Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy in Southern Africa 1980-2013

By

Mangani Dylan Yanano

11607092

Research submitted for the degree of a Master of Arts in African Studies

In the

Department of Development Studies

School of Human and Social Sciences

University of Venda

Student: Dylan Mangani

Signature: --------------------

Supervisor: Prof. R.R. Molapo

Signature: ---------------------

Co-supervisor: Mr. T.N Mahosi

Signature: --------------------

2014

DEDICATION

This research is dedicated to all who are interested in Zimbabwe’s external affairs

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The wisdom of God is always greater than the cunning of the Devil

My profound gratitude is extended towards my supervisors, Professor Molapo and Mr. Mahosi.

To Professor Molapo, thank you for believing in my abilities. To Mr. Mahosi, a mentor who

despite his busy schedule is committed to my pursuits I am forever grateful.

I would like to thank Professor Hasu Patel, former Zimbabwe High Commissioner to Australia

for the references for my research.

I am grateful to Professor Ndlovu-Gatsheni at Archie Mafeje Research Institute, UNISA for the

opportunity he gave me to interview him

I also thankful to Reason Wafawarova, a Zimbabwean political scientist based in Australia, my

uncle Tichafa Victor Hwacha for referrals in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Special mention goes to individuals who participated in the research

To my family, my parents Mr. and Mrs. Mangani whose love and prayers have seen me this far.

To my siblings Rutherford, Pinky and Salima, thank you for your support

ACRONYMS

ADFL Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo

ANC African National Congress

ASAS Association of Southern African States

AU African Union

BDP Botswana Democratic Party

CODESA Convention for Democratic South Africa

CONSAS Constellation of Southern African States

COSATU Congress of South Africa Trade Union

DA Democratic Alliance

DRC Democratic Republic of Congo

EU European Union

FLS Front Line States

FNLA National Liberation Front of Angola

FRELIMO Mozambique National Front

FTLRP Fast Track Land Reform Programme

GNU Government of National Unity

GPA Global Political Agreement

IFP Ikhanta Freedom Party

LP Labor Party

MDC Movement for Democratic Change

MDC-M Movement for Democratic Change (Mutambara)

MDC-T Movement for Democratic Change (Tsvangirai)

MDP Mutual Defense Pact

MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MPLA Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola

NAM Non Aligned Movement

NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development

NP National Party

OAU Organisation of African Unity

OPDS Organ on Politics Defense and Security

OSLEG Operation Sovereign Legitimacy

PAC Pan Africanist Congress

PAFMESCA Pan African Movement of East, Central and Southern Africa

PSA Power Sharing Agreement

RCD Rally for Congolese Democracy

RENAMO Mozambique National Resistance

SACP- South African Communist Party

SADC- Southern African Development Community

SADCC- Southern African Development Coordinating Conference

SWAPO South West African Peoples Organisation

UN- United Nations

UNIP United National Independence Party 

UNITA National Union for the Total Independence of Angola

UNISC United Nations Security Council

ZANU Zimbabwe African National Union

ZANU-PF Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front

ZAPU Zimbabwe African Peoples Union

ZCTU Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union

ZDI Zimbabwe Defense Industry

Map of Southern Africa

https://www.google.co.za/search?q=map+of+southern+africa&client=aff-maxthon-

maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0C

CcQ7AlqFQoTCKKVp67NiMgCFUlWFAodRmAOag#imgrc=wEEEJA7Oe7OwGM%3A

Abstract

Soon after independence on 18th April 1980, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was shaped by the

realities on the ground, which saw the country managing a sound relationship with both the

Capitalist West and the Communist Eastern blocs. The post- independence foreign policy was

therefore premised on security concerns illuminated by the Cold War era. This was one the

reasons President Robert Mugabe adopted a policy of reconciliation and this earned his

government recognition on the international platform. However, in Southern Africa apartheid

South Africa was still the vanguard of capitalism and oppression, such that she posed a serious

threat to the newly- born Zimbabwean nation. This necessitated Zimbabwe to position herself

both in the region and the continent to counter potential internal stability from within.

Irrespective of how the international community viewed the country’s foreign policy, Zimbabwe

has continued to influence regional, continental and world geo-politics, especially on behalf of

the developing nations. This raises a question, why as a result of its foreign policy, the country is

now regarded as a pariah state, especially by some Western countries which used to applaud its

political economic policies soon after independence. Therefore, this study argues that the

political economy of Zimbabwe had a far-reaching bearing on its foreign policy. For this reason

the problem necessitates an investigation of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy perspectives in Southern

Africa since the turn of the 1990s. Two main theories, namely Realism and Afro-centrism,

inform the study as an attempt to understand Zimbabwe’s foreign policy paradigm shift and

perhaps provide answers to the objectives raised. The research therefore employs a qualitative

approach, where the conceptual nature of the study into the foreign policy of Zimbabwe is

largely desktop research. However the nature of the study will also require that oral interviews be

conducted to substantiate some of the arguments advanced.

Key Words: Zimbabwe, foreign policy, Cold War set up, Pan-Africanism,

political crisis, Southern Africa, Regional solidarity, post 2000 period

Table of Contents

Abstract............................................................................................................................................9

Chapter One...................................................................................................................................13

Introduction to the Study...............................................................................................................13

1. Background to the Study...........................................................................................................14

2. Aim and Objectives of the Study...............................................................................................16

3. Rationale of the Study...............................................................................................................16

4. Initial Assumptions of the Study...............................................................................................17

5. Statement of the Problem and Research Questions...................................................................17

5.1 Statement of the Problem.........................................................................................................17

5.2 Research Questions..................................................................................................................18

6. Methodology..............................................................................................................................18

6.1 Research Design......................................................................................................................18

6.2 Qualitative Methodology.........................................................................................................19

6.3 Study Population and Sample..................................................................................................19

Purposive Sampling.......................................................................................................................20

6.4 Data Collection........................................................................................................................20

7. Literature Review......................................................................................................................20

7. 1 Origins and dynamics of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy............................................................21

7.2 The Influence of the post-Cold War era on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.................................22

7.3 The rise of democratic South Africa and its bearing on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy..............23

7.4 The nexus between domestic situation and Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.................................24

8. Theories.....................................................................................................................................27

8.1 Realism....................................................................................................................................27

8.2 Neo-classical Realism..............................................................................................................28

8.3 Afrocentricism........................................................................................................................29

9. Significance of the Study...........................................................................................................30

10. Ethical Considerations.............................................................................................................30

10.1 Avoiding biasness..................................................................................................................30

10.2 Respect for confidentiality.....................................................................................................31

10.3 Avoid plagiarism...................................................................................................................31

11. Definitions of Concepts...........................................................................................................31

12. Delimitations of Study.............................................................................................................33

13. Structure of the Study..............................................................................................................33

Chapter Two..................................................................................................................................34

Background to Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy since 1980................................................................34

2.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................34

2.2 Preliminary Thoughts..............................................................................................................35

2.2.1 Foreign Policy Making in Africa..........................................................................................35

2.3 The Political and Economic Landscape of Southern Africa Prior to Zimbabwe’s..................36

Independence.................................................................................................................................36

2.3.1 The Policy of reconciliation and Zimbabwe’s foreign policy..............................................38

2.3.2 The Front Line States (FLS) to the SADCC.........................................................................39

2.4 The nature of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy...............................................................................40

2.4.1 Locating Chimurenga within Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy..................................................40

2.4.2 The centralisation of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.................................................................40

2.5 Security Concerns and the Search for Regional Alliances, 1980-1990...................................41

2.5.1 Zimbabwe-–Zambia relations: A legacy of ideology and security concerns, 1980-............42

1990...............................................................................................................................................42

2.6 The Question of Apartheid South Africa.................................................................................45

2.6.1 Inconsistency in Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy.......................................................................47

2.7 The Civil War in Mozambique and Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy............................................48

2.7.1 Nexus between economic considerations and the Cold War................................................50

2.7.2 Perceptions on the civil war in Mozambique.......................................................................51

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................53

Chapter Three................................................................................................................................54

The Dawn of Democracy in South Africa: Its Influence on Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy Making,

1990-2000......................................................................................................................................54

3.1. Introduction.............................................................................................................................54

3.2 Southern Africa’s political patterns.........................................................................................55

3.3 The relations between Zimbabwe and the new democratic South Africa, 1994-2000............57

3 3.1 The History of ZANU and the ANC relations.....................................................................58

The role played by Zimbabwe in the region since 1980................................................................60

3.3.2 South Africa’s political setting in 1994 and the impact on relations with Zimbabwe.........61

3.3 3. South Africa and Zimbabwe’s search for a security community........................................62

Security perceptions between Zimbabwe and South Africa..........................................................64

3.4 An Overview of the Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo..................................66

3.4 a. The causes of the DRC conflict...........................................................................................66

3.4.1 The reasons for Zimbabwe ‘s involvement in the DRC conflict.........................................68

Political reasons for Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC conflict.............................................68

Locating the military in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.....................................................................70

Economic reasons for Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC........................................................71

3.5 The Land Reform of 2000 and Zimbabwe’s foreign policy..................................................72

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................75

Chapter Four..................................................................................................................................77

The Crisis in Zimbabwe and its impact on the Country’s Foreign Policy, 2000-2013.................77

4.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................77

4.2 The Genesis of the Crisis in Zimbabwe...................................................................................78

4.3 The Political Dynamics of the Post-2000 Period in Zimbabwe..............................................79

The politics of sanctions and the restructuring of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.............................80

4. 4. The Reaction of the SADC to the Crisis in Zimbabwe.........................................................83

The SADC’s Tribunal and the politics of land in Zimbabwe.......................................................85

4.5 South Africa’s foreign policy to Zimbabwe, 2000-2013.........................................................87

South Africa’s intervention in the Zimbabwean Crisis.................................................................89

South Africa and Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Policy.....................................................................91

South Africa and the Political Crisis in Zimbabwe.......................................................................92

Zimbabwe’s perception of South Africa’s foreign policy.............................................................94

South Africa-MDC relations..........................................................................................................95

The 2008 elections in Zimbabwe...................................................................................................96

South Africa and the Power Sharing Agreement in Zimbabwe, 2008..........................................97

4.6 Zimbabwe-Botswana Relations 1980-2000............................................................................99

4.6.1 Zimbabwe-Botswana relations, 2000-2013........................................................................102

Botswana relations with Zimbabwe’s opposition, MDC-T.........................................................103

4.7 Angola- Zimbabwe relations 1980-2013...............................................................................105

4.7.1 Angola’s search for security within foreign policy............................................................105

4.7.2 Basis of Angola-Zimbabwe relations from 1980-1994......................................................107

Angola-Zimbabwe alliance during the post apartheid South Africa, 1994-2000........................108

The involvement of Angola and Zimbabwe in the civil war in the DRC....................................109

4.7.3 Angola and the Zimbabwean crisis 2000-2013..................................................................113

4.8 The Political Landscape in Zimbabwe 2009-2013................................................................115

a. The Power Sharing Agreement of 2009...................................................................................115

The Referrendum of 2013............................................................................................................117

The 31st July 2013 Elections and impact on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa.....118

Conclusion...................................................................................................................................119

Chapter Five.................................................................................................................................120

Conclusion and Recommendations: Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa, 1980-2013

.....................................................................................................................................................120

5.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................120

5.2 Recommendations..................................................................................................................121

Adopting a pragmatic foreign policy...........................................................................................121

Stregthening of regional alliances...............................................................................................122

References....................................................................................................................................124

Appendix......................................................................................................................................137

Chapter One

Introduction to the Study

1. Background to the Study

On attaining independence on the 18th April 1980, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was generally

pragmatic in the pursuit of socialist convictions and at the same time courting the Western

capitalist bloc (Schwartz, 2001: 51). President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe African National

Union (ZANU, hereafter referred to as ZANU-PF in 1987 after the signing of a Unity Accord

with PF ZAPU) were key foreign policy makers who were influenced by specific party

ideological traits1. Perhaps Khadiagala and Lyons’ work capture the above in a very insightful

manner with their account on foreign policy making in Africa in the post-independence period.

They assert that elite African leaders treated foreign policy as a way in which states became

effective in the international arena, cognisant of epochs such as colonialism and the Cold War

(Khadiagala and Lyons, 2001: 3 and 5). The basis of the authors’ argument is that leading

personalities in Africa were convinced that maintaining such foreign policy decision- making has

always been their province. The case of Zimbabwe mirrored the above in the first decade of

independence, as the foreign policy was a means to address the Cold War and the insecurity

caused by the apartheid government.

1According to Hasu Patel, President Mugabe’s views, character and personality were deeply embedded in liberation struggle dynamics and correlates with ZANU-PF’s ideologies since independence thereby shaping the outcome of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy. He continues to say that the model and factors in which nationhood was achieved in Zimbabwe are decisive in foreign policy outcomes.

In the light of this Zimbabwe joined the Frontline States (FLS), consisting of Angola, Botswana,

Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, a regional arrangement which aimed at countering

hegemonic South Africa’s insurgency. The result was that militarily Harare intervened in

Mozambique and Angola in a concerted effort to stabilize these countries which at the time were

threatened by civil wars (Chan and Patel, 2006: 177). Regardless of the Cold War misgivings,

Zimbabwe became a diplomatic hub in Africa and this was because at the core of Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy was the pragmatic approach used by President Mugabe (Chimanikire, 2003:179-

195). The policy of reconciliation, through which the white and non-white communities in

Zimbabwe managed to co-exist after years of a protracted struggle, saw the country’s diplomatic

skills in the most favourable light against a background of the opposite that was happening in

South Africa. The result was that the foreign policy record landed the country a non-permanent

member status in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) during 1983/4 and 1991/2

(Mashingaidze, 2006: 57). The present author believes Zimbabwe’s foreign policy and

diplomatic skills landed her in several other high profile positions within the Southern African

Development Coordination Conference, hereafter known as the Southern African Development

Community (SADC), the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), hereafter known as the African

Union (AU), and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2011: 13 and 14; and

Phimister and Raftopoulos , 2004: 386).

Some sources on the study into the political landscape of Zimbabwe since 1980 (Williams, 2003:

2 ; Chigora and Dewa, 2009: 95 and Chengu, 2011: 1), for example, expose very interesting

dynamics on how the country’s foreign policy has evolved from a viewpoint of engagement and

non-alignment to that of defensive realism and perhaps pariah state in a post-Cold War set up. If

any precedence has been set, and any new dimensions given, the post-Cold War set up has

wrought major changes in foreign policy perspectives in Africa, particularly Zimbabwe. The

period saw the emergence of a democratic South Africa, thus offering an alternative to Pan-

Africanism, which had been Zimbabwe’s prerogative in Southern Africa since independence.

The study argues that the post-Cold War era resonates deeply with the change in perception on

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy, where the period pitted the political economy of the country against

its foreign policy outputs. The international spotlight and scrutiny of the late 1990s has seen

elements of defiance as exposed in ventures such as the “Look East Policy” in Zimbabwe’s

search for international legitimacy (Chigora and Dewa 2005:95).

In spite of this, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy has continued to resonate deeply with countries of the

South, especially most developing nations. This can be seen where Zimbabwe has been actively

involved in the promotion and self-determination of the SADC and the AU by putting regional

arrangements such as the SADC and the AU into disrepute(Nyakudya 2013: 83 and 84) This was

mainly influenced by a bid to strike a balance between attaining international accreditation and

avoiding being labelled as moving away from the Pan-Africanist ideals of fighting against

Western imperialism while engaging Zimbabwe’s foreign policy against the forces of

globalisation. (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2011:14). It is against this background that the study focuses on

“Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy in Southern Africa between 1980 and 2013”.

2. Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to analyse “Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa between 1980

and 2013”. In order to achieve the aim, the following objectives form the pillars of the study:

To understand the origins and dynamics of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern

Africa;

To determine how the beginning of the 1990s and the rise of a democratic South Africa

impacted on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy;

To interrogate how the domestic situation in Zimbabwe informs Zimbabwe’s foreign

policy.

3. Rationale of the Study

Most scholars are interested in Zimbabwe’s activities on the international scene following the

bilateral dispute with Britain following the country’s involvement in the Democratic Republic of

Congo (DRC) and the subsequent land reform programme. It is for this reason that a study on

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa is important, given the quest for regional, political

and economic integration, as well as thwarting the dominance of globalisation. The study seeks

to understand the influence of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy on Southern Africa’s regional

integration efforts.

4. Initial Assumptions of the Study

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy cannot be treated in isolation of geopolitical issues within the SADC

region. In the same context Zimbabwe’s foreign policy since the post -Cold War has been

subjected to different interpretations as the international relations patterns and perceptions

change.

5. Statement of the Problem and Research Questions

5.1 Statement of the Problem

According to Mashingaidze (2006: 57 and 58) the years that followed Zimbabwe’s independence

in 1980 were marked by a highly successful foreign policy with the country becoming Southern

Africa’s diplomatic hub and an “African Jewel”. This was based on the pragmatic approach by

President Mugabe in and out of the country and perhaps efforts rendered in the region and at

international level. For example the foreign policy was premised on the African agenda which

saw Zimbabwe strengthening the regional security community, militarily in Mozambique and

also pushing for an end to apartheid in South Africa.

However, despite these developments the political economy of the country has impacted on the

country’s foreign policy attracting different reactions from various quarters within the

international community. According to Phimister and Raftopoulos (2004: 385) at the centre of

this problem is a criticized government with a foreign policy that aimed at diverting the

international community from the real governance and democracy issues in the country. The

change in perception of the country’s foreign policy thus raises a number of issues that require

some research. Amongst these issues are whether the change in perception is the result of a

continued adherence to socialist convictions or answers can be found on the state’s own crisis of

legitimacy. In view of the above it was essential for the study to come up with the following

research questions

5.2 Research Questions

What are the origins and dynamics of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy at independence?

How did the early 1990s period and the rise of a new South Africa influence Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy?

In which way has the domestic situation in Zimbabwe impacted on the country’s foreign

policy?

6. Methodology

The research aims to unpack Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa between 1980 and

2013. Rajasekar, Phlominathan and Chinnathambi (2006: 5) maintain that “Research

methodology is a systematic way to solve a problem. It is a science of studying how research is

to be carried out. Essentially, the procedures by which researchers go about their work of

describing, explaining and predicting phenomena are called research methodology. It is also

defined as the study of methods by which knowledge is gained. Its aim is to give the work plan

of research”. In trying to conduct the research it is important to adopt a qualitative research

methodology. This because the qualitative approach is interpretive , as such will address the

objectives and questions of the study as the demands of the study require generating and

unpacking of themes and concepts in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy such as events that have been

informative between 1980 to 2013 (Denzin and Licoln 1994).

6.1 Research Design

A research design is the overall strategy that is adopted or taken to integrate various components

of a study in a coherent and logical manner that provide answers to the research questions

guiding the study. In short, it is a plan on how one intends to conduct research (Mouton 2001:

55). This is a study that builds on conceptual analysis, theory building and review literature in

the search the objectives of the study (Ibid).The researcher will also undertake a field work

research, and fieldwork research can be understood as the collection of information outside a

laboratory, library or work setting. In light of the above data will be gathered from respective

embassies of all SADC member states in Pretoria and Harare in order to cover the demands of

the topic “Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa, 1980-2013”

6.2 Qualitative MethodologyPatton and Cochran (2002: 3) assert that qualitative research methodology is premised on aims,

which relate to understanding some aspects of social life and that its methods generate words

rather than numbers. The logic of qualitative methodology follows a non- participatory approach

on the part of the researcher on the outcomes of important events in the past 34 years of the

country’s foreign policy. The evolution, genesis, continuation, changes in themes and trajectories

on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy since 1980 places the researcher as a mere observer.

Thus a general inductive approach is essential to move general ideas to theory in the analysis of

data. In addition, qualitative method has been defined as an approach using methods such as

participant observation, case studies and in-depth interviews which result in a narrative and

descriptive account of a setting or practice (Parkinson and Drislane, 2011:).In light of this,

content analysis approach is used to uncover detailed, descriptive and explanatory analysis of

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy perspectives in Southern Africa, with the intention of answering the

problem at hand through generating competing themes to the study. The qualitative approach is

adopted because it is non-numerical but descriptive in its application, where events and themes

surrounding Zimbabwe’s foreign policy are very important.

6.3 Study Population and Sample

Polit and Hungler (1999:43, 232) define a population as the totality of all subjects that conform

to a set of specifications, comprising the entire group of persons that is of interest to the

researcher and to whom the research results can be generalised. LoBiondo-Wood and Haber

(1998:250) describe a sample as a portion or a subset of the research population selected to

participate in a study, representing the research population.

The population targeted by the research is very relevant to the knowledge of foreign policy.The

research targets students and lecturers at the University of Venda and the University of

Zimbabwe in the Departments of History, Political Science and International Relations. The

reason for doing so was to cultivate different scholarly views and opinions in and out of

Zimbabwe as opinions in Zimbabwe differ greatly from those outside the country. The study also

employs qualitative methods because of the interviews sought from the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs in Zimbabwe,specifically the panel that deal with the country’s foreign policy in

Southern Africa.

Purposive SamplingIn light of the above, purposive sampling is essential and targets individuals who have acquired

knowledge of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy either working in embassies or through academic

pursuits.The sample thus consists of 45 participants, 30 are targeted individuals from embassies

in Pretoria and Harare of all SADC member states, 10 are students and lecturers at the

Universities of Venda and Zimbabwe and 5 are political analysts.

6.4 Data CollectionPolit and Hungler (1999: 267) define data as “information obtained during the course of an

investigation or study”. The study is desktop-type and field work. Data collection methods used

will be from primary, secondary sources. These sources may include journals, published

magazines, newspapers, library books, online sources of information and interviews.This is made

possible with information accessed from the University of Venda library in South Africa,the

University of Zimbabwe library,Africa University library and Zimbabwe Defence College

library.

7. Literature Review

The purpose of the literature review is to cultivate a better understanding of themes, arguments

and concepts that have been advanced by various scholars concerning the basic tenets of

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy. For the sake of this research, the literature reviewed is informed on

the objectives of the study.

7. 1 Origins and dynamics of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

Patel and Chan (2006) account for the high degree of centralisation in Zimbabwe’s foreign

policy. The scholars devote a great deal of time explaining how Mugabe as a nationalist political

figure has managed to determine the outcomes of Zimbabwe’s external relations through his

ideas, views and personal traits. The authors contend that Mugabe’s personal beliefs as a staunch

Marxist-Leninist figure resonated with the demands of the time in a Southern African region

where socialism had been entrenched to formulate a foreign policy that would advocate for Pan -

Africanist ideals. The account is very important in unpacking the dynamics in Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy, such as centralisation of decision- making.

In accounting for Zimbabwe’s foreign policy after independence, Klotz (1993) echoes Patel and

Chan (2006) in that both scholars explain the influence of the Pan- Africanist ideology and

vision shared by President Mugabe’s regime in the context of Southern Africa and the African

continent as a whole. However, Klotz differs from Patel and Chan yet is more explanatory and

detailed in accounting for race and nationalism in the country’s foreign policy .The article

focuses on how non-racialism in Zimbabwe at independence was influential in shaping the

country’s foreign policy where Mugabe was condemning racism in South Africa and Namibia.

This article helps not only in giving a narrative of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy after 1980, in

contrast to the former Rhodesian government, but helps to understand the close relationship

which was forged by Mugabe and his pan Africanist policy within the Southern Africa region as

such this relationship continued to be very decisive in the region’s efforts to mediate in the

country's problems after 2000.

Khadiagala and Lyons (2001) give an important insight into the making of foreign policy in

Africa. Cognizant of trajectories such as colonialism and to a degree the Cold War authors

amplify in a clear cut manner the objectives of African foreign policies. As such, they view

foreign policy as an end to the survival of weak African states, especially in the post-

independence era, where most African states were at a standoff between superpower rivalries of

the Cold War. Though their work falls short in accounting for Zimbabwe’s foreign policy since

independence, it is highly relevant in accounting for the general security concerns by elite

leaders in Africa who were mindful of external threats which could compromise the hard won

independence.

Moreover, it also explains why President Mugabe adopted a non-aligned foreign policy approach

and sought to promote issues of African sovereignty in his foreign policy objectives. These

authors, mindful of the above, and draw an important theme in African foreign policy, one that is

mirrored in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy, which is the role of the elite leaders in initiating,

formulating and executing foreign policy. The authors believe foreign policy is driven by

ideologies and the nature of the elite leaders in most African states. As such Zimbabwe is not

spared in this regard. This is because foreign policy making has been the prerogative of President

Mugabe and perhaps ZANU-F given his historical credentials and his party’s ideology as a

liberation movement.

7.2 The Influence of the post-Cold War era on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

Raftopoulos and Mlambo (2010) have come up with different explanations on the dynamics of

the Southern African region. Their account is premised on the democratic wave that hit the

region following the post-Cold War era, where the emergence of labour movements has

threatened the legitimacy and existence of liberation governments. The authors argue that the

crisis in Zimbabwe puts the region into the spotlight in a bid to strike a balance between

neoliberal principles rhetoric of democracy, good governance and universality of human rights,

vis-a-vis challenging the global economic inequalities and fulfilment of anti-colonial discourses.

The authors are weary of the limits of SADC engagement in Zimbabwe in condemning the

Mugabe regime .However the authors are also successful in explaining the reasons behind the

limits of SADC engagement in Zimbabwe. In light of the above their scholarly opinion is

important to the study as it qualifies the second objective of the study to understand the impact of

the post- Cold War politics on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

7.3 The rise of democratic South Africa and its bearing on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

Bangura’s contribution (1999) develops an important dimension on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

that can be disseminated in the country’s involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo

(DRC) war. Bangura presents the war in the DRC as Africa’s first modern regional war, as it

involves a number of SADC countries. Nevertheless the author is not interested in accounting for

a narration of the story, but rather to expose the power race between South Africa and Zimbabwe

in fighting for regional hegemony. This account is important in assessing how the South African

factor has been influential in shaping Zimbabwe’s role and foreign policy in the Southern

African region. Moreover, the author makes a contrast between the internal political landscape in

Zimbabwe and South Africa, and how they have managed to constrain or promote foreign and

security policies of the two countries, where in South Africa’s whites’ interests were still very

decisive. This was contrary to the situation in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe is the key player.

Thus the author presents the war in the DRC as a very important outpost for the promotion of

white minority interests in South Africa and the promotion of an African discourse as presented

by Zimbabwe. Bangura’s contribution is very important as it tries to outline the contours of

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy, such as Pan- Africanism and African issues.

Conscious of Bangura’s work, Raftopoulos and Mlambo’s (2010) work resonates in outlining the

role played by South Africa as the region’s mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis and are explicit in

accounting for the so called quiet diplomacy popularised by the Mbeki regime towards

Zimbabwe. South Africa becomes the epicentre and focus of the role played by SADC as a

mediator and historical neighbour to Zimbabwe. The present scholars, like many others are not

spared in their criticism of South Africa’s foreign policy towards Zimbabwe .This article is

highly relevant as it unpacks regional dynamics, and to a considerable degree solidarity and

common security concerns on the part of incumbent governments in power in the region. The

argument advanced by the authors is the dichotomy between conservative liberation politics and

progressive liberal politics embedded in labour movements as their opposite.

7.4 The nexus between domestic situation and Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

Chigora (2007) accounts for the basic tenets of the US foreign policy to Zimbabwe, in response

to the domestic situation, in an article where regime change was the clear cut objective,

supposedly to be effected through economic sanctions, though dubbed “targeted sanctions” in the

form of the Zimbabwe Democracy, Economic Recovery Act Bill S494. Chigora’s article tries to

explain the origins of sanctions in Zimbabwe and the net effects of these on the developmental

state of the country. However, the author fails to explain the inconsistency in defining the

sanctions in Zimbabwe. The debate whether these were smart or illegal, without the approval of

the UN broke ranks in the international community subsequently shaping Zimbabwe’s foreign

policy after 2001. The international community was and is still divided over the legitimacy of

sanctions in Zimbabwe.

Holsti (1995) illustrates the structure of contemporary economic relations in the post-Cold War

period, wherein the vulnerabilities are said to tilt against developing countries. The author is also

of the opinion that manipulation of economic transactions is intended to push for a political

agenda, such as an attempt to change the behaviour of a certain government. He continues to

substantiate his claims with the example of sanctions imposed on the apartheid government of

South Africa in 1986 and the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua in 1995. As such the author’s work

is highly relevant to the study of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy. This is because it reflects on how

sanctions can be used to alter ideological misgivings in a targeted country, as was the case with

the economic sanctions imposed by Western countries on Zimbabwe in 2001. However, Holsti

fails to account for the effectiveness of sanctions in changing the attitude and perhaps the foreign

policy of a country and to answer the point at which a country or a certain group is liable for

sanctions.

In light of the above, other scholars have tried to capture and assert Zimbabwe’s response to

sanctions and the diplomatic fall out with the West by writing extensively on the shift of

Zimbabwe’s foreign focus to the Asian tigers coined and dubbed the Look East Policy. Chigora

and Dewa (2009) are of the opinion that following the diplomatic fall out with Western nations,

which resulted in sanctions,Zimbabwe sought to court other nations in the Far East, a move

which reasonates with classical realist school of thought coined by Thucydides; namely that “the

strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” Strassler, (1996 : 5 and 89).The

author, by quoting Thucydides reflects on the patternss in the international system where

powerful countries impose their will on weak states due to economic might, as in the case of

Western countries and the sanctions they imposed on Zimbabwe.The sanctions infringed on the

country’s economic perfomance, bringing meltdown in the country.

Chigora and Dewa’s (2009) account is reflective of a foreign policy doctored by an embattled

government, and it also links domestic situations and foreign policies and is located in the North-

South debates dichotomy and that the Zimbabwe and Far East cooperation can only be

understood in the realm of South-South cooperation.However the article falls short of accounting

for the conditions and nature of the relatiuonship between Zimbabwe and the Asian tigers. It

does not inform the reader whether there are any political rewards following the debacle and

botched relations with the West. The authors also fail to account for other reasons motivating the

South –South cooperation, apart from Zimbabwe seeking economic sanctuary such as the

historical ties and perhaps ideological commitments.

However, Chengu (2011) responds to some of the questions raised in reviewing Chigora and

Dewa’s account of his assessement of Zimbabwe-Sino relations. Chengu begins by capturing the

relations as premised on a Cold War type of competition between the US and the People’s

Republic of China (PRC). He attests to an opportunity for Harare to counter the sanctions

imposed by the West and also to manoeuver on the West’s double standards, which was

presented by the emergence of China as an economic powerhouse. He is of the opinion that the

ever-strengthening relationship between China and Zimbabwe is critical to the never-ending

pursuit of the Anglo-American hegemony and an obsession with Africa’s natural resources and

as such the US stands insecure and critical of China’s engagement with the continent.Thus the

geopolitics of Zimbabawe’s natural resources and the strategic importance of Sino-Zimbabwe

relations are the basis of Chengu’s arguments.

In assessing the political realities in the SADC region Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2011) alludes to how

governance has been the sole responsibility of liberation movements in various respective SADC

countries such as the African National Congress (ANC), Front for the Liberation of Mozambique

(FRELIMO), South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO), Popular Movement for the

Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)

and Chama Chamapinduzi. The liberation movements not only drew up common security

concerns, but have differed thinly in their perception of the role played by Zimbabwe as a key

maker and active foreign policy executioner since the heydays of the Frontline States. Ndlovu-

Gatsheni is of the opinion that against such a vivid memory of Zimbabwe’s grand historical

record ZANU-PF’s foreign policy has found fertile ground within the region, amidst

international isolation following the political debacle in the country.

History, according to Ndlovu-Gatsheni, has also been at the epicentre in accounting for the

political cum climate and subsequent relations in the preceding article. The author argues that

Zimbabwe has been careful and strategic in re-emphasising the need for solidarity and sharing

common perceived external threats in the region. The author therefore subscribes to the fact that

ZANU-PF has over the past decade enjoyed regional legitimacy, in response to the domestic

situation in the country, because of the culture and perhaps political dynamics in the SADC

region, where memories of the liberation struggle and anti-imperialism ideologies remain as

relevant as they were during the colonial epoch. Patriotic history in the region is therefore

intended to define relations and become a proponent of the region’s ideology in producing a

dichotomy between anti-colonialists and agents of imperialism or collaborators with the Western

world. As such, regardless of international sanctions and perceptions of Zimbabwe as a pariah

state following the botched political climate, the SADC region will for a considerable future

remain an outpost for Zimbabwe’s foreign policy and a sanctuary for ZANU PF.

8. Theories

An analysis of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy cannot be rigid given the different phases and periods

in which it has been premised. Against such an observation, it suffices that Zimbabwe’s foreign

policy can be explained by three major theories in an attempt to zoom out and account for

different circumstances in the country’s history. These circumstances were decisive in the

outcome of foreign policy objectives. It is for this reason that Realism, Afrocentrism and the

Socialist paradigm have been identified for the purpose of the study. These theories are more

suited to Zimbabwe’s foreign policy narrative for the period 1980 to 2013. It is important to

underline that because of various circumstances at different times since 1980, there is no specific

theoretical criterion used to explain Zimbabwe’s foreign policy, but that these three theories can

be used interchangeably. A discussion of these theories follows below:

8.1 Realism

Realism is attributed to be the chief International Relations theory in disseminating the behaviour

of states in the international system, where anarchy is the currency driving, shaping and

influencing states' foreign policies. Realists argue that because there is anarchy in the

international system and there is an absence of an international government, states behave

irrationally and radically to ensure the survival and protection of national interests (Dunne and

Schudunt, 2011: 87), (Steans et al 2010: 57). The security dilemma, therefore, becomes a

motivating factor in the formulation and execution of foreign policy. Translated into foreign

policy language the Realist school of thought can be helpful in trying to account for Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy in the first decade after independence and perhaps the years following the

diplomatic fall out with Western countries. This has necessitated an analysis of the nexus

between Realism, National Security and Foreign policy.

In a world where threats loom large as a result of anarchy, realists argue that states are compelled

to seek power in order to ensure that their own security is realised when national security is

under threat (Schmidt, 2012: 191). Realists in this regard account for national security as the

chief motivating factor for foreign policy formulation. Scholars have read from different

manuscripts in defining national security. Leffer (2004: 131) contends that national security is

about the protection of core values such as the identification of threats and the adoption of

policies to protect core values. Buzzan (1991: 17), on the other hand, argues that national

security is the preservation of a way of life, including freedom from military attack or coercion,

freedom from internal subversion and freedom from the erosion of the political,economic and

social values which are essential for the quality of life.

In this regard it suffices to depart focus on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy shortly after

independence, from an economic and political point of view, where apartheid South Africa and

the civil war in Mozambique were threatening to derail Zimbabawe’s national security.

Aparthied South Africa, as will be discussed in this study, used its hegemonic power to

destabilise the Southern African region in its Total War strategy which disrupted the economic

fortunes of Zimbabwe. As such economic nationalism, materialism and national political security

of the 1980s were very decisive in accounting for Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.

8.2 Neo-classical Realism

Perhaps Neo-classical realism is best suited to explaining Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in both

phases. Neo-classical realism takes cognisance of both external and internal variables that it

factors in the international system and domestic considerations in determining a country’s

foreign policy. In light of this Walt argues that neoclassical realism “places domestic politics as

an intervening variable between the distribution of power and foreign policy behaviour”, Walt

(2002:11). Neo-classical Realists often argue that the scope and ambition of a country’s foreign

policy is driven by its place in the international system and its relative material power(Rose

1998: 147). Rose further argues that material power establishes parameters of foreign policy with

the aid of an extract from a Realist scholar, Thucidydes, which maintains that “the strong do

what they can and the weak suffer what they must” (Strassler, 1996: 5 and 89).

Neoclassical realism therefore runs throughout the course of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in

explaining the country’s foreign policy towards the apartheid government, the intervention in

Mozambique and the DRC, the role played by Zimbabwe in the formation of the SADCC and

perhaps the reconstruction of the country’s foreign policy after 1994. The theory is also

important in the study as it unpacks how the internal political landscape has been influential in

the construction of foreign policy.

8.3 Afrocentricism

This theory was popularized by modern scholars such as Diop and Asante (2009: 66 and 67) in

an attempt to recast African political, economic, cultural and social patterns in international

relations in response to the pseudo-Eurocentric school of thought traditionally extreme in its

narrative about African civilization. According to these scholars African foreign policy must be

Afrocentric in that it should prioritize the needs and concerns of African people first, and

consider the long-term implications of any foreign policy for the masses of African people

Accordingly, Afrocentricism in foreign policy is viewed as an end towards the development of

the continent. Scholars such as McDougal (2009: 66 and 67) view Afrocentricism in foreign

policy in Africa as a way to right concepts such as development that have been defined along

Eurocentric thoughts, which were highly retrogressive to the African continent.Thus colonialism,

for example, was the European foreign policy methodology for feeding its own development

9. Significance of the Study

The study is significant in that it exposes the evolution of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy between

1980 and 2013 as well as the road travelled by the Mugabe regime in conducting diplomatic

relations within the realm of practical regional politics. It can be said that the study is important

in revealing foreign policy patterns in Southern Africa and how Zimbabwe’s foreign policy has

been influential to a certain degree, since the country’s independence. Lastly, the study is

significant in the pursuit of African Studies in that it focuses on some of the contested issues

such as foreign policy making in Africa with Zimbabwe’s foreign policy under review.

10. Ethical Considerations

Ethics can be defined as the general responsibility of researchers to be truthful and respectful to

all individual participants who may be affected by research studies or the outcome of these

studies. Thus any research project should conform to moral, ethical and legal standards of a

socio-scientific inquiry. Against this background the study will be guided by the following

ethical considerations:

10.1 Avoiding biasnessThe aim of the study is to produce findings that conform to thorough research inquiry to

minimize the possibility of the findings misleading. Cognizant of this the researcher is an

interested party as a Zimbabwean. Thus the temptation to be biased towards certain affiliations in

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy is high. Thus data collection and interpretation should be very

academic in producing well- presented and constructive academic outcomes

10.2 Respect for confidentiality

This study undertakes to respect confidentiality of participants that is to protect names and

identity of those involved. Moreover the research seeks to guarantee confidentiality of

information given through interviews, as issues relating to foreign policy may be sensitive as it

involves different opinions and narratives from politicians, academics, scholars and government

officials

10.3 Avoid plagiarism

The research will also uphold ethics in writing that the research should refrain from mere

suspicions and personal feelings and plagiarising previous works and efforts done by other

researchers. That the research should be original, value-free and unbiased according to the

dictates of the researcher’s affiliations, are the basic tenants of ethics in writing a research.

11. Definitions of Concepts

Mugabeism-a contested phenomenon which has two diverging approaches accounting for

President Mugabe’s ideological conduct. Nationalist scholars view it as a pan-African ideology

centred on defying imperialism and all forms of colonialism, an attempt to redress colonial

errors. However, a neo-liberal approach explains it in racist connotations embedded in

authoritarianism. It is an ideology opposed to globalisation, good governance and respect for

human rights.

Chimurenga- a Shona term loosely translated it means revolutionary armed struggle. It refers to

the war fought by Zimbabwean guerrillas for the total independence of the country from white

minority rule. The ideology has resonated with the contemporary political landscape such as the

land reform programme, as another struggle against anti- patriotic elements

Decision of states- is synonymous with defensive realism. In the wake of national security

threats, preferred foreign policies pursued are meant to address imminent challenges; for

example, the Look East policy that Zimbabwe adopted.

Look East Policy-An alternative from policy constructed by Zimbabwe to engage politically and

economically with Asian countries such as Singapore, China, Malaysia, Iran and Japan as a

result of the fallout with Europe and the US. According to the Zimbabwean government, it is

aimed at countering economic sanctions imposed in 2001 on Zimbabwe.

The West-in this context refers to the US, Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia,

countries in general, which imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe following a fall out in diplomatic

relations. Moreover, these countries are viewed by the Zimbabwean government as opposed to

ZANU- PF‘s ideologies and seek regime change in the country.

Southern African region- is a region comprising of fourteen states where Zimbabwe is located

and most of the countries are members of the SADC bloc.

Post 2000 era- is a period when the internal political and economic landscape of Zimbabwe

deteriorated. During this period the hostility between Zimbabwe and the West became

unrelenting and unfettered, owing to human rights, democracy and land issue concerns.

Sanctions- there are debates surrounding the components of sanctions on Zimbabwe. They have

been viewed as targeted against individuals in the decision making structures of Zimbabwe in

response to gross human rights violations and sanctions are also viewed as a response to the land

reform programme by the West.

Pan African/ism-is an ideology centred on the progress of the African continent and interests

Neo liberal approaches/ideals-are ideals promoted following the post-Cold War era, such as

good governance, capitalism, democracy and respect for human rights.

Cold War-is a period of ideological rivalry between the US and the former Soviet Union, which

formally ended in 1990. In the context of the research, the Cold War saw the destabilisation of

the Southern African region

Regional solidarity- the search a common understanding within the camp of Southern African

liberation movements such as the ANC, Chama Chamapinduzi, FRELIMO, MPLA, SWAPO and

ZANU-PF.

12. Delimitations of Study

Analysing foreign policy requires a long time and also engaging various stakeholders in and

within Zimbabwe. In this regard the research may fail to capture relevant sentiments and

viewpoints of stakeholders outside Zimbabwe, as it is costly. The investigation will therefore be

limited possibly to Zimbabwean viewpoints. Moreover the analysis of Zimbabwe’s foreign

policy may be limited to opinions of politicians. As such it may be quite tiresome to engage the

various stakeholders who may not be at liberty to disclose reliable and authentic information to

authenticate and substantiate the argument of the research.

13. Structure of the Study

Chapter One deals with the general introduction to Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy in Southern

Africa. The chapter is central to the formulation of the problem with the aid of the aims and

objectives, literature review, methodology and ethical considerations.

Chapter Two focuses on the origins and dynamics of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern

Africa since 1980.

Chapter Three investigates Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy since the beginning of the 1990s.

Chapter Four looks at the nexus between Zimbabwe’s foreign policy and the domestic

situation.

Chapter Five presents the general conclusion of the study as well as and recommendations

Chapter Two

Background to Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy since 1980

2.1 Introduction

The essence of this chapter is to unpack the evolution of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy since the

protracted nationalist struggle against white minority rule in the 1970s and the subsequent

independence of the country in 1980. As such the study pays special attention to some of the

thematic patterns Chimurenga ideology and a Pan-Africanist discourse that has continued to

define ZANU-PF codes of conduct within the realm of Africa’s international relations (Chan and

Patel, 2006: 175). However, the chapter also tries to qualify some dimensions illuminated in the

government of Zimbabwe’s search for security owing to supposedly historical concerns. It is for

this reason that the chapter outlines the contours and patterns of Zimbabwe’s diplomatic conduct

within the limited space of the Cold War from 1980 to 1990 in the context of Southern Africa.

It is also important to also look at how the country managed to strike a balance between

pragmatism and radicalism, given President Robert Mugabe’s socialist convictions in light of the

waning relevance of the Communist Bloc in international relations (Interview with Professor

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 17 October 2014). In this regard the chapter investigates Zimbabwe’s political

and military activities in Southern Africa and how the country managed to shape and influence

political, military, economic and social perspectives within the region since 1980. The region had

hoped that the country’s foreign policy would evolve in line with the expectations that

Zimbabwe would assume a proactive role in the wake of three formidable challenges: the South

African insurgency, the civil war in Mozambique and the operationalisation of the SADCC, all

read from the same manuscript of the politics of the Cold War (Chigora, 2008: 639). It is for this

reason that the sections below focus on the evolutionary stages of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.

2.2 Preliminary Thoughts

2.2.1 Foreign Policy Making in Africa

There has never been a general consensus over the nature and character of foreign policy making

in Africa. Concepts such as nation building, continental identity, sovereignty and integration

have either advanced or constrained the outputs of foreign policy in Africa making it difficult to

come up with a general explanation of foreign policy perspectives. Thus the African continent is

home to the contrasting ideologies, chief among them being the standoff over what constituted

foreign policy making in Africa in the wake of the advent of decolonization (Khadiagala and

Lyons, 2001: 1-2). In the post-Cold War era globalization and neo-liberal policies have gained

prominence and become advocates of international relations and thus questioning the relevance

of conservative ideologies such as pan Africanism, nationalism and solidarity the chief

ingredients to the conception of contemporary African nation-states. In other words the

conceptualization of foreign policy making has rather been problematic in Africa.

However, following the wave and euphoria of independence it goes without saying that the

continent witnessed a similar pattern in the outcome of external relations of respective post-

colonial states within and out of the continent, thus resonating with the realities of the time.

According to Alemazung (2010: 64-65 and Khadiagala and Lyons 2001: 1-2) the post-colonial

state was an embodiment of quagmires of discontinuity inherited as a legacy from colonialism.

These authors assert that weak institutions of governance and limited resources in the post-

colonial nation-state posed as a threat to consolidating hard won independence and it became the

prerogative of nationalist leaders to safeguard the political, economic and social sovereignties of

these countries. As such foreign policy making in Africa was premised on trying to consolidate

the dreams and hopes associated with the black majority and warding off any perceived external

threats. The argument above forms the basis of patterns in foreign policy making in Africa where

centralisation of decision making was necessary for the elite nationalist leaders (Khadiagala and

Lyons, 2001: 3-4). In this context, if these patterns hold true then it’s probable to say since

independence in 1980, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy has been one of trying to consolidate the

objectives of the nationalist struggle against external threats owing to the political and economic

landscape of the region and internal political dynamics that were as a result of post-colonial

states born out of armed struggles.

2.3 The Political and Economic Landscape of Southern Africa Prior to Zimbabwe’s

Independence

Prior to the end of colonialism, the political and economic patterns of Southern Africa were

expressed in the ideological twists of the Cold War, an ideological rivalry between the capitalist

United States of America (US) and the communist Soviet Union. The Cold War misgivings and

the popular euphoria of black majority rule presented the existence of two opposing ideological

and security groupings (Evans, 1984:2). On the one hand where the white buffer states of South

Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). These states were home to capitalist ideologies that were

religiously opposed to communist liberation movements that they viewed through terrorist

lenses. South Africa sought to maintain the legacy of capitalism through the formation of the

Constellation of Southern African States (CONSAS), a security bloc, whose primacy was to

secure the military, political and economic interests of the apartheid regime (Evans, 1984: 1 and

2).

According to then South Africa’s Defence Minister R.F Botha, a staunch capitalist apologist and

an immortal enemy of Marxist preferences, in 1979 this grouping (CONSAS) was expected to

provide an alternative to communism by forming a regional economic and security bloc

consisting of South Africa and the “independent” homeland states of the Transkei,

Bophuthatswana and Venda as well as Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and

Mozambique (Evans, 1984: 2; Adebayo, 2010: 107). In reality all these states mentioned were

economically dependent on South Africa, though Zimbabwe was more diplomatically and

economically important to South Africa. As such the future of Zimbabwe was of paramount

importance to both opposing camps as either a strategic partner or a springboard from which to

operationalize the counter offensive against apartheid South Africa, especially after the

establishment of the SADCC (Evans 1984: 3).

Opposed to the capitalist bloc and in stark contrast was the Frontline States (FLS), former

colonial states such as Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, Angola and Mozambique where black

majority rule had been entrenched such that these governments became naturally sympathetic to

Southern African liberation movements. These former liberation movements are the African

National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, South West Africa Peoples’ Organisation (SWAPO)

of Namibia as well as the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe African

Peoples Union (ZAPU) of Zimbabwe (Evans, 1984: 5, 6 and 9). The struggle for diplomatic

supremacy, ideological populism and a consistent economic, political and security culture led to

both South Africa and the FLS to adopt various schisms and strategies that would resonate with

and amplify the struggle for the future of Southern Africa. In the light of this the FLS grouping

emerged to confront and right the wrongs of white settler rule in Rhodesia, South Africa and

Namibia, the last few strands of minority rule on the continent (Samuel, 1979: 1). The result was

a negotiated settlement at Lancaster House in London and the subsequent independence of

Zimbabwe in 1980. Be that as it was, the political and economic landscape in Southern Africa

threatened the existence of the new black majority in Zimbabwe (Smart, 1986: 173). At

independence President Mugabe understood that this political and economic climate threatened

to constrain Zimbabwe’s foreign policy objectives and as such the government sought to work

around such limits by adopting a policy of reconciliation as an end to prioritise domestic security

first.

2.3.1 The Policy of reconciliation and Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

According to Wafawarova (Interview, 25 February, 2015) the transition from Rhodesia to

Zimbabwe was shaped by fear, anxiety and compromise because it involved various interested

stakeholders within the political space of the country, namely the Ndebele- and Shona-speaking

groups on the one hand and the white settler population on the other end of the political

spectrum. Alao (2012: 110) is of the view that prior to the independence of the country in 1980,

ZANU had bombarded the regional and international community with a socialist certainty as a

programme of action in post-independence Zimbabwe. In addition the author says that this

rhetoric by ZANU was tantamount to breeding tension between South Africa in the Southern

region and the US as the custodian of capitalism on the international stage (Alao, 2012: 110).

Despite the radical nature and subscribing to such a revolutionary and Marxist ideology, the

world was stunned with the abilities of Mugabe and his elites to strike a balance between righting

the wrongs of colonialism and protecting white minority interests in what was popularly known

as reconciliation (De Waal, 1990: 46). According to Klotz (1993: 265-66) this pragmatism as

opposed to radicalism was deeply rooted in the regime’s ideological emphasis on racial equality

which became fundamental in attempting to create domestic stability and a post-colonial

settlement of safeguarding national interests.

However, as noted above these regional and international security concerns, coupled with the

internal political landscape, beseeched President Mugabe to adopt a more pragmatic approach in

the form of the policy of reconciliation. Informed by a fear of a possible massive exodus of

former white skilled Rhodesians to South Africa; a possible disinvestment in the country’s

economy and caution from the international capital, the policy became the blue print of a post-

colonial Zimbabwe (Zhangazha, 2012: 1). Accordingly President Mugabe said “We will ensure

that there is a place for everyone in this country. We want to ensure a sense of security for both

winners and losers….Let us forgive and forget. Let’s join hands in a new amity” Mandaza (1987:

42). The policy of reconciliation was the “official normalisation of a previously abnormal

condition” that had been predated by identity and race in the long years of colonialism (Parry,

1995: 86). The policy of reconciliation ran through the political economy, from political

tolerance manifested in the inclusive Government of National Unity (GNU) in 1980 to the

protection of property rights as entailed in property clauses of the Lancaster House Agreements

(Kanyenze, 2004: 122). The policy of co-existence between the white and non-white

communities was a political miracle that painted Zimbabwe in the most favorable light in the

eyes of the international community. Such pragmatism was the opposite of the internal situation

in South Africa. Reconciliation in Zimbabwe intensified pressure on the apartheid government

on what should constitute blacks and whites relations in South Africa (Chan, 2011: 31). Thus this

model qualified Zimbabwe’s as a moral state that gained a pro-active role in condemning

apartheid South Africa as a pariah state (Jenkins, 1983: 23-24).

2.3.2 The Front Line States (FLS) to the SADCC

The independence and subsequent majority rule in Zimbabwe, where the government was

Marxist in orientation, dashed hopes of a broader CONSAS, thus putting into question a united

white buffer zone in Southern Africa (Evans 1984: 3). Though the independence of Zimbabwe

did not destabilise the economy of South Africa, it certainly brought out the diplomatic ability of

South Africa within the region into disrepute. Not only did Zimbabwe become an additional

appendage to the FLS narrative, but a panacea to regional security complexities, given her

foreign policy perspectives and emerging economic might (Alao 2012:111). Zimbabwe’s

independence, in many respects tilted the balance of power within the region in paving a way for

the creation of the Southern African Development Coordination Committee (SADCC), a regional

bloc in which Zimbabwe would maximise the push for regional integration (Evans 1984: 1-3).

The creation of the SADCC was very important because this would create a formal platform to

address the challenges affecting Southern Africa, cognizant of the weakened and independent

albeit dependent Southern African states such as Angola, Botswana and Mozambique. These

states’ sovereignty and regional security concerns had been severely compromised by the legacy

of colonialism and the Cold War (Khadiagala and Lyons, 2001: 4). Thus the independence of

Zimbabwe transformed the Lusaka Declaration into the SADCC in 1980 (Newham, 1998: 472-

473) thus signalling the importance of Zimbabwe in the formation of a common defense

framework the region.

2.4 The nature of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

2.4.1 Locating Chimurenga within Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy

Since independence, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy has been centred on President Robert Mugabe

and ZANU socialist ideology which was borne and forged in the liberation struggle of

Chimurenga (Chan and Patel, 2006: 175). Chimurenga is an ideology that occupies a central

place in the nationalist oriented making of the Zimbabwe nation-state that came to being in 1980

(Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 179). Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013: 179) amplifies the meaning of

Chimurenga as a vernacular name, from Murenga, a Zimbabwean spirit medium who fought

against white settlers, as an embodiment of the undying spirit of African resistance to

colonialism. In his brief speech on the contours of the country’s foreign policy in May 1980

Zimbabwe’s first president, Reverend Canaan Banana, put emphasis on non-alignment, African

issues, peaceful coexistence and reordering of the international economic order (Patel,1985:228)

In August of the same year then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe spoke from the same manuscript

by reiterating the issues of sovereignty, self-determination, independence, racialism at home and

abroad as well as Pan-African issues (Patel, 1985:228 and 230). The evolution and subsequent

formulation of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy after independence was premised on the legacy of the

liberation struggle through which President Mugabe managed to deeply entrench Pan-Africanist

sentiments that resonated in a region influenced by anti-imperialist and anti-colonial ideology

related to the very nature of governments led by former liberation movements (Phimister and

Raftopoulos, 2004: 385)

2.4.2 The centralisation of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

Since 1980, Zimbabwe’s external relations have been the province of President Mugabe and

ZANU-PF (Chigora, 2007: 172; Chan and Patel, 2006: 176). This has been the case because of

the ideological commitment to the Chimurenga discourse by President Mugabe and ZANU-PF.

However Alao (2012:107) amplifies the role played by President Mugabe such that from

independence it was his prerogative to exercise security diplomacy in Southern Africa. As such it

may well explain the high level of centralization in the country’s foreign policy. The argument

cements Khadiagala and Lyons’s (2001: 3 and 5) assertion that foreign policy making has always

been the province of elite leaders. This centralization has seen official party institutions such as

the Politburo, Central Committee, Parliament and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe playing a very

pivotal role in shaping the outcome of Zimbabwe’s external relations (Chan and Patel, 2006:

176). However, such centralization from a critical point of view could illuminate undemocratic

patterns of governance where decision making in foreign policy is limited to the prerogative of

ZANU-PF. However, Khadiagala and Lyons (2001: 3 and 4) explain further centralization in

foreign policy making in Africa as an end to consolidate dreams and hopes associated with

independence. In this regard it easy to therefore to understand why President Mugabe and ZANU

PF put the Chimurenga ideals at the center of foreign policy making immediately after

independence. The Chimurenga discourse was used by Zimbabwe as a means to search for

regional alliances and strengthen the solidarity of liberation movements in power.

2.5 Security Concerns and the Search for Regional Alliances, 1980-1990

History and solidarity have always occupied a central feature in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

discourse since ZANU assumed power in Zimbabwe in 1980. The language resonates with a

region that is deeply rooted in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiments (Ndlovu-Gatsheni,

2011: 5) Patriotic history of the nationalist struggle is calculated as an end to weave cordial

relations among liberation movements in the wake of any perceived security issues. At

independence Zimbabwe faced enormous security challenges as a result of the legacy of the

colonial struggle and apartheid South Africa (Smart, 1986: 173). The legacy of the liberation

struggle in the region pitted various liberation movements in diverse ideological camps with

regards to post-colonial political and economic environments. During the liberation struggle

splinter organizations such as Pan African Congress (PAC) and ZANU which broke away from

mother organizations such as the ANC and ZAPU respectively, were considered counter-

revolutionary and divisive (Howe, 1969: 150). It was natural for most of the countries in the

region to offer more political sanctuary to ZAPU at the time of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.

As a precursor to Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle ZAPU had managed to forge ties with Zambia,

Botswana, Angola and the ANC of South Africa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2011: 4, 7).

Against this background, at independence, ZANU fully understood the political realities of the

time that most neighboring countries were very sympathetic to ZAPU. Reed (1993:36) says

“The external environment which ZANU entered in 1964 was dominated by ZAPU. Regionally,

ZAPU and its predecessor the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress, had actively

collaborated with Kenneth Kaunda and Hastings Banda to secure the break-up of the European-

dominated Central African Federation. Similarly, ZAPU’s president, Joshua Nkomo, had been

an active participant in the Pan-African Movement of East, Central and Southern Africa

(PAFMESCA)”. It is against such political reality that ZANU’s foreign policy was to establish

and maintain relations in a post independent Zimbabwe (Reed, 1993: 31 and 59). President

Mugabe sought to reinvent history and solidarity with Southern African states that had previous

relations with ZAPU. For example, following the independence of Zimbabwe President Mugabe

was actively involved in the Angolan civil war debacle with Harare hosting a summit of African

leaders where an opportunity was presented to Mugabe to brand Jonas Savimbi, the leader of

rebel movement in Angola and an international terrorist (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 36). However,

of much importance were the relations between Zimbabwe and Zambia as an immediate

neighbor and a traditional ally of ZAPU.

2.5.1 Zimbabwe-–Zambia relations: A legacy of ideology and security concerns, 1980-

1990

Existing perceptions towards ZANU as a breakaway from ZAPU seem to have been an

important factor defining security concerns in the search for a foreign policy by Zimbabwe

within Southern Africa. Zimbabwe’s post-independence relations with Zambia were informed by

the yester years’ relations of the liberation struggle (Alao, 2012: 110; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2011: 4

and 7). While on the surface the liberation struggle was a protracted struggle against white settler

rule, the under currents mirrored cracks within the overall camp of the liberation movements

across the continent, particularly the Southern African region where liberation movements were

pitted in the Sino-Soviet Union dichotomy (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2011: 8; Chan 2011:37) ZANU,

the ruling party in Zimbabwe had received military training and support from China whereas the

ruling United National Independence Party (UNIP) in Zambia had received military training

from the Soviet Union. These differences were important in shaping post-independence politics

in Zimbabwe as Zambia continued to support ZAPU a former beneficiary of the Soviet Union

(Reeds 1993: 40). Thus it is important to stress that security concerns illuminated in Zambia’s

close relations with ZAPU and apartheid South Africa insurgency were the main pillars of

Zimbabwe-Zambia relations in the post 1980 era.

Zambia and Zimbabwe relations can be traced to the colonial era where the two countries were

not only named after Cecil John Rhodes as Northern and Southern Rhodesia, respectively, but

were also amalgamated into a Federation with Malawi as a concerted effort against Afrikaner

nationalism in South Africa (Marks, 2014: 1). Years later in the post-independence era both

countries would informally emerge to counter apartheid South Africa’s hegemony in the region,

through the FLS and later the SADCC (Alao, 2012: 130). However, Zambia’s perception of the

liberation struggle was tilted in the favor of the Soviet backed ZAPU, a reason which both

declared and implied tension against ZANU. Such a standpoint would affect the course of

relations between the two countries after Zimbabwe’s independence. The assassination of the

national chairman of ZANU the late Herbert Chitepo on Zambian soil in 1975 suggested the cold

relations between the two, with Zambia suspecting ZANU of the act (Republic of Zambia, 1976).

However, Chitepo was killed by Rhodesian secrets agents as part of the struggle against

nationalist liberation movements (Tamarkin, 1990: 64). The assasination of Chitepo marked a

turning point in Zambia-ZANU relations resulting in the latter seeking sanctuary and military

bases from Zambia to Mozambique for the liberation cause (Scarrit and Nkiwane, 1996: 10).

At independence President Mugabe delayed an extension of invitation to his inauguration

ceremony to former Zambia’s President Dr. Kenneth Kaunda (Chan 2011: 55-56). This delay

was exhibited as a sign of cold relations between the two countries and this can be understood

according to Reed (1993: 54) that ‘the international alliances and animosities ZANU developed

during the liberation struggle serve as guideposts for the foreign policy activities which

Zimbabwe’s ZANU-dominated government has pursued. This became more apparent following

the arms cache that was allegedly found in Matabeleland on farms belonging to ZAPU.

Zimbabwe suspected Zambia of playing a central role in facilitating the weapons to ZAPU by

virtue of Lusaka having historical ties with ZAPU (Alao, 2012: 130). This was a sign of security

challenges in Zimbabwe that eventually resulted in the Matabeleland debacle where the problem

evolved around Zambia’s support for ZAPU and Kaunda’s ill reception of ZANU. According to

Chan (1992: 151 and 172) the rivalry between President Mugabe and President Kaunda stemmed

from the competition for regional leadership. This competition had the effect of buttressing

President Kaunda’s ill perceptions of ZANU in the years that followed Zimbabwe’s

independence in the sense that President Kaunda viewed President Mugabe as seeking to replace

the role which Zambia had been playing as the hub for pan Africanism in the region.

However, the threat of apartheid South Africa and the untimely death of President Samora

Machel of Mozambique in 1986 created opportunities for inventing close cooperation between

Zimbabwe and Zambia (Scarrit and Nkiwane, 1996: 13). The cooperation between Zimbabwe

and Zambia was of paramount importance for regional integration. Zimbabwe’s independence

not only ended Zambia’s military confrontation with a Rhodesian white regime but directed the

confrontation to apartheid South Africa thus creating a new ally, Zimbabwe, to be involved in

that confrontation (Scarrit and Nkiwane,1996: 13). The importance of the cooperation was

illuminated after Zimbabwe’s independence through the founding of SADCC where security

concerns of the Southern African region were formally addressed (Scarrit and Nkiwane, 1996:

13)

Scarrit and Nkiwane (1996:13) argue that the death of President Samora Machel saw President

Mugabe seeking solidarity with President Kaunda in search for regional cooperation This

closeness was furthered as a result of apartheid South Africa’s insurgency; the insurgency

brought old foes together in the process, uniting the hawks and doves in Harare and Lusaka in a

concerted effort against South Africa. Accordingly, it is possible to assume that there was a

nexus between security and ideological concerns as indicated by the shift in ZANU-PF

government’s foreign policy towards Zambia. The death of President Machel, a staunch Marxist,

and threat of a capitalist apartheid government in South Africa were both a void in and an

antithesis of the socialist camp in Southern Africa.

2.6 The Question of Apartheid South Africa

The case of Zimbabwe’s foreign relations with South Africa produce very interesting dimensions

given the historical background of the two countries that were former British colonies. Until

1980 South Africa and Zimbabwe had managed to forge diplomatic, political and economic ties

as the last strands of white colonial supremacy in Southern Africa and perhaps outposts of white

capitalism in the on-going misgivings of the Cold War (Alao, 2012: 109). As noted above, the

unholy alliance of South Africa and Rhodesia before 1980 was a concerted racial effort to extent

white supremacy through the creation of a “white buffer zone” that would continue to be an

arsenal in the wake of an unprecedented black majority rule throughout Southern Africa. The

maintenance of a “white buffer zone” would be possible given the political, ideological,

economic and military superiority of the two countries and perhaps the ideological commitment

toward warding off perceived terrorist communist movements such as the ANC, PAC, ZANU

and ZAPU (Alao, 2012:109). However, the protracted struggle and subsequent independence of

Zimbabwe dashed the hopes of a structural continuity because the independence ushered a black

majority government and a subsequent diplomatic fall out with South Africa. The ascendance to

power of a black Marxist government in Zimbabwe signalled a shift in the political landscape in

Southern Africa and an advanced commitment to the nationalist Pan-African cause in South

Africa and Namibia (Smart, 1986: 173). Zimbabwe was an emerging economic giant in Southern

Africa whose prime interest was the end to white rule in Namibia and South Africa and her

economic might made it possible for the formation of SADCC and stregthening of the FLS to the

Namibian and South African cause.

Rooted in the liberation struggle and the region’s expectations, Zimbabwe’s post-1980 foreign

policy committed the country to a non-racial discourse, in line with the declarations of the OAU

on racial discrimination and apartheid enshrined in the Lusaka manifesto of April 1969. Such a

reconciliation policy and multi-racialism was the first port of call in fermenting hostility between

Pretoria and Harare because the policy was an inconvenience and irritating example of

coexistence which the apartheid government was fighting against within its borders (Patel, 1987:

306; Alao, 2012: 116). It was only natural for Zimbabwe to condemn the internal structural

inequalities in South Africa and extend a sanctuary to black movements such as the ANC and

PAC (Klotz, 1993: 265 and 270). Such a non-racial and Pan-Africanist subscription would in

part cast Zimbabwe in the most favourable light to the international community, rendering her

accolades and an international status as the diplomatic hub of the continent, especially in its

quest for a liberated Southern Africa.

However, despite a change in the political landscape within Zimbabwe and expectations from

within Southern Africa, since 1980 Zimbabwe’s foreign policy toward apartheid South Africa

could not be generalized. The foreign policy was a mixture of economic concerns and Pan-

Africanism (Klotz, 1993: 266-267). Irrespective of this the study discusses the scope and

dimension of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy towards South Africa in these first years of

Zimbabwe’s independence, it is important to identify and outline pointers that were relevant in

Harare’s code of conduct with Pretoria. Firstly, the case of South Africa was internationally

viewed as a moral responsibility than an economic necessity. This meant that international

sanctions against the apartheid regime were symbolical in part as a means of parading

international moral and ethical solidarity. International sanctions on South Africa did not

consider the long term effects on her immediate neighbours who would bear the brunt of South

Africa’s sabotage. Thus was done regardless of whatever the consequences and counter-

sanctions that would be at Zimbabwe’s peril (Klotz, 1993: 269) Secondly, the rhetoric of

sanction operated against the backdrop of weak Southern African economies that were

traditionally tied to and dependent on apartheid South Africa. Thus, it would be naive of the

Mugabe regime to assume a proactive role in this sanctions rhetoric, given the effects that would

emanate from such a position. Calculated in a positive sum approach, Zimbabwe adopted a

pragmatic approach in sustaining the imposition of sanctions on South Africa only at the behest

of the leading capitalist world (Alao, 2012: 123). The position taken by Zimbabwe was informed

by the economic environment of Southern Africa. The region could not pose as a threat to the

apartheid government because of the integration trends. These integration trends revealed that

the economies of most of the countries within Southern Africa were not strong enough to counter

South Africa because most of these were dependent on Pretoria.

Integration trends and economic patterns in Southern Africa were fragmented as a result of

uneven levels of development. Uneven levels of development affected Zimbabwe’s ability to

push towards the South African and Namibian liberation cause. The result was that Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy would mirror inconsistency and pragmatism instead of radicalism (Alao, 2012:

111; Klotz 1993: 269). In respect of the above, a more critical and realist approach would be

informative in grasping Zimbabwe’s external relations with South Africa in the wake of the

latter’s destructive policy in Southern Africa states such as Angola, Zambia and Mozambique.

Prior to the independence of Mozambique most of Rhodesia’s trade was conducted via the

shortest and cheaper route through the Beira corridor towards the Indian Ocean. However, the

ascendance to power of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) and the anti-regime

attacks by Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO) in Mozambique changed the political

and economic patterns between Rhodesia and Mozambique (Chan, 1992:160)

2.6.1 Inconsistency in Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy

Inconsistency in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy can be understood in the nature of the foreign

policy the apartheid regime pursued towards Harare. The mid-1980s saw the banditry of South

Africa’s destabilisation tactics in Southern Africa. This included attacks on ZANU-PF

headquarters in 1981, military installations which included Inkomo Barracks near Harare in

Zimbabwe and the annihilation of Thornhill Air Base in Gweru Zimbabwe, on 16 August 1981

and 25 July 1982, respectively. These were followed by a series of organised attacks on transport

routes such as the Zimbabwe-Maputo line and the famous Beira Corridor (Patel, 1987: 303). The

attacks impacted heavily on the economy of Zimbabwe as the trade routes in Mozambique had

remained the only reliable for Zimbabwe’s access to the sea. Zimbabwe’s option to use

Mozambique’s trade routes was informed by the historical and subsequent ideological ties

between the two countries as two Marxist governments. At the time South African trade routes

were not feasible because of the apartheid government policy of destabilization on the economy

of Zimbabwe thus the routes in Mozambique were only feasible.

However, despite these attacks, Zimbabwe‘s foreign policy towards South Africa mirrored

shreds of inconsistency and half-hearted measures. This was informed by Zimbabwe’s economic

nationalism as well as the political and economic patterns of the region of the time. This

bordered on the security concerns in the Beira corridor which often forced the Mugabe regime to

court the South African regime for economic fortunes (Chan, 2011:35). However on the other

hand Zimbabwe’s foreign policy towards South Africa stemmed from the ideological differences

between the ANC and ZANU that transcended into the post-colonial Zimbabwean state (Picard

and Keller, 1989: 212; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2011: 10). These authors argue that ZANU and the

PAC were ideologically tied together as splinter organisation that found the support of China as

opposed to the ANC, which closely worked with ZAPU and was backed by the Soviet Union. It

was only after 1994, with the birth of the new democratic South Africa and the demise of the

PAC as a formidable political party that cordial relations between ZANU and the ANC began to

materialise.

2.7 The Civil War in Mozambique and Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy

The debacle in the fortunes of Mozambique’s independence can be traced back to the liberation

struggle of Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The revolutionary struggles of these two countries had

created uncertainty in the minority governments of Rhodesia and the Portuguese in Mozambique.

This was because the Rhodesian and Portuguese intelligentsia were forced to create an “anti-

FRELIMO fifth column” whose prerogative was to circumvent ZANLA and FRELIMO

operations in both respective countries to slow the liberation struggle (Vines, 1996: 15, 16)

However the independence of Mozambique under the Marxist government of FRELIMO

restructured Rhodesia’s foreign policy towards Mozambique where it was imminent to

strengthen an “anti-FRELIMO fifth column” to contain Marxist movements such as ZANU

from taking power in Rhodesia. RENAMO were remnants of disenchanted renegades from

FRELIMO, some amongst them with highly profiled felonies such as Andre Matsangaissa and

Alfonso Dhlakama who later translated their political frustration with FRELIMO into armed

banditry (Vines, 1996: 15). The formation of RENAMO saw the independence of Mozambique

come to naught as human, political and economic security threats became very imminent

Cognizant of RENAMO and the threat the group posed to peace and stability, the government of

Mozambique requested help from the Zimbabwean government in 1985.

Zimbabwe’s military involvement in Mozambique in 1986 failed to create a united political

consensus in the region. The intervention in Mozambique was presented as positing an attempt to

advance Zimbabwe’s pre-eminence in the region, given her formidable economic and military

might at the time (Chan, 1993: 158). However, an idealistic Pax Africana agenda was presented

where the moral burden of innocent civilians in Mozambique was at the mercy and the onslaught

of RENAMO hung heavily on the conscience of policy makers in Harare (Mazrui, 1967: 203)

Pax Africana is presented as the ability by African states to address issues on the continent using

African means such as was the case in the civil war in Mozambique. Perhaps Stephen Chan

(2011: 38) captures the extent of the civil war’s nightmare, thus motivating Harare’s

intervention, in the most chilling tale when he says: “If Angola became an African version of a

mid-twentieth century European war, then Mozambique was a throwback to medial savagery to

a time when, in Europe, the casual, gratuitous and cruel slaughter of innocents became a

lingering shame that no later Geneva conventions and laws of war could quite erase”. Chan’s

analysis of the civil war in Mozambique attests to that Mozambique had degenerated into a

quagmire of violence and thus threatened to become a failed state because the government was

failing to protect its own citizens from the onslaughts by the RENAMO. Zimbabwe and

Mozambique had stood in solidarity with each other in sharing the anti-colonial credo, thus the

RENAMO insurgency was a natural provocation to the newly established Zimbabwean

government. The client-patron relationship between RENAMO and apartheid government

threatened economic and security concerns for Zimbabwe.

On a different account it could be argued that historical efforts by the FRELIMO government in

providing sanctuary to ZANU- PF during the heydays of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle factored

in and as such the Zimbabwean government was compelled to stand in solidarity with FRELIMO

during the civil war (Interview with Reason Wafawarova, 2014). However, this realist explanation

seems to have entrenched the academic space and was, therefore, accredited as the most befitting

narrative of Zimbabwe’s military adventure. It goes without saying that in the wake of the civil

war in Mozambique, Zimbabwe intervened conscious of its own national interests and economic

nationalism (Johnson and Martin, 1986: 71). This school of thought holds true cognizant of

Zimbabwe-South Africa relations between 1980-1990 where, economically, South Africa was on

the offensive by blockading and sabotaging the former such that the only viable trade routes and

ports were in Mozambique. In this regard Chigora (2008: 636) and Alao (2012: 114) argue that it

was South Africa’s goal to weaken Zimbabwe with the hope that the latter would not be

economically strong to offer sanctuary that would enable communism to deter apartheid South

Africa as part of the Cold War ideological twists.

2.7.1 Nexus between economic considerations and the Cold War

The civil war in Mozambique not only illuminated an abyss and quagmire of violence and strife

but posited some dynamics worth mentioning (Chan 2011:38). The civil war expressed certain

political and ideological twists in the form of the Cold War in which governments of the US and

South Africa were supporting capitalism through RENAMO against the Marxist FRELIMO

government that was being supported by the Soviet Union (Chigora 2008: 639). The support

rendered to RENAMO enabled the rebel group to sabotage the FRELIMO government through

coordinated attacks on infrastructure and trade routes especially along the Beira corridor. These

trade routes were beneficial for most Southern African countries such as Zimbabwe that is

landlocked.

The US and South Africa’s support for RENAMO was based on the fact that Marxist

governments had gained a foothold in Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

It then became the prerogative of South Africa and the US to change this political and

ideological reality through circumventing the gains and hopes associated with an independent

Mozambique in this Cold War ideological twist. This epoch was a threat to Zimbabwe’s national

economic security as a result of the activities that were sabotaging reliable trade routes in

Mozambique. Mozambique’s ports had proven to be vital economic routes for Zimbabwe in part

because both countries shared historical and ideological ties (Chigora, 2008: 639). Therefore,

Zimbabwe’s economic security rested on three vital trade routes, the Beira Corridor linking

Mutare, Zimbabwe’s fourth largest city to the Indian Ocean through road, rail, oil pipeline and

electric power line. The second one was the Limpopo Corridor, a rail link from Chicualacuala

bordering Zimbabwe to Maputo, Mozambique with the third being the Tete Corridor in

northern Mozambique linking North-Eastern Zimbabwe to Tete where these routes were the

heartlands of RENAMO insurgency thus sabotaging Zimbabwe’s economy (Mlambo, 2000: 25-

34).

2.7.2 Perceptions on the civil war in Mozambique

The origins, causes and ramifications of the debacle of the civil war in Mozambique have been

outlined above. Nationhood in Mozambique was only made possible through a protracted and

violent liberation struggle which was accompanied by bloodshed (Lamb, 2013: 4). However the

point is not to generalise issues already stated above but to expand the logic of this analysis. The

analysis assert that Harare’s foreign policy in Mozambique at the time sought to cement

solidarity among former liberation movements through the country’s unequivocal support of

FRELIMO regardless of taking cognisant of the possibility of exhausted nationalism factors that

may have been at play in Mozambique. Exhausted nationalism could be another explanation

accounting for the genesis of RENAMO as a group fed up with FRELIMO’s domestic policies.

Political decadence such as a one party system and economic mismanagement were some of the

causes that led to political frustration and the formation of RENAMO. However regardless of

this assumption Zimbabwe adopted a hostile and closed door policy on RENAMO as a pseudo

movement threatening to remove in power an authentic nationalist government. This hostile and

closed door policy signalled perceptions that were to constitute the political landscape of

Southern Africa in the years to come following the emergence of post-liberation movements.

That former liberation movements’ political entitlement to power was legitimate and

unquestionable and as such would wade off any threats by perceived surrogates of imperialism

appeared to be at the core of President Mugabe’s views of RENAMO and the civil war

(Interview with Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 17 October, 2014).

As Zimbabwe’s perceptions on RENAMO were clear, it is important how these perceptions had

a bearing on the methods Harare opted for in responding to the civil war. Zimbabwe preferred

cohesive diplomacy through the use of military means to match the nature and scope of

RENAMO as an armed banditry, with no real national political programme that sabotaged the

country’s stability. In RENAMO, Zimbabwe saw a politically obscure grouping that would only

express political frustration through retrogressive tendencies such as killing innocent civilians

and destroying the country’s infrastructure (interview with Wafawarova, 25 February, 2015).

Accordingly, good offices that were limited to megaphone and ethical diplomacy would only

guarantee the exit of FRELIMO as a ruling party subsequently paving the way to a hostile

eastern neighbour for Zimbabwe (interviews with Wafawarova, 25 February 2015 and Ndlovu-

Gatsheni, 17 October, 2014). The Zimbabwean government’s position extracted lessons from the

country’s own internal civil war shortly after independence, the Matabeleland disturbances. The

Matabeleland disturbances could have been very informative on the military campaign in

Mozambique in convincing Zimbabwe that national security issues in Mozambique were at best

addressed through military means.

Conclusion

The evolution of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was synonymous with the independence of the

country in 1980. As such the country’s foreign policy reaffirmed continuities, the Chimurenga

discourse by ZANU in the search for security through forming regional alliances and

strengthening the solidarity of liberation movements. Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was premised

on attaining security in a region that enumerated the ideological twists of the Cold War;

insurgency by the apartheid government and the search for authenticity amongst liberation

movements. Zimbabwe managed to meet its objectives through a formidable economy that was

flourishing at the time to push for the regional agenda and Pan Africanism that cast the country’s

foreign policy in the most favorable light. Be that as it was, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was also

aimed at ZANU’s search for authenticity as part of the post-independent projects of survival

amongst liberation movements that were divided along the Sino-Soviet Union dichotomy. Thus

the use of Chimurenga was aimed at cultivating relations with former liberation movements

within the region.

Chapter Three

The Dawn of Democracy in South Africa: Its Influence on Zimbabwe’s Foreign Policy Making, 1990-2000.

3.1. Introduction

The focus of this chapter is to discuss Zimbabwe’s foreign policy as part of the trajectory in post-

1990 Southern Africa by illuminating specific patterns related to the period. This is done so by

discussing the rise of the new democratic South Africa, the rhetoric of exhausted nationalism in

the region, reviewing the concept of regional security and how the era motivated for the

restructuring of Zimbabwe’s foreign relations. Flowing from the above the chapter also seeks to

account for the power race that emerged between Zimbabwe and South Africa in a bid to assume

a proactive role within the Southern African region and how the race almost posed a challenge to

the SADC’s regional obligations and put its capabilities into disrepute. As part of the analysis of

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy it is incumbent on the chapter to look at the involvement of

Zimbabwe in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the close of the 1990s.

The influence of the Cold War resonates deeply in many regards with epochs such as colonialism

and neo-colonialism in the context of defining Southern Africa’s political, economic and social

patterns. Three issues are worth considering in illuminating the influence of the Cold War and

the political patterns of Southern Africa. Firstly, the Cold War period witnessed the apartheid

regime exert its formidable military prowess in the region of Southern Africa as part of its “Total

Strategy” thus the regime transformed into a regional and international outlaw (Adebajo, 2010:

101). Secondly the epoch was accompanied by bloodbath in the region as manifested in the

activities of armed bandits such as Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence

of Angola (UNITA) and Alfonso Dhlakama Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) in

Angola’s and Mozambique’s civil wars respectively (Ciment, 1997: 1). Thirdly the Lancaster

House negotiations of 1979 in Britain, which ended in Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980,

expressed the ideological twists of the Cold War in circumventing a meaningful socialist

political and economic transformation in that country (Tendi, 2014:1255). These limitations put

constrains on the Zimbabwean government in delivering dreams and hopes associated with its

independence and would later haunt Mugabe’s government in the late 1990s. In the same vein it

would be important to appreciate the influence of the end of the Cold War on the independence

of Namibia, the dismantling of the apartheid regime and the birth of democracy in South Africa

as well as the end of the civil war in Mozambique, resultantly signaling a shift in the political

patterns of Southern Africa (Schoeman, 2001: 6).

3.2 Southern Africa’s political patterns

The end of the Cold War and the independence of Namibia in 1990 and South Africa in 1994,

respectively, saw the concerted efforts in dismantling white minority rule completed in Southern

Africa. The end of the Cold War offered optimism in the political patterns of the Southern

African region given that the Cold War period had fragmented the region. The Cold War’s

misgivings in Southern Africa were such that: the period had allowed the apartheid government

in South Africa to pursue a destabilizing foreign policy in the region that ultimately earned South

Africa a regional outlaw status. During this period the region witnessed acts of armed banditry

committed in both Mozambique and Angola as part of the ideological twists of the Cold War that

eventually escalated into respective full armed civil conflicts (Ciment, 1997:1). The result was

that the Cold War interrupted the delayed the completion of the cycle of the revolution in

Zimbabwe that started with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, which

revolved around the transfer of the country’s control on the political and economic destiny from

the white minority to the majority of blacks. The delay in the transfer of the political economy

later became a lasting legacy that eventually haunted the Mugabe regime in the late 90s (open for

discussion later in the study). In that regard it is easy to understand why the end of the Cold War

was welcomed as a positive stride in the politics of Southern Africa, especially with regards to

the independence of Namibia and South Africa.

Be that as it may the end of the Cold War brought political optimism through the independence

of Namibia in 1990 and the release of liberation political prisoners, the negotiations and the

eventual independence of South Africa in 1994. However the end of the Cold War saw the

beginning of the slow death of nationalism within the region with its first symptoms manifesting

in Zambia (Chan 2011:55-56. For example regardless of the pan Africanist efforts Dr. Kenneth

Kaunda, the founding father of Zambia and his United National Independence Party (UNIP)

rendered to the region, the wave of political change of the 90s could not avert the humiliating

exit of the liberation movement in Zambia from power in 1991 (Chan 2011: 55-56). Chan (1992:

158) details the role played by Zambia under President Kaunda by explaining that since the

country’s independence in 1964, President Kaunda and his government were committed to the

liberation of Angola, Mozambique Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. This, he adds, made

Zambia to become the springboard to launch an anti-colonial effort against white minority rule in

Southern Africa. Thus the end of the Cold War ushered in both positive and negative political

patterns in the region, whilst the humiliating electoral defeat of UNIP in 1991 paved a way for

multi-party system in Zambia, it suggested a change in perceptions of the face of liberation

movements in Zambia a party that had been committed to the total independence of the region of

Southern Africa, be that as it may the end of the Cold War saw the dismantling of apartheid in

South Africa.

The change in South Africa’s political landscape from aparthied to a democracy also suggested

a shift in foreign policy making of most Southern African states as result of change in visible

security national concerns premised on apartheid South Africa’s terrorism towards Southern

Africa (Africa and Molomo, 2013: 15). After 1994 the African National Congress (ANC)

government sought to reinvent the tarnished image of South Africa as a regional outlaw that had

thrown its weight around like a township bully (Adebajo, 2010: 101). Of essence was whether

the rise of a democratic South Africa would provide an alternative Pan-Africanist discourse in

Southern Africa and perhaps in the international community. It also remained to be seen whether

these developments would surely put Zimbabwe’s diplomatic role that had seen the country

actively playing a leading role in the region’s political affairs off balance (Velde, 2011: 83).

In addition to the positive developments in South Africa, the debacle of the civil war in

Mozambique, though still vivid in the memory of foreign policy makers in Harare, and the

region, the Rome General Peace Accord of 1992 ushered an opportunity for multi-party

democractic environment in Mozambique. The peace agreement was followed by the subsequent

democratic elections of 1994 in South Africa (Paris, 2004: 144). However, these political

developments in Mozambique were crucial within the context of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

towards Mozambique. The end of the civil war suggested the end of security threats that had

been caused by apartheid South Africa and RENAMO. These security threats had been presented

as the nucleus of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in the region and the end of these meant a shift in

security concerns thus a need to restructure the country’s foreign policy (Schoeman 2001:6). It

is in this context that the restructuring of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy should be assessed within

the context of its relations with South Africa since 1994.

3.3 The relations between Zimbabwe and the new democratic South Africa, 1994-2000

The end of the Cold War not only witnessed the dissolution of the communist Eastern bloc and

the fall of the Berlin Wall but closer to home it perhaps ushered in a supposedly alternative

discourse to a Pan-Africanist model embedded in the shreds of neo-liberalism. In Southern

Africa the end of the Cold War changed the political landscape in South Africa in a way that it

also arrested the ideology that had sustained the apartheid regime, subsequently paving a way for

a more democratic political landscape (Patel, 1992: 54 and 55). However the change in the

political landscape in South Africa that was made possible through the release of political

prisoners and the Convention for a Democratic South Africa(CODESA) negotiations marked a

very important pillar in South Africa’s relations with its neighbours,particulary Zimbabwe

(Rupiya, 2002: 161) Having attained independence as a late decoloniser and at a time the Soviet

Union was losing its relevance in international affairs and against the prowess of the aparthied

state machinery, the ANC was forced to a negotiaiting settlement that would at least gurantee

majority however severely placing significant limits on the ANC in the pursuit of nationalist

projects.(Interview with Professor Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 17 October 2014) and (Southall, 2013: 72).

In this regard the negotiated settlement was seen as the smoothing down of the patriotic history

of black majority in South Africa.

The wave of participative democracy and the establishment of majority rule in South Africa saw

the ANC at the helm of political power in a unique settelement, the triapatite government with

the out going Afrikaner Nationalist Party and the Inkhanta Freddom Party(Rupiya, 2002:161).

The tripartite government was seen as an end to reconciliation and political accomodation in

ensuring low intensity of conflict between warring parties, particulary disoriented blacks against

priviliged whites ,this would eventually foster the creation of a rainbow nation (Southall, 2013:

71). As a result of its nature this political settlement in South Africa should be assessed against

the impact it had on the country’s foreign policy input and the relations it had with Zimbabwe.

3 3.1 The History of ZANU and the ANC relations

In 2000 President Robert Mugabe, while addressing the 5th National Congress of the Tanzanian

Chama Cha Mapinduzi held in Dodoma, took a swipe against, “those states seeking political

superiority or greater sovereignty – undermining regional defence and security” Rupiya(2002:

160). Rupiya opines that President Mugabe’s statements were directed at South Africa in a

manner that reflected a strain the relations between Zimbabwe and South Africa in the struggle

for regional supremacy. The uneasy relations between the two countries can be located in the

ideology, political and economic patterns that have informed the two countries‘s liberation

movements, the ANC and ZANU since the yester-years of colonialism and perhaps the Cold War

(Chan, 1992:160). This “cold war” was mirrored through the perception of these liberation

movements in the two countries and even the position of the apartheid government on the

outcomes of the Lancaster House settlements on the future of Zimbabwe(Alao, 2012:109).

Prior to the independence of Zimbabwe ZANU, adopted a radical militaristic programme of

action known as Gukurahundi which was expected to define the course of the liberation struggle

and perhaps the making of the Zimbabwe nation-state. The ZANU-Idea, Gukurahundi was a

philosophy of confrontation that embraced violence as a legitimate tool in the fight for

independence and the destruction of one’s adversary (white settler regime and counter

revolutionaries) (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 134). This radical military action instilled fear across

the political divide in Zimbabwe and was naturally viewed as terrorism by the aparthied

government (Chan, 1992: 160). Thus the apartheid government became uncomfortable with the

possibility of a Marxist government in Zimbabwe and this led to Pretoria’s immense support in

trying to secure Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s victory in the elections in 1980. Bishop Abel

Muzorewa was a moderate politician who would maintain the status quo of white privileges.

However, this “cold war” was not only a feature in the relations between apartheid South Africa

and Zimbabwe’s radical liberation movement, as a government in waiting. In accounting for the

dynamics that informed Zimbabwe-South Africa relations, scholars (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013:146

and Kondlo, 2009: 188) have provided with a historical analysis of the factors that were at play

prior to the independence of both Zimbabwe and South Africa. These ideological factors are

located in the different convictions that defined ANC and ZANU liberation courses respectively.

During the liberation struggle ZANU and the ANC did not enjoy cordial relations, because of the

latter’s alliance with ZAPU another liberation movement in Zimbabwe, and also as a result of the

ANC’s perceptions towards ZANU as a splinter organization that possessed pseudo liberation

credentials. ZANU had broken away from ZAPU in 1963 and went on to seek solidarity with

competing movements such as the PAC in South Africa. In light of this, on the 5 th of August

1967 the Deputy President of the ANC, Oliver Tambo and Deputy President for ZAPU, James

Chikerema expressed the solidarity between the ANC and ZAPU in the fight against white settler

regimes in both South Africa and Rhodesia(Zimbabwe) citing combined military operations in

Zimbabwe. (Tambo, 1967: 1) Not only was this competition limited to the search for solidarity

within the region, at international levels ZANU and the PAC sought ideological sanctuary,

training and solidarity from the Chinese whereas the ANC and ZAPU were welcomed by the

Soviet Union.

The differences between the ANC and ZANU had the debilitating effect on the liberation

struggle in South Africa, where the ZANU government would deny the ANC guerillas military

bases in the post independent Zimbabwe(Alao 2012: 122). Though Zimbabwe’s actions did not

affect South Africa’s liberation struggle it created room to question the solidarity among

liberation movements and perhaps Harare’s commitments to South Africa’s self-determination.

Cognizant of the differences in the past Ndlovu-Gatsheni is of the opinion that the release of

President Nelson Mandela from incarceration and the subsequent independence of South Africa

in 1994 with the ANC in power saw President Mugabe seeking a joint aversion with Namibia

against Nelson Mandela as the newly celebrated leader within the region (2011: 5) . A possible

explanation to this joint aversion could be explained in the role ZANU as a government played in

the region since 1980 to exert its entitlement to the history of Zimbabwe and its role as part of

the Pan Africanist project for the decolonization of the region.

The role played by Zimbabwe in the region since 1980

The independence of Zimbabwe and ascendance to power of Robert Mugabe and ZANU in

1980 accelerated the anti-colonial agenda in the Southern Africa region through the

strengthening of the Frontline States (FLS) and the loose formation of the SADCC (Velde, 2011:

83). The economic strength and ideological subscription in Zimbabwe during that period made it

possible for a formidable programme of action for the SADCC cognizant of the embattled

economies of other member states such as Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia (Chan,

1992: 158). Moreover, on the surface it suggested a change in the Southern African political

landscape where the country intervened militarily and diplomatically in Mozambique and

persistently called for the unequivocal sanctioning of the apartheid regime in South Africa. More

importantly, Zimbabwe stood as a rare case of an African success story at home as well as

abroad and as such the rise of an alternative formidable actor in the region would put to test

Harare’s previous diplomatic record (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2011: 5) and (Chan, 1992: 158). Alao

view and translate the advantages Zimbabwe enjoyed as a case that the country sought after

realist hegemonic tendencies of exerting its preeminence in the region (2012: 107). It is,

therefore, not surprising that since 1980 President Mugabe wanted Zimbabwe to be a key player

in the region’s geopolitical neighborhood especially with issues relating to security, closely

related to the Cold War era and the liberation struggle. The above arguments are substantiated by

Chan (1992:158) who furthers that before 1980 Zambia stood as the pan Africanist hub of

Southern Africa and sadly by 1986 Zambia was losing its relevance in Southern Africa as the

ideological hub of Southern Africa and thus President Mugabe sought to fill in the vacuum and

this was made possible because of Zimbabwe’s economy at the time which was thriving.

3.3.2 South Africa’s political setting in 1994 and the impact on relations with Zimbabwe

As noted earlier in the chapter that the negotiations that enabled a political transition in South

Africa had mixed outcomes. At home the CODESA paved way for a political miracle manifested

in reconciliation that eventually created the rainbow nation. This was made possible through the

tripartite alliance that cut across the political divide. Be that as it was the settlement was received

as reneging on the objectives of the nationalist struggle. The political setting in 1994 where the

ANC had to be in alliance with the NP and IFP was seen as the smoothing down of the liberation

struggle where the ANC had been limited to carry out any meaningful nationalist project within

and outside South Africa. Thus the struggle for self-determination would be coined as unfinished

business. Moreover within the ANC political policy circles, input of some of the organizations of

the tripartite arrangement that constitute the ANC became a determinant factor in the country’s

political set up in 1994. These are the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress

of South Africa Trade Union (COSATU). The sort of power balancing act was liberal in nature

against the one party state set up that characterized most states in the region like Zimbabwe and

thus was unique in the political history of Africa. This liberal political setting appeared not to

have been fully appreciated by neighbouring states. Whilst it normalized the domestic political

and social terrain it left no room for paying external debt for liberation commitments rendered

by the region during the liberation struggle for South Africa (Rupiya, 2002:162 and 168).

3.3 3. South Africa and Zimbabwe’s search for a security community

Peace and security have been pivotal interest in a region such as Southern Africa that has

witnessed two lengthy civil wars in Angola and Mozambique, political instability in Zimbabwe

in the 1980s and the destabilizing effect of the then apartheid South Africa’s foreign policy. The

end of the Cold War and the transition to democracy in South Africa saw the normalization of

the political landscape in at least Zimbabwe and Mozambique thus there was the need to disband

the Frontline States which had been responsible for the security framework of the region

(Nkiwane, 2003: 63). However the legacy of apartheid South Africa and the scars of the civil

wars in Mozambique and Angola left a bearing in Southern Africa in the form of cross border

refugees, arms trafficking and landmines that were scattered in these respective countries. As

such, the need for a common defensive policy became apparent and on 3 March 1995 in Harare,

Zimbabwe it was decided by the leaders in the Southern African Development Community

(SADC) to come up with a defensive framework that would be an integral organ of the SADC as

a successor to the disbanded FLS and the proposal to establish the Association of Southern

African States (ASAS) was tabled (Nkiwane, 2003: 62). Nkiwane further opinionate that because

of disagreement over a common defense policy on 28 June 1996 the Heads of States and

Governments of the region convened again in Gaborone, Botswana, in a bid to find ways

alternatives to ASAS or to adopt it as a common defense policy

The meeting convened established the Organ on Politics, Defense and Security(OPDS) with the

objective of common political value systems and institutions among the then twelve member

states of SADC. The regional bloc was also keen to develop a collective security capacity and

mutual defense pact for responding to any external thereats (Nkiwane, 2003:63). However,

regardless of the positive strides in establishing such a significant security community,

Zimbabwe and South Africa could not find a common ground on the framework, struture and

direction of the OPDS based on strategic national interests (Malan and Cillers 1997: 15). As a

result the twelve member states of SADC were pitted either in the Zimbabwean or South Africa

camp and this suggested how SADC had been politically polarised between Zimbabwe and

South Africa. The argument presented from a Pretorian camp was that in the wake of political

upheaval and instability in the region, security issues had become transnational to be left in the

care of one country, Zimbabwe, which had previously been directing the FLS. In the light of the

South African argument the OPDS would be surbodinate to the SADC Summit as stipulated in

the legal provisions of the SADC Treaty (Nkiwane 2003:64and Ngoma, 2005:151). The

argument that the OPDS should be under the control of the SADC would allow room for South

Africa to assume the chairmanship of the Organ as at the time in 1996 South Africa was chairing

SADC. In trying to strenghten this argument, South Africa was presented as trying to circumvent

the rights of Zimbabwe to assume the pro-active role of the organ by citing Zimbabwe’s poor

record of human rights. This was an argument Pretoria hoped would resonate in a region and

space where issues relating to human rights were gaining prominence as a responsibility of any

state (Campbell, 2003: 65). The South African argument is presented to have not resonated well

with other member states such as Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe thus prompting Zimbabwe to

adopt a position on the future of the OPDS.

The argument posited by the Zimbabwean-led group was that the various components necessary

for the maintanace of security needed to to be overbureaucratized (Nkiwane 2003:64) and also

cited the fact that the FLS had worked pararell with the SADCC in harmony as as such the

OPDS could work independent of the SADC yet in harmony of interests. In a different argument,

that seemed to have posited the competition between Zimbabwe and South Africa, the group

futher stated that there was a correlation between the internal political setting in South Africa and

the agenda Pretoria was pushing for. The argument suggested that South Africa was still haunted

by white apartheid mentality that was pushing for white community interests in the SADC.

Ngoma(2005: 153) amplifies this above assertaion by citing that according to the camp led by

Zimbabwe South Africa’s position dovetailed into her pursuit for regional dominance. The

argument by Zimbabwe was viewed with an anti apartheid tone and would appear that

Zimbabwe feared that South Africa was pushing for a Pax Pretoria agenda with white interests

at the core of policy decisions and outcome (Mandaza, 1999: 14). Adebajo (2010:101) argues

that Pax Pretoriana was apartheid South Africa’s foreign policy to seek regional dominance in

Africa at the expense of mutual common interests in the region thus South Africa was presented

as trying to advance neo aparthied tendencies.

One of the arguments presented by the Zimbabwean led group in sustaining the position that the

OPDS should be independent of SADC related to the politics of donor aid. Cognisant of that

SADC was funded by donors in excess of ninety percent the group argued it was not in the best

interest of sensitive regional security concerns(Ngoma, 2005: 153). Ngoma’s assersation is

further buttressed by Campbell who clarifies this position stating that SADC had been

undermined by the insistence of the so called donor community in that the strategy of the SADC

be based on sector projects coordinated by donor agencies (Campbell, 2003: 6 and 7)

Security perceptions between Zimbabwe and South Africa

Different views that were advanced by South Africa and Zimbabwe on the structure and

framework of the OPDS and the future of SADC respectively, indicated the nature of external

relations between the two countries. The nature of the relations between these two countries were

seen as a stand off between conservative norms by Zimbabwe and progressive normative

ideologies informed by South Africa (Ngoma, 2005: 153) The stand off between Zimbabwe and

South Africa had the potential of bringing SADC into disrepute with President Mandela

threatening to withdraw as the Chair of SADC. Cognisant of the post Cold War era and the

complexities of transnational security issues , South Africa’s liberal approach in the use of

intergovernmental organisations, in this case SADC , to address sensitive issues such as security

concerns was commendable (Archer, 1992: 135,152). It is then easier to understand why

President Mandela opted to step down as the Chair of SADC. South Africa’s argument was

understood in era where the rights of a state were now tied to the promotion of human rights

and good democracy. Thus South Africa sought to insist that Zimbabwe was lacking in that

regard thus could not assume the leadership role of the OPDS in promoting regional security

concerns (Campbell, 2003: 6,7).

However, on the other hand the Zimbabwean argument was presented as refuting South Africa’s

position on the matter based on the latter’s history in the region. South Africa’s daunted

apartheid history was presented as having left a bearing legacy in the Southern African region as

an outlaw and a regional tsotsi (Adebajo 2010:101 ). Moreover the camp led by Zimbabwe

argued that the internal political setting in South Africa ,tripartite alliance, had severely placed

significant limits on the ANC to purse nationalist projects that were in the interest of the region.

The argument was deeply rooted in a conservative Africanist line of thought where Zimbabwe,

like some states, such as Angola and Namibia were weary of white South Africa’s hegemonic

ambitions remniscent of the past.

The argument of the research is not to narrate the Zimbabwe-South Africa debacle over the

establishment and operation of the OPDS because it has been exhausted by existing literature on

the topic. The essence of the argument is to unpack the relations between Zimbabwe and South

Africa in the quest to attain regional legitimacy based on their different ideological subscriptions

that sustained the two countries at the time. Thus the much needed efforts to adopt a common

defense policy had been politically polarised in the Zimbabwean –South African dichotomy. Be

that as it may the OPDS was formally integrated into the SADC only in 2001 in Blantyre,

Malawi after five years of indecision caused by the two countries’ own interests (SADC, 2001).

What is of importance is how the animosity between President Mugabe and Presidene Mandela

threatened to put the region into disrepute following the crisis in the Democractic Republic of

Congo in 1998.

3.4 An Overview of the Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Since the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980 and at least the unfolding of the decade of the

1980s experiences and lessons of the Matebeleland disturbances have helped shape the foreign

policy of Zimbabwe(Bangura,1999:28). Matebeleland disturbances from 1983 to 1987, was a

period when ZANU-PF and ZAPU had a fall out following an arms cache that was discovered in

farms belonging to ZAPU in Midlands and Matebeleland provinces respectively in the first

decade of Zimbabwe’s independence. The implications were that it led to a compromise in the

much needed domestic security in the country that had been made possible in a coalition between

ZANU-PF and ZAPU in 1980(Alao, 2012: 76). Alao (2012:76) presents the discovery of the

arms cache as a threat to ZANU-PF’s power and as such he presents the party with intentions of

eliminating any possibility of political threats from minority groups in this case the Ndebele who

formed a bulk of ZAPU. The interpretation was that ZAPU as the junior partner in the coalition

had the intentions of usurping power as such ZANU-PF is said to have used any means necessary

by hook or crook to maintain power. Bangura thus claims ZANU-PF learnt a lesson from the

Matebeleland debacle and this lesson became a determining factor in Zimbabwe’s foreign

policy in the DRC conflict where Harare sided with the government of Laurent Kabila against

the rebels seeking after power(Bangura 1999: 28).

3.4 a. The causes of the DRC conflict

On the 2nd August 1998 the conflict in the naturally rich resource yet politically troubled eastern

part of the DRC begun in the city of Goma which is located in the North Kivu Province which

borders Rwanda. The conflict in the DRC projects characteristics of conflicts on the continent

caused by issues relating to ethnicity and citizenship. (Nzongola-Ntalaja, 1999: 3). Nzongola-

Ntalaja argues that the roots of this violent conflict lie deep in the history of the Great Lakes

region where the region boasts of close historical interactions and connections. Thus the question

of whether or not the people of Rwandan origin or the Banyarwanda (Hutu,Tutsi and Twa) could

claim citizenship and resources in the DRC especially the eastern part was part of the source for

conflict in the DRC. As a result the author narrates xenophobic attacks and denial of resources

such as land on the Tutsi ethnic group as the immediate cause of the conflict. Campbell,

(1999 :53,54) amplifies the twists of ethnicity and citizenship discourses by placing the blame

on the government of the late President Laurent Kabila who with the aid of the Hutu

Interahamwe, a militant group responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that fled into the

DRC and found sanctuary in the Kabila army, mobilised the crudest violence against the Tutsi in

the east of the DRC. The government of Kabila is said to have fuelled the conflict by the use of

xenophobic language to exterminate the Tutsis’ this led to the disgruntled Tutsis forming the

bulk of the army of the rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy which shall be

discussed in detail (Campbell,1999 :54).

Be that as it may another explanation in accounting for the causes of the conflict lie in the role

played by Rwanda and Uganda in shaping the politics of the DRC since 1996. Rwanda is

presented as having played an active role to put an end to the corrupt rule of the former Zairean

President Mobutu SeSeko in October 1996 (Mamdani, 1999: 33). The role played by Rwanda

and Uganda as kingpins saw the creation of the Alliance of the Democratic Forces for the

Liberation of Congo(AFDL) as a rebel movement under Laurent Kabila and the subsequent

emergence of Laurent Kabila as the President of the DRC in 1997 after ousting President

Mobutu from power (Haskin, 2005: 73). However Mamdani (1999:33) argues that this role

played by Rwandan and Ugandan forces was tantamount to viewing these countries as forces

of occupation. After installing Laurent Kabila to power Uganda and Rwanda highly ranked

military officials chose to stay in the DRC integrated in some of the government instituions. The

presence of Rwandan and Ugandan troops not only presented President Kabila as an installed

puppet of Rwanda and Uganda but disgruntled most Congolese. The dissaffection among the

Congolese prompted President Kabila to claim the sovereignty of the country through the

expulsion of Rwandan troops from the country. Mamdani (1999:33) maintains that on his part

President Kabila once in office did not fare any better than the former President Mobutu in

instituting political and economic reforms. This was a legacy that made him to fall short in

expanding his political base in the country. The failure to institute political reforms led to the

formation of another disgruntled group to challenge Kabila’s regime. The Rassemblement

Congolais pour la Democraite (RCD) led by Enerst Wamba dia Wamba was a by product of

Kabila’s misrule and on the 10th August 1998, at the RCD heardquaters in Goma eastern DRC,

launched a political manifesto. The RCD manifesto was focused on the misgivings of the Kabila

regime where highly profiled corruption, nepostism and authoritarian rule on the part of the

government was the impetus for disgruntlement (RCD, 1999: 35). As a result the RCD found

allies in Rwanda and Uganda that were critical of Kabila’s foreign policy following the dismissal

of the two countries ’forces from the DRC. Rwanda and Uganda’s support for the RCD was

interpreted as a violation of the sovereignty of the DRC as such President Kabila requested for

military assistance from the SADC thus prompting Zimbabwe’s intervention (Wilen, 2012: 102)

3.4.1 The reasons for Zimbabwe ‘s involvement in the DRC conflict

The research argues that there are political, economic and ideological reasons that informed

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in the DRC especially during the period of the civil war. Amongst

these factors was the struggle for supremacybetween Zimbabwe and South Africa that was

mirrored through the future of the SADC-OPDS. The OPDS as an organ to attain regional

security, generated tension between Zimbabwe and South Africa (Wilen, 2012: 101). However

this argument will be discussed in detail but what is of great importance are the political reasons

behind the intervention of Zimbabwe in the DRC.

Political reasons for Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC conflict

Zimbabwe’s involvement in the DRC was a matter that generated debate within the country, the

region and at international level and thus evoked different reactions from interested stakeholders

as tangible reasons justifying the move were shrouded in controversy (Chan, 2011: 85 and 86).

Prominent among these reasons was the assertion that Zimbabwe’s own domestic landscape had

pitted the Mugabe regime at the end of the political spectrum with opposition forces(War,

2000:60). The end of the 1990s saw the political economy of Zimbabwe dwindling and one of

the reasons presented for the collapse of the economy was the unbudgeted Z$ 50 000 cash and a

Z$ 2 000 monthly pension for each of the 50 000 war veterans in the country accompanied with

free health and education for their respective families (Nyathi, 2004: 73). Nyathi further states

that the unbudgted money given to the freedom fighters led to the economic crisis and social

unrest in the country as such the government sought to intervene in the DRC for economic

stakes to buy loyalt from the army perhaps presenting the ZANU-PF government relying on the

security apparatus of the state to remain in power.

However, Bangura (1999: 28) and Wilen (2012:101) view Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC

in a regional context where power struggle with South Africa was at the core of the reasons. The

civil war in the DRC came at a time when South Africa was viewed by some regional states such

as Zambia and Botswana as an alternative to Pan-Africanism, subsequently challenging

Zimbabwe’s claim for leadership in the region. In light of this Wilen points out how President

Mugabe circumvented President Mandela’s role as the chair of SADC on the 8th of August in

1998 at a meeting at Victoria Falls and on the 18th of August in Harare Zimbabwe, of the same

year to call for a SADC military intervention in the DRC without consulting the chair. President

Mandela had been arguing against military intervention with the view that it would worsen the

conflict, however that President Mugabe argued that a miliatry solution was at the behest of the

call made by President Kabila to seek military help in the wake of advancing rebels into the

DRC. In the light of this disagreement between President Mandela and Mugabe Ndlovu-

Gatsheni asserts that Zimbabwe sought a regional alliance with other member states that were

Namibia and Angola as a joint aversion against South Africa (2011: 5) through a military

alliance , this alliance was presented as undermining the course for diplomatic negotiations South

Africa opted for.

Chigora (2008: 641) presents the intervention of Zimbabwe in the conflict in the Congo as part

of the historical cordial relations between the Zimbabwean government and President Laurent

Kabila that existed where the Zimbabwean government had assisted Kabila as early as 1996 with

military , logistical and monetary assistance in the sum of US$5 million to finace his rebellion

against the then President Mobutu of the DRC. However the relations that had culminated

between Kinshasa and Harare were not as important as the violation of territorial intergrity of the

DRC by Rwanda and Uganda through their direct and indirect support of the RCD. In this

respect Zimbabwe chairing the SADC OPDS placed security concerns faced by the DRC in the

broader regional security concerns thus prompting Zimbabwe’s intervention under the auspice to

preserve the territorial intergrity of the DRC and the security of the region of SADC as a whole

(Wilen, 2012:101 and Chigora 2008: 642,643).

Locating the military in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

The Zimbabwean army and the government of Laurent Kabila shared historical and cordial

relations since 1996 before he came to power. These relations saw the Zimbabwe Defense

Industry (ZDI) conclude a US$ 53 million deal with Kabila to assist him in taking power from

President Mobutu and had also offered him with logistical advice in the process. (Chigora, 2008:

641). In that regard it is possible that a relationship was established between the government of

Kabila and the Zimbabwean army as such the war in the DRC saw military securocrats elements

in Zimbabwe at the top of country’s foreign policy in response to possible military and

economic interests that were at stake. (Davies, 2004: 34) This was explained in part by the

activities of the Zimbabwean army company, Osleg’s (Operation Sovereign Legitimacy) joint

venture with the DRC’s Comiex to obtain diamonds and gold contracts in the country.Whatever

insights that underpinned Zimbabwe’s military bourgeoisie in the economic fortunes from the

war in the DRC, the role of the military in the political and foreign policy landscape of the

country cannot be under estimated. An informed perspective about the role of the military in the

formulation of foreign policy during that period would perhaps be drawn from the contemporary

history of Zimbabwe. The history of the country shows that, since the Lancaster House

Agreement to the formation of state, nationhood and the subsequent consolidation of the gains of

independence, there has been a party-military nexus that has helped to stabilise the state,

formulate foreign policy and shield the government from any possible military take over.

Thus Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC was interpreted as the restructuring of the country’s

security concerns with President Mugabe employing patronage tactics to buy loyalty from the

military as part of the ZANU-PF’s response to growing discontent from within the country.

Regardless of the difference in scholarly opinion relating to Zimbabwe’s military intervention in

the DRC the need to uphold the DRC’s state sovereignty as part of the common defense policy

pursued by the region of SADC.

In the light of the pursuit of a common defense policy in the region Angola, Namibia and

Zimbabwe initiated a Mutual Defense Pact , this was a miliatry coalition under the auspices of

the SADC to intervene in the DRC at the behest of the government of President Laurent Kabila.

The Defense Pact was presented as the highest level of cooperation since the era of the FLS

(Ngoma, 2005: 157). The intervention not only involved the role of the SADC in trying to

mediate in the conflict, but also upheld the territorial integrity of a sovereign country, a case in

point being the DRC by fellow SADC member states. As much as the intervention forged a close

relationship amongst Harare, Kinsasha, Windhoek and Luanda it furthered the animosity

between Zimbabwe and South Africa . The success of the Zimbabwean ,Namibian and Angolan

foces in preventing the rebels controlling the capital Kinshasa saw Zimbabwean gaining a

foothold in the political and economic mainstream . The milestone in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

was presented as usurping the economic interests of mining companies such as the Anglo-

American Corporation of South Africa (Mandaza, 1999: 81)

Economic reasons for Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC

A lot of ink has been spilled on the controversies emanating from the involvement of Zimbabwe

in the DRC conflict (Chigora, 2008: 641). At the top of the reasons, economic nationalism seems

to have gained prominence in justifying Zimbabwe’s foreign policy (War 2000: 60) Zimbabwe’s

economic concerns at the time of the civil war in the Congo have been connected with the vast

mineral contracts the country stood to get after assisting the DRC thus suggesting the

intervention was economically motivated affair. Amongst other things Zimbabwe sought to

safeguard was the Inga Dam Hydro electricity water project which was providing about ten

percent of the country’s electricity. As a follow up to this argument economic agreements

between the two countries were formalised on the 4th September 1998 with the Zimbabwe

Defense Industries(ZDI) providing weaponry to the DRC in return for Zimbabwe’s mining

company Ridgepointe having thirty-seven percent of shares in the state mining companies of the

DRC and thus accessing coal and other minerals rights (War 2000: 60-61) The Zimbabwean

army is said to have played an important history in the politics of the DRC as shall be explained

below.

3.5 The Land Reform of 2000 and Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

The land reform program that began in 2000 has become an integral part of Zimbabwe’s foreign

policy of late and especially during the period of Zimbabwe’s politico-economic crisis. The Fast

Track Land Reform Program(FTLRP) implemented by the ZANU-PF government at the

beginning of 2000 was presented as the only instance of radical redistributive land reforms since

the end of the Cold War in the region of Southern Africa and Africa (Moyo and Chambati, 2013:

1). The sudden change in the political economy of Zimbabwe was driven by the legacy of

colonialism in that the land reform reversed a racially skewed agrarian structure and

discriminatory land tenure inherited from colonialism that the Lancaster House agreement in

1979 for the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe had delayed (Chan, 2011: 82) and (Moyo

and Chambati, 2013:1).

The Lancaster House settlement of 1979 amongst other issues discussed insisted on the

protection of property rights including land for white settler farmers in the new post colonial

Zimbabwean state. However the British government had agreed to finance favorable land reform

to whites under a willing buyer,willing seller arrangement that would exempt them from a

compulsory land refom program. Thus it was agreed that this arrangement would be effected

by the Zimbabwean for 10 years and the land issue would to be discussed in 1990. Lebert

( 2006:45) argues that the delay in a effective land reform, protection of white property rights

and the willing buyer-willing seller clause was a crucial capitulation on the new government of

Zimbabwe which effectively tied its hands to any meaningful agrarian reform. Up to 1996 the

government of Zimbabwe had been approaching land reform program within the confines of the

land reform program regardless of the fact that this approach had expired in 1990. Despite the

spirited efforts by the Zimbabwean government in pursuing a balance between maintaining the

property rights of whites and the ever increasing demands for land by the black Zimbabwean

majority, statistics on land distribution did not commensurate with the policy of reconciliation. In

1980 the Zimbabwean government introduced a policy of reconciliation between whites and non

white communities within the country to maintain peace and security in a country that had been

affected by the liberation struggle. However the policy of reconciliation materialised politically

and not not economically as there was no effective economic transformation this then

compromised dreams and hopes associated with an independent Zimbabwe. A third of the

country’s arable land, 11, 5 (million hectares, was vested in about 4500 white farmers against

16, 4 million hectares occupied by 7 million blacks (Chan,2011:82). The statistics prompted the

government to review its land refom policy as to be discussed.

What made a sudden radical change in the Zimbabwean government’s policy on land was the

change in government in Britain where the Labor Party under Tony Blair revealed its foreign

policy to Zimbabwe regarding land policy. The British Labor government ,Minister responsible

for African Affairs, Claire Short, in a letter directed to the Zimbabwean Minister of Lands,

Kumbirai Kangai stated that it was not obligated to any agreements made at the Lancaster House

in 1979 and also futher stated that the Labor government did not have an obligation to fund

Zimbabwe’s land refom program(Lebert, 2013: 53) (Tendi, 2014: 1255). According to ZANU-

PF Claire Short’s letter to Minister Kangai was an indication of the British government reneging

on a historical responsibility thus prompting anger and dissapointment in Zimbabwe through

compulsory land aqcuisation in the years that followed after 1997 (Tendi, 2014:1255).

The Fast Track Land Refom Program thus began in 2000 heralded the beginning of a change in

the political economy of Zimbabwe and thus the restructuring of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

through integrating the land refom as part of its foreign policy countours. The Ministry of Affairs

in Zimbabwe is clear in integrating the land reform policy as a chief driver of Zimbabwe’s

external relations. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the land remains a important

vehicle in the emancipation of the people of Zimbabwe from the yoke of colonialism thus

central to the discourse of land reform are the socio-economic underpinnings of the policy

towards the development of the Zimbabwean people in the broader search for food security and

sovereignty on the African continent (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015: 1) (Chan 2011: 82).

Patel (2006: 157; Ndlovu-Gatsheni(interview 2014; Moyo and Mutondi( 2003: 73); Phimister

and Raftopoulos (2004: 386) have tried to capture the land question in Zimbabwe in 2000 and

locate it in the broader dynamics of the country within the context of political, economic and

foreign policy patterns either in the most favourable or discredited light. To substantiate this

Patel (2006: 175) opinions that since the country’s independence in 1980 there is an organic link

between the methods of independence and the domestic and foreign policy thus locating the land

reform as an integral part of the country domestic and foreign policy. Thus following the land

reform in 2000 Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was restructured in a bid to sell the land reform to the

region and most especially the Third World. The land reform saw the country’s foreign policy

change in the context of the region of SADC and a diplomatic fall out with countries such as

Britain and the United States of America(Tendi 2014: 1255).

Alao (2012: 106-7) assesses the nexus between the land reform exercise and the search for

regional security as part of President Mugabe ‘s security diplomacy. The author views the land

reform program in 2000 as a faliure that led to the economic meltdown of the country as it

supposedly disturbed the agricultural sector of Zimbabwe. As such Alao maintains President

Mugabe embarked on a search for regional security through alliances in view of the internal

situation in the country stated above. However Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Interview 2014)views the land

reform as part of the broader regional policy by the Zimbabwean government to revive African

nationalism in the wake of a third “scramble” for Africa’s resources. The land reform saw

ZANU-PF’s foreign policy aiming at strengthening regional solidarity with other liberation

movements such as ANC in South Africa, SWAPO in Namibia, FRELIMO in Mozambique and

MPLA in Angola as an authentic program to redress colonial imbalances.

However as much as ZANU-PF succeded in placing the land reform program in Zimbabwe as an

anti colonial agenda in Southern Africa, Africa and the Third World the same could not be said

about Zimbabwe’s relations with the rest of the world especially the First World. Countries in the

West viewed the land reform as a dishonest program initiated by a government that was losing

its electoral base because of poor management of the economy and the shrinking of political

space in the years prior to 2000(Raftopoulos and Phimister 2004: 385). The land reform was

presented as a program that subsequently had a bearing on the Zimbabwean economy , viewed as

only benefitting ZANU-PF and its supporters and most importantly was an infringement on

human and property rights of most white commercial farmers. Be that as it may as presented by

these scholars the land reform discourse was very important in that it restructured Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy in Southern Africa and the result saw the cemented relations among liberation

governments in supporting the Zimbabwean cause and however saw the relations between

Zimbabwe and the West particulary Britain deterioating.

Conclusion

The end of the Cold War and the rise of a democratic South Africa gave an impetus to new

changes in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy. The post Cold War set up was followed by a change in

security concernsin the region of Southern Africa thus offering an alternative to the Pan

Africanist discourse that had previously informed politics in the region under the tutelage of

Zimbabwe. The rise of South Africa exercising an ethical foreign policy was premised on

limiting Zimbabwe’s engagement in the region. The late 90s saw the change in the political

economy of Zimbabwe that resulted in the emergence of an opposition that threatened ZANU-

PF’s power base and this resulted in the country’s inability to continue influencing affairs in the

region as had been the case in the 1980s.

Chapter Four

The Crisis in Zimbabwe and its impact on the Country’s Foreign Policy, 2000-2013

4.1 Introduction

At the turn of the millennium in the year 2000, the political landscape in Zimbabwe underwent a

dramatic change and so did the country’s foreign policy. Amongst the discourses characterizing

the change in the country’s foreign policy was a diplomatic fall out with the West (the United

States of America, the European Union, New Zealand and Australia) and a subsequent

demonization that pitted these relations (Tendi, 2014: 1251). The change in relations between

Zimbabwe and the West was as a result of the shift in the political economy of the country

through land expropriation thus heralding the advent of the popularized post-2000 political crisis.

The advent of the crisis, as labelled and internationalized by Britain, the European Union (EU)

and the United States of America (US), can be located as part of the politics characterizing a

post-9/11 international set up (Rotberg, 2002: 127and 140). The post-9/11 set up was followed

by the politics of regime change that depicted Zimbabwe as an outpost of tyranny in the eyes of

the West. In turn, Zimbabwe demonized Britain, the EU and US as latter day imperialists who

working hand in glove with the newly formed opposition party, the Movement for Democratic

Change (MDC) to achieve that strategy (Raftopoulos, 2010: 710). For the sake of the flow these

issues will be discussed later in the chapter.

Be that as it may, the crisis in Zimbabwe had many facets and this saw the Southern African

region divided in making sense of Mugabeism. For example, the relations between Botswana and

Zimbabwe threatened to escalate into a stalemate and whilst this was a dimension manifesting in

the relations of the region, the most significant of the facets was the failure of Britain’s foreign

policy in Zimbabwe to dislodge ZANU-PF from power (Taylor and Williams, 2002: 547: Hill,

2001: 347). Cognizant of the crisis, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was recrafted in a manner that

reflected national security interests, revival of African nationalism through the reinvention of

history and a search for regional alliances. This reinvention of history saw relations between

Zimbabwe and its traditional regional contender South Africa at their all-time high with South

Africa playing a very crucial role in resolving the political crisis in Zimbabwe (Ndlovu-Gatsheni,

2011: 5-6). With the above patterns in mind it is therefore important to locate the genesis of the

crisis in Zimbabwe and illuminate how it unfolded within the region of Southern Africa and the

international community at large.

4.2 The Genesis of the Crisis in Zimbabwe

The crisis in Zimbabwe began in 2000 following changes in the political economy of the

country. It follows that the intervention in the DRC by the Zimbabwean forces in 1998; the

emergence of the opposition MDC in 1999; ZANU-PF’s redemptive nationalism that was

informed by redistributive justice in land distribution in 2000; the subsequent referendum of

2000 and the economic sanctions of 2001 and 2003 respectively, are presented as the immediate

causes of the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe (Compagnon, 2011: 222-22; Norman,

2004: 115). Mugabe (2001: 40) opines that the crisis within the country after 2000 was as a result

of Impi YamaSimu /Hondo Yeminda (struggle for land). According to him, this nationalist project is an appendage to the Chimurenga discourse that ran from the

first nationalist struggle in the Ndebele-Shona uprisings between 1896 and 1897, to the present

third Chimurenga in 2000. Accordingly, the third Chimurenga was a continuation of the struggle

to redress colonial imbalances and thus a fight against the MDC that was viewed by ZANU-PF

as trying to circumvent the nationalist land reform project (Norman, 2004: 117). Zimbabwe’s

intervention in the DRC and the land reform programme were epitomized as revival of African

nationalism by ZANU-PF government. Harare intervened in the DRC in solidarity with Kinshasa

to avert the unconstitutional removal of President Laurent Kabila and embarked on a nationalist

project of the redistribution of land. The involvement of ZANU-PF in these two projects

culminated into a fall out with Western countries and resulted in economic sanctions against

Zimbabwe by the US in 2001 and the EU in 2003, as punitive measures that caused the crisis

(McGreal, 2001: 1).

However, a different school of thought embedded in the normative neo-liberal discourse present

the crisis as having been precipitated by the ruling party, ZANU-PF, whose code of conduct

assumed a violent nationalist character in the wake of a formidable opposition, the MDC, in

1999. Meredith ( 2005, 634-635) and Mlambo and Raftopoulos, (2010: 2-3), for example, point

to the mismanagement of the economy as a result of the military intervention in the DRC in

1998 and alongside the unbudgeted financial package for the war veterans that led to the

economic woes and disaffection amongst Zimbabweans. According to them this disaffection led

to pressure groups such as the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) to transform

political and economic frustration into a political movement in the name of the MDC in 1999. In

addition, the rise of the MDC in 1999 is said to have heralded a period of the crackdown on the

opposition, systematic engineering and manipulation of the electorate as well as the sporadic

disappearances and killings of opposition members, amongst other things. Furthermore,

Meredith (2005: 634-635) and Mlambo and Raftopoulos (2010: 2-3) have tried to capture the

argument above with the use of colourful nationalist retorts, such as Zimbabwe ndeyeropa

(Zimbabwe was borne out of spilled blood), which ZANU-PF has constantly used since 2000 to

argue the Machiavellian discourse of maintaining power by all means necessary (Ndlovu-

Gatsheni, 2013: 184; Interview with Nicholas Govo, 23 March 2015). Zimbabwe ndeyeropa is an

off shoot of the broader Chimurenga discourse that shaped the making of the modern Zimbabwe

nation state. Whether this was justified or not remains one of the most interesting arguments in

the period that characterized the post-2000 crisis in Zimbabwe.

4.3 The Political Dynamics of the Post-2000 Period in Zimbabwe

The crisis in Zimbabwe evoked political debates over what constituted a sustainable foreign

policy and also provided opportunities to assess whether Zimbabwe had an articulated foreign

policy or whether its foreign policy is a reaction to the dictates of rich and powerful Western

nations (Schwartz, 2001: 39). Ndlovu- Gatsheni( 2013: 149) amplifies the argument above

through assessing international relations in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks

by Al-Qaeda extremists on the US. The attacks by these fundamentalists saw an unprecedented

pursuit after perceived rogue states in the US’ foreign policy. This was accompanied by efforts to

oust regimes that were perceived as part of an “axis of evil”2 or regimes that had a disdain for

neo-liberal principles encapsulated in good governance, human rights, multilateralism and

2 Axis of evil was a term coined by the former US President George. W Bush in 2002 after the September 11 attacks on the US to describe rogue states that were seen as undemocratic such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea

democracy Ndlovu- Gatsheni( 2013: 149). Though Zimbabwe had no links with Al-Qaeda, the

land reform of 2000 was presented by the West as a racial policy and an antipathy for private

ownership of resources, thus drawing a dichotomy between moderate liberal democrats and

radical outlaws (Tendi, 2010:104). The US and Britain interpreted the land policy as aimed at

discriminating white commercial farmers of European origin thus subsequently viewing

Zimbabwe as having a disdain for human rights and the rule of law meaning that Zimbabwe was

viewed as forming part of the “axis of evil” in the post 9/11 era. The rift between Zimbabwe and

the countries in the West (Britain, the US and the EU) was followed by a period of

manufacturing of political identity that was sustained by the demonization of post-independence

projects. The West presented ZANU-PF as an exhausted liberation movement that had reneged

on the pre-1980 electoral promises to the Zimbabwean people before coming to power. At the

same time the opposition MDC was viewed by ZANU-PF as agents of the interests of white

commercial farmers (Onoma, 2010:197). Accordingly, ZANU-PF accused Britain and the US as

latter day imperialists aimed at effecting regime change in Zimbabwe. These accusations

stemmed from the West’s opposition to the land reform project that was seen as a genuine

agenda for the transformation of the political economy of the country in the interests of black

Zimbabweans (Tendi, 2014: 1261). It is for this reason that the political dynamics of 2000 and

after resulted in the fall out between Zimbabwe and the West which was manifested in the

sanctions that were imposed on Zimbabwe by the West.

The politics of sanctions and the restructuring of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy

In 2001 and 2003, respectively, the United States and European Union imposed what where

presented as targeted sanctions against the Zimbabwean government officials in a bid to promote

“a transition to democracy and economic development” Chikuhwa (2013: 368). However,

another school of thought claims that these punitive measures were aimed at punishing the

economy of Zimbabwe following the land reform programme and the country's intervention in

the DRC (McGreal, 2001: 1). As such, the politics of sanctions has managed to illuminate two

distinct discourses in the study of the crisis in Zimbabwe. The first discourse is an interrogation

of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in the period of the political crisis. The interrogation of

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy is an effort to understand whether Zimbabwe had a clear foreign

policy in 2001 and 2002 or whether it was reacting to the diplomatic fall-out with Britain which

resulted in these punitive measures (Porto, 2013:106).

However, following the sanctions debacle the result was a fall out between the West and

Zimbabwe, thus culminating into Zimbabwe’s “Look East” policy. According to

Sachikonye(2011: 196) the Look East policy was a foreign policy crafted by the Zimbabwean

government in search for partnership with the rising economies of the world. Zimbabwe sought

to engage countries such as China, Indonesia, Iran and Singapore that shared common

reservations towards the West and that give primacy to state sovereignty in economic

partnership. As Zimbabwe restructured its foreign policy at international level the same

restructuring could be noticed on the country’s foreign policy at sub-regional level. Since

independence in 1980 Zimbabwe-South Africa relations were interpreted as a “race” for regional

domination and thus tension characterized these relations. However, following the sanctions

imposed on Harare in 2001 and 2003, the post-sanctions period saw a cessation of the tension in

the relations between Pretoria and Harare. The cessation of hostility saw a solidarity in what was

described as politics of anti-imperialism advanced by Presidents Mbeki and Mugabe in response

to the West’s foreign policy in Zimbabwe (Raftopoulos and Phimister, 2004: 389).

Secondly, the politics of sanctions internationalized the Zimbabwean crisis in a way that did not

find a unanimous international resolution to the problem. What is important to note is how the

debate has been generated in the international community in trying to define the nature of these

sanctions (Ankomah, 2007: 112, 117). According to the West the sanctions were presented as

part of the foreign policy of Britain and its erstwhile moderates towards Zimbabwe in order to

keep a government in check, pursuant of degeneration into anarchy, authoritarianism, disdain for

human rights and failure to accelerate economic growth. It was for this reason that these

sanctions were targeted on the elite leaders of the country Chikuhwa (2013: 368). On the other

end of the spectrum are those that viewed the sanctions, from a legal and economic perspective,

as illegal and bent on making the economy of Zimbabwe scream after an agrarian reform and the

intervention of the country in the DRC (Ankomah, 2007: 112, 117). Among those who held this

view are former leaders in the Southern African region such as Sam Nujoma of Namibia who

reiterated that “Blair is here … the man who went out to campaign for sanctions against

Zimbabwe while the British owned eighty percent of Zimbabwe’s land” Phimister and

Raftopoulos (2004:389).

Regardless of the convergence of the West in imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe and the

controversies emanating from the sanctions debate, it is important to underscore how these

supposedly restrictive measures helped attain the foreign policy objectives of the Zimbabwean

government and at the same time narrowed the foreign policy space of the West. If the intended

goal of these measures was to realign ZANU-PF within the confines and dictates of the

Washington consensus, pursuant of “good governance” and respect for “human rights”, the

outcome was a reinvention of Mugabeism and solidarity within the region with the Mugabe

regime. Mugabeism was a discourse that emerged in response to the sanctions, prompting the

Zimbabwean government to place the crisis in the country as a struggle against latter day

imperialists and thus drawing sympathy for the developing regions such as the Third World and

Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) (Phimister and Raftopoulos, 2004: 385). According to Porto

(2013: 106-107) the sanctions did President Mugabe a great service in advancing his Pan-

Africanist agenda as it presented Zimbabwe as a victim, mindful of the dictates of a post-Cold

War democratic capitalism set up. It goes without saying that the sanctions exposed the ability of

the Zimbabwean regime to adopt pragmatism within a hostile international community through

the “Look East” policy and moreover establish a rally-behind effect in its Southern Africa

foreign policy, with the region calling for their unconditional removal. In light of the above it is

necessary to discuss SADC’s reaction to the Zimbabwean crisis.

4. 4. The Reaction of the SADC to the Crisis in Zimbabwe

The involvement of the SADC in the crisis in Zimbabwe followed the land reform programme

after 2000 at a regional summit of the bloc in Blantyre, Malawi (Bhengu, 2010: 50, 51). The

SADC Summit of 2001 in Blantyre acknowledged the primacy of the land reform in Zimbabwe

and moreover for the project to be done in an orderly fashion. Thus, the position of SADC

buttressed Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in trying to sell the land reform to the region (Bhengu,

2010: 50, 51). The position was understood against the background that the SADC is an

outgrowth and product of the regional liberation struggles such that it was easier for the region to

rally behind Zimbabwe’s land reform programme. In light of the above in 2002, the former

President of Tanzania Benjamin Mkapa commented that the sanctions imposed by the West on

Zimbabwe was an attempt by Europe “to divide Africa at Brussels in 2002 just as they did in

Berlin in 1884” (Tendi , 2010: 265). In 1884 European powers such as Britain,France and

Germany convened in Berlin Germany where Africa was partitioned amongst these powers.

Thus President Mkapa’s comments reinfoced the notion that as a result of the sanctions

Zimbabwe was under an imperailist siege typical of the Berlin conference. However, following

the escalation and prolonging of the crisis in Zimbabwe this resulted in a mass exodus of

Zimbabweans to neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Mozambique,Botswana and

Namibia. The increase in the number of Zimbabwean nationals to neighbouring states proved to

be a burden to these states. Cognisant of this and the increasing international pressure , it was

imperative for SADC to officially appoint a mediator to try and find solutions to the problems in

a bid to contain the crisis in Zimbabwe.

In May 2007, SADC mandated former South African President Mbeki to facilitate a political

dialogue in Zimbabwe following what was viewed by the international community as sporadic

outbursts of political instability and economic decline (Southall, 2013:115). Among other issues

raised were the assault on the opposition MDC leadership on the 11 th of March 2007 and the

need to create a favourable electoral enviroment (Badza, 2010: 157). Accordingly the aim of

President Mbeki’s intervention was to ensure a sustainable political enviroment following these

issues of disputed governance in Zimbabwe. This project eventually guaranteed the holding of

the 29th March 2008 harmonized elections. Nevertheless in the views of Badza (2010; Osei-

Hwedie and Mokhawa(2014) this milestone was short lived as the post-election period was

mirrored by a delay in elections results and presented a violent Presidential rerun in June 2008,

in the process falling short of the electoral principles and guidelines of the SADC and AU. As

such staunch criticism came from Botswana and Zambia with Tanzania partially criticising the

Zimbabwean government because of Chama Chamapinduzi’s solidarity with ZANU-PF (Badza

2010: 157; Osei-Hwedie and Mokhawa, 2014: 16-18). Botswana , Zambia and Tanzania argued

that the political landscape in Zimbabwe had degenerated into anarchy such that the 2008

Presidential elections in which President Mugabe won did were not reflective of the will of the

ordinary Zimbabwe. In other words, the three respective countries were at pains in endorsing

President Mugabe as the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe (Besada, 2011: 67).

However, on the other hand a different explanation is drawn from the internationalisation of the

Zimbabwean crisis by the then Labor Party (LP) government in Britain after 2000 and how this

prompted SADC countries such as South Africa, Angola and Namibia to stand in solidarity with

Zimbabwe. The internationalisation of the Zimbabwean crisis was characterised by the sporadic

attacks on, and the use of figurative languauge in demonising the Zimbabwean government as

evil and an outpost of tyranny (Tendi, 2014: 1261). What is important is to dissect the

perceptions that existed in informing Britain and Zimbabwe’s foreign policies in this diplomatic

fallout. Accordingly, Tendi(2014:1261) presents President Mugabe’s quarell and subsequent

friction with Britain in his personal reservations with the LP and this justification can be traced

back to the days of colonialism in 1965. Britain, under Harold Wilson’s Labour Party had

refused to apply the use of military force against the Rhodesian government to accelerate black

majority independence in the country (Tendi 2014: 1258). The argument by the scholar present

the LP’s foreign policy as not being committed to the Zimbabwean cause in 1965 and the late

1990s when Britain is said to have reneged on the promises of the Lancaster House agreement to

assist the Zimbabwean government financially to carry out a balanced land reform (Southall,

2013: 65). Accordingly it was the Namibian, Angolan and South African argument that Britain

had fraudently reneged its obligations at the Lancaster House where it had promised the

Zimbabwean government as part of the political settlement to assist with money to carry out the

land reform programme in an acceptable manner.

The SADC’s Tribunal and the politics of land in Zimbabwe

Dynamics surrounding land and the question of redistribution in the political and socio-

economic landscape of Zimbabwe after 2000 were interpreted differently in the region of

Southern Africa. There were diverging views from member states of the SADC were countries

such as South Africa and Namibia factored in historical considerations and the failure of the

Lancaster House negotiations in 1979 to address the issue of land. These states viewed this as a

socio-economic project aimed at equitable distribution of land to uplift the lives of ordinary

citizens. Nevertheless, at the end of the spectrum were countries such as Boswana that labelled

this as a political project hastily done and enshrined in gross human and property rights

violations in the guise of the most needed land refom and redistribution (Tendi, 2010:104). A

follow up to the latter was the speculated case brought forward to the SADC Tribunal between

the Zimbabwean government versus white commercial farmers such as Mike Campbell in 2008.

The case between the Zimbabwean government and white commercial farmers and the

subsequent rulings by the SADC Tribunal produced interesting dimensions in the political and

legal patterns within the region of Southern Africa. The case exposed the limits of engagement

of the Tribunal in passing binding rulings on member states and the nature of Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy in the region as shall be discussed below (Mude 2014: 152).

In October 2007 following the land reform programme in Zimbabwe, the ZANU-PF government

was dragged to the Tribunal Court in Windhoek, Namibia, by 79 white commercial farmers that

were affected by the land reform programme in the case known as Mike Campbell and Others vs. The Republic of Zimbabwe SADC (T) Case No. 2/2007 . In May of 2008 the SADC

Tribunal, at the behest of the legal interpretation of Article 6(2) of the SADC Treaty of 1992 and

pursuant of the prohibition of racial discrimination, presumably found the Zimbabwean

government guilty of infringing on the human and property rights of white farmers as part of the

land reform exercise (SADC, 1992: 6). In the light of the above findings the Tribunal’s dicta

exhorted the government to take no further steps in its land reform project (Mude, 2014: 152).

The dicta was motivated by virtue of Zimbabwe as a member of the SADC community, thus

attracting Article 16 (5) of the SADC Treaty that empowers the tribunal to make final and

binding judgments on member states (SADC, 1992: 6). However, regardless of such legal

provisions the Zimbabwean government rejected the rulings in the uttermost contempt as

baseless. The argument presented by the Zimbabwean government seemed to resonate with the

principles of state sovereignty and the importance of municipal law over international law such

as the Tribunal decision over the Constitution of Zimbabwe. The argument was that Section 16B

Amendement 17(2005) to the Constitution of Zimbabwe provided inter alia that agricultural land

maybe acquired by the government for the purposes of resettlement inorder to give effect to the

government’s land reform policy. (Mude, 2014: 152).

The rejection of the dicta by the Zimbabwean government has to be analysed within the

country’s foreign policy objectives where national security interests took primacy over

international law. The argument is cemented by Khadiagala and Lyons (2001: 2) who are of the

view that foreign policy making in the context of Africa is more often a choice between state

sovereignty and supranationalism where the sovereignty of Zimbabwe dovetailed into taking

primacy over decisions of regional institutions such as the SADC Tribunal. According to the

Zimbabwean government the land reform programme of 2000 became an integral part of the

country’s foreign policy and as such it was the prerogative of foreign policy makers to sell the

land refom as a policy in the region of Southern Africa to gain legitimacy and regional solidarity

following a diplomatic fall out with the Britain in 2002 over the issue. Moreover the

Zimbabwean government saw SADC as an instrument in which these foreign policy objectives

can be realised, thus the decision by the SADC Tribunal was intepreted as infringing on

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy objectives in the region (Archer, 2015: 115). What was of interest

was perhaps the legal paralysis of the SADC Tribunal in influencing the position taken by the

Zimbabwean government. Article 16 (5) of the SADC Treaty of 1992 established that the SADC

Tribunal makes final and binding judgements on member states, yet the SADC Tribunal Protocol

6 adopted in 2000 does not establish the Tribunal as a court of superior jurisdiction in the

territories of SADC member states (Mude, 2014: 153). In view of this Zimbabwe seemed to have

exposed the conflicting legal provisions of the SADC in failing to work in harmony with those of

the Tribunal, thus undermining the decision by the Tribunal.

4.5 South Africa’s foreign policy to Zimbabwe, 2000-2013

At the beginning of the millenium South Africa-Zimbabwe relations were centered around the

need to revive African nationalism through reiterating history and the solidarity of national

liberation movements especially ZANU-PF and the ANC. These needs were necessitated by a

void created by the limits of former President Mandela’s foreign policy on the continent and the

internal changes in the politics of Zimbabwe (Kagwanja, 2006: 159), (Gumede2007: 219) and

(Phimister and Raftopoulos, 2004: 389). As to be discussed below in detail, President Mandela’s

foreign policy was presented as having failed to articulate and address issues on the continent in

an pan African way and as such there was a need to reinvent the image of South Africa on the

continent. The same could be said of the internal changes of politics in Zimbabwe,the rise of the

opposition MDC and the threat it posed to ZANU-PF power base. As such ZANU-PF saw in the

ANC, a vanguard and ally of the nationalist struggle in the face of latter day imperialism

(Phimister and Raftopoulos, 2004: 389). It is against this background that South Africa’s foreign

policy to Zimbabwe between the period of 2000 to 2013 should be assessed.

The tenure of Thabo Mbeki as South Africa’s president in 1999 created an opportunity to

restructure South Africa’s foreign policy on the continent with the resurrection of Pan-

Africanism in the expected miracles of the African Reinassance and the New Partnership for

Africa’s Development (NEPAD) (Adebajo, 2010: 233). The African Reinassance and NEPAD

were amongst some of the blueprint paradigms initiated by President Mbeki to reinvent an

acceptable image of the African continent as part of the international community. Decades of

underdevelopment , anarchy, poverty and an antipathy for democratic ideals had been the

hallmark of Africa’s political, economic and social patterns since the advent of decolonization in

1957. President Mbeki sought to reclaim Africa’s position in the world with the African

Reinassance and NEPAD through the promotion of progressive principles such as democracy,

human rights and promoting fair economic transanctions between Africa and the developed

capitalist world (Adebajo, 2010:28). The promotion of such required a progressive continental

institution and in 2001 South Africa (Kriger, 2012) assisted in the transition of the Organisation

for African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU). This milestone transition was heralded as

the active involvement of the Mbeki administration in the continent’s international relations

(Kagwanja, 2006: 159). South Africa’s active involvement on the continent reflected a

restructuring in its foreign policy in that the foreign policy was premised on putting Africa’s

interests, a perception that resonated with Zimbabwe as shall be discussed later. Thus, having

attained a good record on the African continent through NEPAD and the African Reinnasance,

President Mbeki was viewed as pursuing the visions of Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of

Ghana and Pan-Africanist par excellency. Moreover with President Mbeki’s personal experience

in having spent a considerable number of years in Zimbabwe in the 1980s as the ANC

representative during the liberation struggle of South Africa, it did not come as a surprise that he

was actively involved in Zimbabwe following the country’s crisis after 2000 (Gevisser, 2007:

434).

The role played by President Mbeki signalled a shift in foreign policy inputs within South Africa

because of the change in the bureaucratic structures that had been presented to have been

serving the interests of whites as a legacy of aparthied. , this shift formed an important pillar in

the analysis of South Africa’s foreign policy especially on the African continent (Osei-Hwedie

and Mokhawa, 2014: 1). The context in which South Africa’s foreign policy operated before 1999

reflected constrains caused by bureaucratic inputs in the early years of the new democratic South

Africa where Bangura has suggested that South Africa foreign policy input and output was

reflective of the interests of the white community at the helm of strategic structures in the

government (Bangura, 1999: 27). For example, the author presents the Mandela government as

having been limited in terms of pursuing a Pan-Africanist agenda in the DRC crisis because of

the government’s bureaucratic structures which were still dominated by whites.

Regardless of the change in the internal structures of decision making in foreign policy outputs

the ascension of President Mbeki saw the centralisation of foreign policy output as it became his

prerogative at the expense of the expectations of the ruling ANC. This was a legacy that would

lead to his political downfall later in 2008 as one author noted. Southall (2013: 293) states that: “

The further implication was that whereas Mbeki’s technocratic instincts had subordinated the

ANC to the state, the ANC would now subordinate the state to the party”. The factors above are

very important at least because they enabled President Mbeki to adopt a foreign policy that was

uninterrupted towards Zimbabwe. However Gumede (2007: 219) offers an explanation to

President Mbeki’s stance in centralizing foreign policy outputs with the aid of history. Gumede

argues that the Mbeki regime was largely influenced by the failure of South Africa’s foreign

policy in Nigeria in 1995 in preventing the executions of Saro-Wiwa by President Sani Abacha.

“Never again Mbeki reasoned would South Africa go it alone in opposing belligerent African

desposts. This issue (Saro-Wiwa’s execution) highlighted the potential limits of our foreign

policy as an individual country…and the need to act in concert with others and to forge strategic

alliances in pursuit of foreign policy objectives” Gumede (2007: 221). As a result President

Mbeki centralised foreign policy decision making to the prerogative of Africanists such as the

then Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma at the expense of the left wing ANC

and other opposition politicians. This approach was very important not only in creating a lasting

legacy of President Mbeki as advocating for politics of anti imperialism but also dovetailed into

ZANU-PF’s grand strategy of searching for regional alliances and solidarity among liberation

movements.

South Africa’s intervention in the Zimbabwean Crisis

A lot of ink has been spilled on the controversies emanating from Harare-Pretoria relations in the

post-2000 era. What has been generally drawn from the existing literature by some scholars

(Badza, 2010: 157; Phimster and Raftopoulos, 2004: 385) is probably an analysis narrowed to

condemning the partiality of President Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy. This is regarded as perhaps due

to considerations of the underpinnings of regional security concerns apart from the explanations

offered by Gumede in the previous paragraph above. South Africa’s foreign policy was informed

by the large influx of undocumented people leaving Zimbabwe into neighbouring countries and

the effects thereof and most importantly Zimbabwe’s crucial location in the region in terms of

trade and integration. Actually, Zimbabwe is South Africa’s gateway to most African markets

and vice versa therefore an unstable Zimbabwe was not good for South Africa’s economic

interests(Makokera, 2015: 2). Therefore, the relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe have

been heavily criticized, projected to a utopian code of conduct where the former was expected to

lead a relentless moral crusade against the autocratic regime of President Mugabe, which is why

President Mbeki was constantly accused of displaying partiality to ZANU-PF against the MDC.

The argument of the study opinionates that President Mbeki’s mediation of the crisis and the role

played by South Africa in Zimbabwe was an appreciation of regional security complexities

which if not handled carefully would have a spill over effect in the region of Southern Africa. Be

that as it was, central to South Africa’s foreign policy was a pragmatic approach used by

President Mbeki to strike a balance between leverage in ideological and economic terms and

solidarity with a sister country, Zimbabwe (Makokera, 2015: 2). This assumption has been

motivated by historical, political, economic and security considerations that have informed

Zimbabwe-South Africa relations. These historical, economic, political and security

considerations point to the role that Zimbabwe has played in Southern Africa since 1980 until the

end of the 1990s where the country’s role became limited due to the beginning of a political

crisis. For some time political and ideological patterns of the region’s foreign relations were

under the tutelage of the old guard of President Robert Mugabe (Badza, 2010: 154). However,

the rise of a new South Africa in the region and the crisis in Zimbabwe heralded a new

dimension in the discourse of African leadership as Zimbabwe could no longer project yesteryear

leadership credentials. A closer look into the dynamics of the African leadership would expose a

political contestation between the old guard of nationalist elite and progressive deeply rooted

between the Zimbabwean and South African leadership. It must be borne in mind that where the

former represented the heroic but old styled leadership the latter had come to embrace the former

but is , although in a modern, pragmatic and progressive way (Badza, 2010: 154). Therefore, it

did not come as a surprise that as a result of this dichotomy following the change in the political

economy of Zimbabwe South Africa was presented as taking the opportunity to assume regional

leadership as a formidable alternative to Zimbabwe’s claim for regional leadership (Guest, 2004:

229; Badza, 2010: 154). Be that as it may President Mbeki went on to pursue a constructive

foreign policy towards Zimbabwe in the face of a growing crisis that was a by product of

genuine historical concerns such as the land reform programme. It was in the interest of the ANC

government to find amicable solutions to the crisis in Zimbabwe especially the land issue by

virtue of the ANC as a liberation movement.

South Africa and Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Policy

Southhall (2013: 239) asserts that following the land reform policy of the 2000s the ANC-led

government cautiously came in the open to pledge its unwavering support to the Zimbabwean

government. This was fuelled by how the change in the political economy of Zimbabwe

motivated for certain dimensions in the region, particularly in South Africa and Namibia. The

scholar suggests that regardless of the economic consequences the land reform had exerted in

Zimbabwe the ideology behind it somehow posited an uncomfortable precedence to the political

future of Namibia and South Africa. Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia had been late

decolonisers in waging off colonialism on the continent and as such the negotiated settlements

for political transition to black majority rule in these countries did not create an enviroment for

black empowerment through the redistribution of land to the rightful owners .

Southhall’s assertations are furthered cemented by Gumede who presents the ANC’s support for

Zimbabwe’s land reform as a necessity by arguing that the issue was an unfinished business that

had been put to halt because of South Africa’s negotiations the Convention for a Democratic

South Africa (CODESA) these necessitated a transition to democracy before 1994. Gumede

(2007: 222) further claims that at the time the OAU had asked President Mugabe to delay

Zimbabwe’s land reform as it would frighten the apartheid government and arden its stance thus

frustrating the negotiations. According to the author President Mbeki is quoted as saying that

“…They slowed down to get the negotiations in this country to succeed” Gumede (2007: 222). In

this regard Ndlovu-Gatsheni (interview, 2014) opinionates that because of this unfinished

business what happened in Zimbabwe was a revival of African nationalism and which had an

effect of spilling over into South Africa and Namibia. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s view was corroborated

by Pintile Davies, the President of the Namibia National Farmers Union (NNFU) who in 2001

drew the attention of the country’s President Sam Nujoma that communal farmers in that

country were frustrated with the willing buyer, willing seller land reform. In this context he went

further to warn of the option of the Zimbabwean style in that country ( New York Times, 2001).

The calls to support Zimbabwe’s land reform programme came from the then South Africa’s

Foreign Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dhlamini-Zuma, whose utterances were said to have

buttressed the long standing argument by the Zimbabwean government that the West

particulary Britain should commit to compensating the Zimbabwean government for land as

enshrined in the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979 (Phimister and Raftopoulos,2004: 390) In

the same regard the position of the ANC was further projected by its former Secretary General,

and later South Africa’s Deputy President, Kgalema Motlante who said ‘ZANU-PF is in

trouble not because it does not care about ordinary people, but because it cared too much’, he

said. ‘I am not convinced that the problems in Zimbabwe can be resolved by removing Mugabe

from office. The problems are much more deep-seated’, Phimister and Raftopoulos(,2004:391)

accordingly it was the ANC’s belief that the problems in Zimbabwe were not of ZANU-PF’s

making as the liberation movement had done much for the people of Zimbabwe but rather more

deep seated possibly external factors that could be located in Britain’s strategy for regime

change. Having noted the position of the ANC government on the land reform policy in

Zimbabwe the general consensus was to expect South Africa’s emmense support for the

ZANU-PF government.

South Africa and the Political Crisis in Zimbabwe

The SADC mandated South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki in 2007 to mediate in the political

crisis in Zimbabwe with the aim of trying to find an amicable solution and preventing the

country from plunging into an unsustainable political enviroment. However Badza (2010: 165)

sums up the role played by South Africa as the SADC mandated mediator as a legacy to be

remembered more based on what President Mbeki should have done and not what he did. These

ill favoured sentiments are substantiated by Phimister and Raftopoulos (2004: 386) who opine

that South Africa- Zimbabwe relations during the political crisis and President Mbeki’s role as a

mediator dovetail into what they termed “Mugabe and Mbeki and the politics of anti-

imperialism”. These authors assert that behind President Mbeki’s “quite diplomacy” were the

politics of anti-imperialism and that it was for this reason that he was heavily criticised for not

publicly condemning ZANU-PF and President Mugabe. These scholars and some sections in the

international system particulary in the West expected South Africa to come heavily on the

government of Zimbabwe on what was regarded as a racial land reform policy and a

unsustainable economic and political enviroment .

However Gumede (2007: 219) argues that the discourse of quite diplomacy was motivated by

the limits of South Africa’s foreign policy in attaining pan Africanist interests on the African

continent and a case in point being Nigeria in 1995. In the same vein the author argues that the

other formidable powerful African states such as Libya under Muamar Gaddaffi had pledged

their solidarity with Zimbabwe. The grand coalition against latter day imperialism between

Zimbabwe and Libya cautioned President Mbeki to be weary of the dangers of publicly

criticising an African country such as Zimbabwe. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2011: 16), however,

describes the relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe as part of the broader SADC

project in Zimbabwe, where the region was confronted with a situation where a former liberation

movement had lost an election, for the first time, to a post-liberation political opposition without

a liberation credentials. Possibly to South Africa the fear was that the possibility of a liberal

movement such as the MDC taking power in Zimbabwe would set an uncomfortable precedence

in the region in giving trade unions such as the South Africa’s Congress of South African Trade

Union (COSATU) reasons to transform into a formidable political party and possibly challenge

the ANC (Gumede, 2007: 223).

Zimbabwe’s perception of South Africa’s foreign policy

Prys (2012: 74) argues that at the onset of the Zimbabwean crisis, Pretoria’s overtures were

simply “snubbed off” by Harare . Zimbabwe’s perception towards South Africa’s view of the

crisis appeared to have been characterized by reservations and attacks indirectly limited to the

media and political gestures. The use of media and gestures suggested dynamics reminiscent of

the tension that existed in the early years of South Africa’s independence. According to the News

24 Archives online (03 December 2001) the state newspaper The Herald, embarked on a full out

assault on President Mbeki in 2001 prior to the 2002 Zimbabwean national elections. In this

regard The Herald presented South Africa’s position regarding the political landscape in

Zimbabwe as dire, amounting to political intolerance on the opposition forces and thus could

lead to outcomes such as rigging of elections that would not be reflective of the will of the

Zimbabwean people. In response to South Africa’s perceptions of the crisis, Zimbabwe is said to

have viewed these perception through an anti-colonial lenses which suggested hostility on the

part of South Africa. In this regard News24 Archives maintains that The Herald was explicit in

amplifying Zimbabwe’s perceptions that “President Mbeki's alleged utterances neatly dovetail

into Britain’s grand plan for a global coalition against Zimbabwe”…... News24 Archives (03

December 2001, page) stated that Mbeki had "finally joined hands with Zimbabwe's former

colonial rulers,” If one goes by the view presented by The Herald as illustrated by News24

Archives then Zimbabwe’s foreign policy at this stage would be explained as weary of South

Africa’s position regarding ZANU-PF as a sister liberation movement.

On 7 March 2004 sixty-four mercenaries were arrested in Zimbabwe on a plane headed for

Equatorial Guinea where it was reported that the mercenaries intended to stage a military coup in

an attempt to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Alao, 2012: 128). The arrest cast

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in the most favourable light in the eyes of the African continent as an

act of expressing African solidarity. In the context of Zimbabwe-South Africa relations, the

arrest created room for assessing the possibility of the two countries to advance a Pan-Africanist

agenda on the continent. As such the arrest was presented as buttressing the perceptions “The

Herald” newspaper had painted regarding South Africa’s view on the Zimbabwean crisis. The

argument suggested by Zimbabwe that South Africa was in a grand coalition with former

colonizers, though disputed, almost appeared true given the fact that the majority of the

mercenaries were South Africans and the fact that the mission was put in motion by two

prominent British citizens, Mark Thatcher and Simon Manns, thus drawing the nexus between

Britain and South Africa (Alao, 2012: 128).

However regardless of the perceptions of the Zimbabwean government Talbot(2004: 1) argues

that the South African government managed to expose the attempted coup in the Eqautorial

Guinea with maximum publicity. The author contends that through intelligence gathered the

government of South Africa informed the President of Equatorial Guinea in advance of a

possible coup. Moreover following the debacle and the arrest of the mecernaries South Africa

agreed to assisting with the trial of 15 of the mercenaries. Talbot also maintains that the

cooperation showed by South Africa in allowing Zimbabwe to make the arrests despite having

the knowledge of the coup meant Pretoria did not want to arrest the mercenaries discreetly. This

position was an attempt by South Africa to sent signals to Western countries that Pretoria was

opposed to regime change agendas especially on the African continent where the country was

trying to reinvent an acceptable image. However the position came at a cost especially within the

opposition camp in Zimbabwe that regarded South Africa’s partiality to ZANU-PF as reneging

on serious political and economic reforms in Zimbabwe.

South Africa-MDC relations

It is also interesting to note that regardless of the conflicting perceptions between Zimbabwe and

South Africa at the time, the MDC had reservations on the Mbeki regime. The MDC regarded

President Mbeki as having strong affinity towards ZANU-PF on the one hand while on the other

Zimbabwe’s opposition party was accused of being in bed with the Democratic Alliance ( DA)

of South Africa (Gumede 2007: 221). The opposition and some Western countries expected that

President Mbeki would come out hard on President Mugabe’s regime (Badza, 2010: 165). As

such the MDC saw an alliance with the opposition DA as an alternative and outpost to argue its

case regarding the political crisis in Zimbabwe. However the MDC-DA alliance gave an impetus

to accelerate a change in perceptions between President Mbeki and ZANU-PF (Gumede 2007:

221). The author argues that the relations between the Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC and South

Afrca’s main opposition party, the DA led by Tony Leon, stood for the pursuit of white interest

in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. The argument was seen against the background of ZANU

PF and the ANC as liberation movements trying sell the nationalist project of land distribution

where the DA and MDC were advocating for the protection of white private property.

Moreover, this was further with the perceptions the DA had that ZANU-PF as a nationalist

government had failed Zimbabwe and that the crisis in Zimbabwe was a forerunner to the South

African fate under black a government. The DA’s arguments not only aroused provocation from

the ANC but mirrored arrogance on the part of the opposition political parties. This arrogance

naturally shaped South Africa’s foreign policy towards Zimbabwe where the ANC saw ZANU-

PF’s domestic poliicies as genuine and justified. This became an integral pillar of South Africa’s

foreign policy to Zimbabwe in assisting in creating a sustainable political enviroment that

eventually led to the 2008 harmonised elections

The 2008 elections in Zimbabwe

The elections of March 29 2008 attracted international limelight and scrutiny as a result of a

political crisis that had reached high levels and also because of the controversy surrounding the

quiet diplomacy of President Mbeki. Southall (2013:107) is of the opinion that part of this

scrutiny was as a result of a culture of electoral hegemony of winning elections through

coecion rather consent by ZANU-PF that had sustained its longevity in power. However much

anticipation came from the regional body SADC that had been put under pressure by the

international community in the hope that an election would be a dawn of a new political

dispensation in Zimbabwe. (Masunungure and Shumba, 2012:131). According to official results

of the elections the MDC garnered 47.9 percent of the votes against 43.2 percent by ZANU-

PF. Consequently non of the presidential candidates had the required fifty plus one percentage as

per the legal framework and Constitution of Zimbabwe and therefore a run off was

necessary(Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network, 2008: 4).

A run off was scheduled to be held on the 27th of June 2008 in which events leading up to the

day were seen to be marred by the intimidation of opposition political opponents by state

sponsored violence. An unsustainable political enviroment had a bearing on the efforts by South

Africa as the guarantor for SADC’s mediation in Zimbabwe such that President Mbeki urged the

Zimbabwean government to delay the presidential run off (Zimbabwe Electoral Support

Network, 2008:5). Some scholars (Zvobgo, 2009: 346; Chikuhwa, 2013: 147 and Zondi, 2011:

26)opine that the opposition was forced to withdraw from the presidential race citing state

sponsored violence on opposition supporters thus labelling the 27th June elections as a sham.

Reports by the Pan African Parliament Observer Team,SADC Electoral Observer Mission

Preliminary Report indicated that the election process of 27 June 2008 fell short of the accepted

African Union standards and not conforming to the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing

Democratic Elections

.

South Africa and the Power Sharing Agreement in Zimbabwe, 2008

The political mediation by President Mbeki in the Zimbabwean crisis that led to the Power

Sharing Agreement (PSA) between ZANU-PF and the MDC in September 2008, was

encapsulated in three diferrent discourses: the first was the quite diplomacy exercised by

President Mbeki in trying to assume a neutral position as a mediator to the warring political

factions. The second discourse was that the MDC embarked on a global campaign to discredit

ZANU-PF for what was a disdain and antimpathy for good governance, democracy and human

rights. The third was an anti-colonial and imperialism discourse reinforced by ZANU-PF where

the MDC was viewed as an outpost for regime change agenda (Mokhawa, 2013: 26). These

discourses fit very well into the objectives of South Africa’s foreign policy on the continent and

towards Zimbabwe. The tenure of President Mbeki saw the need to reinvent an acceptable image

of South Africa on the continent and through standing in solidarity with ZANU-PF and

guranteeing a March 2008 harmonised election it was a milestone for Pretoria. Moreover on the

part of ZANU-PF South Africa’s position mirrored the solidarity of liberation movements in

times of crisis.

The political antagonistic, reaction to the Presidential run off by the international community,

particulary the West, prompted President Mbeki to bring together ZANU-PF and the MDC to the

discussion table. The convergence of the two parties and the efforts by President Mbeki

procuded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of the 10th of July 2008 at a meeting in

Sandton, South Africa. The MoU was presented as a dialogue between ZANU-PF and MDC with

a view to create a genuine, viable and sustainable solution to the Zimbabwean situtaion (Zondi,

2011: 26). The negotiations under South Africa laid foundations to the signing of the Power

Sharing Agreement which included three main political contenders ZANU-PF, the MDC-T led

by Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC-M led by Aurthur Mutambara respectively.

Gumede (2007: 221) argues that South Africa’s foreign policy was presented as sustaining a

regime that was operating in an opposing environment where exhausted nationalism had been the

outcome of the March 2008 elections where ZANU-PF garnered 43.2 percent against 47.9

percent of the MDC. The argument above though reasonable, was not reflective of regional

concerns that had prompted South Africa to support ZANU-PF by virtue of its credentials as a

liberation movement against a post liberation movement such as the MDC. What was bemoaning

to Phimister and Raftopoulos (2004: 386) and Badza (2010: 165) was that following the March

2008 with no clear winner and the subsequent June 2008 re-run of the elections, South Africa did

not act as ZANU-PF unleashed terror on the supporters of the opposition MDC. At the United

Nations Security Council in the same year South Africa voted against a possible international

intervention in Zimbabwe and in October advanced a rescue package of R300 million for

procuring agriculture inputs (Nasaw & Rice-Oxley, 2008: 1) These overtures were all interpreted

as sustaining an illegitimate regime by the international community particularly Britain.

Nevertheless, the momentous milestone in South Africa was arrived at with the signing of the

Power Sharing Agreement between the warring parties ZANU PF and the MDC which heralded

the 2009-2013 government of national unity. The Power Sharing Agreement was a result of the

increase in political instability following the 27 June 2008 elections as such President Mbeki was

convinced that a coalition government between ZANU-PF and the two main oppositions from

the MDC would not narrow the fight for political space but eventually create a sustainable

political environment that would be a panacea to the problems in the country. In respect of this it

is important to note that the PSA was a milestone achievement and justification of the “quiet

diplomacy” exercised by President Mbeki. The exercise of quiet diplomacy and constructive

engagement meant South Africa’s foreign policy to Zimbabwe rested on calling for a sustainable

political environment and the insistence of the removal of economic sanctions. This approach

was opposed to the megaphone diplomacy that sought to condemn only ZANU-PF and it was

clear that it would only harden President Mugabe’s regime thus compromising South Africa’s

mediation efforts (Youde, 2011:114) In amplifying South Africa’s foreign policy to Zimbabwe

after the historic PSA, former South African Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad was

on record explaining that the power sharing agreement was an insight into the dynamics of South

African foreign policy where diplomacy has always been quiet to achieve desirable results

(SABC International Live Interview, Harare, 15 September 2008).

4.6 Zimbabwe-Botswana Relations 1980-2000

Since the days of colonialism the relations between Zimbabwe and Botswana relations have

never been cordial. This so because history has suggested that Botswana survived under the

shadow of South Africa and former Rhodesia hegemony. Tutelege under aparthied South Africa

and Rhodesian hegemony was as a result of geographic and climatic conditions were Botswana

was economically impoverished for some time. As such Botswana’s political and economic

might could not be equated to those of South Africa and Rhodesia thus only served as a puzzle in

the British grand imperial strategy to establish a link between German South West Africa,

hereafter known as Namibia, and the Boer territories in South Africa (Niemann, 1993: 1).This

legacy transcended into the post 1980 politics in Southern Africa were Botswana was integrated

into the SADCC as part of the offensive against aparthied South Africa albeit no clearly defined

role in shaping the region’s politics. However after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980,

Zimbabwe-Botswana relations were characterised by inconsistency. At regional level the two

countries sought cooperation in the fight against apartheid South Africa yet at the same time

Botswana had remarkable links with Zimbabwe’s oppositon ZAPU during the civil in

Zimbabwe. Since the early years of the independence of Zimbabwe it can be denoted that

Botswana’s foreign policy to the former’s tells of establishing close relations with anti ZANU-

PF elements . It is therefore important to dissect the methods used to achieve independence in

Botswana against the liberation movement solidarity discourse that is a determinant factor of

relations within the region of Southern Africa. It is also important to stress how this discourse

cultivated Zimbabwe-Botswana relations especially during the crisis in Zimbabwe.

(Saunders, 2008: 2) opines that nationhood in Botswana was attained through moderate means

judging by the standards of the transfer of political power in Southern Africa where the pattern

was a protracted nationalist struggle that involved the spilling of blood. In Botswana the pattern

was a constitutional process of devolution of power that brought independence in 1966. Without

a protracted nationalist struggle naturally fell into a negotiated independence framework that was

embedded in neo liberal methods of independence. This assertion is further exacerbated with the

fact that the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), the chief benefactor of a negotiated

independence framework, has been in power since independence and its name fits well into the

narrative of post-liberation movements. In the context of the political patterns of the region of

Southern Africa BDP does not carry liberation war credentials and this has been the perception

of ZANU-PF as shall be illustrated below. This perception has been the cornerstone of

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy to Botswana .

Alao (2013: 34) presents the relations between Zimbabwe and Botswana in the post-

independence era of Zimbabwe that focused on security and diplomacy by the Mugabe regime

as very important. The author suggests that ZANU ,as a liberation movement dominated by the

Shona speaking , was weary of Botswana’s warm relations with ZAPU. ZAPU was dominated

by the Ndebele speaking whose constituency lies on the southern tip of Zimbabwe bordering

Botswana. In the mid 1980s ZANU had a fall out with ZAPU over an arms cache that was found

in farms belonging to the latter. As noted in the previous chapters the discovery of the arms

cache generated tension in the coalition government between ZANU and ZAPU where the

latter’s fighters were seen as dissidents seeking to overthrow President Mugabe’s regime. This

resulted in a bloody civil war where most ZAPU fighters particulary the leadership fled into

Botswana (Hudleston, 2005:39). The warm relations between the government of Botswana and

the dissidents within ZAPU saw the former pursuing an “open door” policy with ZAPU and in

1983 Zimbabwe complained about the Botswana government offering military bases at Pikwe

and camps at Dukwe for ZAPU dissidents (Alao, 2013: 34). As a result of ZAPU’s constituency

in the southern tip of Zimbabwe sharing a border with Botswana it was easy to understand the

latter’s reception of these supposedly dissidents. Botswana’s proximity with Matebeleland and

its reception to elements that were commiting acts of violence in Zimbabwe created an

impression to the ZANU government that it sought to assist dissidents in a regime change

agenda through the supply of military bases.

However, Alao’s account that points to frosty relations between Zimbabwe and Botswana in the

first decade of the former’s independence does not do justice in analysis cognisant of the fact

that at independence Zimbabwe sought to establish relations with its neighbors in the wake of

apartheid South African insurgency. Aparthied South Africa had embarked on an offensive

foreign policy in the region of Southern Africa to put off balance any independent country that

offered safe haven to South African liberation movements such as the ANC and PAC. In was in

this context that Zimbabwe joined the FLS and the SADCC immediately after independence

where Botswana was a member and worked together to confront apartheid South Africa during

the fight for the liberation of South Africa(Okoth, 2006: 351-352).

The period between 1980-2002 saw the relations between Botswana and Zimbabwe normal. The

tenure of President Masire not only saw Botswana and Zimbabwe cooperating but the

independence of South Africa in 1994 saw this cooperation strengthened. For example under the

SADC Troika, Botswana,South Africa and Zimbabwe managed to employ a combination of

diplomacy and intervention in Lesotho in 1996 following the political upheaval in that country.

In 2002 President Festus Mogae of Botswana in harmony with the SADC stood in soliadarity

with Zimbabwe amidst international condemnation of the Zimbabwean government. (Osei-

Hwedie & Mokhawa, 2014: 9 and11).

4.6.1 Zimbabwe-Botswana relations, 2000-2013

Following the political crisis in Zimbabwe after 2000, Botswana was on record as the most

vociferous critic of the Mugabe regime and at the same time accommodating the opposition

MDC (Alao, 2013: 34). The position taken by Botswana on Zimbabwe can be understood as a

combination of factors, and according to Osei-Hwedie and Mokhawa (2014: 12), the nature of

Botswana’s foreign policy was an important determinant to its relations with Zimbabwe.

Botswana’s foreign policy is presented to be ethical encapsulated in neo liberal principles of

human rights and good governance. Thus following what was presented as *the vigilantism of

the war veterans in expropriating white farms in the fast track land reform programme the

government of Botswana argued that this nationalist project was not only racial in nature but was

a gross violation of human rights (Eur, 2003:84). In the same regard the *displacement of people

in Operation Murambatsvina of 2005 presented the Mugabe regime as having had degenerated

into lethargy with regards to human security concerns. Botswana also raised concerns over the

narrowing of political space that resulted in the *engineering of the electorate to sustain an

illegitimate regime of Mugabe. Botswana argued that the opposition, MDC’s supporters were

being harassed and torture by state sponsored violence. As a result *the free fall of the economy

eventually led to the influx of Zimbabwean nationals in Botswana.

Botswana relations with Zimbabwe’s opposition, MDC-T

Since the emergence of the MDC and the unfolding of the crisis in Zimbabwe it can be argued

that Botswana has maintained strong relations with the movement. This argument is well

illustrated in 2012 at the 13th anniversary of the MDC where the BDP sent a delegation

comprising of deputy secretary general Malebogo Kruger and executive secretary Thabo

Masalila. The message from the BDP and President Ian Khama was of solidarity with the MDC

and congratulating the opposition amongst other things "We deeply recognise the role played by

the MDC in the political landscape of Zimbabwe over the last decade and commend you for your

inspiring and emphatic growth. The BDP has followed and has been encouraged by the

outstanding achievements of the MDC," Magedi (2012: 1). This solidarity with Zimbabwe’s

main opposition can be traced back to 2008 following the tension that resulted from the national

elections. It was reported that the leader of the opposition Morgan Tsvangirai fled into Botswana

to seek political asylum amid state sponsored violence on the opposition and its supporters in the

run up to the June presidential run off. The run-off election prompted Botswana to call for the

suspension of Zimbabwe from SADC and AU activities. In 2008 Botswana Vice President

Mompati Merafhe was quoted as saying, "in our considered view, it therefore follows that

representatives of current government in Zimbabwe should be excluded from attending South

African Development Community and AU meetings ,afrol News Online( 2010:1)

Botswana’s ethical foreign policy was met with mixed reactions, particularly with the

Zimbabwean government. The Zimbabwean government viewed Botswana’s perceptions of the

political crisis as serving the interests of the opposition MDC. The MDC had been maintaining

that ZANU-PF was the architect of the crisis in Zimbabwe, as such in singing the same song with

the opposition Botswana’s foreign policy dovetailed into what ZANU-PF regarded as an arsenal

for regime change. (The Herald, 5 November 2008). ZANU-PF’s perception on Botswana was

further strengthened with the release unofficial leaked WikiLeaks cables positioned Botswana as

an outpost for the US foreign policy in Africa with the view that Gaborone stood to be a

custodian of the African Command (AFRICOM) military base in Africa (Ndou, 2011:1). The

unofficial revelations should be assessed against the fact that Botswana’s foreign policy to

Zimbabwe has been argued to be anti ZANU-PF since the country’s independence where in 1983

Gaborone offered sanctuary to the leader of dissidents Dr Joshua Nkomo and in 2008 also

offered safe haven to the leader of the opposition MDC-T Morgan Tsvangirai. Accordingly

ZANU-PF weary of this historical pattern was critical of these revelations maintaining that it was

America’s systematic way of positioning the US to launch coups at will against African civilian,

or even military, leaders that fall out of favour with Washington.

To understand Botswana’s foreign policy towards Zimbabwe one has to assess the policy the

dynamics of the political contestation for African leadership (Sokhulu, 2004: 1). The contestation

is between the old guard as represented by President Mugabe, which has been regarded as

conservatives who are alien to progressive democratic ideals against the rising generation of

young, vibrant progressive leaders found in the incumbent Presidents of Botswana Ian Khama

and Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete (Badza, 2010: 154). If the above is interpreted in foreign policy

language, the sporadic and lethal attacks on the Zimbabwean government may resonate deeply

with the liberal democratic ideals President Ian Khama of Botswana stand for. However, at the

other end of the spectrum other factors may have to be put into account. For some time since

independence in 1966 Botswana had been in the shadows of South Africa and Zimbabwe in

shaping the politics of Southern Africa as Pretoria and Harare were economically and politically

strong (Dale, 1995: 2). The free fall of the political economy of Zimbabwe saw Botswana

breaking ranks with the region in condemning ZANU-PF’s code of conduct and in a manner that

suggested Botswana seized the opportunity in the crisis in Zimbabwe to position herself in the

region.

4.7 Angola- Zimbabwe relations 1980-2013

The relations between Angola and Zimbabwe have been a case for the continuation of the ideals

of the nationalist liberation struggle. The search for the continuation of these ideals has seen the

two countries glued together in the search for solidarity and this solidarity has come to establish

strong ties that have created a “sister liberation movements” enviroment in the region of

Southern Africa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 631). Patel (2006: 175) suggests that since 1980 there

has been an organic link between the method of independence (the nationalist struggle) and the

domestic and foreign policy of Zimbabwe. In other words, Zimbabwe’s political and economic

patterns since independence in 1980, in and out of the country, have been largely influenced by

the discourse of Chimurenga. The Chimurenga discourse has been the guiding blue print for the

formulation of ZANU-PF’s foreign policy in the search for regional allies as such it is in this

regard that the relations between Angola and Zimbabwe have to be assessed. The discourse of

the nationalist struggle resonates well in both Luanda and Harare were two liberation movements

the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and ZANU-PF fought against

white settler colonialism and subsequently assumed power in 1975 and 1980, respectively

(Ndlovu-Gatsheni , 2013: 41). Of primacy is how the post-independence realities in both

countries, the civil war in Angola and apartheid South Africa insurgency in both countries.

4.7.1 Angola’s search for security within foreign policy

An understanding of Angola’s foreign policy objectives in the region of Southern Africa is very

important in order to understand what constituted Luanda/Harare relations shortly after

Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. After independence in 1975 the MPLA’s foreign policy was

premised on creating a favourable enviroment in the Southern African region in the wake its civil

war with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) (Malaquias, 2000:

1). The author contends that the causes of the civil war in Angola were as a result of the hurried

transition to the country’s independence in 1975. Ciment (1997: 2) attributes this to the 1974

military coup in Portugal which deposed the government of Marcelo Caetano. In this regard, the

author contends, the new military leaders did not only depose the regime but were opposed to the

old regime’s four-hundred (400) year presence in Africa.

As a result, the new regime’s colonial objectives was a quick transtion to black majority rule in

African colonies, Angola included. This was done by handing over power to the largest

liberation movement in the respective Portuguese colonies, like the Mozambique Liberation

Front( FRELIMO) in Mozambique (Ciment, 1997: 2; James, 2011: 41). However, the situation

was different in Angola where three organisations the MPLA, UNITA and National Liberation

for Angola (FNLA) had been the mainstay of the liberation struggle against Portuguese settler

rule . What was of interest perhaps is the fact that the MPLA presented itself as the only

formidable Pan-Angolan movement against the FNLA, which was from the north, and UNITA

the south of the country. These two organisations presented only ethnic and regional

constitutiencies. In contrast, however, the MPLA was tipped to take power as it attracted a wider

national political base (Ciment, 1997: 2). As a result the three organisations were unable to agree

on a common approach to the decolonisaton of Angola and the making of a nation-state in a post

indepence era. The vaccum left by the Portuguese created room for political entitlements within

the three liberation movement. The effect of political entitilement was that all these movements

expressed the right to govern Angola at the expense of national consensus and such disagreement

would only escalate into full military confrontation in the search for the total control of Angola.

War soon broke out before independence in 1974 with each organisation trying to establish itself

as the legitimate government of Angola and thus attracting the involvement of patrons of each

liberation movement in the competition for state power (James, 2011: 4). It was, therefore, not

surprising that apartheid South Africa launched its invasion from Southern Angola to support

UNITA’s claim to power. South Africa’s intervention in the Angolan conflict was based on the

fact that UNITA was a regional movement whose constituency was in southern Angola

bordering South West Africa. South West Africa was a satellite state to the aparthied government

and in the wake of the MPLA’s support for the South West Africa Peoples

Organisation(SWAPO), a liberation movement whose activities was causing tension in South

West Africa, it became very important for aparthied South Africa to support UNITA

(Labuschagne, 2009:29). Zaire (hereafter the DRC) the US and China threw their weight behind

FNLA because of the latter’s constituency bordering with Zaire and its reservation towards the

MPLA in the struggle for the control of Angola.It was also important for China and the US to

fund a counter movement to the MPLA that was heavily funded by the Soviet Union for two

reasons. The FNLA serve as an outpost for the capitalism in the Cold War effort and moreover it

would also serve as an outpost for China’s infiltration in Africa(Labuschagne, 2009:28). The

Soviet Union and Cuba intervened on the MPLA side that eventually emerged triumphant

(James, 2011: 4)

Even though the MPLA emerged victorious against FNLA and UNITA in the civil war the

realities of the Cold War prompted the Marxist MPLA government to search for regional allies

in the search for domestic security. The MPLA government understood that as part of the Cold

War two regional enemies apartheid South Africa and Zaire would continue to support UNITA

in a concerted effort to dislodge the MPLA because of its solidarity with SWAPO and the ANC

as liberation movements. (Ciment, 1997: 16). As a result the independence of Zimbabwe in

1980 provided an opportunity in which Angola sought a regional ally in the fight against

aparthied South Africa and the consolidation of its power base domestically as shall be

illustrated.

4.7.2 Basis of Angola-Zimbabwe relations from 1980-1994

The basis of Angola-Zimbabwe relations shortly after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 evolve

around the search for security in Southern Africa and a joint aversion against South Africa’s

foreign policy in the region. As noted in the previous chapters, the apartheid government in

South Africa pursued a destabilising foreign policy on countries like Angola, Botswana,

Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe . In the late 1970s, the search for a stable and secure

region saw Angola and the FLS member states offering military bases to ZAPU as well as

joining Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia in putting pressure on the Rhodesian

government to negotiate with the respective liberation movement in that country for the

liberation of Zimbabwe (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 39).

The independence of Zimbabwe in 1980, and thus the establishment of black majority rule, is

regarded as having enabled the country to pursue a foreign policy based on Pan-Africanism,

among other things (Chan and Patel, 2006: 176; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 41). In this regard,

Zimbabwe joined the SADCC in a concerted effort to end colonialism in Namibia and South

Africa, the last bastions of oppression and discrimination. This created a platform for Zimbabwe

to lobby for economic sanctions to be imposed on the apartheid government in South Africa.

Whilst Zimbabwe called for sanctions on the apartheid government, Angola openly supported

the ANC and SWAPO in an effort to end minority rule in these countries ( Lester, et al., 2014:

296). South Africa’s insurgency in supporting rebel movements in Mozambique and Angola

resulted in civil wars in these respective countries consequently saw President Mugabe

condemning UNITA and RENAMO as benefactors of apartheid South Africa’s foreign policy in

the region (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 41). It was not surprising that Zimbabwe’s open hostility

towards apartheid South Africa and its benefactors RENAMO and UNITA was a foreign policy

based on the search for security in the region as it was understood that the latter movements

stood to cause instability through their activities. Thus Zimbabwe’s understanding for the

realities in the region particulary UNITA’s role in the political landscape of Angola resonated

with the MPLA foreign policy objectives search for regional alliance to avert Pretoria’s support

for UNITA during the civil war.

Angola-Zimbabwe alliance during the post apartheid South Africa, 1994-2000

The indepedence of South Africa in 1994 and the end of the civil war in Mozambique presented

an opportunity for the search for regional stability and security. The foreign policy of the new

black majority government in South Africa was mainly informed by the desire to reverse the

neglect of Africa by the apartheid government and the desire to repay some of the support

rendered by African states to the liberation of South Africa (Webber and Smith, 2013: 235). Be

that as it may, Webber and Smith (2013: 236) point to the ambiguity in South Africa’s foreign

policy in the context of African affairs. They argue that the foreign policy was not clear despite

its objectives to push for the continent’s development agenda in 1994, thereby limiting its agenda

on African affairs. The authors futher amplify this agurment by suggesting that South Africa’s

foreign policy seemed to be reflective of the continuation of the former apartheid regime’s

foreign policy that supported rebel movements in countries such as Angola and Mozambique.

South Africa was depicted by the Human Rights Watch as sponsoring UNITA with arms in

the post-civil war making of Angola an allegation that the South African government refused

though acknowledging the involvement of rogue elements within the South African Defense

Forces (Batchelor, 1998:60). Furthermore, in 1998 South Africa was seen as having supported

the rebels in the DRC against the government of Laurent Kabila. Thus South Africa’s position

was seen as an antipathy of Pan-Africanism, where Pretoria was viewed at with the lens of a

supporter of the very elements that had caused the civil war in Angola. Resultantly, the MPLA

government in Angola became resentful of post-1994 South Africa’s foreign policy (Webber and

Smith, 2013: 236). This resentment can be explained in part as a result of Angola’s foreign

policy objectives were the country sought to discredit UNITA and its supporters in the region.

Moreover Angola had expected the ANC government to be more aligned to the MPLA, given the

historical ties that established during the ANC’s fight against apartheid (Adebajo, 2010: 197). It

was as a consequent of this resentment that Angola drew closer to Namibia and Zimbabwe in

what was presented as a joint aversion against South Africa’s unclear intentions which expected

to renege on regional solidarity (Webber and Smith, 2013: 236; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2011: 5).

The involvement of Angola and Zimbabwe in the civil war in the DRC

The origin and dimensions of the conflict in the DRC have been explained in detail in the

previous chapter. However, of importance is to locate the conflict in the context of Angola-

Zimbabwe alliance which has attracted at least four different reasons. These are a joint aversion

against South Africa’s moral hegemonic tendencies; differences over the operations of the SADC

Organ on Politics,Defense and Security(OPDS); domestic challenges in Angola and Zimbabwe

and lastly regional security concerns. The first possible reason for Angola and Zimbabwe’s

involvement was regarded as a joint aversion against South Africa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2011: 5).

A joint aversion ,against regional expectations that South Africa would assume a pro active role,

that included Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe has to be located in reasons that are closely

linked to each other. Up to 1994when South Africa got its independence, Zimbabwe had been

playing the leadership role in shaping regional affairs. The possibility of an alternative to

regional leadership resting on South Africa may have been a diplomatic set back for Zimbabwe

and an important ingredient in cultivating resentment. It is also important to stress that Angola’s

reservations towards South Africa were motivated an enduring image created by the aparthied

government in sponsoring UNITA, the official opposition in Angola. Moreover the Angolan

government resented South Africa’s post apartheid’s foreign policy where it was alleged to

continuing sponsoring UNITA with arms.Namibia also joined the alliance based on historical

differences with South Africa as a coloniser thus when an opportunity was presented to discredit

South Africa Windhoek embraced it. It is very important to underline the fact that the civil war

in the DRC provided an opportunity for Angola and Zimbabwe to reinstate their position as

formidable contenders in the region against the background of South Africa ‘s foreign policy that

had come to be known as a moral hegemony particulary from regional states such as Botswana,

Lesotho, Zambia and Swaziland. Thus consequently South Africa became to be regarded as the

newly celebrated power house in terms of shaping the affairs of the region and continent

(Kagwanja, 2006:159).

The second reason for the intervention of these two countries the civil war in the DRC came at a

time when Zimbabwe relations with South Africa were fractured over the formation of a

regional security framework the Organ for Politics, Defense and Security (OPDS). Tension

between South Africa and Zimbabwe stemmed from whether the OPDS shoud be co opted into

SADC or work pararelly with the regional bloc (Nkiwane 2003: 64). South Africa opted for

integrating the OPDS into SADC such that one country would not control the organ’s activities.

However Zimbabwe preferred the second option for the organ to be independent of the SADC.

As a result of the disagreement animosity ensued reflecting hegemonic tendencies of both

Zimbabwe and South Africa naturally. The effect was that the region was divided into two

camps, the Zimbabwean on one hand and South African on the other(Ngoma, 2005: 157). The

polarisation of the region saw Angola become part of the Zimbabwean camp which eventually

resulted in opting for a military solution in the crisis in the DRC over mediation favored by

South Africa. Angola’s support for military solution was presented as Luanda’s disdain for South

Africa’s foreign policy where it was seen to be courting UNITA (Adebajo, 2010: 197). Thus the

military alliance between Angola and Zimbabwe was viewed as circumventing South Africa’s

tendency of going against the region in supporting rebel movements. The Angolan government

had been weary of South Africa’s continued reception to UNITA as part of a political solution to

the crisisin Angola (Adebajo, 2012: 1). In the DRC it was believed that Pretoria favored an

inclusive solution that involved the RCD and the government of Laurent Kabila (Mandaza, 1999:

81). Regardless of the above the Angolan and Zimbabwean alliance managed to save the regime

of President Kabila from the insurgency of Rwandan and Ugandan rebes in 1998 thus further

cementing Luanda-Harare relations.

The third reason suggests that the intervention in the DRC by Angola and Zimbabwe was

primarily based on domestic security challenges in both Luanda and Harare, where UNITA has

been the greatest obstacle to peace since 1975 (War, 2000: 63) and the rise of the MDC which

threatened the power base of ZANU-PF. The rationale behind Angola’s intervention in the DRC

was part of the MPLA government’s regional foreign policy to discredit and weaken UNITA.

The civil war in the DRC provided an opportunity for Angola to launch an attack on UNITA’s

military bases in that country. The fear was that these military bases could used by UNITA as

springboards to launch an attack on Angola. The relations between UNITA and Rally for

Congolese Democracy (RCD), the opposition rebel movement in the DRC, posed a serious threat

to Angola and as such Luanda’s prerogative in the war was aimed at denying UNITA possible

bases in the DRC that it would use to launch a counter offensive on the government in Luanda

(Campbell, 1999: 54). In sort, therefore, Angola’s support for the government of President

Laurent Kabila was informed by UNITA’s historical ties with the former dictator regime of

Mobutu SeSeko. As a result it was feared in Angola that the removal of President Kabila would

possibly create a vaccum which could be filled by a pro-UNITA leader (War, 2000: 63). This

would have prosed further security concerns for Angola and the Southern African regional as a

whole.

Zimbabwe’s involvement in the civil war in the DRC is closely linked to Angola’s search for

domestic security. Following the increasing dissaffection among Zimbabwean citizens over

stalled political and economic development that eventually resulted in the formation of the

opposition MDC,ZANU-PF’s power base was threatened. Nyathi(2004:73) opines that the

dissaffection amongst Zimbabwean which gave an impetus to the rise of the MDC alarmed

ZANU-PF to search for alternative means to maintain a hold on power.In this respect the civil

war was in a bid to secure lucrative economic concessions for the armed security sector by the

Zimbabwean government to buy loyalt to stay in power (Nyathi, 2004: 73). It is important to

draw a nexus between the DRC war and Angola’s foreign policy in the Southern African region

where Zimbabwe became an ally in realising Luanda’s objectives to weaken UNITA’s influence

from the DRC

The fourth reason Angolan and Zimbabwean initiative in the DRC came in the aftermath of the

Mutual Defensive Pact (MDP) that included Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe (Ngoma, 2005:

157). The MDP was a military alliance that was sought at a time the region was trying to

establish a common defense framework since the FLS (Ngoma, 2005: 157. Angola and

Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC in 1998 was followed a request by the government of

Laurent Kabila to defend the country’s sovereignty. Security was under threat in the DRC

following political and economic differences between the government of Laurent Kabila and the

invading rebels of the RCD which were backed by Rwanda and Uganda (Wilen, 2012: 101;

Chigora 2008: 642 and 643). Following a disagreement with the government the rebels formed

the RCD and thus transfomed political and economic frustrations into armed confrontation.

However as a result Angola and Zimbabwe were motivated by the search for solidarity and

security in the region and were compelled to defend the sovereignty of a SADC member state.

4.7.3 Angola and the Zimbabwean crisis 2000-2013

The crisis in Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2013 was an important factor in dissecting the

continuation of what constitutes Angola and Zimbabwe relations. Of primacy is to stress the

backbone of these important relations,the seacrh for solidarity and extension of “sister liberation

movements” in power. These objectives began with an alliance against aparthied South Africa,a

joint aversion against post apartheid South Africa and a military alliance in the civil war in the

DRC. As such these objectives were reinfoced between 2000 and 2013 where Angola’s

President Jose Eduado dos Santos a long time ally of President Mugabe stood in solidarity with

Zimbabwe against international pressures from countries such as Britain and the US. It is

important to view Angola’s position on the crisis as reciprocity to Zimbabwe’s commitment and

unwavering support to the MPLA government during its war against UNITA (Ndlovu-Gatsheni,

2013: 43). Evidence of this was when on 22 August 1989 Zimbabwe hosted a Summit of

African Heads of States on Angola. At the summit Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe,

strongly pledged his country’s position on the conflict in Angola by siding with the MPLA

government against UNITA’s Jonas Savimbi, who he reagrded as a surrogate of the apartheid

South African government (Chan, 2011: 37) and (Ndlovu-Gatsheni,2013:641). The position

taken by Zimbabwe at the Summit dovetailed into pursuing a policy aimed at “ënfeeblement if

not destruction of domestic threat” in Angola posited by UNITA (Malaquias, 2000: 9). Thus the

Summit accordingly proved a diplomatic triumph for the MPLA as it was suggested that Jonas

Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, would have to consider voluntary exile and UNITA be integrated

into MPLA institutions (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013: 42).

The study also views the developments at the Summit as turning point within the FLS with the

cementing of strong regional binational relations especially at the time when apartheid South

Africa was still a hegemonic power. Based on these historical commitments when the political

crisis in Zimbabwe unfolded Angola stood in support of the Zimbabwean government.

However, it is important to note that Angola’s support for Zimbabwe has been limited to public

statements and official government and party positions during the period of the political crisis in

Zimbabwe. This can be explained in terms of the fact that the crisis is Zimbabwe began at a time

Angola was coming to terms with a possible post-war enviroment in 2002 following the death of

Jonas Savimbi the opposition leader and as such the MPLA was more focused on internal nation

building. (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013) maintains that as a result of the domestic challenges of post

war reconstruction, Angola’s President Eduardo dos Santos has not been actively involved in

foreign policy activities.Be that as it may the country’s foreign policy to Zimbabwe was

premised on advocating for the removal of sanctions imposed by the EU and the USA witness to

this can be seen by a meeting of former liberation movements of Southern Africa held in

Windhoek, Namibia, on the 11th of August 2011. Present at the meeting was the MPLA, the

ANC, SWAPO, FLELIMO, ZANU-PF and Chama-Chamapinduzi of Tanzania, all which called

for the removal of illegal sanctions that were imposed on Zimbabwe in the pretext of FTLRP

related violence and the absence of the rule of law (Mukandiwa, 2011: 1). Angola was

specifically committed to the electoral roadmap which was included in the PSA between ZANU-

PF and the two MDC factions. In this regard Luanda called for elections in Zimbabwe as

maintained by ZANU-PF. Angola’s position in this regard was met with mixed reactions at

SADC and African Union levels as states such as Botswana and Kenya expected Luanda to be

indifferent to the Mugabe regime over what they viewed as the regime’s lack of commitment to

the PSA agreements for liberal principles and an antipathy for electoral refoms to ensure free

and afir elections (“NewsDay”, 2011: 1).The reaction by Botswana and Kenya was that Angola

unwavering support to ZANU-PF was in a way legitimatising ZANU-PF’s lack of commitments

to the objectives of the PSA. However, on several occassions as the Chair of the SADC-OPDS,

Angola called for the removal of sanctions in Zimbabwe arguing they were responsible for

hindering meaningful refoms in the country (Mukandiwa, 2011: 1).

Angola’s foreign policy towards Zimbabwe mirrored the search for solidarity of liberation

movements where for aexample on a number of occasions the country justified the nationalist

land reform program and the removal of economic sanctions. This position not only reinforced

the importance of anti-imperialist history in the region in the search for solidarity but the search

for solidarity saw Angola and South Africa normalising relations after years of animosity. As

noted earlier in the chapter Angola-South Africa relations had been strained owing to Pretoria’s

support for Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA movement during the civil war in Angola. However,

President dos Santos’s commitment to the politics of anti imperialsim in supporting ZANU-PF

saw the relations between Angola and South Africa normalising. To be more clear President

Mbeki ‘s partality towards ZANU-PF and the politics of anti imperialism, that saw South Africa

suspecting the MDC as working with the West to effect regime change in Zimbabwe,

established a common ground for South Africa and Angola. The renewed search for regional

solidarity to ensure the survival of sister liberation movements brought old foes together with a

common purpose to sustain ZANU-PF in Angola and South Africa’s efforts to solve the crisis in

Zimbabwe(Southscan, 2008: 1).

Angola’s political and economic might has earned the country a considerable degree of respect

in the region of Southern Africa and on the continent. Thus having been able to earn respect from

fellow African countries like South Africa, Angola had to work with the former as the Chair of

the SADC’s OPDS to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe in 2008 (Southscan, 2008: 1). At the AU

Summit in 2008 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt Angola pushed to reinstate its confidence in former

South African President Mbeki’s mediation efforts in Zimbabwe against the will and

expectations of the opposition MDC and other liberal minded leaders such as the former Kenyan

Prime Minister Raila Odinga (Chan, 2011:213) .These had in the past accused President Mbeki

for pursuing silent diplomacy in the effort to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe. The MDC and

countries such as Kenya and Botswana expected that South Africa would pursue at least

megaphone diplomacy to publicly condemn President Mugabe. However Angola’s position can

be assessed as reinforcing South Africa’s commitment to ensuring that the nationalist projects

embarked on by ZANU-PF were supported and at the same time ensuring political reforms in the

country. (Southscan, 2008: 1).

4.8 The Political Landscape in Zimbabwe 2009-2013

a. The Power Sharing Agreement of 2009

The GPA that included ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions was signed on the 15th of

September 2008 and came into effect in February 2009 as a PSA following what was as a

contested 2008 Presidential run off (Kriger, 2012: 11 and Raftopoulos, 2013: 971). After a

regional consensus that the political enviromental in Zimbabwe was unsustainable the PSA was

intended to normlise the political and economic landscape of the country for future elections.

Againstthe expectations of many this Inclusive Government(IG) was complicated in the sense

that it failed to unite ZANU-PF and the MDC owing to fundamental issues that had sustained

each party’s external relations in Southern Africa. Accordingly, for example this political reality

is illustrated by Bratton and Masunungure (2011:34),“The fundamental problem with the

transitional government is that power is not shared,but divided. ZANU-PFand MDC-T exercise

power separately within largely exclusive,and often competing , zones of authority. Moreover

the distribution of power is unequal,with the balance titled in favor of old guard elements from

the previous regime…….And, under intense presure on an issue that threatenedthe entire

settlement ,the MDC was forced by the South African negotiators to accept co-leadership with

ZANU-PF of the Ministry of Home Affairs,which controls the police.Moreover a patronage

culture endures.” In ZANU-PF’s view the IG was a “three headed monster” that had reneged on

the necessary development for the country since its inception in 2009 (Mugabe, 2013: 1).

Accordingly the MDC viewed the IG as an agreement that illegally legitimatised and sustained

ZANU-PF in power that had lost the 2008 elections. Accordingly the reforms that were

necessary for implementation where the MDC’s acknowledgement of the existence of economic

sanctions and subsequently lobbing for their removal; the necessity of the 2000 land reform and

rejection of external interference in Zimbabwe’s political processes (Tendi, 2010: 1). However,

the opposition MDC argued that constitutionalism, electoral and democratic considerations

were necessary reforms for a condusive political and economic climate in the country one

which would attract foreign direct investment for the revival of the country’s

economy(Raftopoulos, 2013: 973).

The divergence on fundamental issues that were necessary for reforms by the two opposing

signatories to the PSA threatened to polarize the SADC as the guarantor of the agreement. The

stalemate gave room for pessimism from certain quarters in the international community, such as

the EU and this was amplified by a report presented to the SADC by the European Parliament in

13 May 2013 entitled “Quick Policy Insight”, “Government turnover does not guarantee

democratic change in Zimbabwe. ZANU (PF) lacks democratic roots; but the MDC has, for its

part, done little to prove its trustworthiness. Rather than asking who is in power, international

analysts might want to put a stronger focus on how to actually improve Zimbabwe’s political

culture and institutions” Raftopoulos (2013: 975). The analysis by the EU Parliament was

refective of the political contestation manifesting in the IG. However it fell short of other

considerations such as the role played by the EU in widening the crisis in Zimbabwe through the

imposition of sanctions. As such by virtue of being an interested party to the crisis in Zimbabwe

the EU Parliament did not fair any better.

The Referrendum of 2013

Regardless of this pessimissm progress was made on constitutional reforms that saw the on 16 th

of March 2013, Zimbabwe holding a referendum on a new Constitution. The position of SADC

was that, in respect of SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections, the

referendum was conducted in a peaceful and transparent manner that reflected the will of the

Zimbabwean people (SADC, 2013: 10). Accordingly this was a positive step as part of the PSA

and on the efforts regional body was making in trying to create a sustainable political enviroment

in Zimbabwe.

The success of the March 2013 referrendum set a precendence for the harmonised national

elections that were eventually held on the 31st of July 2013. The road to the elections was marked

by differences in the political terrain in Zimbabwe, where calls were made from the opposition

camps for political amendments such as the security sector reform as a prerequisite for a free and

fair election. (Chikuhwa, 2013: 249 and 250). These calls were made following the comments

made by senior ZANU-PF heavy weights Rugare Gumbo and Patrick Chinamasa who expressed

that in the event of an MDC win at the polls the security sector would not easily accept

such(Chikuhwa,2013:250) and (BBC Interview with Andrew Harding 11 October 2012). As

such opposition argued that the security sector, namely the army, intelligence service and police

were partisan towards ZANU-PF’s continued stay in power as such there was need for the sector

to be non partisan. In the same breath at a SADC Summit in Maputo on 15 June 2013, the

regional body reiterated the need for the security sector in Zimbabwe to respect Article 28 of the

new Constitution that exhorted the security sector from being partisan. However, according to

ZANU-PF reforms in the security sector were not in the best interest of the country as the

opposition was a national security issue by virtue of working hand and in glove with the West in

calling for economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. According to ZANU-PF the bulk of service chiefs

were largely drawn from the nationalist liberation struggle and were politically indoctrinated to

safeguard the gains of the struggle that were under threat from the emergence of the opposition

MDC,as a party working with whites and Britain, Thus the security sector’s role dovetailed into

defending the sovereignty of the country (Tendi, 2013: 832).

The 31st July 2013 Elections and impact on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa

Be that as it may the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe proclaimed the 31 st of July 2013 to be

the date set for the national elections in the country (Raftopoulos, 2013: 976. Accordingly on 15

June 2013 at the SADC Summit in Maputo it was resolved that following some of the points

raised by the opposition as part of necessary political refoms the Zimbabwean government would

have to engage the Constitutionl Court beyond the 31st July 2013 election date. However, the

Constitutional Court rejected the Zimbabwean government’s appeal to extent the date for

elections. Thus the SADC through its Executive Secretary Mr Tomaz Salamao made it clear its

commitment in respecting the decisions of the Zimbabwean courts in maintaining the 31st July

2013 as the election date (New Zimbabwe, 2013: 1).

Regardless of the above, the Zimbabwean national elections were held on the 31 st of July 2013

under the watchful eyes of close to 600 election observers from within the SADC region in line

with its principles of governing democratic elections (Ankomah, 2013: 65). The election results

came out in favour of ZANU-PF as garnered 61% (sixty-one percent) while the opposition

shared 39% (thrity-nine per cent) of the remaining votes. According to the BBC (1 August 2013)

and (Chikuhwa, 2013: 270)the results were received with and shock and surprise by many,

especially opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai who described the elections as a farce, and that

they did not reflect the will of the people. However, the SADC observers endorsed the elections

as free and fair, stating that they had been conducted in a peaceful enviroment. The SADC

Election Observer Mission (SEOM) released a report on the 2nd of September 2013 on the

Zimbabwean elections congradulating the Zimbabwean government for abiding by the guidelines

and principles of the bloc in conducting elections (Ankomah, 2013: 65). Accordingly as a result

of the elections in 2013 South Africa, the SADC chief mediator in the Zimbabwen crisis, and the

SADC removed Zimbabwe from its agenda. The decision taken by SADC suggested the

reintegration of Zimbabwe into the political and economic activities of the region that had been

stalled as a result of the political crisis (Makorera, 2015: 1).

Conclusion

The beginning of the 2000s saw an unprecedented change in the political economy of Zimbabwe

that resulted a political and economic crisis and a stand off between Zimbabwe and the West.

The stand off and the crisis resulted in mixed reactions towards Zimbabwe such as economic

sanctions and division within the region of Southern Africa. In response to such Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy was seen as attempting to reinvent solidarity with its immediate liberation

movements in the region insearch for authenticating nationalist projects such as the land reform.

As part of the response to the crisis in Zimbabwe, the SADC mandated South Africa to mediate

in the crisis that resulted in a sustainable political enviroment following the 2013 elections.

Chapter Five

Conclusion and Recommendations: Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa, 1980-2013

5.1 Introduction

The study was set out to analyse Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in Southern Africa between

the periods of 1980 to 2013. In the same manner the research has sought to understand

the nature and thematic patterns Zimbabwe’s foreign policy at the dawn of a new era in

1980 paying particular attention to the Chimurenga discourse. This discourse as a method

used to attain nationhood has been influential in the making of Zimbabwe nation-state

and the formulation of foreign policy. As such embedded in a Pan Africanist discourse at

the onset Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was heralded as a success story in the context of

Southern Africa. This was because of a strong economy that enabled the country to push

for regional agendas such the formation of SADCC; intervention in Mozambique and the

independence of Namibia and South Africa. However the end of the Cold War and the

emergence of a democratic South Africa ushered in an alternative to regional concerns.

Thus this was premised on reviewing the previous role Zimbabwe had been playing.

Moreover the change in the political economy in the country limited the ability of

Zimbabwe’s engagement in the region. As a result, the study sought to answer three

questions:

What are the origins and dynamics of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy at independence?

How did the early 1990s period and the rise of a new South Africa influence Zimbabwe’s

foreign policy?

In which way has the domestic situation in Zimbabwe impacted on the country’s foreign

policy?

5.2 Recommendations

Adopting a pragmatic foreign policy

After a careful analysis of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy trajectories since the birth of the nation-

state in 1980 and as part of African foreign policy making, the research recommends that the

government of Zimbabwe adopts a pragmatic foreign policy. This recommendations is premised

on the evidence provided by the study on the efforts rendered by Zimbabwe in the region in the

first decade of the country’s independence. Zimbabwe carefully understood that its foreign

policy objectives at the time operated within the parameters and twists of international patterns

such as the misgivings of the Cold War. Pragmatism cast Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in the most

favorable light whilst the government engaged both the Capitalist and Communist blocs. The

post Cold War and 9/11 eras have changed political patterns of international relations and

conservative foreign policy embedded in nationalist discourses such as Chimurenga have been

put to test with the globalisation of world politics.To attest tothis fact was the division within the

ranks of SADC in making sense of the nationalist project such as the intervention in the DRC

and the land reform programme embarked on by Zimbabwe.

Globalisation of world politics has entailed that it is the responsibility of every country to

embark on ethical foreign policies to safeguard norms such as good

governance,democracy,protection of private property and human rights. In as much as addressing

social injustices inherent from yester years of colonialism is a prerogative of every African

state’s foreign policy as an end to uplift the lives of ordinary citizens, forces of globalisation

have tended to question such radical foreign policies . The ultimate end has been that of

international isolation,punitive measures and political projects aimed at putting off balance

democratically elected regimes by powerful forces in the international system. Thus the political

crisis that began in the late 1990s should serve as a cautionary tale and a determinant of

Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in the near future to maintain a balance between a conservative

foreign policy and the need to adopt an ethically considered foreign policy.

This recommendation stems from the fact that the region of Southern Africa was deeply divided

over making sense of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy after the land reform program and a

deteriorating political enviroment in the country. Moreover the 2013 national elections heralded

a new political dispensation in Zimbabwe as the SADC and AU commended these to be credible

but the international community , particulary the West, was at pain to endorse the election of

ZANU-PF because of continuities that inform Zimbabwe’s foreign policy. Subsequently the

study recommends that Zimbabwe restructure its foreign policy such that the region and at the

international community help the country on the road to recovery after years of political and

economic unsustainability.

Stregthening of regional alliances

The study further recommends that Zimbabwe’s foreign policy objectives are directed in the

region to stregthen alliances with regional partners such as Angola and South Africa. The study

has come to an assessment of the rise of Angola due to the country’s economic and political

might to influence and shape regional affairs. South Africa since 1994 has proven to be a force to

reckon with and since 2007 as the mandated mediator by SADC has developed warm relations

with Zimbabwe. This recommendations is premised on the evidenced produced in the study that

Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe all share a common history of the fight against white

minority rule and have former liberation movements in power. This commonality in history has

seen these two countries stand in solidarity with Zimbabwe in sustaining the nationalist land

refrom program,during the political crisis. In economic terms the two countries have also

adopted a Look East policy, an economic partnership with Asian countries such as China. All

these factors are very crucial in the formulation and execution of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy in

the region of Southern Africa.

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Chengu, G. (2011), July 30. Is the US – China Cold War Zimbabwe’s Lifeline? Retrieved May 14, 2014, garikaichengu: www.garikaichengu.org

Financial Gazette, (2009), September 11. long story of Zim sanctions. Retrieved May 14, 2014, Financial Gazette: www.financialgazette.co.zw/long-story-of-zim-sanctions

GovTrack. (2012, March 1). Text of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001. Retrieved September 28, 2014, from GovTrack: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/s494/text

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Ndou, P., 2011. Botswana wanted to house US' Africom base:WikiLwaks. [Online] Available at: bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-wikileaks-byo-8592-article-Botswana-wanted-to-house-US-Africom-base%3AWikiLeaks.html[Accessed 28 December 2014].

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Jenkins, S. (1983, July 16). Deslabilisation in Southern Africa. The Economist, 23-24. The Economist.

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NewsDay, 2011. Sadc in dilemma over Mugabe. NewsDay, 13 May, p. 1.

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New Zimbabwe, 2013. 'Elections: SADC will Respect Court Appeal Ruling’,. New Zimbabwe, 17 June, p. 1.

Periodicals

Sokhulu, T. l., 2004. Is Botswana Advancing or Regressing in its Democracy?. Managing African Conflicts in Southern Africa Programme, January.

Makokera, C., 2015. Zimbabwe and South Africa: Security Takes Precedence Over Economy. P O L I C Y B R I E F I N G 1 2 6 Economic Diplomacy Programme, SAIIA February.

Malan, C. a. (1997, March). SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security: Future development. ISS Occassional Paper 19, p. 14.

Mandaza, I. (1999, January/February). The blues behind the blue train. Southern African Political and Economic Monthly, p. 14.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni. (2011). Reconstructing the Implications of Liberation Struggle History on SADC Mediation in Zimbabwe. South African Foreign Policy and African Drivers Programme, 1-21.

Reports

Lamb, G. (2013). DDR 20 Years Later:Historical Review of the Long-term Impact of Post-independence DDR in Southern Africa. Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://www.tdrp.net/PDFs/DDR20YearsLater.pdf

SADC, (2013). SADC ELECTION OBSERVATION MISSION TO THE REPUBLIC OF ZIMBABAWE,STATEMENT BY HON BERNARD BEMBE, : SADC.

Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network(2008). Report: ON THE ZIMBABWE 29 MARCH 2008 HARMONIZED ELECTIONS AND 27 JUNE PRESIDENTIAL RUN-OFF, Harare: ZIMBABWE ELECTORAL SUPPORT NETWORK.

Thesis

Labuschagne, B., 2009. South Africa’s Intervention in Angola: Before Cuito Cuanavale and Thereafter. Masters Thesis :University of Stellenbosch.

Interviews

Nicholas Govo PHD candidate, 23 March 2015, Riverside, University of Venda

Reason Wafawarova, 25 February 2015

Professor Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 17 October 2014, Archie Mafeje Research Institute, UNISA, Pretoria, South Africa

AppendixPresident of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe

Source: https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president+mugabe&client=aff-maxthon-maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMI1L6irN6NyAIVAVweCh1Xowa0#imgrc=cqZLklIFh8Xt9M%3A

Former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, 1994-1999

Source:https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president+mandela&client=aff-maxthon-maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMI1ammhd-NyAIVg7geCh3RSg-o#imgrc=_kA0wcnlXaNfxM%3A

Former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, 1999-2008

Source: https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president+mbeki&client=aff-maxthon-maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&site=webhp&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMI7p2q29-NyAIVw9YUCh3p9Q0R

Former President of Zambia, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, 1964-1991

Source:https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president+kaunda&client=aff-maxthon-maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIyOqswOCNyAIVixseCh2dbwFi#imgrc=WUVjOahBTuzd0M%3A

Former President of Mozambique, Samora Machel, 1975-1986

Source:http://www.google.co.za/imgres?imgurl=http://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/2214/12c91cd52cf94746aa8be407a015e096.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Hawks-probing-Samora-Machel-crash-20121212&h=370&w=300&tbnid=xUc-5UlP7H9fkM:&tbnh=186&tbnw=150&usg=__6Mn1Th81-

G9l8zS9qqnJy8HID30=&docid=jNfo8M5WX3L0AM&itg=1&client=aff-maxthon-maxthon4

President of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos

Source: https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president+dos+santos&client=aff-maxthon-maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMItdizteGNyAIVCTgUCh3u4gtx

Former President of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, 1990-2005

Source: https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president+nujoma&client=aff-maxthon-

maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_

AUoAWoVChMIjNywgeKNyAIVSf0eCh31EQuz

President of Botswana, Seretse Khama Ian Khama

Source: https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president++khama&client=aff-maxthon-

maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_

AUoAWoVChMI-83c4OKNyAIVh3ceCh331APb

Former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, 1995-2005

Source: https://www.google.co.za/search?q=president+mkapa&client=aff-maxthon-

maxthon4&channel=t39&biw=1317&bih=607&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_

AUoAWoVChMIzbDOqeONyAIVSCoeCh001Q6w#imgrc=J8oLL2mjTtcKkM%3A