Violence in Zimbabwe obscures the potential for a bright future

The world can be sure that the renewed crisis in Zimbabwe is serious when its president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, cancels a comfortable sojourn at the Davos economic summit, at which he was due to inveigle the Russians, the Chinese and anyone else he encountered into “investing” in his freshly bankrupt state. He will have to pass the hat around another time.

The proximate cause of the current civil unrest is the high price of fuel, said to be the most expensive in the world. The reality behind that is a government running out of money (again), with no viable economic policy, crippled by corruption, but determined to hang on to power.

As the saying goes, a snake may slough off its skin, but it remains a snake. When the army toppled Robert Mugabe – still living out his retirement with Grace in undeserved tranquillity – they installed his fellow Zanu-PF hardman Mr Mnangagwa. He did not earn the nickname “the Crocodile” for nothing.

There were high hopes for this new start, and there were fresh elections, with the usual allegations of ballot-rigging. Yet, less than two years after he came to power, Mr Mnangagwa is reverting to Zanu-PF type.

The rumours about what has been happening in Zimbabwe are grim – torture and brutal suppression as well as the usual shortages and economic privations. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission says a number of people have been killed while soldiers and police have instigated “systematic torture”. MPs have been arrested. The internet has been shut down. The government’s assertion that opposition elements have been impersonating government forces are ludicrous. These are all signs of a desperate regime.

Even so, the picture is more complicated than a mere rerun of the Mugabe years. There is a power struggle at the top of government, between the politicians of Zanu-PF and their army backers. Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, a former general, and in charge during Mr Mnangagwa’s peregrinations around Eurasia, has been blamed for the harshness of the crackdown – even, implicitly, by the president himself.

No doubt Mr Chiwenga isn’t afraid of taking draconian measures, but he does so as part of a state apparatus that is steered and overseen by Mr Mnangagwa, and the president should take responsibility for it. Zimbabwe will suffer even further if their dispute paralyses what passes for public administration in the country.

Even South Africa – so often responsible for sustaining Mugabe in power when the wiser course would have been to ease him out of office – is growing impatient and reluctant to extend further credit to the government in Harare. Zimbabwe’s debts are vast, and the country has suffered from hyperinflation, high unemployment, collapsing industries and foreign exchange earnings for many years. Some of its most dynamic people have left for better lives in South Africa or further afield (including in the British NHS).

The Mugabe legacy of economic ruination, maladministration and cronyism was undoubtedly dire; but that does not mean, in the unpleasant western-centric phrase, that it is a “basket case”.

The fundamentals of Zimbabwe remain strong. It boasts a young workforce that was once among the most literate on the continent; its land has been extremely productive in crops such as tobacco and cereals and in rearing livestock. It has mineral resources and hydroelectric power, and it has the large and wealthy markets of South Africa, Botswana and Angola close by. Zimbabwe is, in other words, far better placed than many other countries to regain its stability and prosperity – if only Zanu-PF and the military would either reform politics and the economy or just get out of the way.

If they look to the north they can see some examples of recent success, though at times flawed, in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ghana. Some have suffered far worse hardship than Zimbabwe.

There is nothing inevitable or irreversible about what has happened to Zimbabwe, and nor is there any reason to believe that its talented people have to rely on foreigners to run the country. They do though need inward investment and the right kind of development support from the likes of China, America and the UK, the former colonial power. With that in place, Zimbabwe is far from hopeless, despite appearances.