Struggle for Southern Africa

Robert G. Mugabe

From Foreign Affairs, Winter 1987/88

Summary:  The Republic of South Africa is both engaging in a 'vicious and ugly' civil war and 'waging an undeclared war against its neighbours'. After reviewing RSA intervention in Mozambique and Angola, and arguing that the front-line states are opposed to apartheid, not to whites or to Western interests, calls for US policy-makers to match words with deeds, namely by backing a policy of economic sanctions. Then prime minister, now president of Zimbabwe.

Robert G. Mugabe is Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe, and currently chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement.

All lawful modes of expressing opposition to [the principle of white supremacy] had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and when the government resorted to a show of force to crush its opponents, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.

The decision to fight for independence is not a phenomenon peculiar to southern Africa. Nor is the decision to fight for a nonracial society. Americans, more than most, must be aware of this, and also Europeans, who fought only 45 years ago to free their countries from Nazi occupation. Independence and the democratic right of the majority to decide their destiny is, or should be, a sacred principle to all of us.

Unfortunately, in South Africa the stage is set for a protracted and bloody conflict. It is one into which African states, the middle powers and the superpowers will be drawn, possibly on opposing sides, thereby setting the stage for a generalized war.

III

Soon after taking power Botha proposed a "constellation" of southern African states dominated militarily, economically and technologically by Pretoria. It was to include the Bantustans or "homelands" (thus giving them de facto, if not de jure, recognition), other members of the South African Customs Union (Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) as well as Malawi and Zimbabwe, and possibly others in the region which could be co-opted.

To this end South Africa poured large sums of money into the 1980 pre-independence election in Zimbabwe. The objective was to bring to power a malleable client in our country which, for geographical reasons, held the key to the "constellation" concept. Zimbabwe, as a client state, and the other countries of the region caught up in South Africa?s plans for regional hegemony would have been under considerable pressure to recognize the Bantustans. And, in Pretoria?s view, once they had done so, other countries would follow.

Our independence in Zimbabwe, on April 18, 1980, was an important watershed for the region. The people of Zimbabwe thwarted the Botha "constellation" project by giving my party an overwhelming majority in the elections held at the end of February under the auspices of a British governor and his administration. As a result, I was able to join my colleagues from the other Frontline States in the formation of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference, our instrument for closer regional economic cooperation and for reducing dependence on South Africa. To South Africa?s surprise, SADCC also incorporated Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho, and was initiated with the support of the European Economic Community.

The creation of SADCC was a recognition of our regional and economic reality. Six of the majority-ruled states to which I have referred are landlocked: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. For our trade and our survival we have these alternatives: to use the railways and ports through Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania, or to use the South African transport system and its ports. Our stated intention of reducing dependence on South Africa by upgrading routes through Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania threatened Pretoria?s regional supremacy. The creation of SADCC also threatened to reduce South Africa?s trade surplus with the region, then estimated at $2.5 billion a year, at a time when its own economy was stretched. Much of this surplus derives from rail and port revenues.

Over 40 percent of Zaïre?s mineral exports transit South Africa to its ports when logically they should go along the Benguela line through Angola. Zimbabwe, forced to use the long routes through South Africa, pays an additional $38 million in freight bills each year. Malawi and Zambia also pay vastly increased freight bills to send their trade south because of South Africa?s destruction of our shorter and cheaper trade routes through Angola, Tanzania and Mozambique.

The government of Mozambique had closed its borders with Rhodesia in early 1976, in compliance with U.N. sanctions. It paid a considerable price for doing so ($556 million over the next four years in lost rail and port tariffs, according to U.N. estimates). Mozambique had served as an outlet for the landlocked hinterland in Portuguese colonial times; the end of the Rhodesian impasse offered the opportunity for it to resume that role, which had accounted for a large percentage of its foreign currency revenue. My country?s independence in 1980 offered the possibility of using these non-South African routes. An early decision of my government was to maximize Zimbabwe?s usage of our most convenient trade routes through Mozambique.