Another Jimmy Carter Foreign Policy Success, Revisited.

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The foreign policy gifts of Jimmy Carter - which gave us the secular, pluralist, pro-Western Iran we know today - just keep on giving. Recently, thanks to the postings at Theo Spark’s Last of the Few, I've been following the disaster in Zimbabwe and the man who made it so – it’s de-facto dictator, Robert "let-them-eat-nothing" Mugabe.

Mugabe is running "unopposed" for another term as president - as he's now forced the one viable opposition candidate out of the race. (The election is today.) In most democracies, candidates win elections by earning people’s votes. According to the Times article, Mugabe does it rather differently:

“If there is one MDC vote they will find that person and cut off his or her head,” Ben Freeth, a white farmer quoted his workers as telling him. “ ‘It is a serious threat’ were the words that they used to tell me.”

The same message was delivered to voters in Chiredzi, in the southeast of the country, who were handed serial numbers of their ballot papers and told that their votes would be traced and punishment meted out if they were found to have voted the “wrong way”.

You would think since Jimmy helped put Mugabe in power, the folks at the Carter Center, who claim to get all in a lather about free and fair elections, would be busy soaping themselves up over this one. But all they could muster was a press release. (Busy worrying about with all those Gitmo detainees, I guess.)

A quick history lesson: In 1965, what was then known as Rhodesia declared itself independent from Britain rather than give up white minority rule. Rhodesia quickly found itself isolated through sanctions, having to fight - rather successfully - a war with two Soviet-funded Marxist groups trying to topple the white-minority government. The leader of ZANU, one of the Soviet-sponsored groups, was Robert Mugabe.

By 1978 the white-minority government accepted the inevitable, and sought a way for peaceful transition to black-majority rule. A transition government was established, a new constitution was drafted, and the major non-violent group opposing white-minority rule, United African National Council, won the elections. It’s leader, American-educated Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa, became prime minister of the new Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

The two Soviet client groups, Mugabe’s ZANU, and the ZAPU, didn’t like the arrangement (they refused to participate) and they continued the war - ironically fighting against their stated goal – a popularly elected black majority government. The British government and the Carter Administration were not happy the Marxists were cut out, either. They shunned the new government, and in 1979 they forced a “peace agreement” to include the two Marxist groups. New elections were held in 1980 which, after some ZANU “campaigning” (e.g., intimidations, beatings, killings) which the British and the Carter Administration largely ignored, Robert Mugabe won. And - surprise, surprise – Mugabe hasn’t lost since.

In 1980 Robert Mugabe inherited a country that was a net exporter of food (it was known as "The Breadbasket of Africa”), had a small, but educated and growing black middle class, a mostly stable economy (even with the sanctions and war), and had an opportunity to heal the racial divide.

Mugabe sought to change all of that. And to the misery of the average Zimbabwean, black and white, he succeeded. After an initial flourish of optimism (and a lot of self-congratulating by British and American leaders), Mugabe has tried to force Zimbabwe into a one-party, Marxist-socialist state with him as permanent leader. As with all such experiments which combine economic naivete, political thuggery and mob rule, it didn’t go well. Since 1980 Zimbabwe has gone from an exporter of food to the brink of starvation. Mugabe always blames others – white farmers, foreigners (especially Britain and the US), and the opposition – for the country’s problems. And when that doesn't work, intimidation, repression, and sometimes death suffice to keep Mugabe and his cronies in power. (Case in point.)

Robert Mugabe has turned a promising opportunity in post-colonial reconciliation and peace into just another starving, corrupt, African dictatorship with hyper-inflation. A basket case without a basket.

And those who helped put Mugabe there, the British and Americans, don’t seem to be too bothered about it. They make noises, true, but they do not seem too interested in actually doing anything about it. And the UN? They think Mugabe is great! And even invited him to speak at (irony of ironies) the World Food Security Conference earlier this month in Rome, where Mr. Mugabe ate pretty well.

The other day Megan McArdle postulated that the average Zimbabwean today is worse off than they were under Ian Smith’s white-minority rule. While I think, statistically, she may be right, that becomes a slippery argument that can easily segway into paternalism and racism. I do not think it is a apt comparison, as there are factors other than economic well-being involved. (Moussilini made the trains run on time. So what? Is it better to eat on your knees or starve on your feet?) I think the better argument here is the moral one - that Robert Mugabe and his cronies have proven themselves today to be as big a threat to freedom, liberty and progress in Africa as Ian Smith and his folks were in 1965. Ian Smith subverted democracy to keep power. So today, does Mugabe. Is a Marxist with a whip better than a Master with one? If the world treated Ian Smith as a pariah when he wouldn’t respect freedom and the democratic process, the world must do the same with Robert Mugabe.