Mugabe and Idi Amin - not a fair comparison!

I must express deep appreciation to Jeremy Cronin for his piece on the Zimbabwe election struggle (Why South Africa will never be like Zimbabwe: ). His use of the rural site of struggles (for Zanu PF) in contrast to the urban-township sites (for ANC combatants), to struggle from, is most helpful in understanding the possible power of the mass-base to monitor and discipline their post-freedom leaders.

That analysis does, however, have problems when compared with the experience of TANU/Chama Cha Mapinduzi in Tanzania (with its predominantly rural base); as compared to Kenya, where KANU under Kenyatta's determination to create a "Kenya aristocracy" (according to an interview he gave to Sunday Times Magazine in London 1967), met a different fate. In the former, Nyerere used various devices, including his stepping down from Prime Ministership for one year to tour among the rural majority so as to devise strategies for holding elected politicians accountable and committed to the implementation of "one-party democratic elections" as well as to "Ujamaa". In Kenya, Kenyatta ruthlessly demobilized the party and its branches; and eliminated all effective challengers among the political class, including Tom Mboya. Pio Gama Pinto and J.M. Kariuki.

In this regard, Cronin's quip about Fidel Castro not blaming the failure of Americans to subsidize Cuba's tobacco or sugar-based economy, is most apt in highlighting the role of bold and ideologically focused leadership. He, however, fails to bring in that invisible but creatively lethal force called the rump of the White Settler political class that had known power and political management, including electoral competition ( albeit within a limited racial electorate), since the 1920s. Their combination of control of economic power, deep political experience and bitter but resurgent ambition for power, must not be left out of the picture.

Mugabe had made the mistake of failing to constantly call attention to this critical mass of race-located economic and political energy whose critical location made them a vital entry-point for any external British, American and European Union "sabotage" initiatives against Mugabe. As an example, the political skills of this class was demonstrated during the summit of Commonwealth leaders when they met in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. The efforts of their agents to capture the debate on Zimbabwe at sessions held by civil society groups, was formidable; if crude in parts when white individuals found it hard hiding their commandist relationship with the black activists in their team.

A critical focus on this group, and its much larger and more complex sector in South Africa, must not be hidden by a form of analysis that appears like a form of 'tribalism by silence' by analysts who share or do not share their aspirations for a return to the front row in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe and post-Mbeki South Africa. Such silence inhibits a creative and continuous engagement of this group for the challenge to undertake internal regeneration towards contributing to building de-racialized political and economic cultures in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Seen in this light, their possible success in exploiting Mugabe's disadvanatges since 1980, should not be glorified without drawing attention to poisonous racism that drives it; and their failure to join hands in creating rehumanized freedom and equality-rooted new societies.

President Obasanjo went on television in Nigeria to take some of the blame for Mugabe's difficulties. He told Nigerians that in 1980 and 1990 African leaders pressurized Mugabe and Zanu PF to stay their hands off land-reform. In 1990, African leaders begged Mugabe to make it easy for the conservative white settlers in South Africa to go along with getting Nelson Mandela out of prison; and for the elections, that gave power to the ANC, to be held. This information should be put on the table as we judge Mugabe. That, as Cronin rightly insists, must not exonorate the policy failures and crimes against the people of Zimbabwe by Mugabe and the Zanu PF's class of 'primitive accumulationists'. But my stomach did get some bitter knots when I watched Jacob Zuma on a BBC interview dismissing the political delays of the election agency in Zimbabwe while failing to acknowledge shackles that Mugabe was pressured to wear by other African leaders in the interest of ANC.

I deeply appreciate Cronin's drawing attendion to the gap in the political education that the ANC went through in comparison to the highly compressed military-combat dominated schooling of Zanu-PF. A deeper exploration of such factors would give value to his analysis; and be a useful guide for comparative studies of experiences with succession traumas in other African countries.

Finally, it is not honourable to treat Mugabe as if he had tripple machine-gunned MDC challenegers. He is also decades away from Idi Amin's treatment of Asians in Uganda and Amin's use of massacres of opponents as a form of remuneration for his killer squads: from the first night of his grabbing power in 1971 to his last moments of panic and flight in 1979. Put the credit on the Catholic priests who gave Mugabe education, or Ian Smith's barbaric refusal to let Mugabe see his sick child when he was in detention; but do give Mugabe credit where he deserves it. That will help us build a healthy tradition of critical review of leadership and governance in Africa while plucking off warts from out plumes.