Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Trading with Our Enemies

American Enterprise Institute :

Zimbabwe Sucks Up to Iran, China, and North Korea

By Roger Bate Posted: Monday, May 2, 2005 ARTICLES Weekly Standard, Volume 010, Issue 32 Publication Date: May 9, 2005

As Western nations shun the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, less scrupulous nations are filling the void. China, North Korea, and Iran are lending financial, military, and commercial support. Two weeks ago, Zimbabwe announced the purchase of six fighter aircraft from China with another six on the way. Enemy number one is Britain, claims Mugabe, and it wants to recolonize his country. He also alleges that George W. Bush is a threat: "We'll put up more of a fight than the Iraqis did." Such crazy talk would be amusing if the dictator's people weren't starving, and if he weren't building strong relations with regimes almost as odious as his own, and certainly more dangerous to us.

There is little doubt that Mugabe needs help. Having used his meager food supplies and hard currency as bribes in last month's stolen election, he has run out of resources. With the United States, the European Union, the Commonwealth nations, the World Bank, and most other agencies not wanting to help, he has established a "Look East" policy.

Talk has turned to whether immediate food needs might be funded by China or Iran. "We don't know where they will get the money from," says one aid worker. "[Iranian president Mohammad] Khatami was in Zimbabwe recently, so we wonder if it's someone like that."

South Africa was buying grain on behalf of Zimbabwe, but has recently stopped this practice. Some 40,000 tons a month are being sent from South Africa to private buyers in the city of Bulawayo. It is possible these are government-to-government sales, though South African traders refuse to deal with the Zimbabwean Grain Marketing Board because of nonpayment problems in the past. One trader tells me to expect an increase in food traffic between South Africa and Zimbabwe over the next few weeks, as more funding, probably from Tehran, buys grain in Johannesburg. If true, one wonders, What the Iranians are getting in return? Mugabe is turning to less reputable nations because the Southern African Development Community is angry with him over the damage he has caused to regional reputations. Neighboring leaders are quietly applying pressure, such as demanding priority over Zimbabwe in food aid from South Africa. (Late-season droughts and poor management destroyed much of the maize crop in Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique.) Although his neighbors publicly support Mugabe, and endorsed the recent stolen election, none wants to go to Harare to be the first to congratulate him on his victory.

Mozambican president Armando Guebuza, who was elected in November, has deliberately shunned Zimbabwe. "We have so far visited Angola, Botswana, and South Africa. We have deliberately side-stepped Zimbabwe because it is coming out of a controversial election," said a senior aide two weeks ago. "We will visit Zimbabwe and Namibia sometime, not now because we do not want to be seen as the first country to endorse the government there by undertaking an official state visit," added the official.

With neighbors like these, it's no wonder Zimbabwe has had to cultivate other relationships. Mugabe has longstanding ties to North Korea, whose military trained Zimbabwe's notorious fifth brigade, which, on behalf of Mugabe, slaughtered 20,000 Ndebele in the 1980s. The North Koreans are short of food themselves, but cash transfers--to support food and military purchases--are possibly ongoing. Another nation Zimbabwe enjoys good relations with is Malaysia, where Mugabe and his wife Grace spend several weeks a year shopping in Kuala Lumpur.

While his people starve, Mugabe has spent $200 million on aircraft to defend himself against a nonexistent enemy. The aircraft are the K-8 advanced jet trainer, a Chinese copy of the British Aerospace Hawk. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher okayed sales of the Hawk to Zimbabwe soon after independence in 1980.

But in 2000 spare parts became scarce after Tony Blair slapped an embargo on trade with Zimbabwe to protest human rights abuses. So China has taken up the slack, selling spare parts and now the jets themselves.

So far these eastern governments' interest in Zimbabwe poses little or no threat, but some day they may require a payoff from their nasty African ally. So Washington will have to stay abreast of happenings in Africa's southern heart of darkness. South African political analyst Greg Mills, testifying before the House International Relations Committee last week, thinks the United States should continue to engage the different factions within Mugabe's own party, ZANU-PF. "There are fissures everywhere within the party," he told me, "and the U.S. must maintain dialogue.

Regime change is not likely, but change within the regime is possible."

However it comes, change is needed for the starving of Zimbabwe and to prevent the long-term threat of Mugabe's "Look East" policy.

_____ Roger Bate is a resident fellow at AEI.

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