The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a hearing on the situation in Zimbabwe on Tuesday, July 15th at  10:15 AM.  Rhick Bose has travelled to Zimbabwe last November and witnessed some of the unrest in that country. He had a front row seat to some of the political rallies that preceeded the election and saw the difficulties the people of Zimbabwe were having with the terrible economic and political situation there.  Rhick Bose is an intern in the JohnKerry.com office and has generously offered to share what he observed and offers some insights based on his experiences with members of the Zanu-PF. His co-writer on this post is Fred Jennings who shares Rhick's interest in African Affairs and in the situation in Zimbabwe in particular. His blog on International Relations is at blog.simnatic.com.

Part 1, the current situation

By the dawn's early light last week in Zimbabwe, the runoff election took place despite sharp criticism from the international community and the African Union. On June 27th, the second round of voting was carried out. Those unwilling to go to the polls were, in some areas, taken there by armed militiamen.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew, stating that the violence and bloodshed surrounding the upcoming elections had made a free and fair election impossible. Thus, Mugabe went unopposed in the decisive run-off election.

The day after the elections, President Bush made a statement calling for strong sanctions on Zimbabwe as a follow-up to a joint statement by G8 countries on June 27th. On June 30th, this was followed by a US draft resolution to the UN titled "Draft Elements for a Chapter VII Sanctions Resolution." It would levy travel bans and freeze assets for members of the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), Mugabe's political party, and would place an embargo on arms sales to Zimbabwe like the controversial shipment from China that happened in April of this year. (Humans Rights First has an excellent summary of China's arms sales to Zimbabwe.) This resolution was introduced into the Security Council agenda on July 12, and vetoed by Russia and China. The U.S. and U.K. characterized the veto as "incomprehensible" and saying it "called into question Russia's reliability as a G8 partner." 

Apart from the stated reason of noninterference in what Russia and China had deemed to be Zimbabwe's "internal affairs," a possible reason for the veto could be time to gauge the effectiveness of the recent high-level negotiations held in South Africa between the ruling Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC with mediators representing South African President Thabo Mbeki. Progress remains to be seen however, as Tsvangiari has characterized the meetings as "talks about talks."

According to journalist Caiphas Chimhete and allAfrica.com, the current violence may be less widespread but is much more coordinated:

" University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer Eldred Masunungure said the attack on MDC activists and their properties by suspected Zanu PF supporters was an attempt to pressure the opposition party to the negotiating table. 'If you look at the violence, it is no longer targeted at the general public as it was prior to the 27 June election but at key MDC activists. It an attempt to force them to the negotiating table,' Masunungure said.

He said soon after the March election, the violence was directed at the general public in order to force them to vote for Mugabe. But now the violence was targeting key MDC officials."

Despite strong statements by the UN, AU, and many leading nations both African and Western, very little international action has been undertaken yet to relieve the plight of the Zimbabwean people. Notably, Botswana, a neighbor country with longtime relations with Zimbabwe, has called for barring Mugabe from the African Union and the South African Development Community (SADC) . More recently, the Botswana Defense Forces have been deployed along the Botswana-Zimbabwe border, and Botswana has severed diplomatic ties with Zimbabwe .

For more information, Reuters has organized a fairly comprehensive and digestible "Factbox" entitled "What might the world do about Zimbabwe?"

 

Rhick Bose is a member of the Class of 2009 at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA majoring in International Studies