Is this significant?

There is a curious detail buried in the horrific but not altogether surprising story of the car crash that killed Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's wife and put him in hospital where he was visited by President Mugabe. I hope they checked all the food and every medical tool afterwards.

The MDC is, understandably in view of the large number of Mugabe's opponents who have died in car accidents, demanding an independent inquiry. Maybe the UN can oblige or that well-known supporter of democracy and human rights, the European Union.

However, what caught my attention was the description of the truck that ploughed into the Prime Minister's car, which for some unknown reason had no protection at all:

Police on Friday said Tsvangirai's car collided with a truck which crossed into the oncoming lane and side-swiped the prime minister's vehicle, causing it to roll several times.

ABC News in the United States cited unnamed US officials as saying the truck belonged to a contractor working for the US and British governments.

The truck, which had a USAID insignia on it, was purchased by US government funds and its driver was hired by a British development agency, the report said. USAID stands for the US Agency for International Development.

One would certainly like to know a bit more about that.

COMMENT THREAD
COMMENT THREAD
COMMENT THREAD

Do these people actually read anything?

It is always pleasant to be appreciated and I tend to purr (though not as loudly as my cats) when I get an e-mail from an unexpected quarter that tells me that somebody I have never heard of has read something I had written and has been inspired by it. Well, never mind about the inspiration, I am quite happy when they say that they have read it.

Mind you, if it is someone who thinks that the Russian town of Kursk (big tank battle) is in Ukraine, then I think about giving up because clearly one cannot get the readers one is used to any more. Nor am I all that impressed by people telling me with great sighs of sorrow about Greeks feeling strongly about Alexander the Great and me not understanding what Macedonia means to them. I wonder whether they feel strongly about all those Greek City States that Alexander and his father Philip destroyed.

Anyway, enough of this frivolity. Today I received a serious missive from one Carly Scott, who is on the campaign team of an NGO I have never heard of (they multiply by the day and guess who is paying for all that shebang), Every Human Has Rights. The missive was in response to my piece about Zimbabwe and economic matters. I really do not understand why Carly Scott did not write to the boss, who has been covering Zimbabwe far more assiduously recently but who can understand the mind of someone who is on an NGO's campaign team.

Hi Helen,

I saw your post on Zimbabwe at EU Referendum. It's great to see that situation getting coverage in the blogosphere.

Last summer Nelson Mandela brought a group of really dedicated individuals together - ex heads of state and Nobel laureates - to work on solving global issues. His hope for the new group, The Elders, is for them to "speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken". They're working on the crisis in Zimbabwe now, and they want your help.

There are so many issues in dire need of attention right now, but human rights ties them all together. The Elders launched the Every Human Has Rights campaign to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and celebrate human rights as that common thread that weaves our struggles and our victories together. We're asking the blogosphere to take part. Would you be willing to add a link from your page to the Every Human Has Rights website?

We also have badges and flash widgets so bloggers can show support for the campaign. We're trying to get as many people as possible to sign a personal pledge to uphold the principles of the Universal Declaration. We have action partners to help people get more involved. We have tools so people can bring the 'rights perspective' to their own organization's events. We're doing everything we can to bring people together to stand up for human rights.

We need bloggers. We need you. Please join our effort.

When I read through this bilge twice I realized that I had started purring a little too soon. Quite clearly Ms Scott had not read a word I had written. Otherwise, she might have found it a little difficult to conclude that I was the sort of blogger that went weak at the knees when an NGO, which is in partnership with all the usual suspects (at the bottom of the website), calls upon me to help them to bring people together to stand up for human rights. And what a painful experience that will be.

As it happens the story of the Elders was not new to me or to readers of this blog, I trust, and I sent her this link and this one, to inform her of what I had said, suggesting that if she still wants my involvement not to hesitate but get back in touch. I shall not be holding my breath.

At the time I suggested:

As it happens, I have an immediate suggestion for Bishop Desmond Tutu, ex-President Nelson Mandela and his wife, Graça Machel.

There is this country, called Zimbabwe, right on your doorstep. Plenty of immense human suffering there. You have time to spare on world problems, which all just happen to be caused by the United States in President Mandela's estimation? Well, how about spending some of it on that country on your doorstep?

I was informed by admirers of the good Bishop (really Shakespeare had the right idea about bishops, archbishops and cardinals, making them all as wicked as can be) that he was working very hard behind the scenes to sort out the Zimbabwe mess, though not, perhaps, the growing South Africa mess.

A year has gone by and the mess has merely intensified while the Elders, one assumes, have been holding meetings and making pronouncements. Ms Scott, bless her little cotton socks, tells me that the Elders are working on the crisis now. Well good. When I hear what they have done I might reconsider my opinion of that despicable bunch of has-beens.

In the meantime, I have two suggestions in connection with Every Human Has Rights. I have linked to it twice in this posting and let me encourage our readers to spend a little time on that website mostly by writing to the members of the NGO asking them what they have done in practical terms and making a few suggestions. Just five minutes from every reader should make the little darlings' day.

Secondly, I should like to point out that I do my bit to help the developing countries by the surest and simplest method of all. Whenever possible I buy goods imported from those countries thus contributing to their trade, their eventual welfare and human rights. I have told the boss that if he hears of any shop selling goods from Afghanistan to let me know - I wish to do my part in helping that country.

What will be Zimbabwe's future?

Some people would argue that Zimbabwe has no future – the country has effectively collapsed and its population, for the most part, barely manages to exist, while its tyrannical president and those close to him are leading a luxurious life, thanks to the Chinese control of platinum production and, let us not forget, to the ever gullible West that keeps providing him, his friends and relations with money and platforms for his poisonous attacks.

However, the truth is that there is always a future, though in the case of Zimbabwe it is anything but bright. As I mentioned before, few things are more depressing than attending discussions with people who are knowledgeable about that country.

For all of that, both my colleague and I write about Zimbabwe not just because it is one of the real horror stories in the world at the moment but also because the country has become a symbol, a distillation of all that has gone wrong with many parts of the developing world, particularly Africa and of all the mistakes that the West has made and continues to make, not least because of the activity of the NGOs and transnational organizations.

Yesterday the International Policy Network (IPN) held another lunch-time discussion about Zimbabwe. This time it was led by Rejoice Ngwenya who is the Director of the Coalition for Market Liberal Solutions in Harare – a brave and optimistic man. Well, he is alive and can even get some money from the West to help his mother and buy food for himself.

It was rather good to hear from Mr Ngwenya about the importance of the economic collapse, engineered to a great extent by Mugabe himself and the various placemen in the establishment. For example, there is a 10 million per cent inflation in the country, which makes any discussion of living standards a sick joke. This was caused largely by the Reserve Bank printing a great deal of money in order to finance the government’s debt and to ensure that the ruling elite had its wealth to play with.

How is one to overcome this problem on the assumption that there will be a post-Mugabe future for the country? How is any trust in the currency to be restored? Normally, a huge inflation of this kind has to be stopped by a ruthless reform by a government: the introduction of another currency or a deliberate recalibration of the existing one so the number of noughts is reduced from, say ten to one. When will Zimbabwe have a government that will be able to carry out such a procedure and what can be done in the country without it?

Priority, Mr Ngwenya asserted, will have to be given to the restoration of productivity (and let us not forget that Zimbabwe used to have a successful economy), the reversal of the catastrophic brain-drain as well as the above-mentioned restoration of faith in the currency and in any political process.

As is clear from the title of his institute, Mr Ngwenya is a free-marketeer who sees the roots of many of his country’s problems in President Mugabe’s consistent socialist policies. The trouble is that the MDC under Morgan Tsvangirai (a brave man but not one who inspires one with great faith in his economic and political abilities) is also a socialist though of the social-democrat variety. Can one, therefore, expect anything useful from the party if it ever comes to power?

There were many other problems and issues raised both by the speaker and the audience. The role of Thabo Mbeki and South Africa, for instance; the need to take into account in the future the sizeable Mugabe constituency (I must admit that sounds like whistling in the dark – should the man ever die, there will be a great settling of scores and it will not be pretty); the fact that the education system has disintegrated. Schools cannot afford to function with the inflation and so there is no education.

This is extremely bad for the future of the country. While I share (up to a point) my colleague’s obsession with roads (well, it’s better than those shiny toys) I cannot dismiss schools as being of lesser importance. One of South Africa’s problems at the moment is that boycott of schools that the ANC enjoined on the townships from the eighties onwards. A generation or two of uneducated, unemployable, highly volatile youngsters is a disaster for any country.

Let us not forget our own involvement in Zimbabwe’s catastrophe. It was Lord Soames that presided over the Lancaster House Conference in 1979 that gave Robert Mugabe power, which he used to destroy all rivals, all opposition and to launch a war against the Ndebele in Matabeleland. While the killing went on, Robert Mugabe was feted in the West as one of the most progressive African leaders.

Nor was there a great deal of interest or cutting off completely unnecessary aid when President Mugabe involved his troops in wars and civil wars around him, invading DR Congo in the 1990s. Not much was said even in criticism when he passed anti-business legislation and it is only in 2000 when, in response to a re-forming opposition movement he gathered the so-called war veterans to spread terror and anarchy and to destroy white-owned farms (as well as black-owned ones and the black workers on them) that the first feeble protests were heard.

They were not up to much. One mention of the word colonialism sent all protesters scurrying into hiding. Even those famous bans on travel have come to nothing as we have pointed out before. Oddly enough, I think President Mugabe cares very much about being invited to various international shindigs, be they African Union meetings, UN gatherings of one kind or another or the EU-Africa Summit. Banning him from them may not sound particularly harsh but it would cause him a good deal of grief. Furthermore, other African dictators might rally round, refusing to attend all those extremely expensive and completely pointless meetings and that would be all to the good.

What Zimbabwe has now is state-sponsored anarchy with bouts of extreme violence. Mr Ngwenya showed some pictures of what happens to people who oppose or are thought to oppose ZANU-PF. You will be glad to know that I do not have any pictures like that. Nor do I propose to quote some of the descriptions I have read in the last few months of what Mugabe’s thugs do to oppositionists and their families.

What of China some of us asked? My colleague has written highly illuminating posts on the subject of that country’s involvement in Africa. Interestingly enough, Mr Ngwenya was less concerned about it than we had expected though that may be because even China is not risking too much in Zimbabwe. Her involvement in DR Congo, for instance, is far greater.

According to Mr Ngwenya, China is not likely to make any long-term investments in Zimbabwe. It is heavily involved in the retail and it sounds like the only things that can be bought in the country are those imported by China. At other times a complicated system of barter or personal importation with great difficulty from surrounding countries take place.

The exact details of Mugabe’s agreements with China are still unknown but it is unlikely that they would in any way benefit the people of Zimbabwe. China is owed a great deal of money and this is being extracted via the platinum mining rights, as explained by my colleague. Mugabe receives a percentage and lives the high life off it while the rest of the country staggers on, occasionally helped out by bits of aid from us.

What is one to make of it all? Is there anything remotely not-too-dark for Zimbabwe in the short, medium or long term future? Can’t see anything immediately though the presence of people like Mr Ngwenya does give one some grounds for hope. Can we do anything? Not immediately, except giving support to the people who can possibly make some change. But we can, at least, try to do no evil. How about not sending any more aid to Robert Mugabe or any other bloodthirsty kleptocrat? It would be a small step but one in the right direction.

Of course they have immunity

Some time ago I wrote on my alternative outlet, the BrugesGroupBlog, that, unusually, the UN was being sued because the negligence and, let’s face it, incompetence and lack of understanding of what was going on, had resulted in the deliberate murder of 8,000 men and boys. Given the UN’s track record in peacekeeping operations (DR Congo and the Balkans in general spring to mind but others are not far behind) this was going to be an important decision. And it is.

Yesterday the International Herald Tribune reported that

A Dutch court ruled Thursday that it has no jurisdiction in a civil suit against the United Nations by survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, affirming U.N. immunity from prosecution, even when genocide is involved.

A group called the Mothers of Srebrenica was seeking compensation for the failure of Dutch United Nations troops to prevent the slaughter by Serb forces of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males in the U.N.-declared safe zone.

The Hague District Court said the U.N.'s immunity — which is written into its founding charter — means it cannot be held liable in any country's national court.

As the Dutch government lawyer, Bert Jan Houtzagers, said

if a Dutch court decided it had jurisdiction in the case, "any court in any country could do so and that would thwart the viability of the United Nations."

Well, we wouldn’t want to thwart the UN’s viability, would we? And on that subject, we hear that the Security Council has rejected the idea of sanctions on Zimbabwe, a decision that, according to President Robert Mugabe, who has already been feted by the African Union, is a defeat for racism.

Two of the countries that blocked the American resolution were China and Russia, permanent members of the Security Council. Is anybody surprised by that? Well, David Miliband, our youthful looking Foreign Secretary seems to be. To him Russia’s veto is “incomprehensible”.

"I'm very disappointed that the U.N. Security Council should have failed to pass a strong and clear resolution on Zimbabwe," Miliband said in a statement.

"It'll appear incomprehensible to the people of Zimbabwe that Russia, which committed itself at the G8 to take further steps including introducing financial and other sanctions, should stand in the way of Security Council action."

"Nor will they understand the Chinese vote," Miliband said. Veto-holding China was also among five countries that opposed the U.S.-drafted text in the 15-nation council on Friday.

Of the other members, South Africa, Libya and Vietnam also voted against and Indonesia abstained. Russia maintained that Zimbabwe posed no international threat and, therefore, the situation was not within the Security Council’s remit. This may well be true but it merely underlines the need to stop pretending that the UN is some kind of a moral force for good in the world. (Not that this blog has ever been known to say that.)

While we are on the subject of not pretending any longer, it might be a good idea not to pretend that Russia is in any way an ally of the West. Predictably, the Russian Foreign Ministry hit back at British and American criticisms of the country’s stand over Zimbabwe:

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement Saturday said the criticism "places a question mark over the worthiness of Russia as a G-8 partner," The Associated Press reported.

It added that the possibility of U.N. sanctions on Zimbabwe was excluded at a recent G-8 summit in Japan.

Russia said it believed the sanctions would set a precedent for U.N. meddling, AP reported.

Does this mean that Russia is about to leave the G8 in a huff? Let us hope so. After all, questions about the suitability of her membership – hardly one of the leading industrical economies or a democracy – have been asked ever since the anomalous situation had been created.

The last sentence, on the other hand, makes it clear what Russia is really saying, regardles of what it did or did not agree to at the G8 meeting. Ever since the idea of a United Nations was mooted, the Soviet Union showed itself to be determined to ensure that internal oppression and human rights crimes should not come under its aegis. This is probably quite a good idea as the UN can do absolutely nothing about any of these problems. On the other hand, it does rather obviate the necessity for the UN and that Russia would not like. The Security Council has always been a useful forum.

If the UN starts agreeing to sanctions on countries and politicians who are guilty of serious crimes against humanity and, indeed, human beings, then might it not one day start discussing the behaviour of certain politicians in Chechnya? Probably not, as it happens, but the Russian government believes in being safe. Of course, its recent intervention and creeping invasion of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia may well be described as a threat to international security and may be the other reason why Russia is so very unanxious to see the UN straying into that territory.

The question is whether the UN refusing to agree on sanctions against Zimbabwe makes the government now legitimate enough for the EU to resume (if it ever stopped) giving aid to the country. As Reuters reports:

The European Commission is ready to provide up to 250 million euros in development aid for Zimbabwe's worst-hit sectors if the country gets a legitimate, credible government, the EU's aid chief said.

The European Union's executive arm would then also call for an international lifting of debt owed by the country, EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said.

"I would encourage the rest of the international donor community to make it clear today that it is ready to provide substantial and immediate assistance to Zimbabwe in the wake of a transition towards democracy," Michel said.

The Commission is not the EU’s executive arm but both legislative and executive (and completely illegitimate in itself, let it be said in passing, though not precisely in the Mugabe league of nastiness) and its readiness to plunge money into a country that is a complete mess without bothering to find out what is really needed and to what extent the people of that country should be allowed to take charge of it is really touching.

By the way, Mugabe’s government has been illegitimate and viciously oppressive for quite a long time, during which he, together with his friends and relations, has managed to wreck what was an extremely successful economy. Does that mean the EU stopped giving the country’s rulers our money to ensure that they stayed in power and continued to oppress the people of Zimbabwe? Not on your life and not on the Zimbabweans' life either.

The European Commission is the most important aid donor to Zimbabwe and last year provided 91 million euros in humanitarian aid and other assistance.

Anyone would think the European Commission was handing over the Commissioners’ own money to possibly the bloodiest tyranny in Africa at the moment. Mrs Mugabe, for one, must have been very grateful for the help she received in her shopping trips.

You mean he does not know?

Here is a really wonderful excuse for having Robert Mugabe, the one the EU was not going to allow anywhere on its territory ever, ever, ever, at the Lisbon EU-Africa Summit, which will inaugurate a new "strategic global dialogue" between the two entities, if, indeed, one can call Africa a single political entity.

This new strategic dialogue will, it seems, be achieved without any reference to reforms in trade policy either in the EU or in Africa, without reforms in the CAP or the CFP and, one assumes, with no lessening of aid that goes to keep bloodthirsty kleptocrats in power.

Anyway, the excuse reason was explained by Manuel Lobo Antunes, European Affairs minister for Portugal, who is displeased by the fact that Prime Minister Gordon Brown and, possibly, one or two other people form various Member States will boycott the Summit.

This is not right, sayd Señhor Lobo Antunes; this is not the way to approach dictators. One must confront them and tell them face to face what one thinks of them.

Right. So President Mugabe does not know what the rest of the world except for his mates in other African countries thinks of him? I am sorry Señhor Lobo Antunes will have to try better.

Few events are more depressing than meetings about Zimbabwe

Except, perhaps, reading about the EU's total spinelessness with regards to its own supposed rules of political engagement. It is now official: after all the humming and ha-ing and even harrumphing, the EU under its Portuguese presidency is inviting President Mugabe, the man who destroyed one of the most successful countries in Africa and either murdered, tortured or driven out large sections of her population, is to be invited to the EU-Africa Summit in December.

Why is it impossible to keep at least Mugabe out, given that the common position of the EU, that bedrock of the planned common foreign policy is that the man, his friends and relations as well as various henchmen should not be allowed anywhere in the European Union?

Because other African leaders have said that unless their chum Robert is invited they will not come. Of course, this says something about other African leaders, something that many African journalists and analysts have been saying for some time but, as we have already pointed out, the EU could have used that childish nonsense to get out of the whole plan.

No EU-Africa Summit? Well, what a shame. A lot of money will be saved, of course, and the people of Africa will see that we, in Europe, take their problems seriously. But then, of course, we do not. We care more about having Summits and being nice to bloodthirsty and kleptocratic dictators.

One waits to see whether Gordon Brown will do as he threatened and keep to that common position by refusing to attend the Summit and whether all those human-rights-loving Scandinavians will support him by not attending either.

As it happens, I attended a lunch at IPN on Tuesday that was supposed to discuss the post-Mugabe future of Zimbabwe. The speakers were Judith Todd, who was involved in Rhodesian and Zimbabwean politics for all her life and the journalist and editor Geoffrey Nyarota who has had to leave and now resides in Massachusetts from where he keeps in close touch with developments in his native country.

Mr Nyarota is a remarkably courageous man as can be seen from the briefest biography. Sadly, he did not do himself justice in his inability to convey any ideas to the audience as to what might happen in Zimbabwe, what should happen and what well-meaning outsiders can do.

On the one hand, he was annoyed with President Bush because the latter made it clear that, in his view, South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki is the “point man” for the international community on Zimbabwe. On the other hand, he thought former Prime Minister Blair made a big mistake when he said that yes, the British government was involved in trying to sort out the mess and was working with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

This statement, he implied, gave President Mugabe the excuse to destroy the MDC. When pressed on the subject, however, Mr Nyaroto described the collapse of the MDC as brought about by a split, possibly engineered by Zanu-PF agents.

Nor was Mr Nyaroto too pleased by the attack on Mr Mugabe by Peter Tatchell. This, he assured us, brought all Zimbabweans together as it was seen an attack on them all. In this rather odd statement he was contradicted by several people who have dealt with Zimbabweans through economic discussions or by broadcasting to them.

There were messages and letters from that country that sounded very pleased that somebody, somewhere is taking their problems seriously and attacking the country’s tyrant.

Mr Nyaroto also said that, understandably, the people of Zimbabwe do not want to be "liberated" by the South Africans but will want to think that they had achieved their freedom themselves. To this end, it is necessary to mobilize them for the forthcoming elections.

The trouble is, as he genially explained himself, when not getting lost in extraneous matters, being a journalist, the media is completely under Mugabe’s control. The people are beyond poor – they are at the end of their tether. It is, let us face it, questionable whether most of them can think beyond day to day survival and, while some extremely courageous people do get mobilized for demonstrations and political meetings, the fact that they are almost inevitably beaten up and the elections are conducted in a fraudulent fashion would rather discourage people from getting involved.

So, that got us nowhere. Judith Todd was more focused in her presentation and discussions. In the first place, she explained, Robert Mugabe has not changed. He was never anything but a Communist-trained thug.

She talks about this in her book, "Through the Darkness: a Life in Zimbabwe" and gives a summary in this article in the Times, which is very well worth reading.

The book blows sky-high the usual picture of Zimbabwe as having been run more or less reasonably by Mugabe, until his defeat in the constitutional referendum of 2000 caused him to pull down the pillars of the temple. As becomes all too clear, the worm was in the apple from the start, with the new regime adopting a totali-tarian and often violent attitude towards opposition.

Torture, corruption and disregard for the rule of law were the norm right away – indeed, the real question is how on earth Lord Soames, Britain’s proconsul in charge of the transition to majority rule, could have permitted the 1980 election.

Mugabe broke all the rules – his guerrillas roamed the villages when they should have been at assembly camps, there was widespread intimidation and open violence against many opposition candidates: one such candidate was last seen pinned to the ground having red hot coals rammed down his throat.

What fooled many people was that once Mugabe had forcibly incorporated Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu into his ruling Zanu-PF the country was so close to a one-party state that Mugabe simply didn’t need to show the iron fist, but it was always there. “As I try to show, there were a few people, like the guerrilla veteran, Aaron Mutiti, who understood Mugabe from the start. Aaron said in 1980, 'Family life, religious life and economic life as we know it will progressively disappear if Mugabe gets to power'.

Better not ask too many questions about Lord Soames and some of the other British politicians who were so anxious to be rid of the problem they wilfully ignored what was fairly obvious to anyone who had even the slightest interest in the country.

It is, of course, true that, ultimately, it will have to be the people of Zimbabwe who will have to sort their country out. But when a country and its people have been reduced to the state that country and those people have, it is essential that the outside world give them support.

First and foremost the support should be coming from South Africa, a country that is taking much of the brunt of the refugee crisis. So far Thabo Mbeki has gone along with the ludicrous notion that Robert Mugabe is somehow a hero of the anti-colonial fight. It is hard to tell what motivates him as he must know what is really going on in South Africa’s northern neighbour. Would Mr Mbeki be waiting for Mr Mugabe’s death and the country descending into a Somalia-like chaos?

It is worth noting a couple more things that Ms Todd mentioned. In the first place, she told us about the Zimbabwe Institute, which produces interesting papers about what could be done in Zimbabwe in the future, though as she emphasised, it is essential that Robert Mugabe be disposed of first. (I suppose he must die some time.)

Secondly, she, unlike her co-speaker, thought that pressure from the outside world would actually have an effect. Mugabe, his friends, relations and henchmen, do not like not being allowed to other countries for fruitless political discussions, medical treatment, shopping and many other purposes. She must be somewhat disappointed, to put it mildly, by the EU's decision to ignore the tragedy of the people of Zimbabwe.

COMMENT THREAD

What is wrong with the Observer?

Actually, that is a rhetorical question. Trying to answer it does not seem to me to be a particularly fruitful way of spending Sunday evening.

Every now and then I cannot help asking the question, though. Take the article today about Gordon Brown refusing to attend the EU-Africa Summit if Robert Mugabe is invited.

As far as most people are concerned and that must include even readers of the Observer, that is possibly the only statement Gordon Brown has made, with which one can agree wholeheartedly (give or take the fact that many of us think an EU-Africa Summit is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money).

Furthermore, by refusing to countenance Mugabe’s presence in Lisbon, Gordon Brown shows himself to be the only leader of an EU Member Country to stick to the letter and content of the Common Position on Zimbabwe. Did all those Member States not agree as part of the common foreign policy to refuse to admit Mugabe as well as his friends and relations to European soil? Is that not one of the great advantages, as we were told by the Independent some time ago, of having the EU – that there can be a common position of this kind and it can be enforced?

None of which matters. What is of importance (well, apart from the fact that Gordon Brown shows himself to be an imperialist by his disapproval of one of the bloodiest kleptocrats in Africa) is that it will all be so embarrassing.

No one wants a repeat of 2000 when Tony Blair boycotted a conference over Mugabe's presence, or of 2003 when a summit in Lisbon was abandoned over the same issue - EU sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe in 2002 included a travel ban on the dictator. And this year, the Portuguese hosts say, the potential rewards of closer ties between the two continents outweigh antagonism between the leaders of Britain and Zimbabwe.

Whitehall sources insist Brown's decision to boycott is not meant as a rebuke to Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who will host the meeting. 'In the coverage it has been about the Prime Minister and Mugabe,' the source said. 'That is not how he sees it. The assumption is that Mugabe is going. If he is there, the Prime Minister doesn't want to attend. But he is not saying he should not go. He is not dictating who should attend. He is just saying he will not go.'

Then there will be the embarrassment of other African leaders not turning up because Mugabe is not invited.

Other nations have weighed in - Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa has stepped up to say if Mugabe doesn't go, then he won't either, and two empty African chairs would cause considerable embarrassment to fledgling African unity.

Well, diddums. What all these people should be embarrassed by is the fact that for all their high-falutin’ chatter they do not care what happens to Africa or Africans. That goes for all the aid merchants as well.

As we suspected, if Brown holds firm he may well find the Scandinavian countries on his side and the Summit will be so embarrassing that it will not happen. Well, one can dream, can’t one.

Will anything useful come out of the Summit? Doubtful. Does anyone even have any useful ideas to discuss? It doesn’t look like it. Will we continue to pour aid into that benighted Continent for it all to be stolen by the tyrannical kleptocracy? You bet. Will we ever understand that the best thing we can do is get out, trade with the African countries and let private enterprise develop? Not in the foreseeable future.

So why have the Summit? Oh well, you know, it is good to talk and useful things can come out of it and, anyway, the Chinese are establishing their hegemony in Africa. And that is our problem because …. Oh wait, it is not our problem.

The Chinese will establish their hegemony by buying and selling. They need energy and other resources and they are ready to sell arms for it. Nothing to be done about that unless we can somehow put pressure on China. Summits with African countries will not help.

As for aid – that stupid the Chinese are not. They give when they want something in return and they make sure that they get that something. They don’t even bother to set up Communist or quasi-Communist parties the way the Soviets used to do. On the whole it might be quite a useful way of handling the African problem. Certainly no less useful than Summit Blather and large amounts of moolah handed over to the nasties, which seems to be our chosen method.

COMMENT THREAD

Will he live up to it?

Gordon Brown seems intent on breaking with his colleagues in the European Union over one particular issue and no, it is not the Council mandate aka Constitution Mark II. It is, however an important issue if the European claim to the moral high ground is to be taken at all seriously.

It seems that our new Prime Minister has made it clear that he will not attend the EU - Africa Summit in December if President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is there. As we mentioned (0nce or twice) before, the Portuguese Presidency, intent on strengthening those EU - Africa relations though not on thinking a lot more clearly as to whether the EU's aid and trade policies are at all useful to that benighted continent, has agreed to invite President Mugabe to the Summit because a number of other African statesmen (if that is the right word), led by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, refused to attend unless the invitation goes out. It seems that agreed EU rules about ban on visas are less important than threats of non-attendance by African leaders.

Mr Brown has now announced that he is staying on the moral high ground and will definitely stay away from the Summit should President Mugabe be there. Of course, the obvious answer to the threat by President Mbeki and others ought to have been: "oh fine, well then sadly we shall have to do without the Summit and you will have to do without your goodies".

According to the same report, pressure is being put on the Harare government to send some senior official in December. With Mugabe's absence everybody's face will be saved.

Strictly speaking that ought not to make any difference, as senior officials are almost as guilty as politicians of the horror that Zimbabwe has become. It is also questionable whether Mugabe himself will go along with this notion or announce that it is all an imperialist plot and insist on showing up at the Summit.

Will Gordon Brown walk out? And what will Lord Malloch Brown say about such behaviour? He already has a good deal on his hands what with questions being asked (all too quietly, I am afraid) of his links with the Soros empire and that whippersnapper David Milliband repudiating the wise eminence's rather self-satisfied words.

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That travel ban

As we know the European Union needs a common foreign policy in order to have a stronger voice on the world stage. The trouble is, as we also know, that the Single European Voice does not have anything to say because there is no Single European Interest.

No, no, you are wrong, say the armchair euro-warriors, we do have something to say. It has little to do with old-fashioned national interests and everything to do with values and human rights. The last time these arguments were used was in early 1917 after the real Russian Revolution proclaimed the end of all outdated secret international treaties and wars fought for national interests. Come November and the Bolshevik coup the proclamations remained but the reality became a little more grim.

Anyway, back to the European values. Remember that one thing the European Union can do is to enforce a Europe-wide ban on travel by Zimbabwean President-for-life-and-probably-beyond Robert Mugabe and his entourage, though why that ban should not be imposed on several other kleptocratic bloodthirsty African rulers is an interesting point.

Are we keeping to this ban? Sadly, it would seem no. According to the Association of Zimbabwean Journalists:

Portugal is planning to invite Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to a European Union summit in December - but is hoping that he will not attend.

So we impose a ban, break it and hope that the banned people will stick to it. Is this what they call a value-based policy?

Why exactly do we need to invite Mugabe? Well, it seems that the other African leaders will not attend the planned EU-Africa Summit, which is one of the key policies of the Portuguese Presidency if poor old Mugabe is discriminated against. That says something about the other African leaders to whom we keep shelling out large amounts of aid money, thus keeping them in power and preventing any possible economic or political development in their countries.

Surely the answer to that ought to be: “Oh fine. In that case we cannot have an EU-Africa Summit. What a pity.” Then we can all get on with other issues. Now that would be a value-based policy and so simple, too.

Peter Tatchell is suggesting an alternative in his Guardian blog posting:

Better still, the Portuguese government could lure Mugabe into a trap. It could invite him to December's European-African summit and, when he arrives in Lisbon, arrest him on charges of torture. There is no point in Portugal having human rights laws if it is not prepared to enforce them.

An unlikely scenario but it is good to have someone suggesting it.

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One must support the EU for moral reasons (not!)

Let us not forget that one reason of the fifty listed by the Independent last month for liking and supporting the European Union was its ability to unite and put pressure on bloodthirsty thugs like Robert Mugabe. Well, if not exactly put pressure, at least prevent them and their best friends and relations from visiting European countries.

As we have seen, this does not always work out, what with people not giving their full names when asking for visas and what not. The question of Mugabe himself coming to Europe has come up again.

A report by Africast says that the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Luis Amado, is muttering that the EU is determined that there will be an EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon in December and if that means asking Mugabe, so be it. He will be asked, given visa and welcomed, undoubtedly with all pomp and circumstance.

The EU, according to this, wants to carry on bilaterally with Zimbabwe in order to exert pressure (can’t see why they should bother as they have been so totally unsuccessful) but, as it has been made clear by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the South African Foreign Minister, that there can be no summit without Zimbabwe’s participation, the EU will have to swallow its objections.

Incidentally, recent rumours in various publications that the South African government was about to put some pressure on Mugabe or try to replace him by someone else, have clearly not corresponded to anything resembling reality.

The report is quite helpful in explaining the difference between bilateral and multilateral negotiations:

This issue in some ways illuminates two contrasting approaches to analyzing Africa’s problems: the one identifies internal causes as paramount; the other, external causes.

Usually, as here, bilateral approaches stress internal causes while multilateral approaches stress external causes.

The EU prefers, as a matter almost of principle, multilateral approaches, though, to be fair, those could stress internal causes a bit more with all African countries, especially Zimbabwe. Incidentally, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph, Robert Mugabe has proclaimed joyfully that he has managed to beat off another attempt by Tony Blair to turn Zimbabwe back into a British colony. The reaction of his audience (after the tumultuous applause died down) is not recorded.

Why is it so important to hold this summit, apart from the EU’s need to show that it does have a common foreign policy towards other parts of the world?

One of the main strategic concerns that is now motivating the EU towards holding this summit is the flood of illegal African migrants to Europe in the last few years and the eruption of rioting among African immigrant communities already in Europe.

Amado said the EU and AU were already working on a joint strategy to be ratified at the summit that would include a tripartite approach to the migration problem.

This would be: increased security to address illegal immigration; better integration of legal migrants; and more and better development aid in Africa (to reduce the push factor, presumably).

This does not sound very promising to me. Given the security situation across most of Africa the first one seems all but impossible, unless a huge security fence is built round the European Union, including its sea-shores. It would dwarf the Israeli security fence, so much disliked by the transnational great and the good.

Better integration of legal migrants has precious little to do with the African Union and not a whole lot with the European Union. Each member state has to deal with that separately, not least by working on definitions of national identity, something the EU actually dislikes and tries to undermine.

There seems to be no suggestion that trade, fishing and agricultural policies might be changed in order “to reduce the push factor”. So, we are left with more development aid money that goes to kleptocratic African tyrants, who then continue the wrecking of their countries, thus forcing more people to flee.

It is hardly worth undermining one’s moral standing over Robert Mugabe over this.

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Some you lose and some you lose

My colleague has already written about the risible list of 50 reasons why ignorant Independent journalists think the rest of us should love the EU. Let me concentrate on just one.

Reason number 18 says that one of the glories of the EU is a Europe-wide travel ban on tyrants such as Robert Mugabe. As it happens, it is perfectly possible to have a travel ban on tyrants across any kind of territory, should the countries in question wish to enact it. One does not need the European Union with all its paraphernalia for that.

The problem with that item is that it is not even true. The ban on Mugabe has been in place for some years. For all of that, President Chirac saw nothing wrong with inviting him to an African summit in 2003. The summit was yet another attempt on the part of the outgoing French president to prove that France was a significant international player. If that meant wining and dining some of the worst tyrants in the world and breaking EU sanctions on Robert Mugabe, well, tant pis.

There were attempts by human rights groups to arrest Mugabe while he was in Paris. These failed because of intervention by the French police.

Two years before that Peter Tachell had attempted to arrest Robert Mugabe in Brussels on charges torture under the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture. Under the benign gaze of the Belgian police and secret service agents Mugabe’s thugs attacked Tatchell and beat him unconscious.

For the record, though the British police have not behaved anything as badly, their zeal in arresting peaceful protesters outside Zimbabwe House yesterday does not fill one with great joy.

Now we come to the present. There is a meeting of the EU, Caribbean, African and Pacific MPs in Brussels going on, and it is best not to comment on the quality of the various political systems that are included.

Suffice it to say that Zanu-PF delegates are attending the meeting though Glenys Kinnock is making the usual tut-tutting noises and regretting their presence. As one who is chairing the meeting she, presumably, had some say as to who was and who was not invited. No use regretting things now.

All of which is happening a week or so after the badly beaten members of the opposition, arrested during a peaceful rally and march, appeared in court. The picture on the right tells its story, though for some reason AP captions it as

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, center, appeared in a Harare court two days after a mass arrest. He and others were injured in custody.

Injured? How did they happen to get injured? Did they slip while playing cricket or go into a particularly rough scrum during a rugby match?

As our readers will recall, Nelson Chamisa, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was badly beaten at Harare airport when he tried to board an aeroplane to go to Brussels. So he is not there and neither are any of the other MDC members who can barely move after attention by Mugabe’s thugs last week.

But one person who is in Brussels is Edward Chindori-Chininga, a former government minister, who is on the list of 100 Zimbabweans banned from entering the European Union.

It seems that he applied for a visa in Johannesburg (Thado Mbeki has still not made the slightest effort to control his colleague Mugabe) under the shortened name of Edward Chininga. No-one thought of checking and the visa was issued.

As AFP reports, it was all a bit of a mistake. The foreign ministry spokesman, who has been muttering about that mistake, has said that Belgium has taken steps to ensure that Mr Chindori-Chininga does not enter Belgian territory. So, where is the man? In the European Union or not? Nobody seems to know.

What of that reason number 18 for loving the EU?

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