Dumisani Khumalo, our ambassador to the United Nations, is actually right. The situation in Zimbabwe is not a threat to international peace and security. What President Robert Mugabe is doing to his country is ruinous but it does not threaten peace beyond his borders. Nor is there much prospect that Mugabe’s opponents will set up bases in neighbouring states and launch guerrilla war against him. So there is little chance of a future threat to security in southern Africa, let alone internationally. Khumalo then is right on the technicalities. But the alternative he proposed, referring Zimbabwe to the UN’s Human Rights Council, is simply feeble, given that this body has shown itself, with South Africa’s help, to be as selectively blind to human rights violations as was its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission (where we previously voted to shield Mugabe from criticism).

South Africa’s policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’ has plainly failed. Economic sanctions are likely to do more harm to Mugabe’s victims than to him. Less harmful to the people of Zimbabwe would be to turn Mugabe and his key supporters into pariahs across the continent, an option which even at this late stage is still open, though unfortunately no more likely than economic sanctions. In practice Africa’s policy towards Zimbabwe is to wait for Mugabe to die.

Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad repeatedly says that condemnation would not help the situation in Zimbabwe. Yet mobilising world opinion against the apartheid government was a key strategy of the African National Congress (ANC) until it took power in 1994. It gave hope to the oppressed, undermined the self-confidence of the oppressors, and weakened the National Party when negotiations finally got under way after Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990.

The real indictment of South Africa, however, is not that it has failed to condemn Mugabe, but that it has all along encouraged him. It did so right from the start of his campaign of destruction seven years ago. In 2000 we declared his first rigged election to be free and fair. In 2001 when he threw out a journalist we accepted his claim that this was not a threat to the Press. When he threatened the Bench we said this did not jeopardise the rule of law. Along with other members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), we denied that there were any human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. We endorsed Mugabe’s attempts to make the British the scapegoats for his land seizures. Several ministers said South Africa could learn from his land ‘reforms’ (something we no longer say). We denigrated the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. In 2002 we endorsed a second violence-ridden election. We tried in 2003 to have Zimbabwe re-instated in the Commonwealth after it had been suspended. In 2005, for the third time, we endorsed a fraudulent election. Only eighteen months ago we sent South African Air Force jets to join the Zimbabwe air force’s 25th birthday celebrations. And we sold Mugabe spares for that air force’s helicopters.

These were all statements or acts of government – aptly symbolised in photographs of Presidents Mugabe and Mbeki holding hands and laughing together. In addition the ANC has continued to hail Mugabe’s Zanu-PF as a sister party, and sent a solidarity delegate to one of its congresses. It also greeted Mugabe as a conquering hero when he appeared at Mbeki’s inauguration as president in 2004. Mugabe’s use of violence to destroy democracy, the economy, human rights, the rule of law, and political opposition has in practice been publicly encouraged by both the South African government and the ANC. The question is, ‘Why?’ The usual answer is that there is an unwritten rule that one liberation movement does not criticise another. But there is a more worrying possibility. This is that our government and ruling party share with Mugabe a belief that liberation movements have a perpetual right to rule. Mugabe intensified his crusade against democracy only when there were clear signs that his people were turning against him and he faced the prospect of defeat at the polls. Our government, in other words, does not wish to be hypocritical and condemn Mugabe when in its heart of hearts it endorses his desire to stay in power at all costs.

The implication is that democracy in South Africa is safe only for as long as it works for the ANC.