Peers Abet a Wayward Mugabe

Southern African leaders have closed ranks behind Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, criticizing Western efforts to isolate him and backing his program for a “just and equitable redistribution of land.” Land reform in Zimbabwe is a goal that Mugabe must pursue, but so far his plan is neither just nor equitable. He has defied two court orders to end illegal occupations of farms owned by whites and vowed to seize 3,000 farms, violating legislation that he himself forced through parliament. That leaders of neighboring countries turned their barbs against Western critics and spared Mugabe is regrettable.

Leaders of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community Monday denounced a U.S. congressional proposal to ban American, World Bank and International Monetary Fund financial support for Mugabe and urged Britain, the former colonizer of Zimbabwe, to help finance land reform. Mugabe had a defiant message for the United States and Britain: “The donors can stay with their money.” He declared that 3,000 more farms would be taken without compensation, infringing his own law against such takeovers.

Mugabe promised South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki last Wednesday that illegal land occupation would cease but changed his mind overnight. Calls for land reform in Zimbabwe are long-standing and legitimate. After 20 years of independence under Mugabe’s rule, much of the richest land--expropriated by the British colonials of what was once Rhodesia--is still in the hands of a few thousand mostly white farmers. But what neither white nor black Zimbabweans support is the violence that Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party unleashed in the name of resettlement since February. To many Zimbabweans, land reform has become Mugabe’s chief political tool in maintaining power.

Other African leaders--who have a vital interest in a peaceful, prospering Zimbabwe--could have spoken far more persuasively to Mugabe. They chose instead to accuse Western donors of wrongly putting political pressure on him. Their stance can only spur the crisis.