Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is finally coming under pressure from southern African leaders. Mugabe stole his country’s last three elections, including the most recent presidential election on March 29. The governments in Tanzania, Zambia, and Botswana had been pressuring his regime to make sure that Friday’s presidential runoff between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was relatively fair. But then, this past Sunday, Tsvangirai withdrew from the runoff, citing the danger to his colleagues. Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, alleges that dozens of its workers have died in politically motivated violence over the past few weeks. Tsvangirai has sought refuge at the Dutch Embassy in Harare (though, as of this writing, he has not formally requested asylum). 

Nevertheless, some of Mugabe’s regional allies are still, almost unbelievably, coming to his aid. Former Mozambican President Joaquin Chissano has been telling African media that the European and American pressure exerted on Mugabe is counterproductive. It is making “Zimbabweans suffer,” he argues.

In a recent interview with the leading German daily, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Chissano displayed the kind of craven disregard for the facts that is sadly common among the worst African leaders. “We must think of the people who are suffering under an embargo-like situation,” he said. “Nobody cooperates with Zimbabwe anymore…. The Europeans and Americans are focusing too strongly on Mugabe.” Chissano should know better, but he seems determined to take the focus off Mugabe’s crimes and place the blame for Zimbabwe’s plight on the West. 

Mugabe's apologists criticize U.S. and EU sanctions, while conveniently ignoring the fact that every major problem in Zimbabwe is homegrown.

Chissano conveniently ignores the fact that every major problem Zimbabwe is facing is homegrown. Mugabe has destroyed property rights, ignored the rule of law, created financial instability, and chased away foreign investment. He has treated the engines of the Zimbabwean economy as his own personal wealth creators, with disastrous consequences.

Chissano is even more alarmingly off-base when talking with the media in southern Africa. He claims it is vital that both sub-Saharan and northern African countries rescue Zimbabwe’s sanctioned economy. The key word here is “sanctioned.” Mugabe has maintained the fiction that Zimbabwe’s economic collapse was brought about by U.S. and EU sanctions. Yet the sanctions only affect about 160 Zimbabwean officials and their immediate families, all of whom have gotten rich through land theft, war profiteering (in the Congo), and political corruption. The sanctions have no impact on wider trade and development. While the economy clearly needs rescuing, only a change in policies from the Mugabe regime can rescue it.

I briefly talked with Chissano at a 2001 World Economic Forum meeting in South Africa. He seemed like the kind of leader Africa needed. But his latest pronouncements come at an inopportune time, and they demonstrate that he is cut from the same cloth as the more illiberal clique of leaders who have dominated African politics for the past 40 years. (They ran the old Organization of African Unity, and unfortunately still have power through the African Union.)

It is fine for Chissano to work behind the scenes to secure a peaceful transition in Zimbabwe; but it is unacceptable for him to defend publicly a murderous dictatorship. Regional leaders should be pushing for Mugabe to step down and allow in international peacekeepers. If Chissano wants to support that type of change, he must not provide any more fodder for Mugabe’s propaganda machine.

Roger Bate is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Photograph by Getty Images.