Commodifying Oppression South African Foreign Policy towards Zimbabwe

Dale T. McKinley*argues that the debate around South African foreign policy towards Zimbabwe has ignored the class interests of South African capital that are driving state policy.

Since the late 1990s onset of what has been called, the Zimbabwean ‘crisis’, virtually all attempts at explaining South Africa’s foreign policy towards Zimbabwe have been dominated by a one-dimensional focus on the political context of policy-making. In the few instances where economic considerations have come into play, the arguments have focused on altruistic motivations to avert a complete ‘collapse’ of the Zimbabwean economy and prevent any associated domestic and/ or regional contagion.

Here I argue that South Africa’s foreign policy towards Zimbabwe has been driven by the combined and complementary class interests of South Africa’s emergent black and traditional, white bourgeoisie. Put another way, South African policy cannot be understood without critical reference to the political economy of a renewed South African sub-imperialism.

The poverty of the Zimbabwe ‘debate’

Under the stewardship of Thabo Mbeki South African policy towards Zimbabwe has been the subject of a great deal of both positive and negative attention.   In South Africa, public opinion and analysis has generally been divided along racial lines, with the obvious exception of the large number of black Zimbabweans now residing in South Africa as a direct result of the multiple crises afflicting their home country.

The main reason for this racial divide has been the dominant perception amongst South Africans that the land ‘reform’ policy of the Mugabe regime, which is an integral component of the contemporary Zimbabwean crisis, is fundamentally defined by issues of race. Since Mbeki became President, this divide has been fuelled by the constant playing of the race and ‘liberation struggle’ cards by Mbeki and the ANC government on the domestic political and economic front, complemented by the predictable white, liberal ‘victim’ response – a discourse of the arrogant and the deaf that has only served to cloud meaningful debate. This racial divide on the Zimbabwean ‘question’ is also reflected at the international level. The result is that the majority of nations positioning themselves ‘against’ Mugabe are predominantly Northern and white, while most of those siding ‘with’ Mugabe are predominately Southern and non-white. The widely divergent practical approaches to the Zimbabwean crisis adopted by Northern and Southern countries respectively, have buttressed public perceptions that racial solidarity has been the driving factor behind policy stances towards the Zimbabwe crisis.

Not surprisingly, the Mugabe regime has taken full advantage of this state of affairs in order to propagate the idea that its ‘land reform’ programme and associated crackdown on political opposition and civil society organisations are part and parcel of a continuing post-independence (third world) ‘anti­ imperialism’ designed to finally ‘free’ Zimbabwe from the shackles of Western (read: white) interests. Just as crucially though, the Mugabe regime has used race and nationalism as a means of forging an opportunistic and reactionary nationalist solidarity. In the Mbeki government, Mugabe has found a willing and energetic ‘partner ’ in pursuing such ‘solidarity’ at the regional, continental and global level.

This racial polarisation, combined with the opportunistic ‘revival’ of a distorted nationalism and liberation struggle history, has impoverished much of the ‘debate’ on the historic origins and contemporary character of the Zimbabwe crisis. In the context of South Africa’s foreign policy towards Zimbabwe though, it has tended to completely obscure any meaningful analysis of the very real economic motivations behind South Africa’s policy and the attendant politics that so effectively conceals such motivations.

The class basis of South African sub- imperial policy

Just before Zimbabwe’s national parliamentary elections in early 2000, the Mbeki government announced an economic “rescue package” for the Mugabe regime of close to R1 billion. The predictable explanation was that such financial support was a pre-emptive move by the Mbeki government to halt the decline of the Zimbabwean economy in the interests of the Zimbabwean people, South Africa and the Southern African region. However, upon a closer inspection of the targets of the “rescue package”, it is clear that the real beneficiaries of this evidently neighbourly philanthropy have been South African government parastatals (all of which are now either partially privatised and/or corporatised) and government- controlled financial institutions.

As has been clearly evident in South Africa since Mbeki ascended to the political throne, the main means of facilitating the construction and expansion of a black bourgeoisie politically and economically tied to the ruling ANC party, has been through the direct and/or indirect manipulation of state resources and power.   The majority of the so-called ‘black economic empowerment’ schemes have been initiated by ANC aligned politicians-cum-capitalist entrepreneurs, who have used their political and personal connections with ANC leaders in government to gain financial backing for the launch of private corporations, most all of which have sizeable stakes in the largest government parastatals.

Against such a backdrop, the “rescue package” provided to the Mugabe regime was anything but a genuine attempt by the Mbeki government to help the Zimbabwean people out of a rapidly escalating political and economic crisis. Rather, it was the first major step in what has become a race against both time and Mugabe, to secure the economic (read: class) interests of an emergent black South African bourgeoisie, in both the state and private sectors, through the auspices of a ‘foreign policy’ smokescreen. While there is little doubt that the package assisted Mugabe’s ZANU-PF in narrowly scraping through the 2000 elections, with the help of state intimidation, violence and electoral fraud, the longer-term importance resided in the considerable economic foothold gained via Zimbabwean indebtedness and South African investment and trade options. By providing political support and legitimacy to the Mugabe regime, Mbeki’s government was taking another step in ensuring the longer-term security and expansion of South Africa’s capitalist economic ‘investments’ in Zimbabwe, while simultaneously tying the future health of Zimbabwean capitalists to South African investment and patronage.

By the time of the 2002 elections, Mugabe’s proto-fascist rule, solidified by the crucial backing of the Mbeki government, had all but guaranteed the outcome of the election. More important though, was the ANC’s framing of what was now required of the Mugabe regime, the South African government and the region as a whole in order to find “solutions” to the “problems” facing Zimbabwe. In absolute synchronicity with the overall strategic thrust of the Mbeki government’s policy approach to Zimbabwe up to this point and the class interests it represents, the ANC stated that, the “focus” must be “on the fundamental task of reconstruction and development to ensure a better life for all Zimbabweans”. What better and more opportunistic way to provide the necessary policy framework for codifying and expanding the presence of South African capital in Zimbabwe than to present the ‘challenge’ as one which could only realistically be ‘met’ by increased penetration, and ownership of that same capital, with the political backing of the South African state?

In the years since, the South African government has continued to provide the Mugabe regime with electricity supplies, facilitate the processing of Zimbabwe’s raw minerals in South Africa and encourage intensified ‘investment’ by South African capital in the fire-sale Zimbabwean economy, especially in the banking and mining sectors of the economy. What all of this confirms is that the character of Mbeki’s Zimbabwe foreign policy has very little to do with political loyalties and considerations of ‘sovereignty’ and nothing at all todo with altruistic economic motivations. Nonetheless, the increasingly rapid implosion of the Zimbabwean economy, especially over the last year or so, has placed added domestic and international pressure on Mbeki and the South African government to play a more direct role in facilitating political negotiations between the Mugabe regime and the main opposition force, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Mbeki’s appointment as the SADC’s Zimbabwe ‘negotiator ’ in March this year should have, therefore, come as no surprise given the reality of South Africa’s regional economic and political dominance and the oft-stated preference for an elitist deal that would protect the interests of corporate capital and head- off any potential violent and revolutionary struggle by the Zimbabwean people themselves.

Not surprisingly, this initiative has, so far, manifestly failed to persuade the Mugabe regime to engage in any serious political compromises with the MDC, not least because of the MDC’s wholesale inability to mobilise any significant, united oppositional pressure inside Zimbabwe. However, the significance of Mbeki’s mandated regional leadership on this front does not lie with any meaningful expectation of an immediate political ‘success’ coming out of the negotiations process. Rather, it lies with the degree to which Mbeki can use such a process to further facilitate both the longer-term interests of South African capital in Zimbabwe, and in the region and his government’s ‘role’ as the main African arbiter of both a Zimbabwean and regional capitalist political economy.

Confirmation of this can be seen in the ‘playing out’ of the latest idea to ‘save’ Zimbabwe’s economy – namely, to bring Zimbabwe into the region’s Multi-Lateral Monetary Area, comprising South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho, by pegging the Zimbabwean Dollar to the SA Rand. Although the idea has been dismissed by the Mugabe regime and the South African government has, unconvincingly, been at pains to distance itself from such a plan, the logic is clearly to use the idea as a dual-edged bargaining chip. On the one hand, to link the ‘rescue’ of Zimbabwe’s economy with a political deal that would secure Mugabe a graceful and safe ‘exit’ from the seat of power and simultaneously ensure a ‘new-look’ ZANU-PF’s political future. And, on the other hand, to facilitate the further entrenchment of South African capital’s economic hegemony in Zimbabwe, evinced through South Africa’s effective control of monetary policy, and thus of prices. As one leading South African economist has put it: “As prices fall, you are able to buy more assets with incredible potential”.

If Mbeki can, by whatever combination of economic incentives and political compromises, oversee the installation of a ‘new look’ ZANU­ PF and/or coalition government that is more ‘acceptable’ to the World Bank, IMF and the core capitalist states in the North, then he will have doubly succeeded, further cementing his ‘point man status’ and South Africa’s sub-imperial role.

The double and complementary tragedy of Zimbabwe in the 21st century should be clear for all to see. On the one hand, the gradual but systematic oppression of the Zimbabwean people by a shrewd comprador megalomaniac and his acolytes who have sold the lives of the vast majority of Zimbabweans down the metaphorical ‘river ’ of power and greed. On the other, the equally gradual but systematic loss of any meaningful popular and truly sovereign control over, and ‘ownership’ of, domestic wealth and economic resources to South African capitalists, using the vehicle of the government they run, who have commodified the oppression of the Zimbabwean people for their own class power and greed.