beyond mugabe: preparing for zimbabwe's transition - center for

a report of the csis africa program

August 2011

1800 K Street, NW | Washington, DC 20006Tel: (202) 887-0200 | Fax: (202) 775-3199E-mail: [email protected] | Web: www.csis.org

AuthorRobert I. Rotberg

Program DirectorJennifer G. Cooke

Beyond Mugabepreparing for zimbabwe’s transition

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August 2011


Project DirectorJennifer G. Cooke

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About CSIS

At a time of new global opportunities and challenges, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) provides strategic insights and bipartisan policy solutions to decisionmakers in government, international institutions, the private sector, and civil society. A bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., CSIS conducts research and analysis and devel-ops policy initiatives that look into the future and anticipate change.

Founded by David M. Abshire and Admiral Arleigh Burke at the height of the Cold War, CSIS was dedicated to finding ways for America to sustain its prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world.

Since 1962, CSIS has grown to become one of the world’s preeminent international policy institutions, with more than 220 full-time staff and a large network of affiliated scholars focused on defense and security, regional stability, and transnational challenges ranging from energy and climate to global development and economic integration.

Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn became chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees in 1999, and John J. Hamre has led CSIS as its president and chief executive officer since 2000.

CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views expressed herein should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

Cover photo: Topographic map of the Republic of Zimbabwe, © iStockphoto.com/fr73/ Frank Ramspott

© 2011 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-89206-654-4

Center for Strategic and International Studies 1800 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 Tel: (202) 887-0200 Fax: (202) 775-3199 Web: www.csis.org

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beyond mugabe preparing for zimbabwe’s transition Robert I. Rotberg

Zimbabwe is more volatile—and its future political and economic developments more precari-ously balanced—than at any time since 2000. President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, 87, long rumored to be suffering from advanced prostate cancer, looks increasingly frail. The NATO intervention in Libya, the successful civil protests in North Africa, and the ouster of former president Laurent Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire have all concentrated the minds of Zimbabwe’s neighbors and of Africa more broadly. South Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are more critical of Mugabe’s continued authoritarian reign—and more fearful of a chaotic post-Mugabe transition—than ever before.

Now is the appropriate time for Washington to reinvigorate its engagement with the Zimba-bwe problem and with Zimbabwe itself. Although the United States has imperfect and limited le-verage, it can encourage and press South Africa and SADC to carry out their oft-reiterated prom-ises to ensure an orderly transition in Zimbabwe from heavy-handed militarily enforced autocracy to peaceful democracy.

To enhance its leverage and add to its credibility as an important diplomatic interlocutor, the United States may need to provide incentives capable of helping South Africa and SADC to persist in their newfound determination. Such an approach may demand a willingness to consider greater flexibility regarding current sanctions and financing restrictions in explicit exchange for more robust commitments from SADC and South Africa should Mugabe or the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) continue to renege on existing commitments under the Global Political Agreement (GPA) or attempt to scuttle the election Road Map that Zimbabwe’s chief political par-ties negotiated under SADC and South African oversight. Real, measurable benchmarks should be demanded for any relaxation of the sanctions regime.

The United States should offer to partner with South Africa in reframing the Zimbabwe problem as one affecting world order, to train and fund effective short- and long-term election monitors, to support the preparation of a new voters’ roll and a reformed Zimbabwe Election Commission, to build for the long term a new peacekeeping capacity among local military forces, and to finance urgently required agricultural and energy projects within Zimbabwe. Washington

The final version of this report benefited significantly from the insightful comments and suggestions of Akwe Amosu, Michael Bratton, Brad Brooks-Rubin, Alfred C. Clark, Jennifer Cooke, Chester A. Crocker, Mollie Davis, Rachel T. Doherty, Mark Green, Frances Lovemore, Callisto Madavo, Todd Moss, Phillip van Niekerk, Lauren Ploch, and members of the CSIS Working Group on Zimbabwe. As the report’s author, I am enormously and lastingly grateful for their close attention to several drafts of this report and am also seriously indebted in the same manner to numerous Zimbabweans of all backgrounds who contributed on the ground and from afar in a variety of critical ways to the development of this report. For security reasons, the Zimbabweans who made a difference must remain nameless. Much of this report was prepared in June 2011 and updated in July.

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will need to parley with China and explore strategic initiatives within the UN Security Council; it should engage SADC, South Africa, and the African Union to help win cooperation for these initiatives from potentially reluctant global players.

The U.S. Congress may be skeptical of these overtures and reassessments; they are not guar-anteed to succeed, given the many powerful actors within Zimbabwe who will resist a democratic transition. Nonetheless, it is critical this year and next for the United States to reinvigorate its en-gagement as convincingly as possible. Standing aloof cannot bring success or the positive changes that Washington prefers. Disengaged (albeit for the right reasons) and unprepared to take full advantage of potential strategic political openings, the United States may have forfeited earlier op-portunities. Now is the time, however, to work closely with South Africa and SADC on a number of critical fronts and to strengthen regional actors and progressive forces within Zimbabwe. Doing so will enhance the likelihood of a sustainable democratic outcome.

For the first time in many years, South Africa and SADC appear to have finally insisted that Mugabe comply with their rules going forward, including the prospective Road Map. In SADC meetings in both Livingstone, Zambia, and Sandton, South Africa, they made it clear to Mugabe and ZANU that Zimbabwe must adhere to the provisions of the GPA, end violence against Move-ment for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters, and contemplate significant changes in Zim-babwe’s governmental operating procedures or forfeit anything like regional legitimacy now and after an election. Following the Sandton summit, Zimbabwe Minister of State Jameson Timba said that the MDC was “fantastically happy.”1 This new determination on the part of South Africa and SADC should allow the United States to play an important partnering role in ensuring democratic progress in Zimbabwe.

Decisive ConsiderationsBefore this report turns to an assessment of the key current scenarios, it discusses a number of salient economic and political factors that influence how those scenarios may play out. Analyses of those factors, and the scenarios and recommendations that follow, build on vigorous discus-sions that took place at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) throughout the first half of 2011 among an invited group of policy makers and former policy makers, officials of nongovernmental organizations, corporate leaders, and scholars. This report further incorporates the results of intensive additional consultations with civil and political society within Zimbabwe.

The Road MapThe legitimacy of any national poll, this year or later, depends on the completion of the Road Map recently negotiated by the MDC, MDC-Ncube, and ZANU. In April 2011, after several years of South African–influenced discussions, the negotiating partners appeared to have found the germ of an accord. The parties reportedly agreed on a core set of conditions that must be met if Zim-babwe’s next elections are to be regarded as legitimate. Since April, that accord has appeared less sure, largely because of ZANU backsliding. Nevertheless, the key agreements that are being final-ized include:

1. Subsequent to his statement and other alleged comments, Timba was arrested by Zimbabwean police for “insulting President Mugabe.” He was released by a judge after two days in prison. Reported in Celia Dugger, “Mugabe Faces Pro-Democracy Push from Powerful Neighbor, South Africa,” New York Times, June 11, 2011.

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■ A completely new, updated voters’ roll, with dead and vanished voters expunged and complete-ly revised registrations. (The current state of the voters’ roll in Zimbabwe, reported the South African Institute of Race Relations, “makes fraud virtually inevitable.” Of the 5.7 million voters listed, more than 2 million have left Zimbabwe or died.)2

■ An independent new Election Commission comprising members approved by all three parties and provided with an adequate budget.

■ The deployment of foreign and SADC monitors six months before and six months after any election.

■ The conclusion of a new national constitution (still being negotiated among the contending political parties) and its passage by the people in a credible national referendum (preferably with or conceivably without a new voters’ roll.) The MDC is prepared to hold the referendum, if necessary, without a new voters’ roll. Many international observers think that is wrong, but the MDC wants to move the process forward, no matter what.

■ The passage and implementation of legal amendments ending restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly and firm commitments from the security forces to respect those essential freedoms.

The April version of the Road Map included provisions mandating a period of free and open campaigning to persuade people throughout the country to register. It also stipulated the hold-ing of elections based on a combination (still to be arranged) of proportional representation and existing first-past-the-post voting methods and on transparency and accountability at every stage of every process.

These provisions of the Road Map, if fully implemented, suggest that a valid national election should be almost impossible this year. According to one conservative timetable, the constitution, held up in mid-2011 by ZANU machinations, may not be fully drafted until at least September. The earliest possible date for a credible referendum to ratify the new constitutional provisions would then be November 2011, given the time it will take to prepare even a rudimentary new vot-ers’ roll. The constitution must then be formally approved by Parliament, which might not happen until it reconvenes after the summer recess in February 2012. Work on the type and modalities of the poll and on voter-roll legislation would follow, as would a period of months for registra-tion. International monitors would then need to deploy and take charge. A legitimate election, as defined by the putative Road Map, would thus not be possible practically (given printing of ballots and training of new staff) before the end of 2012 at the earliest. That is a serious MDC calculation, but it assumes orderliness, the end of intimidation and violence, the neutralization of Mugabe’s se-curity intimidators, and many other imponderables that may prove unrealizable. Indeed, as April has become July 2011, this preferred timetable seems increasingly overoptimistic.

The Road Map also includes important—albeit difficult to enforce—provisions to halt ZANU-initiated violence in the rural areas and in smaller towns and to limit the powers of the ZANU-

2. On current voters’ rolls were “no fewer than 16,828 voters all born on the same day, January 1, 1901. Such a concentration of 110-year-olds with identical birthdays is no doubt a planetary record.… Even more remarkable, though, 1101 of these are concentrated in Mugabe’s birthplace, Zvimba, which, no doubt, will help to guarantee a pleasing election result there. All told, the register includes 41,119 voters older than 100. Yet in Britain, with a population more than five times the size of Zimbabwe and with an enormously higher life expectancy, there are only 10,000 people older than 100.” R.W. Johnson, Business Day, May 20, 2011.


dominated military Joint Operations Command. It provides for the appointment of a new attorney general agreeable to the prime minister, the establishment of new media-control boards, the open-ing of television and radio to non-state-run broadcasters, and an overall strengthening of the role of the MDC within the government of national unity. These elements are all anathema to Mugabe and the hard-line security sector leaders—the “securocrats”—who help Mugabe control the coun-try. Indeed, early in June 2011, ZANU’s security high command allegedly met together with Chi-nese military personnel to discuss an unfolding strategy for outwitting the MDC and stepping up pre-electoral rural intimidatory actions.3 If true, only a South African–backed intervention could deter escalating violence and definitively impose the critical provisions of the Road Map.

Nearly all of these tentatively agreed provisions, minus critical security sector reforms, were confirmed by the various negotiators in mid-July. It seemed that national elections would accord-ingly be held in late 2012. But then President Mugabe and the ZANU politburo (consisting of its key operatives and securocrats) overruled the Road Map makers and declared that national elec-tions would nevertheless occur in 2011. This defiance of South Africa and SADC led immediately to a firm riposte from South Africa asserting the unassailable legitimacy of the July Road Map decisions and timetable. Mugabe and ZANU’s top brass hardly wish to cede power to the MDC. For them, too much is at stake. Thus the July attempt to scuttle the Road Map, sideline the new constitution, and defy SADC.

SADC and South Africa are further concerned (as is ZANU for different reasons) that the pro-cedures now negotiated may well be overtaken by the demise of Mugabe before the Road Map is fully implemented. Vice Presidents Joice Mujuru and John Nkomo are in line to succeed Mugabe. Theoretically, MDC members of Parliament, empowered by the 2008 GPA, would try to play queenmaker and back Mujuru. At that point, whatever has been agreed by the Road Map negotia-tors would have to be reaffirmed or renegotiated in any new dispensation. A great deal depends on how willing South Africa and SADC would be to apply decisive influence during the transition and whether the MDC is able to exert itself to oppose the securocrats and forge an effective alli-ance with Mujuru.

The MDCDoes the MDC leadership have the energy and the political and strategic intelligence finally to take and deploy power? Widely believing that the MDC has lacked forceful leadership under the Government of National Unity, civil society in Zimbabwe sees precious few democratic results on the ground to support the party’s decision to join the government in 2009. Civil society claims that the MDC has lacked a strategy capable of combating ZANU machinations. Nonetheless, much of civil society also appreciates that the possibility of Mugabe’s imminent departure has reenergized the MDC leadership and presented it with an opportunity to begin providing effective direction for Zimbabweans.

Considerable global and local concerns have centered on the MDC’s weaknesses as a party and deficits in the commitment and strategic imperatives of its leadership. Those weaknesses have not vanished, but SADC’s new critique of Mugabe and his frailty has raised the MDC’s morale, led to a recent party shakeup, and focused its leadership once again on the possibility of post-Mugabe

3. The two key Chinese generals in the room were L Kim Ju and Kim Su. Private report of a meeting on June 5 or 6, 2011.


governance. Few observers presume that the MDC has forfeited popular support. It has, after all, won a number of elections. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Minister of Finance Tendai Biti are still popular. No other party, movement, or collectivity of individuals begins to approach the MDC in drawing mass support. The MDC-Ncube has withered in esteem, and the very minor par-ties that pop up from time to time attract little interest from the broad public.

ZANUNow that ZANU has effectively dropped its linkage to the no longer extant Patriotic Front and ZANU is back to being the plain Shona-dominated ZANU it always was, are there “moderates” within ZANU who could genuinely partner with the MDC in a post-Mugabe coalition? Cer-tainly, a number of potential survivor wannabees and many others in the party will claim to have “all along” been opposed to Mugabe’s autocracy. The MDC could use real partners from within ZANU, if only to counter any moves ultimately made by the securocrat faction within ZANU. Its immediate collaborators, however, may have to come from the parts of ZANU that will express loyalty toward former liberation leader General Solomon Mujuru.

These MDC-ZANU waters were muddied to some extent in June, when reliable reports ap-peared that Minister of Defense Emmerson Mnangagwa, a key leader of the securocrats, had unexpectedly held secret talks with Prime Minister Tsvangirai and other MDC leaders. When authoritarian regimes fall, as in North Africa, everyone tries to survive, somehow.

The EconomyFortunately, in any constitutional post-Mugabe era, the national economy should strengthen, particularly because the threat of so-called indigenization would be moderated or ended, along with existing levels of political violence and harassment. If the foolish and illegal threat to trans-fer 51 percent of foreign-owned businesses to “indigenous” Zimbabweans is abandoned, foreign investors will return to Zimbabwe to take advantage of agro-processing and mining possibili-ties and even tourism development. It is conceivable that local or regional money will reenter the lapsed manufacturing sector. Niche textile operations, paper making, metal fabricating, and other medium-sized opportunities exist. If a major pending Indian investment in steelmaking is confirmed, it will move Zimbabwe onward. But everything depends on a successful transition embraced by SADC and the West and on large-scale investments in energy and water—necessities often lacking in large parts of Harare and much of the country. The economy may be growing as much as 6 percent in 2011 after a decade of contraction, but that growth is unlikely to be sustained in future years so long as Mugabe remains in power and indigenization remains a serious threat. After all, Zimbabwe’s Treasury has been unable to raise sufficient public revenues to meet the sal-ary demands of civil servants.

Absent the malign influences of Mugabe and several of his ministers, the economy could grow strongly on the back of high cotton prices and production, some profitable sugar sales, the dou-bling and tripling of tobacco exports, high world prices for gold, platinum, and other minerals, and any infusion of diamond proceeds (whether through licit or illicit channels). Remittances are also critical, amounting to at least one-sixth and possibly one-fourth of the economy.

The weaknesses of the overall economy, however, include Zimbabwe’s shift from food self-suffi-ciency to massive food imports—at least 50 percent of all maize and wheat needs are now supplied


from outside, costing the government millions. Maize now comes predominantly from South Af-rica and Zambia, wheat from East Africa, cooking oil from the Far East, and so on. Furthermore, virtually all goods once manufactured locally, even textiles and furniture, are now imported from South Africa or China. Almost all sectors have vastly underutilized capacity, and nothing beyond expensive short-term forms of financial liquidity are available. Businesses and banks are compelled to live hand to mouth. It is extremely difficult for farmers or commercial actors to obtain anything more than three- or six-month credit financing, at very high rates of interest. Long-term lending does not exist, inflation is increasing, and business confidence is precarious.

Unemployment is still very high—at least 80 percent, with the informal economy dominant. Hardly anyone is focused as they should be on the creation of jobs. In the post-Mugabe long term, whoever rules, job creation is imperative if Zimbabwe’s economic and social ills are to be amelio-rated. Fortunately, hunger has been reduced somewhat. The World Food Programme is feeding 1 million people, not the 2 million or more as it was in 2008–2009. With honest and proper govern-ment, today’s fragile and temporary economic upsurge could continue and be strongly sustained. Yet there is a broad consensus that Zimbabwe’s international debts will have to be forgiven if the economy—after an effective transition—is to return to the sustained prosperity and growth levels of the early 1990s.

Fortunately, Zimbabweans are resilient. With stability, peace, and improved governance (including a nonviolent, fair rule of law), Zimbabweans will be able to return the country to its for-mer path of economic growth. The spirit of Zimbabwe is broken but not destroyed. Already some African agricultural smallholders are adapting well, growing tobacco and cotton profitably. Many Zimbabweans inside and outside their beleaguered country are poised to revitalize an economy severely battered, but not destroyed, by Mugabe. Modest foreign assistance, if properly and trans-parently managed, could jump start such efforts.

DiamondsHarvesting of diamonds from eastern Zimbabwe provides Mugabe and his close cohorts with vital new sources of wealth to purchase the loyalty of subordinates and line their own pockets and those of their families. The discovery and exploitation of diamonds after 2005 have transformed the prospects of ZANU, the securocrats, and Mugabe and enabled the ruling regime to extend its reach. No dictatorship persists without the ability to pay its operatives. Diamond revenues have also raised the stakes considerably for those in all sections of ZANU who might lose their current hegemony over diamond wealth after a new election.

The Marange diamond fields in the Chiadzwa district cover approximately 122,000 hectares, a large proportion of which is still undeveloped. Five companies hold concessions:

■ The largest and most productive is a South African consortium, Mbada Diamonds, run by retired Zimbabwe Air Vice Marshall Robert Mhlanga, Mugabe’s former helicopter pilot, and allied to a shady South African group of scrap metal merchants called the New Reclamation Group; various senior Zimbabwean generals; First Lady Grace Mugabe; and Zimbabwe’s Re-serve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.

■ The government-owned Marange Resources operated the whole of the Marange diamond fields until late 2009 and now controls the concession previously allocated to Canadile Miners. Ca-nadile, a joint venture between a South African company and the national Zimbabwe Mining


Development Corporation, was ejected four months ago, and the South African firm is contest-ing its removal. Although nominally a parastatal company, Marange is backed by a Hong Kong entrepreneur with close ties to Mugabe.

■ The Anjin Corporation is a Chinese-owned and run operation that is closely cooperating with—and funneling diamond proceeds to—several of Zimbabwe’s leading generals.

■ Sino-Zimbabwe, a Chinese concern, and Premier Gem, from the United Arab Emirates, are murky concessionaires that have not begun digging diamonds beyond the exploratory phase.

The Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources concessions are on diamondiferous land, the title to which is contested by a British firm, African Consolidated Resources. Mbada and Anjin are producing substantial quantities of diamonds. Marange Resources is not yielding well.

Each of the companies has partners among the local military, the Central Intelligence Office, and Mugabe’s inner circle. Each is in competition with the others. The MDC has demanded an audit of the diamond operations and has tentatively negotiated an agreement with ZANU on that subject as part of the Road Map.

How lucrative the Marange fields are is still largely unknown. One private report predicts that they will stop yielding well late in 2011. Other reports project great productivity over many years. When the alluvial diamonds do run out, it will be very costly to mine the conglomerate hills from which the alluvials have leached out over eons. Thus Zimbabwe’s diamond bonanza may be rea-sonably short-lived, based in part, too, on the weakness in the rough diamond market that resulted from the worldwide economic slowdown of 2008 and 2009. The vast majority of Marange dia-monds are industrial grade and therefore vulnerable to quality problems and diminishing returns over time as properties elsewhere return to production. It is evident that the generals and others exploiting the Marange fields are attempting to strip as much as possible (especially the more valu-able gemstones) as quickly as possible—before supply and demand right themselves and before Zimbabwe becomes a stable, modern, democratic state.

The MDC and the Ministry of Finance have been unable to corral the major diamond pro-ceeds that evade legal sales channels in Harare. This is a murky area, but the Ministry of Finance clearly has no independent method at present of learning exactly how much is being mined, what those stones are worth, how much of what is mined is sold through legal channels, and whether the Zimbabwe Treasury is receiving its proper share of the proceeds. “There is no transparency in diamond mining and management of revenues,” Finance Minister Biti told Parliament in March. In June, Jameson Timba, minister of state in the office of Zimbabwe’s prime minister, told jour-nalists that his country’s army was deeply involved in the exploitation of diamonds and that “this undermines the government’s ability to bring fiscal transparency on publicly generated revenues.”4

Indeed, the MDC and the Ministry of Finance seem to know too little—or to want to know too little. One official talked of the difficulty of policing such a large area. But satellites observe this area regularly, and it ought to be possible to monitor smuggling flights that leave the new Marange airfield for Dubai, Hong Kong, and Johannesburg without first flying to Harare.5 The U.S. govern-ment possesses good time series photographs, which it gathers regularly.

4. Zoli Mangena, “Diamonds’ Cash Has Been Looted,” Times Live, June 11, 2011. 5. Some diamonds are also smuggled by land into Mozambique and then onward to the east.


Unfortunately, the Kimberley Process (KP), the body created to eliminate trade in conflict diamonds, has refused to deter Zimbabwe’s continuing exports from the Marange fields despite strongly articulated U.S., Canadian, and European Union objections. At a meeting in Kinshasa in June, the Congolese chair of the KP ignored the organization’s rule of unanimity and decided that the KP members had permitted diamonds to be exported from Marange despite military control and widespread human rights abuses. No monitoring of the diamond diggings or its stones before export was prescribed. Finance Minister Biti questioned the validity of the decision. A spokesper-son for Global Witness, a leading advocacy group, decried the “systematic failures of the Kimber-ley Process” and suggested that the KP lacked the “political will” to hold offending countries to account. Obert Mpofu, the ZANU minister of mines, crowed, “We have made a breakthrough.”6

Immunity and ImpunityPragmatically, the MDC is prepared to offer considerable immunity to leading generals if doing so will assist in ending state-sponsored violence and expedite the exit of the securocrats from the contemporary political scene. That immunity would include the ability of generals and other ZANU officials to retain some of their seized farms. Ideally, they would in fact retreat to those farms. Whether immunity from all subsequent prosecution is a realistic expectation, the MDC (if not other Zimbabweans and the Zimbabwean diaspora) is prepared at this stage to overlook the need for any complete accounting of past depredations and perhaps to eliminate wholesale inves-tigations of all but the most egregiously abusive of Mugabe’s operatives.7 Whether there can be a full Truth and Reconciliation Commission exercise, certainly needed under most circumstances, is still to be decided.

Likely ScenariosSouth Africa and many members of the Southern African Development Community no longer regard Mugabe as sacrosanct and untouchable because of his liberationist credentials or because his downfall might weaken other strong African heads of state. This reading of the sharp, criti-cal reception of Mugabe by SADC at the Politics, Defense, and Security Cooperation meeting in Livingstone, Zambia, in April 2011 and at the Heads of State Summit in Sandton, South Africa, in June is admittedly optimistic. (The next meeting was to have been held in Luanda, Angola, in August.) These critical reactions reflect a perception that Mugabe is a spent force. They build on a set of southern African national self-interests: no SADC leader wants Zimbabwe’s transition, whenever it comes, to destabilize relations between rulers and the ruled within his own state. But this new collective awareness of national self-interest and Mugabe’s imminent departure need not mean that President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, the key decider and interlocutor in southern Africa’s attempt to influence political evolution in Zimbabwe, is as yet prepared to act definitively to curb Mugabe or the ambitions of his close military associates or to exert himself one way or

6. Celia Dugger, “Mugabe Faces Pro-Democracy Push from Powerful Neighbor, South Africa.”7. Many leaders of the international community of nongovernmental organizations and leaders of

the Zimbabwean diaspora, including some members of the CSIS study group, assert that impunity and amnesty are not for the MDC to decide on its own. That is certainly true, but if the MDC reaches power in Zimbabwe, it may opt for expediency rather than the full justice many would prefer. This report merely describes current thinking on the ground.


another to demand legitimate political processes and back such a demand with credible and timely exertions of influence.

Lindiwe Zulu, President Zuma’s key adviser on Zimbabwe, said in June that “people want to see democracy [in Zimbabwe]. People need their voices to be heard. Those are the winds that are sweeping the continent, and people ignore them at their peril.”8 But Zulu does not always have President Zuma’s ear.

Four potential scenarios could immediately or very soon test the resolve of Zuma, SADC, Zimbabweans, and the international community:

■ Mugabe defiantly calls an early election. This could happen shortly, before the parties have agreed to a new constitution, before citizens have approved it in a referendum, or before it has begun to take effect; before the Road Map is fully negotiated and implemented; before the Zim-babwe Electoral Commission is reformed; and before a new, reasonably accurate voters’ roll is compiled.

■ Mugabe dies. The existing constitution and the GPA provide for a parliamentary poll to select a ZANU successor to complete Mugabe’s remaining years as national president. This outcome might eventually result in a peaceful post-Mugabe transition to a non-securocrat successor through a parliamentary election influenced by a coalition of ZANU politicians and, probably, the leaders of the MDC.

■ The securocrats stage a coup. The cabal of senior military officers and the minister of defense (primarily General Constantine Chiwenga and Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, in league with Minister of Defense Mnangagwa) could attempt to stage either a pre-emptive coup during Mugabe’s last days or forcibly compel Parliament to elect Mnangagwa or Chiwenga as his successor.

■ Mugabe lives until 2013. A national election is mandatory that year. The MDC wins that elec-tion but either assumes office legitimately or once again is denied power through chicanery or rigging.

This report examines each of those scenarios in turn and then offers options for strengthening U.S. diplomatic leverage and influence in Zimbabwe in ways that improve Zimbabwe’s chances of emerging democratic and well governed.

An Early ElectionAccording to this scenario, Mugabe seeks to secure his dominance and legacy by winning one more election so that he can be sure of dying in office and remaining immune from prosecu-tion or asset confiscation by a successor regime. In a May interview in a government-controlled newspaper, he said that he intended to win a presidential election this year and to live to be 100.9 In addition to any personal vanity, Mugabe recognizes that, without him as a catalyst and sym-bol, his ZANU party would be less likely to win a national election, whenever it occurs. But even more important, the securocrats and his other close associates within ZANU, who work hand in

8. Celia Dugger, “Mugabe Faces Pro-Democracy Push from Powerful Neighbor, South Africa.”9. “Mugabe—In His Own Words” Southern Times, May 20, 2011.


glove with Mugabe, seek an early election to reinforce their own positions within the party and the country. They have already dispatched critical special military forces and youth leaguers into Zimbabwe’s rural areas to intimidate potential MDC voters and to ensure a ZANU electoral vic-tory through violence. (The June meeting with the Chinese generals updated those plans.) Those military and paramilitary elements ultimately report to Chiwenga, who uses a personal chain of command separate from professional military channels. His military loyalists and youth leaguers under the command of Minister of Youth and Indigenisation Saviour Kasukuwere also cooperate with provincial and local ZANU leaders in threatening, assaulting, maiming, and outspending MDC operatives on the ground.

The hardliners’ campaign of violence began after the 2008 elections but has re-intensified since late 2010. In Livingstone and since, South Africa and SADC have demanded that Mugabe and ZANU cease unleashing mayhem against MDC supporters, but rampant violence continues. One report by human rights observers on the ground suggests that from March 2008 through May 2011 about 500 MDC backers had been killed in this campaign and that there have been more than 13,000 incidents of violence, each of which is supported by police reports, a medical history, and personal narratives.10 Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights says that since the Livingstone SADC summit in April 2011, 204 noncombatant Zimbabweans have been subjected to harass-ment, intimidation, arrest, and selective prosecution despite Zuma’s demand in March that ZANU cease such attacks. Of the 204, 183 were arrested, detained, or prosecuted. As recently as early June 2011, security forces were arresting MDC city officials on spurious charges.11

ZANU hardliners want to enter the post-Mugabe era with a renewed mandate from the people. They also seek a new election this year to destroy the MDC so that in future there can be no reason to share power with Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his MDC cohorts. The term ZANU hardliners refers to Mugabe and those such as Mnangagwa and the securocrats who are closest to him and who have profited significantly over the past decade from corrupt practices, pillaging the public purse, and plundering diamond resources at Marange. Whether Mugabe favors Mnan-gagwa or Chiwenga as possible successors, he knows that they can be trusted to preserve his legacy and to crush challengers to the party he helped build. They have already distinguished themselves by a readiness to use brutal means to perpetuate his and their hold on power. He knows that they secured his illegitimate re-anointment in 2008 and knows precisely how they helped him defeat the spirit and letter of the GPA in marginalizing Tsvangirai and the MDC attempt to share power since 2009.

The securocrats are Mugabe’s allies and the enemies of peaceful transitions and honest elec-tions. They have much to lose personally if the MDC gains power. Two key questions arise. First, would South Africa permit Zimbabwe to hold an election this year before the voters’ roll is re-formed, a new impartial Zimbabwe Election Commission established, and African and other outside monitors deployed to observe pre-electoral, electoral, and postelectoral practices? Second, if they cannot prevent an early election, would South Africa and SADC make clear beforehand their refusal to honor the results of such an illegitimate election? Although several South African

10. Personal communication from Zimbabwe, May 21, 2011. For additional chilling details, see the long narrative of atrocities in Peter Godwin, The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011). See also the authoritative “Weekly Updates” of political violence in Zimbabwe compiled by the Survivors’ Network.

11. Hendricks Chizhanje, “Mugabe Regime Steps up the Heat,” Times Live, June 11, 2011; Daily News, June 13, 2011.


officials overseeing the Zimbabwean transition have hinted that no legitimate election can be held until the key elements of the Road Map have been fully implemented, talk sometimes crumbles before determined attacks.

A year ago, the odds of South African and SADC objections to a snap election without safe-guards in place and new institutional restrictions ready would have been nil. Since the Livingstone and Sandton meetings, however, South Africa and SADC may have come to realize that illegiti-mate outcomes in Zimbabwe are the enemy of regional growth and prosperity and a potential catalyst for any protests—however remote—from an aroused citizenry. In June, Lindiwe Zulu said that “it would take a miracle” for Zimbabwe to be ready for elections in 2011. She also explicitly doubted whether Mugabe would want to call elections without the support of South Africa and SADC: “I don’t think the president would like to go against an SADC decision.”12

But what could South Africa (and SADC) really do if Mugabe persisted in holding an elec-tion unsanctioned by SADC? They could—and many observers and analysts now believe that they would—beforehand declare such an election illegitimate. If so, Mugabe and his successors would be official outlaws, with few friends, and Zimbabwe could face suspension from the regional body and possibly from the African Union. If Mugabe forged ahead, and won, SADC and the African Union would be confronted with a result echoing Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to give way in Côte d’Ivoire and, closer to home, the disputed and still unresolved presidential contest in Madagascar. Given what happened to Gbagbo in somewhat different but analogous circumstances, Mugabe (and Chiwenga and Mnangagwa) might well back off. Furthermore, Tsvangirai and the MDC would be emboldened, and the ZANU’s desire to crush the MDC would be for nought.

A number of local analysts and observers also assert that SADC and South Africa would close their borders to Zimbabwean rail traffic and other commerce if Mugabe and his coterie carried out an illicit election and then rigged its results. They could also prevent Mugabe and others of the ZANU hierarchy from entering South Africa, where many ZANU operatives have investments, homes, businesses, and children in school. If South Africa chooses, newly imposed restrictions and requirements could harass the ZANU elite and—in the manner of Western targeted sanctions of individuals—make life uncomfortable for the top ZANU echelon as well as for the securocrats. Neither the elite nor Mugabe presumably want to forfeit legitimacy within Africa and the world.

But is President Zuma ready to play the heavy in such a manner? Some observers say that he has finally decided that Mugabe should not be his albatross, dragging down his presidency as it tainted President Thabo Mbeki’s. Zuma recently received Tsvangirai at his ancestral Zulu home—a first—and, according to cables released on Wikileaks, his foreign minister disparaged Mugabe in private and then later in public. Lindiwe Zulu also speaks strongly about the need for change in Zimbabwe.

Even so, as Washington is well aware, President Zuma dithers. The South African presi-dent has generally shied away from a leadership role. Compromise has been his bent, especially since some politically relevant South Africans are still in the Mugabe camp, although most are not. Admittedly, President Zuma may ultimately surprise observers, especially over Zimbabwe. Washington’s task is to encourage Zuma to continue to check Mugabe and the securocrats and to assert himself strongly about progress on the Road Map and a diminution of pre-electoral violence.

12. Celia Dugger, “Mugabe Faces Pro-Democracy Push from Powerful Neighbor, South Africa.”


The tough question of whether South Africa would in fact act forcibly to deter a Zimbabwean election before all Road Map elements are in place is hard to answer conclusively. Given the recent precedents and SADC’s new tough-appearing approach, there is a strong possibility that South Africa and SADC would do so. Points 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26 of the Sandton Summit communiqué indicate that SADC has not in any way retreated from its collective posture toward Mugabe in Livingstone. Indeed, point 26 urges a rapid completion of the Road Map and a final fulfillment of the provisions of the GPA. One local analyst concluded that ZANU “knows very well that the Livingstone position has been upheld by SADC despite the rhetoric[al] denials and diversionary spin-doctoring.”13 But no timelines are specified, and no exact consequences have yet been listed for a failure to adhere to SADC guidelines. Thus, until Zuma and SADC lay down some rigorous rules publicly, the scenario of a snap 2011 election remains on the table.

Mugabe’s Death and a Constitutional TransitionMugabe’s demise could occur at any moment, or not for months or years. No one seems to know exactly why he traveled so frequently to Singapore for medical attention in March and April and again in June, although rumors of radiation treatment are widespread. Weekly cabinet meetings have been shortened by half to preserve his strength, he appears to walk with difficulty and has used a wheelchair or a golf cart, and he looks, at times, less robust than in former years. Nonethe-less, as he told the Southern Times, his bones are still strong, and he plans to continue to 100.

If no sudden election takes place this year or next, and if Mugabe dies while the GPA prevails, a current vice president, presumably Mujuru, would succeed him according to the constitution, pending the election within 90 days of a successor from among ZANU adherents. The successor is elected by an electoral college consisting of both houses of Parliament and presided over by the chief justice. Whoever is elected becomes president in continuing tandem with Prime Minister Tsvangirai.

The most benign of the outcomes of this scenario has Joice Mujuru elected as Mugabe’s suc-cessor with the full support of the MDC and with a preponderance of ZANU votes, based in con-siderable part on her marital ties to Solomon Mujuru, who still has a strong following among the nonsecurocrat military and rank-and-file ZANU members. If Joice Mujuru is elected president, the Mujurus and the MDC would run Zimbabwe together, with the MDC prime minister (accord-ing to MDC leaders) reasserting the executive authority that was accorded him by the GPA. The MDC would let the Mujurus keep their farms and other ill-gotten gains, and its leaders presume—conceivably naively—that newly elected president Joice Mujuru would preside ceremonially while Tsvangirai acted with greater power than he wields today. MDC leaders say that such is the pend-ing arrangement, that they trust the Mujurus, and that only through such a smooth and peaceful transition would SADC and South Africa bless the result. The MDC and a number of observers also cite covert ZANU support for the recent election of House Speaker Lovemore Moyo—an MDC member—as an important augury.

At the same time, many imponderables remain, along with many opportunities for other, less savory deals to be cut between contending persons and parties. The MDC and the Mujurus some-how believe that, as ruthless as Chiwenga and Mnangagwa are, absent Mugabe they would have little standing and little political support, and—because of Solomon Mujuru’s legitimacy among

13. Trevor Maisiri, private report, June 13, 2011.


some senior and most junior military personnel—that the securocrats could not interfere effec-tively to produce a different, less favorable, result. But this confidence in Mugabe as linchpin of the securocrats may prove badly misplaced.

A Coup or the Intimidation of the Electoral CollegeThe stalwarts of Mugabe’s inner circle—Mnangagwa, Chiwenga, Chihuri, Kasukuwere, Minister of Local Government Ignatius Chombo, Minister of Transportation Nicholas Goche, and (pos-sibly) Minister of State Security Sydney Sikeramayi—have much to lose if Joice Mujuru is elected Mugabe’s successor and Tsvangirai becomes the effective executive leader of Zimbabwe. Their po-sitions would be forfeited along with their many perquisites, their illicit flows of wealth could van-ish, and they might someday be prosecuted for corruption and theft of state resources. (These are among the prominent persons subject to travel bans and asset freezes by the United States and the European Union.) Most of all, under a Mujuru-MDC alliance, as outlined in the second scenario, they would be excluded from any conceivable victory in future, post-GPA elections. Mnangagwa’s ambitions to succeed Mugabe, whom he has served well over so many years, would be thwarted.

Some analysts believe that Chiwenga could be the force behind a military coup when Mugabe’s demise appears imminent or shortly thereafter, placing himself or Mnangagwa in power. Or, somewhat more respectful of constitutional provisions, he could wait until the electoral college convened and then make clear to the parliamentarians involved that he and the military forces surrounding the parliamentary building wanted a particular result—the election of Mnangagwa.

This last result is not inconceivable, despite the palpable lack of support among voters gener-ally and within ZANU for Mnangagwa. Much would hinge on the extent to which the securocrats could command the support of the army. Despite his tainted past, Air Marshall Perence Shiri is believed to be a professional soldier, likely in any serious test to support Mujuru rather than Chiwenga. Likewise, Lt. Gen. Phillip Sibanda, chief of the army, is a professional and would incline the same way, as would General Happyton Bonyongwe, boss of the Central Intelligence Office. It is widely believed that Paradzai Zimondi, prisons director, would also back Mujuru. The youth leaguers and green bombers would throw their support behind Kasukuwere and Mnangagwa. The 500-strong presidential guard is drawn from regular army ranks, is commanded by a colonel, and has no mercenaries in its ranks. It would presumably follow orders from Sibanda.

There is absolutely no gainsaying that Mnangagwa and his allies are ambitious, determined, ruthless, and capable of hijacking Zimbabwe after Mugabe goes. They are in the vanguard of exist-ing destabilization efforts, they were the force behind all earlier anti-MDC violence, and they now have diamond-derived wealth with which to induce support from soldiers as well as politicians. Although they might become illegitimate in their usurpation of power and might be renegades as far as SADC and the West were concerned, nothing has stopped them yet. Admittedly, until Mugabe’s death they function with his backing. When he goes, they will stand or fall as despera-does or heavy-handed soldiers on their own.

This last scenario gains fearsome plausibility since we do not really know the answer to a key question: What would Zuma do if Mnangagwa and Chiwenga decide to take over?


A 2013 ElectionTheoretically, Mugabe could live until 2013. A national election would have to take place then, in any event. Two outcomes seem likely, depending on what occurs in Zimbabwe between 2011 and 2013. The MDC could once again win the election and be denied its victory through fraud, or it could win outright and Zimbabwe would reassume its rightful place in Africa as a fully function-ing democracy. If massive fraud again occurs, Zimbabwe would prove another potential Côte d’Ivoire, with Tsvangirai claiming an Alassane Ouattara-like outcome and Mugabe refusing to concede power (as in 2008). SADC, South Africa, and the United Nations could then intervene, setting in motion a number of potential postelectoral scenarios.

If Mugabe is long gone and a Mujuru-Tsvangirai alliance runs Zimbabwe reasonably well in the run-up to 2013, the MDC would likely assume that a fair contest, monitored by SADC and outside observers, would result in a clear victory for itself and its leaders. That is the very optimis-tic outcome currently envisaged by the MDC as it weighs the several scenarios and asserts that it can arrange an effective post-Mugabe coalition with the Mujurus that would overcome desperate acts by the securocrats. Much of this optimism is also predicated on support, finally, from SADC and South Africa.

Policy Options and RecommendationsNothing is decided. Zimbabwe’s fate hinges on the death of a despot, a constitutional rather than a contrived succession, and the intercession of SADC and South Africa. The United States and the European Union, the African Union, and even China have important roles to play in ensuring an effective and peaceful transition and in bolstering its legitimacy. The following recommendations are intended to:

■ Improve the limited leverage of the United States.

■ Engage the United States more fully in Zimbabwe’s affairs to enhance that leverage.

■ Suggest specific ways in which the United States can help prepare Zimbabwe for a post-Mugabe future.

■ Enable the United States to work closely with other nations to move Zimbabwe toward democ-racy and away from despotism.

Although it is tempting to sequence these options and recommendations, it is more realistic to try to implement several of them simultaneously. Time is short, and many of these measures will reinforce one another. Tightening surveillance and monitoring diamond exports, for example, may contribute to U.S. influence in other areas—in winning support for expanded sanctions, travel bans, Security Council initiatives, and meaningful Chinese engagement. If the U.S. administration combines offers of carrots with the advancement of potential sticks, it may make progress more likely within southern Africa and Africa, and especially within Zimbabwe.

Strengthening LeverageThe United States will improve its ability to influence positive outcomes in Zimbabwe and the SADC region when it focuses squarely on and enunciates forcefully a range of acceptable and unacceptable outcomes. The acceptable outcomes obviously include a meaningful re-adherence to


the spirit and letter of the GPA and, if Mugabe dies soon, a peaceful transfer of power according to constitutional stipulations. Unacceptable are a snap election before the constitution is approved and a new voters’ roll exists, the perpetuation of violence against non-ZANU civilians, the contin-ued pre-election intimidation, and any coup-like behavior by the securocrats.

Mugabe, the securocrats, and most ZANU antidemocrats are banned from travel by the United States and the European Union (EU); almost all have had their assets frozen. In addition, Zimbabwe, because of Mugabe, is subject to restrictions on U.S. foreign aid, international loans, and public investment under the 2001 U.S. Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA). That legislation and Zimbabwe’s arrears problems with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank effectively bar Zimbabwe’s access to international finance and credit (except from China).

Those restrictions, collectively and misleadingly called “sanctions,” have accomplished little. Mugabe flies frequently to Europe and to Asia without many obstacles. If he and his closest associ-ates have been hindered from employing their ill-gotten assets, there is little evidence. What would have a more telling effect and what might curtail antidemocratic behavior more effectively would be travel bans within and across at least southern Africa. Washington needs to begin persuading Pretoria to prevent Mugabe and the securocrats from entering South Africa or other SADC na-tions. After all, SADC imposed travel restrictions on the current leaders of Madagascar. If Wash-ington could also imaginatively persuade Singapore and Malaysia—a tough sell, admittedly—to prohibit Mugabe and others from entering, real leverage will have been secured. Can Washington not bring friendly pressure to bear on Singapore and Malaysia to bar Mugabe in the interest of bet-ter and more enduring relations?

The International Criminal CourtSouth Africa might not initially be ready to bar Mugabe and his ilk. But if the United States, the United Kingdom, and France were able to encourage the UN Security Council to request indict-ments against Mugabe and a few of his associates by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and if the ICC brought those indictments, South Africa would (as it has said it would do in the case of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir) be obliged to arrest any Zimbabwean indictees who crossed its borders or entered its airspace. Moreover, the mere hint of such Security Council action and potential ICC indictments might be enough to alter or moderate behavior by the securocrats, even if Mugabe himself remained defiant. Threats are more behaviorally modifying than indictments themselves.

Just as President Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya was indicted by the ICC in June 2011, Mugabe, Chiwenga, and others are certainly equally indictable for crimes against humanity. Un-fortunately, Zimbabwe is not a signatory to the Rome Treaty, and the ICC chief prosecutor would have to receive authority from the UN Security Council to begin proceedings. But Sudan is not a signatory either, and the Security Council approved the naming of President Bashir. Using the threat of an ICC indictment to bring additional pressure on Mugabe and the securocrats to end violence, observe constitutional provisions, and agree to a sensible Road Map should certainly be explored, however unlikely such a direction may currently appear and however blunt an instru-ment the ICC often seems for preventing conflict and modifying leadership behavior. The indict-ment of Qaddafi, though, may have made the indictment of Mugabe an easier sell. Fortunately, too, Russia has no particular relations with or ties to Mugabe, and Nigeria and the African Union may finally be prepared to recognize the efficacy of not opposing such a strategy.


An argument for avoiding possible ICC indictments in the Zimbabwe case, however, is that many African leaders have resented the long reach of the ICC in the cases of the Sudan and now Libya. South Africa is also no fan of ICC indictments. Thus, any desire to employ the threat of an ICC indictment to curb Mugabe and his generals may annoy South Africa and SADC at a time when Washington wishes to join them in moving Zimbabwe successfully into a democratic transi-tion. Certainly, pursuing such international indictments involves risks. Nevertheless, Mugabe and ZANU’s crimes against humanity cannot be wished away. Hence, possible ICC indictments are useful options in the ongoing effort to dampen violence and forestall a coup and must be seen in that light. An experienced international authority indeed extols the helpfulness of possible ICC ac-tions: “Arrest warrants from international criminal tribunals can delegitimize tyrants before their own people and certainly before the international community.”14

Admittedly, the intervention of the ICC would be unnecessary if South Africa simply chose to arrest the first high-level ZANU operative, whether soldier or politician, who happened to enter South Africa, using a universal jurisdiction mandate or pursuing existing infractions under SADC or South African law. Once one perpetrator was arrested, others would shun South Africa and inhibit the fomenters of violence. Such actions would send a strong signal to those who are negotiating the Road Map or planning post-Mugabe military-backed intimidation. Could Pretoria also be persuaded to shut down the shady Mbada diamond operations at its headquarters in South Africa? That would also signal clearly that Zuma decisively backs the forces of real change. The United States needs to redouble its efforts to reach Zuma personally on these issues and to help him resolve any internal questions that currently deter decisive action.

Travel BansGaining assistance from Zuma on travel bans might be possible in exchange for some very cali-brated reconfigurations of the U.S.-EU position on “sanctions.” That would be a “win” for him. A temporary lifting of U.S. travel bans on a handful of ZANU officials, in explicit exchange for South African travel restrictions on the top antidemocratic Zimbabweans or in exchange for specific positive actions on the part of Mugabe and the securocrats, would constitute a fair bargain. Argu-ably, a demonstrated willingness to trade existing travel bans and asset freezes in exchange for positive democratic advances would assist SADC in opposing Mugabe now and help to remove any impediments to a peaceful transition in a post-Mugabe future. The West would also thereby indicate its willingness to provide positive rather than negative signals to current and future mod-erates (if any) within ZANU. It would communicate the willingness of the West to reengage with Zimbabwe, providing, of course, that steady progress resulted, as measured by curtailed violence, constitutional advances, and approval of the Road Map.

Suspending sanctions, or at least openly engaging in such a dialogue on the subject with SADC and South Africa, would demonstrate to southern Africa and Africa that the West wanted to assist them positively and open-mindedly in preparing for a post-Mugabe future. Moreover, by suspending sanctions on mid- and lower-level ZANU operatives—but not on Chiwenga, Chihuri,

14. David Scheffer, “Justice League,” FP.com, June 29, 2011. His blog continues: “International judicial intervention . . . has succeeded in its plodding way at humbling and bringing to justice one tyrant after another, along with their partners in genocide, crimes against humanity, and massive war crimes. Yes, international justice takes time; indicted leaders threaten and bully and defy tribunals as a matter of course (even though the bravado rarely lasts); and there is always the risk that an international prosecutor might scrutinize one of your own. But if international justice requires patience and some risk, it also holds more lasting rewards.”


Kasukuwere, Chombo, and Mnangagwa—the goal would be to separate the most dangerous from the moderately dangerous, to strengthen such ZANU moderates as there may be, to back strate-gists within the MDC and SADC who plea for sanctions suspensions, and to indicate that the West is willing to support any movements toward peace and stability as and when they emerge. Repeal-ing or modifying ZIDERA to permit international institutional lending could be considered, but only after Zimbabwe’s democratic transition is secure.

Reinvigorating EngagementGiven the volatility within Zimbabwe, the potential end of Mugabe’s long reign in the near future, and a nascent wariness on the part of SADC toward Mugabe’s behavior, now is the appropriate time for the United States gradually to step up its involvement with Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe-an issue. In preparation for whatever political changes are coming, the United States should both do more on the ground and consider sustained high-level attention to Zimbabwe and southern Africa.

Sustained High-Level AttentionZimbabwe will continue to require sustained high-level attention from Washington (from the State Department, the Treasury, and Congress.). One way of visibly demonstrating U.S. commitment would be through the appointment of a special representative to SADC on Zimbabwe. Such an appointment could help overcome a regional perception that the United States is less than fully en-gaged in the outcome of the Zimbabwean issue. It would counter the widespread impression that, given everything else that worries the United States in the world, Zimbabwe is no longer among Washington’s key African concerns. Almost for the first time, the appointment of a special repre-sentative would indicate that the U.S. government is willing to be engaged systematically with the Mugabe problem. Furthermore, it would show that Washington wishes to be a part of the solution and will not simply carp from the sidelines. It would also allow Washington to lead the concerned Western powers during the post-Mugabe transition period.15

A special representative would project the secretary of state’s profound interest in a responsible post-Mugabe outcome; would be able to provide useful advice to South Africa, SADC countries, and actors within Zimbabwe; and ought to be able to generate the kinds of consensus that could help the post-Mugabe transition unfold well and peacefully. The special representative should spend time in the region focusing on strengthening and implementing the Road Map, developing measures that would guarantee a successful post-Mugabe transition and the end of violence, mak-ing effective preparations for elections, combating money laundering and people trafficking, and seeking enforceable improvements within the Kimberley Process.

A knowledgeable, highly placed special representative would advance the secretary of state’s deep desire to resolve the Zimbabwe problem on her watch. To quote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, authoritarian governments ruled by aging despots are “no longer acceptable.” Those who refuse to make democratic reforms will find themselves, she said, “on the wrong side of history.”16

15. This controversial suggestion for the appointment of a special representative was earlier advanced and discussed in Robert I. Rotberg, “Mugabe Über Alles: The Tyranny of Unity in Zimbabwe,” Foreign Affairs 89 (July/August 2010): 10–18.

16. Steven Lee Myers, “Clinton Presses Africans to Abandon Authoritarian Rulers, Singling Out Qaddafi,” New York Times, June 14, 2011.


The appointment of a special representative could also respond meaningfully to the presumed in-terest of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees in similar outcomes.

With or without a special representative, continuing, sustained high-level attention from Washington on the evolving Zimbabwean issue will be imperative—and one way of ensuring a vig-orous and effective partnership with South Africa and SADC.

Retraining Election Monitors and the Military Washington should offer to fund, help organize, and provide training for prospective SADC and other African monitors, including any military forces from the SADC countries, and help to pre-pare to send the first pre-election teams into Zimbabwe. In concert with South Africa and SADC, the United States could also seek outside supervision (perhaps by South Africans) for the conduct and administration of all aspects of the electoral process in Zimbabwe.

The United States should join the United Kingdom and other like-minded nations in offering alternative opportunities to key securocrats. Those opportunities could include inducements, even substantial ones, for the generals to retire to their farms or leave the country. (Top American generals might also speak privately and strongly to their Zimbabwean counterparts about ac-celerated departures.) Equally important will be offers by the United States to work with more moderate and professional elements in the Zimbabwean army and police. Washington could prepare a renewed Zimbabwean Defense Force for lucrative, legitimate peacekeeping oppor-tunities by training and building their capacity, thereby bringing Zimbabwean soldiers back from the cold—but only if their hands were certifiably clean and only after a properly achieved democratic transition.

The United States should join with South Africa and SADC to develop benchmarks that could offset travel bans, if and when Washington trades those sanctions temporarily for the cessation of state-perpetrated violence and progress toward stability. Accomplishing such projects will strengthen Washington’s future ability to intervene peacefully for good elsewhere as well as in this regional conflict. It will help the United States to work closely with Zuma and those around him, improving relations and cooperation by lending the weight of Washington to the difficult and doubtless troubling transition from Mugabe to a stable aftermath.

Because South Africa’s actions are critical to the emergence of a peaceful and stable Zimbabwe, sustained high-level attention and the possible appointment of a special representative could help strengthen ties with President Zuma and his colleagues, particularly if President Zuma welcomed the appointment of a special envoy to work closely with him. The representative would then be able to help Zuma and others perfect and hone a workable approach to easing Mugabe out, ending violence, providing for a sure transition in the post-Mugabe era to a stable and democratic future, and making the external policy adjustments that will ensure cooperation between SADC and the West. South Africa might further appreciate being consulted meaningfully in this way.

Other Crucial InitiativesWashington’s reinvigorated engagement with Zimbabwe could include the gradual expansion of United States for International Development (USAID) project activities and the willingness of Washington to respond to meaningful requests for the kinds of capacity building and develop-mental assistance that ought to help in the rebuilding of Zimbabwe, post-Mugabe. But any rein-vigorated engagement should be conditioned on meaningful progress. Furthermore, it would be


important at this stage for Washington to be able to move quickly across agencies in its efforts to assist Zimbabwe. Mugabe’s demise will demand supple and swift responses that draw on a range of U.S. governmental institutions.

The United States should jointly plan and convene a meeting with South Africa to accelerate the approval of the Road Map and to plan and fund the economic revival of a post-Mugabe Zim-babwe. Conceivably, such a meeting could be opened by the secretary of state and presided over by the South African foreign minister and the assistant secretary of state for Africa. It would bring SADC and the United States (and the African Union, the United Kingdom, and the EU) together successfully in a concerted, public effort to prepare and work for a successful transition in Zimba-bwe. Promises of substantial post-Mugabe assistance for the retraining of the army, police, and civ-il service, and help in rebuilding the critical electrical power infrastructure, would be important, if obviously contingent on specified democratic procedures and outcomes capable of supporting the currently embattled forces of decency and democratic change.

A visit by the secretary of state to the region and to South Africa would also cement and for-tify the critical relationship between the United States and South Africa.

The MediaGiven the clear need for an informed public during all phases of the transition, it behooves the United States to redouble its support of independent media inside and outside Zimbabwe. If the provisions of the Road Map regarding the freeing up of radio and television inside the country are implemented, the United States should support new broadcasting initiatives and the moderniza-tion of information acquisition more generally. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives has done a very good job elsewhere in this arena. It should be poised to help Zimbabwe in this way, at the right time.

Meeting Zimbabwe’s Future NeedsAs Zimbabwe contemplates the end of the Mugabe era and begins to rebuild its battered nation, it will have many priorities, not least of which are strengthening agricultural productivity, restoring the rule of law, reducing corruption, reviving electricity generation, restoring fundamental infra-structural needs, and transforming the vast alluvial Marange diamond resource into a national asset rather than a source of personal plunder. The United States should prepare itself to assist in all these areas, as well as in capacity building for leadership.

DiamondsThe United States should assertively follow the diamond money trail from Zimbabwe to South Africa, other African countries, Dubai, and Hong Kong. American operatives should do so in a manner that enables the U.S. Treasury to deploy sanctions-like pressures directly. Telling ways could then be found to limit the ability of the key generals and Mugabe to continue to benefit personally from diamond proceeds, adding significantly to U.S. leverage. American investigators would first need to find out how diamond sales are managed and laundered and where. The U.S. Treasury could then restrict dealings with those banks and buyers. Having obtained that new le-verage, Washington could devise appropriate policy approaches to diamond cutting and diamond trading centers in India and China. Informal threats have already been made in these directions. Future threats would need to be monitored credibly and completely and articulated well to reduce


violence and intimidation as the succession struggle unfolds. Such financial interventions are ones that Washington can legitimately employ together with any promises to suspend targeted sanc-tions gradually in response to improvements (specified in detail and agreed on formally).

Washington’s current surveillance of the diamond fields should be combined with anti-mon-ey-laundering efforts focused on Dubai and the curtailing of any illicit trafficking of diamonds. Washington and other key capitals should assist the Ministry of Finance in at least understanding the dimension and financing of the Marange diamond fields. Such an offer should be advanced.

Generating a productive discussion on the Marange problem within the African Diamond Producers Association and the Kimberley Process is now very difficult. As one approach, however, Washington could stop focusing on controlling exports and begin sharper monitoring and cur-tailing of gem-quality diamond smuggling from Zimbabwe to improve quality and increase the received prices. The Kimberley Process itself does not know (or want to know) what is coming out of the ground; its global statistics are at best misleading. Or, if the Kimberley Process continues to resist change, the U.S. industry might consider mounting a separate effort to limit trade in gem diamonds to the United States and perhaps to Europe to only licit stones that might certifiably stem from Zimbabwe. Given that the primary leverage of Europe and the United States comes from consumers, the global diamond industry is well placed to attempt to stiffen the Kimberley Process. Because Angola, Namibia (not Botswana), and South Africa have used the process to focus on the politics of neocolonialism rather than on their own interests as producers, moving the discussion of Zimbabwe to the private sector and using the Kimberley Process to oversee and police the Marange problem could be more effective than diplomatic efforts.

Leadership Capacity BuildingZimbabwe has a vast leadership vacuum. Despite its high educational levels and the largely U.S.-educated corporate and political elite, responsible and visionary political leadership is conspicu-ously absent. As the country prepares for the post-Mugabe era, capacity training for those high- and medium-level politicians (MDC, ZANU, and others) who will inevitably be prominent in the post-Mugabe era is urgently and desperately needed. Botswana has long been well led and well governed. There is no reason why Zimbabwe cannot profit from the Botswanan experience and learn to some extent too from South Africa.

There is a woeful want of knowledge among most politicians of what leadership means, of the importance of transformational rather than transactional modes of leadership, of the critical nature of ethics and integrity in strengthening African leadership, and of the rudiments of run-ning a nation amid flattened time and space and fully globalized political realities. Few among the local political leadership understand economic fundamentals. Much can be transmitted to current and future political leaders by drawing on the best leadership examples from and experiences of the African continent. Those examples and training modules already exist in the African Leader-ship Council, chaired by former president Sir Ketumile Masire. A by-product of capacity-building seminars over a number of months would be an enriched cross-party dialogue, new allegiances, and an improved working knowledge of former enemies and potential colleagues.

Other ElementsThe United States cannot itself shift the nature of the debate about Zimbabwe and within Zimba-bwe. But it can multiply those efforts—even beyond serious engagement with South Africa and


the appointment of a regional special representative —if it partners with China and facilitates the return of the Zimbabwean diaspora.

China’s RoleChina is very heavily involved with Mugabe, Mnangagwa, and the Zimbabwean security forces. It has supplied uniforms to the army, is constructing a $98 million military staff college, and gave jet fighter aircraft (now grounded) to the air force. The Chinese Communist Party is allegedly helping fund ZANU. Chinese generals may recently have strategized with the securocrats about pre-electoral methods of intimidation. In June, it was rumored that China was supplying weapons to ZANU in the guise of shipments to the staff college. At least three Chinese firms are deeply engaged in formal diamond mining operations and possibly related illicit activities at Marange, and their actions need to be watched and managed. China, for all of these reasons, may attempt to keep Zimbabwe off the Security Council agenda. However, China needs the rest of Africa more than it needs Zimbabwe, where no petroleum has yet been discovered and where its minerals will become available whoever rules. China has made recent overtures to the MDC. South Africa and the big oil producers are more important to China than Zimbabwe, particularly because a new Zimbabwean government would almost certainly be willing to deal with Beijing.

Washington (in league with South Africa) should encourage and possibly help China reach out even more to the MDC and other forces of progressive change. China, emboldened by Wash-ington and encouraged by SADC and South Africa, could be a part of the short- and medium-term solution to Zimbabwe’s major problems. Although China’s opposition to reform should not be taken as given, the United States needs to set out its desire to partner with China diplomatically in ending the Mugabe era without bloodshed. If China could be induced to collaborate, Mugabe’s much vaunted “look East” adventures could be curtailed and support for him from China with-drawn. If so, any Security Council actions would proceed much more smoothly.

If reports of Chinese assistance to the securocrats prove true, however, the United States and South Africa need to make the extent of such military partnering known and to combat it assertively.

The DiasporaZimbabwe needs the talents and investments of its diaspora. Professionals have fled, as have technically trained personnel and capable artisans. The end of the Mugabe era and a peaceful and promising post-Mugabe transition will obviously help to reassure recent émigrés, especially those now in southern Africa. But the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom could also begin preparing a program that assists members of the diaspora in returning home if and when a stable political and economic atmosphere appears likely. Announcing such an initia-tive before any transition would also assist in strengthening forces favoring stability. Doing so would further signal the willingness of the West to re-engage with Zimbabwe (and with South Africa and SADC) when and if Zimbabwe is seen to be moving toward reinstating the rule of law and other components of good governance.

The governments of southern Africa would presumably welcome a U.S. willingness to assist them in repatriating Zimbabweans and in reducing or eliminating a social issue that has bedev-iled their own societies. In this way, U.S. promises to assist quietly in helping members of the diaspora to go home would bolster South African-U.S. cooperation and improve the likelihood of Zimbabwe’s ultimate reconstruction.

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about the working group

This report, authored by Robert I. Rotberg, draws on a series of discussions by a CSIS Working Group on Zimbabwe, which convened in the first half of 2011. The working group comprised U.S. congressional staff, former policymakers, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, corporate actors, scholars, and human rights and regional experts. The group also consulted cur-rent policymakers from the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs; Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and Bureau of Energy, Economic, and Business Affairs; as well as the National Security Council. The report benefited from the broad set of perspectives, insights, and analyses within the working group, but the final report reflects the views of the author. Member-ship in the working group does not imply endorsement of the report’s conclusions. The author bene-fited as well from travel to Zimbabwe and intensive additional consultation with civil and political society within Zimbabwe. Members of the working group included:

Akwe Amosu, Open Society Foundation

Jennifer G. Cooke, CSIS

Ambassador Chester Crocker, Georgetown University

Mollie Davis, U.S. Department of State

Richard Downie, CSIS

Ambassador Mark Green, Malaria Policy Center

Walter Kansteiner, Scowcroft Group

Lauren Ploch, Congressional Research Service

Phillip van Niekerk, Calabar Consulting

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about the author

Robert I. Rotberg chaired the CSIS Working Group on Zimbabwe. He is president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation and retired director of the Kennedy School of Government’s Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution at Harvard University. Earlier, he was president of La-fayette College, academic vice president of Tufts University, and professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has authored many books and articles about Zimbabwe, the politics and history of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and governance, failed states, corrup-tion, and genocide. Forthcoming is his Transformative Political Leadership: Making a Difference in the Developing World (Chicago, 2012), which has a section on Zimbabwe.


August 2011

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Program DirectorJennifer G. Cooke


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