that by 2004, an estimated 5.5 million people a day would need to be fed by donors.3
The first real opposition to Mugabe in two decades spilt onto the streets, with daily protests, strikes and riots reminiscent of the popular uprising that forced Indonesian strongman Suharto's downfall. The trade union wing of Mugabe's ZANU-PF had broken away in February 1999 to form the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The ruling party was riddled with factions, many of them openly challenging Mugabe's iron grip. Stalwarts like the respected Edison Zvogbo were brazenly lampooning their leader, and after more than twenty years in power, Mugabe's presidency hung by a thread.
Among the upstarts was an arrogant Polish-trained medical doctor, Chenjerai 'Hitler' Hunzvi, who came from obscurity to dare the ageing Mugabe to condone a bloody campaign to forcefully reclaim land from whites or face a bruising leadership revolt. After his shaky 1996 presidential victory, Mugabe had defiantly proclaimed: 'We are going to take the land and we are not going to pay for the soil. This is our set policy. Our land was never bought [by the colonialists] and there is no way we could buy back the land. However, if Britain wants compensation they should give us money and we will pass it on to their children.'4
Mugabe did not follow through on his threat, but Hunzvi, his eyes fixed on the ultimate prize of unseating Mugabe and taking his place, was bent on taking land seizure to its awful logical conclusion. He conveyed his plan to the octogenarian leader towards the end of 1997, claiming massive support among the starving rural peasants, the bedrock of ZANU-PF's constituency.
No one had ever challenged Mugabe so boldly, but, wily as ever, the president calculated that he could manipulate both Hunzvi and the planned campaign to his own advantage. It was true that disproportionate white land ownership was a source of anger among the majority black population, so why not blame Zimbabwe's economic ills on bellicose whites and paint the MDC as the willing or unsuspecting puppets of the former colonialists?
 For Mugabe, this would not only present a marvellous way out of the economic and political crisis threatening his reign, but would also be a sure way of revitalising ZANU-PF's failing fortunes and reversing the opposition's fast-rising popularity. Mugabe was outraged at the way he had been ignored by Britain's New Labour prime minister, Tony Blair, and his minister for Africa, former anti-apartheid activist Peter Hain. With their leftist background, he had expected them to be sympathetic to his demand for the long-promised funds for land redistribution, but Blair and Hain would have no truck with the rantings of an old despot.
Perhaps Hunzvi's plan would propel them into action, and if the campaign backfired, Mugabe probably reasoned, Hunzvi could always be blamed and made the scapegoat.
By April 2000, so-called war vets, some no more than teenagers and thus patently not former freedom fighters at all, were swarming onto commercial farms to peg their claims. Mugabe and ZANU-PF openly supported the use of brute force to drive not only the white owners, but also hundreds of their loyal black workers, off the land.
Mbeki and other black leaders in South Africa were horrified, the more so since it seemed the country's intelligence service had slipped up and failed to warn the government of the impending crisis. The ANC leadership had no idea how to react, but Mbeki's instinct was to steer clear of active involvement. 'This is another Abacha all over,'5 he told his closest allies in exasperation.
The ANC's left wing and its parliamentary caucus insisted that Mugabe and his henchmen should be condemned in the strongest possible terms, while the Africanists expressed sympathy for his position. Mbeki decided the safest course of action would be for foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and her deputy, Aziz Pahad, to try to sort out the crisis through diplomatic channels. Mbeki warned them to avoid any critical public statements that could inflame the hard-headed men in Harare even more, but there was no need to tell the forceful Dlamini-Zuma not to be too harsh on Mugabe. She was firmly in the Africanist camp and would consistently express sympathy for the Zimbabwean government.
Mbeki opted for 'quiet diplomacy' on Zimbabwe because he was still haunted by South Africa's failure to prevent the execution in 1995 of Nigerian activist and playwright Ken Saro Wiwa.6 In the ANC government's first foray into African politics, Nelson Mandela had sent his deputy president to persuade the cruel and corrupt Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, to spare Saro Wiwa's life. Having served as the ANC's representative in the West African state for much of the 1980s, Mbeki was well acquainted with the Nigerian situation, and had agreed with Mandela that isolating the Abacha regime was likely to prove counterproductive.
But when Mbeki met with Abacha and his cronies, the military strongman made it clear that he was not impressed with newly democratic South Africa cosying up to the West, and accused both Mandela and Mbeki of being puppets.
Saro Wiwa's subsequent brutal execution was a slap in the face and a baptism of fire on foreign policy for the fledgling South African democracy. One of his lawyers later told Mandela pointedly: 'Were quiet diplomacy pursued [in regard to apartheid] I doubt you would be alive today.'7
Mbeki replayed the details of his fateful meeting with Abacha over and over in his head in an attempt to figure out how things had gone so wrong. Agonising self-reflection finally led him to conclude that the military junta had acted against Saro Wiwa not because quiet diplomacy as such had failed, but because South Africa had been the sole voice of African criticism against Abacha's regime. Unschooled in the art of continental relations, the ANC government's cardinal error had been a lack of prior consultation with a wide selection of continental leaders.
Never again, Mbeki reasoned, would South Africa go it alone in opposing belligerent African despots. 'This issue [Saro Wiwa's execution] highlighted the potential limits of our influence as an individual country - and the need to act in concert with others and to forge strategic alliances in pursuit of foreign policy objectives,'8 he concluded.
As things went from bad to worse in Zimbabwe, Mugabe's government targeted the opposition, the media and civil society. Zimbabwe's ties with its southern neighbour run deep, dating from its colonisation in the nineteenth century, through the troubled years after the last white prime minister, Ian Smith, declared unilateral independence, to cooperation between the guerrilla armies that waged a liberation struggle on both sides of the Limpopo River. In 1922, relations between the two countries were so strong that it took a referendum to reject the prospect of then Rhodesia becoming South Africa's fifth province.
So it was hardly surprising that the embattled MDC turned to South Africa for help when its rapidly increasing membership became the target of unmitigated terror and intimidation by a small army of ZANU-PF thugs. Unassuming trade unionist and party leader Morgan Tsvangirai's first port of call was the ANC. But the ANC was not sure how it should respond, and politely directed the MDC leader to the department of foreign affairs. Dlamini-Zuma, in turn, passed the buck to the presidency, which promptly sent the MDC's envoys back to the ANC's head office.
No one at Luthuli House was prepared to make any commitments without presidential approval, however, and the president preferred to buy time so that he could consult with his counterparts in the rest of Africa.
A frustrated Tsvangirai turned next to the opposition DA and set up meetings with white South African business people who had interests in Zimbabwe. In terms of the unique dynamics of South African politics, it was a monumental blunder. The DA eagerly embraced Tsvangirai as Their Man in Zim, and the MDC as a natural ally. The predominantly white party was quick to draw parallels between the ANC and ZANU-PF, playing into the hands of right-wing prophets of doom who warned that Zimbabwe's land grab was a dress rehearsal for South Africa's future. 'In fact,' charged then DA leader Tony Leon, 'President Mbeki has become Mugabe's best friend, his foremost ally and his strongest defender. For President Mbeki, human rights are not fundamental.'
Mbeki was infuriated by repeated demands from white groups seeking assurances that South Africa would not face a similar scenario and by what he saw as an unwarranted preoccupation with Zimbabwe. Since far more blood was being shed in the DRC, Rwanda and Sudan, he came to the conclusion that the outcry over the situation in Zimbabwe was directly related to the fact that a handful of white farmers had died and that white livelihoods and lifestyles were under threat. Celebrated South African journalist Allister Sparks argues that many South African whites are indifferent to black suffering. Mbeki agrees, as do millions of black South Africans.
Leon was seen as deliberately arousing passions by playing on white fears that the chaos in Zimbabwe was the forerunner of South Africa's fate under a black government. 9 The ruling elite in Pretoria is extremely sensitive to the seldom stated but broad racist assumption in the West that black governments are inherently incapable of governing democratically, and tarring the ANC and ZANU-PF with the same brush not only angered Mbeki's government, but deeply influenced the way it responded to the crisis in Zimbabwe.
ANC leaders believe that since coming to power, they have done everything possible to reassure white South Africans and Western sceptics that their government represents a break in the pattern of African failure, even though this has been to the detriment, in some respects, of the majority black population. His personal animosity towards Leon aside, Mbeki could not fail to be angered by allusions to failure or mismanagement on racial grounds. Tsvangirai's approach to the DA thus severely undermined his credibility in both ANC and government circles. On the domestic front, it offered Mugabe a new excuse to accuse the MDC of being the political lackey of the West, and specifically the British and American governments. Current events provided a bonus, with Mugabe slyly suggesting that the MDC favoured 'regime change', the term so readily used to describe the US-led coalition's invasion of Iraq.
 As deplorable as Mugabe's cynical exploitation of the land question is, it is, however, a very real problem, and one of colonialism's most diabolical legacies. At independence, Britain promised but never paid adequate funding to redress historical land distribution inequalities. In July 2005, Mbeki said the Zimbabwean government had delayed its land reform programme so that negotiations for South Africa's liberation could succeed. 'They slowed down to get the negotiations in this country to succeed.'10 Mbeki said that when South Africa was negotiating its transition to democracy, the Organisation of African Unity had asked Zimbabwe to halt its land reform programme as it would 'frighten the apartheid government in South Africa'.11 Nevertheless, this does not mean that South Africa should approve the appalling mismanagement of the land reform process in Zimbabwe. For the first twenty years of his rule, Mugabe did nothing to alter the situation, beyond the transfer of relatively small pockets of farmland to ZANU-PF cronies, who generally let the land lie fallow. It was only when his presidency came under fire that the Zimbabwean president saw fit to use the emotionally charged land issue as a lightning rod.
Assumptions that South Africa could face the same fate as Zimbabwe are spurious. Though implementation has proceeded at a snail's pace, South Africa's land restitution policy is both clear and protected by law and the Constitution. Isolated attempts to simulate land grabs as seen in Zimbabwe were crushed swiftly and decisively.
Still, South Africans would have welcomed a statement from either the government or the ANC that unequivocally condemned the human rights abuses suffered by hundreds of thousands of black Zimbabweans and officially denounced the violent land seizures endorsed by an autocratic Mugabe. Had Mbeki not been so afraid of accusations that he was playing to the opposition gallery, he might have remembered that the very essence of leadership is doing the right thing, even at the risk of being seen as pandering to the enemy.
The ANC government does, after all, have a land problem of its own, notwithstanding the safeguards built into the Constitution. Under apartheid, whites owned 87 per cent of the richest agricultural soil. By the end of 2001, less than 2 per cent of land had been transferred to poor, rural blacks. So, as the situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated, Mbeki's egg-dance had to address both white fears and black expectations.12 His domestic right wing, rooted in the agricultural sector, was already unsettled by widely publicised attacks on white farmers in what they claimed was an orchestrated campaign to get them off their land, while black communities which had been forcibly removed from their land under apartheid were agitating for compensation to be accelerated. A group of disgruntled ANC supporters formed the militant Landless People's Movement for this very purpose.
The political fallout in South Africa of conditions in Zimbabwe was not lost on Mugabe, whose cunning use of the race card at every opportunity was like a red rag to a bull as far as Mbeki was concerned. When the two heads of state met, Mugabe made a point of embracing Mbeki warmly for the photographers, sending out a potent message of fraternal solidarity.
Both the foreign media and former colonial powers gave Mugabe all the ammunition he needed by focusing on the plight of white farmers. The faceless blacks who were being rendered homeless, tortured, raped and beaten to death rarely made the headlines, even in South Africa, spurring the frustrated mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzuri, to burst out at one point: 'The world must know this is not a black and white issue. It is an issue of the blacks in Zimbabwe suffering.'13
On the home front, Mbeki also had to take into account the bonds between ANC alliance partner COSATU and the MDC, born of Zimbabwe's trade union movement. Bad governance and corruption had caused ZANU-PF to lose touch with the grassroots supporters that had made it Zimbabwe's leading liberation movement, and many in COSATU and the SACP fear that the ANC will go the same way.
It was only natural that the workers would forge cross-border links, especially at a time when Mbeki's relations with COSATU were strained. He was well aware that many trade unionists were ready to leave the tent and form a political party that could rival the ANC, and had demanded at several heated internal meetings of the tripartite alliance that COSATU's leaders should publicly confirm that there were no plans to form a workers' party. Their refusal to issue such statements infuriated Mbeki.14
At the height of the Zimbabwean land crisis, COSATU president Willie Madisha and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi earnestly warned the ANC of the dangers of losing touch with its grassroots supporters. When COSATU launched anti-privatisation strikes in 2000 and 2001, it threw in demands for Mbeki to change his stance on both AIDS and Zimbabwe, but, typically, his reaction was to dig in his heels even further.
Sensitive to regional concerns about South African dominance both politically and economically, Mbeki never intended adopting a 'big brother' approach to Zimbabwe, lest South Africa be accused of throwing its weight around. He needed to secure the support of African leaders for NEPAD and to lay the foundations of good governance as a cornerstone of the African Union.
Mugabe played on these fears, garnering regional support among those who regarded him, rather than Mandela, as southern Africa's leading elder statesman. Troops from several of his allies were fighting side by side with Zimbabwean soldiers in the DRC, and Mugabe had survived several attempts to wrest control of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) security organ from his grip.
One of Mugabe's most powerful weapons was his close association with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, whose 'oil diplomacy' had ranged a number of key African leaders behind his ambition to become the continent's leading head of state. Once loathed as the 'mad dog of Tripoli',15 Gaddafi had bankrolled ZANU-PF's 2001 election campaign and pledged $900 000 to boost Mugabe's bid to win the 2002 presidential election, notwithstanding a legal ban on foreign funding for political parties in Zimbabwe. Gaddafi had also donated $360 million to alleviate Zimbabwe's chronic fuel crisis.16 As other foreign countries and companies pulled their investments out of the troubled country, Libya stepped in to fill the vacuum, reportedly taking ownership of vast property holdings, state-financed corporations and the crucial oil pipeline from the Mozambican port of Beira in what amounted to barter trade for foreign currency and oil.
In continental forums, Mugabe and Gaddafi routinely derided Mbeki and his plans for an African Renaissance, placing him in an invidious position as calls mounted for South Africa to support Zimbabwe's eviction from the Commonwealth.
The last thing Mbeki wanted was to be seen as a pawn in the hands of the West, especially the US and Britain, by siding with their leaders in condemning the Mugabe regime's flagrant abuse of the rule of law. He would far rather build a broad African front to put pressure on Mugabe, using moderate regional leaders such as Botswana's Festus Mogae to publicly articulate what the South African government privately felt.
As an unapologetic proponent of African solutions for African problems, and a staunch anti-imperialist, to boot, Mbeki resisted efforts by Britain and Australia to resolve the Mugabe situation through economic sanctions, citing Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o: 'Africa actually enriches Europe, but Africa is made to believe that it needs Europe to rescue it from poverty.'17
On the question of Iraq, Mbeki had favoured action mandated by the UN rather than a unilateral invasion based on Washington and Whitehall's jaundiced view of which world dictators should be toppled and which, like Pakistan, should be spared because of their usefulness as allies. In his weekly newsletter on the Internet shortly before Christmas 2003, he pointedly commented that 'some within Zimbabwe and elsewhere' were treating human rights as a tool to overthrow the Zimbabwean government.18
Mbeki was totally opposed to the freezing of Zimbabwean assets or imposing travel restrictions on Mugabe and his officials. Any form of economic sanctions would hurt ordinary Zimbabweans the most, he reasoned, and since it would be all but impossible to muster the support of regional leaders for such drastic measures, South Africa could once again find itself going out on a limb, as with Saro Wiwa.
In contrast to prevailing wisdom, Mbeki actually believed that far more might be achieved if international pressure on Mugabe eased up. According to one of Mbeki's strategists, the thinking was that 'the old man [Mugabe] wouldn't feel so besieged and might open up more'.19 Mbeki scored a major coup when he persuaded George W Bush, on his first state visit to South Africa, to underwrite his expertise in resolving the situation. It was a fine moment for Mbeki when Bush declared on the lawns of the Union Buildings in Pretoria: 'Mbeki is my point man on Zimbabwe.' But he was less successful at having Zimbabwe rehabilitated when the Commonwealth Heads of Government met in Nigeria shortly before Christmas 2003.
Mbeki was disappointed when the British government publicly censured Zimbabwe after he had obtained private assurances from Blair that Mugabe would be given a period of grace to set his house in order. In January 2001, Hain issued a statement to the effect that constructive engagement by African leaders - by implication Mbeki in particular - had failed to achieve results. 20 Dlamini-Zuma responded: 'We found the comments deeply offensive as the fact that Hain saw it fit to make these public, without discussing it with our government, is confirmation of the contempt in which he holds [our] government.'21
Mbeki nevertheless continued building regional opposition to Mugabe, preferring that public criticism come from SADC rather than South Africa. Privately, however, he was losing patience with Mugabe, and on occasion he wistfully sighed: 'Why can't he just leave, resign?'22
In November 2001, Mbeki and Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo met Mugabe in Harare. Mbeki proposed a package whereby the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) would fund a lawful land reform strategy, thus allowing both Mugabe and Britain to save face after both had withdrawn promised financial support because of the farm invasions. The US and major Western donors had already agreed to the plan, and Mugabe accepted the offer of an 'honourable' exit. As on numerous other occasions in the cat and mouse game he was playing, Mugabe later reneged on the deal.
Fielding questions after their meeting, Obasanjo said, 'What I think Zimbabwe should do is strictly follow the law. We call on the international community to support materially that compensation, which is also part of the law.'23
However, having exploited the land issue to boost his image among die-hard ZANU-PF supporters, Mugabe seemed unable to backtrack as the war veterans under Hunzvi became ever more audacious. In order to break the cycle of violence, Mugabe would have to face down Hunzvi, and he had no stomach for that fight. When Hunzvi died unexpectedly, Mugabe was so far down the path of destruction that he stubbornly believed he could not turn around.
Expectations of free land had been inflamed among his rural constituency, driving Mugabe into a political cul-de-sac from which there was no escape. Any future MDC government would face the same demands for land and would have to find ways of dealing with them.
Not surprisingly, Britain and the West did not make good on the promised funding, arguing that the fickle Mugabe had done nothing to halt the brutalisation of his political opponents. Despite the fact that Mugabe had failed to fulfil his obligations in terms of the UNDP agreement, Mbeki was angered by the non-payment, believing that making at least some of the funds available would have served as an incentive for Mugabe to introduce genuine reform.
In early July 2005, the South African government controversially acceded to signing a draft deal to lend Zimbabwe R6.5 billion to help its troubled neighbour pay an overdue International Monetary Fund debt. Mbeki calculated he could use the loan to finally lock the Zimbabwean government into signing a set of agreements that would include accepting the rule of law, restarting talks with the opposition MDC, lifting restrictions on the media and civil groups, and halting Operation Restore Order, a controversial urban clean-up campaign. But, as with all other agreements before, Mugabe promised much and has delivered nothing so far. Prudently, the South African government has not handed over the cheque as yet, but Mugabe has already tried to shop for an alternative loan with softer credit conditions from China.
 For Mbeki, 'quiet diplomacy' means abstaining from public rebuke of Mugabe while telling him privately, over a cup of tea, that some people are a little annoyed with him. He firmly believes that his greatest leverage over the ZANU-PF hardliners is a public pretence that the South African government is Zimbabwe's greatest chum. Those who consider this an unrealistic, naive or simply odd approach to international politics should consider that Blair advances a similar argument in defence of his support for Bush's policies on Iraq and Palestine. The British premier claims he is in a far better position to influence Bush by publicly agreeing with him and sorting out any differences in private. Does this make sense? No, but it is the chosen strategy of certain politicians.
According to Aziz Pahad, ZANU-PF leaders are convinced that Zimbabwe is next in line for a US-led regime change, with Mugabe going the way of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. They believe that the UK and other Western powers are conspiring with America to oust Mugabe because of his shameful human rights record. No doubt many would rejoice if this ever came to pass, and some have thought it so likely that Mugabe's comrade-in-arms, the equally cantankerous President Sam Nujoma of Namibia, made a ludicrous offer to place his armed forces at Zimbabwe's disposal in the event of an attack 'by colonialists bent on removing Mugabe from office'.24
Mugabe bought into the paranoia that the MDC, the independent press - especially the embattled Daily News - and civil society were in league with the Western devils, forming an embedded fifth column. According to Pahad, fear of regime change caused Mugabe and his cronies to behave irrationally,25 hence the only way of winning their trust was to behave publicly in a manner that showed South Africa was not party to the perceived threat.
Few things rile Mbeki as much as criticism of his quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe. 'No diplomacy is loud,' he has been known to respond angrily. Storming Mugabe's fortified posh presidential palace was never a serious consideration, but this didn't stop the president's men from interpreting criticism of South Africa's approach as a call to arms. 'What's wrong with you people? You think we can just go there and take over? Chief, that's another country,'26 Aziz Pahad pointed out.
The government had painful memories of South Africa's Rambo-like incursion into the tiny kingdom of Lesotho in 1998 with a SADC force consisting primarily of South African and Botswanan troops. Widespread violence, fighting and looting broke out when angry citizens resisted the presence of a foreign force intent on 'restoring order', and Mbeki was haunted by fears of a repetition if South Africa resorted to military intervention in Zimbabwe.
But it was all rather disingenuous. No one ever seriously suggested that Mbeki should despatch a South African National Defence Force (SANDF) contingent across the Limpopo, but everyone involved found it surprising that he was not offering earnest support of some kind to the beleaguered human rights and political activists in Zimbabwe. Foreign assistance had, after all, been a mainstay of the liberation struggle waged by the ANC and a plethora of other organisations during the 1970s and 1980s, as MDC member of parliament, Job Sikhala, pointed out: 'What quietness are they talking about? When we supported the ANC in their fight against apartheid, it wasn't quiet diplomacy.'27
Mbeki's position remained unchanged. 'Look, Zimbabwe is a sovereign country, not a province of South Africa. President Mugabe does not take instructions from me. I discuss matters with him as a neighbour.'28
It was not that Mbeki did not think the crisis in Zimbabwe serious. On the contrary, he was convinced that if the country descended into economic and social collapse, South Africa would be the first and worst affected. Millions of desperate refugees would flood across the border in search of work, safety and food, thinly stretching already strained resources.
In fact, South Africa had already begun to feel the impact. With food shortages mounting, queues growing longer and the spectre of famine stalking rural areas, more than two million Zimbabweans had entered South Africa, most illegally by jumping the border, and were struggling to make ends meet on the mean streets of towns throughout the country by 2004.
The biggest irony was that Mbeki's reputation for sheltering Mugabe was entirely misplaced. There never was any personal or political affinity between the two men, and, if anything, Mbeki felt contempt for the ailing octogenarian whom he saw as one of the last incarnations of Africa's 'big men' - corrupt leaders who plundered the national coffers to line their own pockets handsomely. In truth, Mbeki believed that everyone concerned would be best served by Mugabe's departure from the political stage, but, to his despair, the old man refused to oblige.
As Mandela's deputy, Mbeki had snubbed Mugabe several times at diplomatic functions, refusing to acknowledge a man well known for craving affirmation and demanding respect. On one occasion, Mbeki enraged Mugabe with his 'bad manners' by using a diplomatic social event to 'lecture' the older man that the application of unwise policies over two decades was responsible for Zimbabwe's economic ills.
Mbeki would later expand on his opinion: 'For two decades, Zimbabwe had very big budget deficits to finance good things such as education, schools, rural and human resource development. For all of these things, Mugabe borrowed money, inside Zimbabwe and from the rest of the world. It couldn't be sustained.'29
Mugabe, in turn, holds a dim view of Mbeki, whom he regards as an arrogant young upstart who should defer to him as an elder statesman. Pig-headedly, Mugabe believes he has been passed the baton by great post-colonial leaders like Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel and Kwame Nkrumah, and that a 'youngster' like Mbeki has no right to boss him around. Moreover, Mugabe is convinced that history is on his side, and that by being forced out of office, his legacy will be destroyed. He simply cannot grasp that his legacy has already been irreparably tainted by his own actions.
 Mandela's relationship with Mugabe had been even more tempestuous, and tensions between the two often spilled over into the public arena. Mugabe disliked Mandela for upstaging him as the elder statesman of Africa, and Madiba's global fame and acclamation were hard for Mugabe to swallow. Mugabe also felt insulted when he heard that Mandela and ANC grandee Walter Sisulu had sought the counsel of Kenneth Kaunda (former Zambian leader) and Julius Nyerere (former Tanzanian leader), but had ignored his opinion on whether Thabo Mbeki or Cyril Ramaphosa should assume the leadership of the ANC. He especially resented Mandela's reputation as the great reconciler, believing that he had earned this title by inviting whites into his post-independence cabinet and trusting some of his former enemies with key security appointments in the aftermath of the bloody bush war.
The two men had several public spats. Mandela referred to Mugabe as 'Comrade Bob', a diminutive the Zimbabwean leader saw as an insult, and regularly called on Mugabe to follow his example by retiring from active politics and spending more time with his family.
Read the conclusion of 'Comrade Bob' tomorrow on News24
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Notes
2. Stephen Chan, Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence. London: IB Tauris, 2003, p. 116.
3. Stephane Barbier, 'Zimbabwe Leaves Mbeki on the Defensive', Sapa-AFP, 12 April 2004.
4. Quoted in Chan, Robert Mugabe, p. 111.
5. Interviews with senior ANC leaders between 2000 and 2002.
6. ANC, Developing a Strategic Perspective on South Africa's Foreign Policy http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/discussion/foreign/html.
7. Quoted in Alex Callinicos, 'South Africa after Apartheid'.
8. Allister Sparks, Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.
9. Interview with Kgalema Motlanthe, 21 August 2003.
10. Address to the National Land Summit, Johannesburg, 28 July 2005.
11. Ibid.
12. See Sean Jacobs, 'The Unfinished Revolution', FYI, 5 May 2004.
13. Carolyn Dempster, 'South Africa's "Silent" Diplomacy', BBC News, 5 March 2003.
14. Interview with Zwelinzima Vavi, 7 October 2001.
15. William M Gumede, ' Banking on the AU', African Business, November 2001.
16. Ibid.
17. ANC Today, November 2003.
18. Ibid.
19. Interview with senior foreign affairs official, 12 May 2003.
20. 'What Dlamini-Zuma Had to Say', Star, 23 January 2001.
21. Ibid.
22. Interview with Aziz Pahad, 23 September 2003.
23. Peter Fabricius, 'SA, Nigeria Seek "Honourable Exit" for Mugabe', Star, 30 November 2000.
24. Basildon Peta, 'Mugabe to Launch News-paper in SA', Cape Times, 6 May 2004.
25. Interview with Aziz Pahad, 23 September 2003.
26. Ibid.
27. Dempster, 'South Africa's "Silent" Diplomacy'.
28. Interview with senior ANC leader, 17 December 2003.
29. 'Mbeki Blames Mugabe for Borrowing too Much', Daily News, 28 November 2001.
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