If you haven't read it yet, please see the previous post current goings on regarding Zimbabwe.

The overarching question here is, having looked at the immediate situation, is now: where do we go from here? What is the appropriate U.S. response to the situation in Zimbabwe?

The situation on the ground in November was dire, and has become even more so in the ensuing months. As the currency devalues further from, when I was there, $1 USD to $1.3 million Zim dollars to the rate now of $1 USD to $5 billion Zim dollars, the government simply prints out worthless bills (when the paper is available to do so) in larger denominations that must be carried around in backpacks. This is a currency that was once pegged, one to one, to the British pound. The actual foreign exchange (or, forex) rate is established on the parallel market: in the bus while crossing the border from South Africa where people yell out numbers and the price rises and falls as if it were the New York Stock Exchange; in living rooms where teethy professionals who have abandoned their jobs to work as full time forex dealers regale you with (unsubstantiated) stories of assisting the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe sell the forex he stole from the Zimbabwean people for a higher price than those very people, who still diligently queue for days outside of its main Harare branch on the rumor that they will be able to access their accounts, will ever receive. Good people sighed as they told me that it costs them more to get to work than they make in a month, but that somehow (bartering, importing, pilfering) they survive. A mother cried as she told me what the Bank told her when she tried to pay for her son's college tuition- that the Bank had no more money, not even for Zanu-PF party loyalists like herself. 

As for party loyalty, it's become confined to the individuals who are able to drive Hummers in a country without petrol; go to the arcade in a brightly lit mall near Mugabe's Presidential compound in a country without electricity for a majority of the time I was there; and eat out in restaurants on Friday nights while the majority of the population starves as they wait for the individuals in their towns who can afford to get through and back to South Africa on a Greyhound come back with huge tubs of imported luxuries like bread, flour, and cooking oil. Even Zanu-PF loyalists who I talked to said that at this point they just needed their country back on track: Zanu-PF and MDC be damned. Whoever could make a difference at that point needed to step in immediately- and that was from a member of Zanu-PF, in November.

And with good reason. At the pro-Mugabe seed and fertilizer rally I attended, the domestic workers who were the main participants gave half-hearted fists when the revolutionary song was sung and the Zanu-PF rally cry chanted. All they were looking forward to is the high price the seed and fertilizer would fetch on the parallel market- as domestic workers they really had no use for such things. The organizers of the event (local Zanu-PF politicians) were even quite friendly, although one of them quickly cautioned me off of taking pictures of the event- they "liked me" and wanted to see me again. When I asked what they meant, they smiled and plainly said that they wouldn't want the CIO to take away their new American friend- the CIO, or Central Intelligence Organization, is Mugabe's personal secret police force (I was fortunate enough to be able to tour a newly built CIO housing complex later in my trip, built brand new near the Presidential compound). I still managed to get some videos taken of the event, which are posted below.

The seed and fertilizer which I sat atop of late at night on a local politician's flatbed, whose heart (or, at the very least, pickup) I had bought my way into, never even reached the people at the rally, much less the people who might actually utilize them. As we drove along the highway and people pointed out the vast acreages of "white man's land" that used to be maize, wheat, and generally edible products, irony hit like a hammer. One well-maintained and functioning plot still owned by a white man was a cow farm. Apparently Robert Mugabe believes that milk does a body so good that it will hold over his starving populace until the politics of princes are sorted out.

Not that milk is an affordable commodity any longer. While I was there it cost $20 million Zim dollars to get from the Low-density suburbs to downtown Harare and back. For workers regardless of collar-color, it was an almost unthinkable sum where a monthly salary could have been $2 million Zim dollars, and yet people still got to and from work (these days the population has become even more harried and less able to commute due to the drastic increase in inflation). They afford this the same way we were able to buy petrol in a country supposedly devoid of it: the gas was distributed off the back of another pickup truck in front of a gas station by the attendants who used to work there. A main method of sustenance is to take from ones job and sell whatever one takes, be it petrol or computer services or lightbulbs, on the parallel market for a market price.

The plight of Zimbabwe's people deserves a rapid regional solution with heavy influence from the major international powers, like U.S. and the U.K, that support democratic resolutions and regional stability. That said, when such strong divisions exist not only in the international and regional community (UN and AU, respectively), it creates a delicate situation regarding what action to be taken. The AU recommends a Kenya-like unity government to be adopted until the election issues have been sorted out. However, from statements given by MDC and Zanu-PF spokespeople, it seems unlikely that either side will readily agree to working together. Just as it is unlikely that Mugabe will give up power unless forced to, based on his treatment of the runoff elections and statements made since to international media and at the AU summit. On the other hand, the MDC seems unwilling to negotiate unless Mugabe is willing to admit the election's illegitimacy- a similarly unlikely scenario.

The United States has presented a draft resolution to the UN, placing travel bans and asset freezes on 14 members of the Zanu-PF party (technically on "anyone who helped the government 'undermine democratic processes"), and an embargo on arms shipments to Zimbabwe. If the majority of the UN Security Council who voted for the resolution are able to persuade Russia and China that these sanctions are not an interventionist intrusion into the national sovereignty of a sovereign nation but appropriate measures for the international community to take against a tyrant and his entourage, Mugabe may be further encouraged to come to the negotiating table.

Even if Mugabe and the Zanu-PF can be persuaded to negotiate, it would not effect a real change on the ground until after negotiations took place.
As to whether sanctions would work or not, Mugabe's elite base of support does rely on a great deal of deliverable goods, and would be sincerely disrupted by the proposed travel bans and asset freezes, especially if influxes of foreign currency are ceased to the men at the top. The arms embargo, while a useful step, is less likely to affect the outcome of this situation- Zimbabwe, and specifically Mugabe's party, seems to have enough weapons and enough of a militia force to continue to inflict their will upon the unarmed populous and, more importantly in the post-election environment, against targeted members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

The Senator has previously called for Mugabe to step aside after the initial March 29th election , but much has changed since then. With regional leaders calling for a coalition-style government, and all parties involved saying that the solution must come ultimately from Zimbabwe, it seems unlikely that the U.S. will take a strong stand for Mugabe's outright removal at this point. As President Thabo Mbeki steps up the pressure on negotiations between Zanu-PF and MDC members due to the pressure placed on him at this month's G8 meeting, it looks like the best option right now for a new dawn in Zimbabwe is at the negotiating table.

Rhick Bose is a member of the Class of 2009 at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA majoring in International Studies

Fred Jennings is Senior at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.