The Tragedy of Thabo Mbeki

[Oneword]

(Fits in with what mindfactory is posting .....)

BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa

Thabo Mbeki often seems happier when he's away from home, putting out fires in other African countries. An increasing number of his compatriots wish the South African president would just go away, never to come back. Mr. Mbeki has become so unpopular that even members of his own party want him to quit before his term runs out next year.

The wheels are off his presidency. Serious blunders brought about his humiliating defeat at the ruling African National Congress's leadership elections last December, leaving him the lamest of ducks. It is the Mbeki government's response to the presidential elections and subsequent violence in Zimbabwe, however, what outrages so many South Africans about the man who took over from Nelson Mandela a decade ago.

Robert Mugabe owes Mr. Mbeki a debt of gratitude. Zimbabwe's strongman would not have survived so long without the South African. For years, President Mbeki has seemed oblivious to the damage his indulgence of the Mugabe regime has done to his country's image and interests. This spring was no different. Did President Mbeki have to hold President Mugabe's hand while telling the world that there was no "crisis" in Zimbabwe? A few days later, at a special United Nations Security Council session on peace-keeping in Africa, the major powers, especially America and Britain, condemned Mr. Mugabe and called for strong action against his regime. President Mbeki, who chaired the session, shied away from the subject. It was bizarre. To ignore human rights abuses anywhere, let alone in a neighboring country, is to betray the principles on which the new democratic South Africa was founded.

For South Africa, Zimbabwe is no longer a foreign affairs issue; it's a domestic matter. Around three million Zimbabweans have fled to South Africa, creating fierce competition for jobs and amenities. In recent days, the country has seen gruesome acts of violence against these foreigners by locals in the black townships and informal settlements around Johannesburg. The scenes are reminiscent of the political violence of the 1980's: Black mobs armed with an assortment of weapons moved from house to house attacking anyone suspected of being a foreigner. So 24 people are known to have been killed, scores injured and thousands left homeless and seeking refuge in police stations.

Making this tragedy all the more poignant, the victims had only recently escaped brutality in Zimbabwe. Most of them had their houses destroyed by the Mugabe regime during the so-called clean-up campaign in the capital Harare and other Zimbabwean cities that left over 200,000 people destitute three years ago. The South African mobs accuse them of taking their jobs, houses and even their women. The violence is a shock to the political establishment, and an another indictment of the Mbeki "quiet diplomacy" toward Zimbabwe.

Mr. Mbeki is becoming isolated on Zimbabwe, even in his own party. His successor atop the ANC and possibly the country, Jacob Zuma, has been forthright in his condemnation of the failure of the Zimbabwean authorities to release the results of March 29 presidential elections and the violence that followed. Mr. Zuma draws most of his support from the unions, which are sympathetic to the Zimbabwean opposition. At a summit earlier this month, the ANC and its union allies expressed "grave concern at the worsening situation" in Zimbabwe. "Our approach on this matter is informed by our commitment to the principles of democracy and human rights," a statement released after the summit said, in a rebuke to Mr. Mbeki.

Mr. Mbeki may no longer be in a position to save the old man in Harare. Even one of his ministers, Pallo Jordan, has blamed Robert Mugabe for Zimbabwe's woes – a first. Mr. Mbeki is also, increasingly, fighting for his own survival. Last weekend, Mathews Phosa, the ANC's treasurer and the party's number three, called for the president to resign immediately.
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It's hard to explain how such a seemingly intelligent man could have got himself into such a ditch. But his stance on Zimbabwe fits a pattern of inexplicable decisions throughout his tenure – and vindicates Mbeki critics, within the ANC and outside, who warned in the mid-1990s that he wasn't the right person to fill the great man's shoes. At the time, Mr. Mbeki famously retorted, "I don't want Mandela's ugly shoes."

From the start, the president refused to build on Mandela's legacy of reconciliation between the country's racial groups. Drawing on a long-held ANC commitment to "non-racialism," the ANC saw its mission was to unite the people of the country across race and class. Mr. Mbeki set out to destroy this legacy.

Whereas President Mandela had often treaded gingerly on race matters, no speech by Mr. Mbeki is complete without him lashing out at racism or apartheid. White guilt has been an effective political weapon for him, and as a result, his presidency has taken South African society backwards on race relations. The obsession with racism opened age-old wounds, which were beginning to heal.

The president doesn't seem to understand the country; nor does it understand him. In some ways he's still a stranger. He was barely out of his teens when he went into exile in 1962. He was almost in his fifties when he returned to find a society that had moved on. He tends to see – and govern – through the prism of his youth, when the system of apartheid was at its most vicious. He often appears aloof and unconcerned with the problems that matter to his compatriots, such as the crime that has blighted the country and led to a flight of much-needed skilled workers.

Regarding himself as a spokesman for the rest of Africa and the African Diaspora, his passion is foreign affairs, meeting heads of state and attending important summits. South Africans often joke, whenever Mr. Mbeki is around, that he's visiting their country. He seems not to have learned from the mistakes of another South African leader, Prime Minister Jan Smuts. A member of Winston Churchill's War Cabinet, he helped to draw up the charter of the United Nations. His constant absences, however, led to his party's defeat by the racist National Party in 1948, which went on to implement apartheid.

Mr. Mbeki has made international headlines for the wrong reasons – on Zimbabwe, and on the AIDS epidemic. While South Africa has become home to the highest number of people living with the HIV virus in the world, Mr. Mbeki became a cult hero to AIDS denialists across the globe. He insists that HIV doesn't cause AIDS and campaigns against antiretrovirals.

AIDS and Zimbabwe have dogged him throughout his presidency. The drumbeat for Mr. Mbeki to leave grows louder amid rising concerns within the ANC that the incumbent will hurt the party's prospects in parliamentary elections next year. Unpopularity is not reason enough to resign. But if South Africa was not a de facto one-party state, Mr. Mbeki would be in even deeper trouble. Evidence has now emerged that President Mbeki may have been involved in criminal wrong-doing. An inquiry into the suspension last year of the head of the country's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has heard that Mbeki possibly broke the law and then lied to the public about it. The NPA was investigating the commissioner of police, a Mbeki acolyte, who is accused among other things of gun-running and involvement with organized crime. The head of the NPA was suspended after he ignored the president's instruction to stop the probe. Mr. Mbeki later denied any knowledge of the probe.

Zimbabwe, AIDS and crime at home – if handled properly – could have cemented Mbeki's legacy as one of Africa's great statesmen of his time. But they've connived to bring him this low this late in his term. The tragedy is he brought it all on himself.

Mr. Mthombothi is editor of the Financial Mail.

[Comrade007]

No doubt an intelligent man, but not a good President. Mbeki allows his emotions to cloud his analysis and decisions. That's not necessarily a bad thing altogether, but not altogether necessary when running a country.