Mugabe Critics Offer No Solutions to Zimbabwe’s Woes

This past week Zim­bab­we’s pres­i­dent, Robert Mugabe cel­e­brat­ed his 92nd birthday.

In the midst of a severe drought and mass star­va­tion, Mugabe spent a lit­tle over $800,000 with stu­dents singing, and with mul­ti­ple politi­cians attend­ing the event.

Writ­ing for Quartz Africa, Tanashe Mushaka­van­hu states that “To out­side observers, it can be hard to rec­on­cile how Mugabe still man­ages to occu­py such a beloved posi­tion in the Zim­bab­wean nation­al psyche.”

“To crit­ics and oppo­si­tion politi­cians, Mugabe and his par­ty are out of touch with the dai­ly strug­gles of the country’s 14 mil­lion peo­ple. But despite past attempts at polit­i­cal change and per­sis­tent rumors about his ail­ing health, he has con­tin­ued to main­tain his grip on the country.”

In Jan­u­ary, the coun­try was hit by El Nino, which caused lots of dam­age to crops and farm­land. We are told this was one of the worst droughts ever to hit the coun­try. The gov­ern­ment has declared a dis­as­ter and called for assis­tance from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The coun­try remains a bas­ket case while its neigh­bors, South Africa espe­cial­ly; con­tin­ue to make progress and advancement.

It is esti­mat­ed that about 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple are in need of food assistance.

Mugabe has been in pow­er since 1980 when the coun­try gained inde­pen­dence. He is con­sid­ered the African continent’s longest-serv­ing leader and the world’s old­est head of state. He has ruled Zim­bab­we with an iron hand, sup­press­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic efforts, impris­on­ing his oppo­nents, and often crit­i­cal of the country’s colo­nial mas­ter, Britain, and oth­er West­ern governments.

Over his dic­ta­tor­ship, the pop­u­la­tion has suf­fered incred­i­bly due to his land reforms. Many believe that the farm­land tak­en away from the white pop­u­la­tion back in 2000 was giv­en to his polit­i­cal allies with lit­tle to no equip­ment or farm­ing train­ing.

While a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues, Mugabe has stat­ed that he will remain in pow­er until the day The Lord calls him home. Essen­tial­ly, he has no plans of quitting.

Mean­while, there has been plen­ty of waste­ful talk in the media about Mugabe and this whole birth­day saga. What has been lack­ing is the offer of real solu­tions to the prob­lems in Zim­bab­we. Don’t we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to find answers to these prob­lems beyond crit­i­cism or con­dem­na­tion of Robert Mugabe?

For example—what are Zim­bab­weans going to do with Zim­bab­we? Should Robert Mugabe and his admin­is­tra­tion be giv­en a free ride while the coun­try con­tin­ues to suf­fer? Whose respon­si­bil­i­ty is it to bring change to Zim­bab­we? The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty or the peo­ple of Zimbabwe?

I’m all for help­ing and pro­vid­ing aid for the peo­ple of Zim­bab­we. But, by aid­ing, are we not allow­ing the gov­ern­ment to get away with its poor deci­sion-mak­ing? How long will the coun­try con­tin­ue to appeal for help from the rest of the world?

Anoth­er ques­tion is whether there should be restric­tions as well as guide­lines in the pro­vi­sion of human­i­tar­i­an aid to the country?

The Unit­ed States Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (USAID), cur­rent­ly involved with the pro­vi­sion of aid, has stat­ed that it has prop­er mea­sures put in place to make sure that the peo­ple who need the food are the ones receiv­ing it. But I won­der what those mon­i­tor­ing mech­a­nisms are and if peo­ple actu­al­ly use them.

As much as the peo­ple need to be helped, there should be stip­u­la­tions from these aid orga­ni­za­tions demand­ing the Zim­bab­we gov­ern­ment to cough up the funds to help in alle­vi­at­ing the hunger in the south­ern parts of Zimbabwe.

How about oth­er mea­sures “to move beyond human­i­tar­i­an efforts” as U.S. Ambas­sador Har­ry Thomas stated.

There must be pres­sure from the West as well in demand­ing fur­ther action from the Zim­bab­we gov­ern­ment to ensure bet­ter and prop­er ways of solv­ing its own prob­lems. It is way more than time for the Zim­bab­we nation to go beyond just buy­ing food to alle­vi­ate starvation.