In a recent letter to the New York Times, I suggested that donor governments maintain targeted sanctions against a small cohort of Zimbabwe’s power elite, but that they should also now provide targeted humanitarian support to the struggling country in transition. Newspaper editors value brevity, but here in the blogosphere, where the real estate is cheap, I’ll elaborate for some added clarity.

Terminological chaos abounds when describing amorphous concepts like humanitarian aid and developmental assistance.  And this imprecision breeds poor policy, as in the case of the United States.  Where’s the chaos, you ask?  Take a look:  

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A new documentary on Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic quotes a former UN humanitarian official as saying:

The United Nations deliberately downplayed the crisis to avoid confrontation with President Mugabe and his ZANU-PF regime.

The Geneva-based International Council of Voluntary Agencies goes further and calls for the UN to sack the current UN humanitarian coordinator in Zimbabwe, Augostino Zacharias, because he’s too closely tied to Mugabe and won’t speak out against him.  This blame-and-shame approach does make enticing news copy, but unfortunately does not address the real issue.

That the UN engages in quiet diplomacy with the host government should come as no surprise.  It was this type of closed-door dialogue that ultimately persuaded Mugabe to allow humanitarian organizations to resume operations after a four-month mandatory hiatus in 2008.

So what are the real issues?  Let’s start with Mugabe’s 2005 nationalization of municipal water services for political gain and profit.  After the government took control, it abrogated its most fundamental responsibility toward its citizenry by

• dumping contaminated waste into the water reservoir
• failing to maintain the reticulated water system
• neglecting to procure enough aluminum sulfate for water treatment
• shutting off water to selected communities
• abandoning municipal waste collection
• ignoring sewerage repairs

It’s Mugabe’s malfeasance that directly caused the eight-month-old and ongoing cholera epidemic.  So if there’s anyone to blame, it’s the octagenarian with all the power.

Resources

• PHR’s Zimbabwe report, videos and advocacy opportunities

The New York Times Feb. 13 editorial on Zimbabwe’s new unity government got it partly right. That the country’s illegitimate president, Robert Mugabe, will not allow the new prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, to establish rule of law and bring much-needed relief to the seven million starving people is an accurate presupposition based on Mugabe’s past three decades of autocratic misrule.

Mr. Mugabe stole last year’s election after Mr. Tsvangirai won the first-round vote. The best solution would have been an end to Mr. Mugabe’s rule. But with Mr. Mugabe refusing to resign and key African leaders refusing to push him out, Mr. Tsvangirai apparently decided that the power-sharing deal was his best chance to rescue his foundering country.

If there is any real hope, African leaders — especially South Africa’s — must pressure Mr. Mugabe to stop tormenting the opposition and let Mr. Tsvangirai do his job. And they must make clear that if Mr. Mugabe does not, they will finally stop protecting him.

It is perhaps misguided to think that African leaders alone will now begin pressuring Mugabe to share power and stop tormenting the opposition. Just last week at the African Union Summit in Addis, I witnessed the majority of African heads of state kowtow to Mugabe as he deftly side-stepped public censure for crimes against humanity and the collapse of the country’s public health system.

Instead, the UN Security Council should compel the government of Zimbabwe to relinquish control of its health services, water supply, sanitation, and disease surveillance to the United Nations. Only when the international community gets serious about its commitment to the global responsibility to protect civilians will Zimbabweans begin to enjoy their universal human rights.

Newsweek’s 31 January interview with Zimbabwe’s central banker, Gideon Gono, is lamentable not only for its factual inaccuracies, but also for giving voice to a Mugabe henchman whose monetary policies have led to the collapse of the economy, shuttering of hospitals, and closing of schools.

As part of PHR’s emergency assessment delegation, I traveled throughout Zimbabwe in December 2008 and found that a causal chain runs from Mugabe’s economic policies, to Zimbabwe’s economic collapse, food insecurity and malnutrition, and the current outbreaks of cholera, anthrax, and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

Reading the Newsweek interview, one incorrectly infers that international sanctions have caused Zimbabwe’s ruin.

NEWSWEEK: A lot of people have blamed you for Zimbabwe’s economic collapse.
GONO: The West wants you to think it’s because of mismanagement. But sanctions have had a devastating effect on the country. I cannot think of any genocide that is worse than that. By their very nature, sanctions are supposed to induce fear. It’s like terrorism. It’s callous.

These sanctions, employed by only a handful of countries, restrict access to assets squirreled away in foreign bank accounts of some 160 of Mugabe’s cronies who have looted humanitarian aid over the years to the detriment of starving civilians. I saw cases of pellagra, rare gastrointestinal anthrax (caused by eating infected carrion), and marasmic Kwashiorkor – all resulting from extreme food insecurity, not from Gono’s inability to access his private American bank account.

Interestingly, the Newsweek interviewer queried the central banker on the current cholera epidemic that rages in his country.

NEWSWEEK:Many people have called the government’s handling of the cholera epidemic a crime.
GONO: Cholera is under control. Every year there is a cholera outbreak in southern Africa; the epicenter of the disease just happened to be in Zimbabwe this year.

I assure you, vibrio cholerae is not “under control” in Zimbabwe. In fact, the case fatality rate for this easily treatable and entirely preventable disease is more than 20 times the international norm in some areas. Cholera continues to spread in Zimbabwe and across its borders because the Mugabe regime has failed to address the underlying causes of the disease: broken water and sewerage pipes, poor sanitation, and untreated water.

State funds from Gono’s central bank could be used to fix such essential public health services; instead, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe serves more as a personal checking account for Gono and Mugabe than as a means for providing succor to the seven million Zimbabweans who are currently dependent on international food aid.

The new PHR report on the collapse of health systems in Zimbabwe has brought media attention to the crisis there.

The Washington Post today reports:

The cholera outbreak gripping the country is just one sign of the disintegration of a once-admired health-care structure that essentially ceased to function in late 2008, denying Zimbabweans their human right to health, according to U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights.

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The BBC News website today reported on PHR’s emergency report on the health crisis in Zimbabwe, Health in Ruins: A Man-Made Disaster in Zimbabwe.

The BBC News states:

Physicians for Human Rights says the “shocking” findings in its report - Health in Ruins, a man-made disaster in Zimbabwe - should compel the international community to act.

“These findings add to the growing evidence that Robert Mugabe and his regime may well be guilty of crimes against humanity,” it says in the report’s preface, which is signed by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Richard Goldstone, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The BBC goes on to say

President Mugabe has been facing intensified criticism over the dire economic and humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe. He signed a power-sharing deal with his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, in September, intended to rescue the collapsing economy, but progress has since stalled over who should control key ministries.

Among its recommendations, the report says the UN Security Council and Southern African Development Community (SADC) should call on Mr Mugabe to accept the first round of last year’s presidential election, which was won by Mr Tsvangirai.

Read more about this humanitarian disaster in PHR’s new report.

Other news coverage:

The Zimbabwean: Call for world to assist with Zim healthcare system

The Times (South Africa): Deadly cholera across Southern Africa

Le Temps.ch (Switzerland): «Crimes contre l’humanité» au Zimbabwe

The Earth Times (Britain): Zimbabwe’s health system in crisis; cholera claims 1,937