Showdown between Gordon Brown and Robert Mugabe

Much hot air is being let off in the media in the United Kingdom today, September 20, about the gauntlet thrown down by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Portugal, organiser of the European Union-African Union summit scheduled for December 2007.

If Portugal, who has the EU leadership for the next few months, invites Robert Mugabe to the summit, Brown will decline his invitation. And here everybody thought that Brown would be a dull and predictable PM.

To a certain extent the move by Brown can be applauded as being the action of a person with principles or morals. He is standing up for human rights and so forth. That would be a fair assumption if one were to see Brown have principles across the board. Where are the principles against human abuse in Iraq? He should have abstained from visiting Bush in the United States if he was serious about making this point.

Leaders, especially in the developed world, seem to have no consistent policy towards human rights abuses. Brown says that he is opposed to Mugabe and is quoted in the newspaper as saying that “there is widespread torture and mass intimidation of the political opposition”.

Brown is probably correct with these statements. But there are a fair number of nations in the world where some or all of these practices are widespread. China isn’t exactly friendly towards its political opponents. Yet the UK has diplomatic and trade relationships with that country.

If Brown acted with some consistency, then one would be able to take this latest grandstanding a little more seriously. However, suddenly showing this abundant amount of human rights support, but only applying it to Zimbabwe, will not give Brown better political standing. All it is doing is allowing Mugabe to again put the blame of the woes of his country on the old colonial power.

Spare a thought for Portugal, caught in the middle of this. Its aim had been to invite all AU members. One presumes this would include Zimbabwe. Now it is faced with a possible major fall-out. Brown is determined to persuade EU members into boycotting the summit should Zimbabwe be invited. In turn, not inviting Zimbabwe could persuade African leaders who support Mugabe — and there are many — to boycott the summit.

This could end up being an ill-advised move by Brown. Playing the big bully will not achieve the intended outcome, which for Brown would be an immediate resignation by Mugabe. Favourite next trick for the West would be the appointment of a pro-West yes-man. They have a fair amount of experience in that little manoeuvre. After all, that is what they thought Mugabe was in the good old days.

There is no denying that what is happening in Zimbabwe is a tragedy. However, it will not be resolved by bringing out a big bat to beat the “baddies” into submission. Remember, the West has had a great line in bullying African nations in the past. Even Portugal will be aware of its own track record in the colonial days of Africa and will want to tread carefully.

Prime Minister Brown might just have taken a major step backwards in his quest for improving the lives of Zimbabweans. It seems a very immature political move to make. Certainly not his best move as new prime minister.