David Jones . Zimbabwe must fight for itself

It is time to tell some truth -- cruel truth. Words, even the most hectoring or denunciatory, are not going to lever President Robert Mugabe out of power in Zimbabwe. Nor are condemnations from the United Nations or elsewhere or sanctions of one ilk or another. The latest report of "power sharing" with the opposition reminds one of lions lying down with lambs -- it requires replacing the lamb daily.

Mugabe is not going to leave voluntarily. He is a believer in his own cult of destiny. He had one large idea -- elimination of colonial rule -- executed it, and has no interest surrendering to the "pen" when he has weapons to sustain him -- and his opponents no weapons to remove him. Even were he to consider for a Harare hour the possibility of a cushioned retirement, his establishment clique knows that its life expectancy would be measured in days if he departs. Indeed, one can imagine Mugabe on life support, akin to the final days of Spain's Franco or Yugoslavia's Tito as desperate minions attempt their final lootings before their private jet departures.

So the frenetic "shame-shame" yapping over this stolen election or that disgraceful violation of the human right of the moment is just that -- yapping. The proverb goes, "the dogs bark, but the caravan passes on." And so will Zimbabwe under Mugabe's control if words and "sanctions" are all that are levelled against his rule.

The answer, of course, is that discredited maxim, violent "regime change." Examining the military capabilities of the Zimbabwe security forces, one doesn't need much military experience to know that a battalion of the 82nd Airborne; a comparable unit of the French Foreign Legion; or a group of Royal Commandos could oust Mugabe in an afternoon. But will anyone bell this cat? Absolutely not. It isn't just a Washington administration that would run screaming from any boots-on-the-ground commitment in darkest Africa. There is nobody in the world who wants the responsibility, individually or corporately, for picking up the pieces of this catastrophic country: a million-per-cent inflation (when we hyperventilate if inflation rises to three per cent); 80-per-cent unemployment; agriculture in collapse; infrastructure in ruins; etc.

Isn't this a "neighbourhood" problem? Well, the neighbours, with few exceptions, have dirty fingernails. Mugabe and his spokesmen sneered at them during the recent Organization of African Unity summit, suggesting they clean their own kettles before pronouncing on the colour of his pot. And after a little harrumphing, they went home. It isn't that they can't do anything; they won't -- action would create a precedent that vicious despots should be removed. So far as economic sanctions are concerned, there will always be enough goodies to sustain the elite at the top and/or to hire enough thugs to beat the placid masses back into cringing mode.

So why is this our problem? Beyond an abstract goodie-goodie desire for children to play nicely in all countries, why are we beating ourselves up over Zimbabwe when the horrors in Darfur make Zimbabwe's problems trivial? And we decline to do anything meaningful about Darfur for essentially the same reasons.

Moreover, we should recognize that Zimbabwe's citizens are doing very little to free themselves. With a world awash in weaponry, where is the armed resistance to Mugabe? Where is the guerrilla movement operating out of safe havens in neighbouring countries? Where even are the reports of resistance by those responding with their own clubs, iron bars, or gasoline bombs -- it is not, after all, that Mugabe's thugs are particularly sophisticated in their thugery? They are not Nazi SS. One sees nothing in Zimbabwe akin to the resistance mounted by desperate people throughout history to oppression. After all, the French Revolution was mounted by peasants with pitchforks. The American Revolution featured poorly armed farmers against the greatest military in the world. Or consider the efforts by Russian, Chinese, Cuban, or other revolutionaries to free themselves from authoritarian governments. And throughout occupied Europe in the Second World War, there was desperate resistance -- often fatal to the resistors. In comparison, the laments from Zimbabwe remind one more of sheep bahing over a sheering that gouges.

Indeed, the best of Zimbabwe's citizens appear to have escaped to havens in Europe, neighbouring African states, or the Americas from which they send remittances that are keeping alive those not in the Mugabe feeding chain. They should be arranging for weapons deliveries and putting their own lives at risk. Instead, they want someone else to bear the burden that they should be shouldering. We are correct to decline.

David Jones, co-author of Uneasy Neighbo(u)rs: Canada, the USA and the Dynamics of State, Industry and Culture, is a former U.S. diplomat who served in Ottawa. He now lives in Arlington, Virginia.