Sholto Byrnes: Should Robert Mugabe be now forgiven his crimes?
Prosecuting one man can't remove the complicty of all the others
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Independent Minds
Robert Mugabe has not had such a good week since he managed to shake hands with Prince Charles at the last pope's funeral in 2005. Days after regional leaders at the South African Development Community summit called for the removal of "all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe", the one-time pariah president received another present: the arrival of an EU delegation, the first such visit to his country for seven years.
Some may find images of a cheery Mugabe welcoming the Swedish development minister with "open arms" and brushing aside questions about stepping down - at 85, he is "still young", he said - hard to stomach. This is a man, after all, who has presided over economic ruin, torture, killing and starvation. The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has called for him to be tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity. But far from demanding punishment, could we - should we - bring ourselves to forgive him instead?
In June this year I sat down with a man who has responded in just such a superhumanly charitable manner to the brutal actions of another dictator. Mohamed Nasheed became the first democratically elected president of the Maldives last November. Under the previous regime of Maumoon Gayoom, he had been imprisoned 23 times, held in a tiny metal box under the tropical sun for months, and tortured, including being forced to swallow broken glass. But remarkably, he has not only forgiven his jailers and torturers but has refused to take any action against them whatsoever.
"We shouldn't come out with this sweet revenge idea," he told me as we spoke after he opened the new Iru Fushi Hilton, a sumptuous symbol of the only Maldives that holidaymakers ever see. He has removed the chief of police, but apart from him, "the rest of the top brass are my own interrogators," he said. "There are so many allegations of corruption and human rights abuses. No one has to tell me. I know it's true - I've been tortured twice."
But Nasheed, an English-educated journalist whose cause was championed by Amnesty and PEN, is unwilling to prosecute members of the old regime. "In the past, whenever there's been a change of government, the former ruler was either mobbed or sent out from the country. We want to break that circle and see if we can find amicable solutions."
Zimbabwe's neighbour, South Africa, provides another example of such heroic magnanimity - of victims of injustice and brutality showing themselves to be better than their oppressors.
Forgiveness appears to be in short supply in Britain at the moment, however. A recent poll found that a majority of Scots not only opposed the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi but thought he should die in jail, an opinion shared by David Cameron. But leave aside the question of Megrahi's failing health and the problem is this: is it right to load such a weight of vengeance on one man's shoulders?
For this is undoubtedly part of the reason why the uproar over his release has been so great. No other individuals have been called to account for the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, for Libya's long years as a state-sponsor of terrorism, nor for its provision of semtex explosives to the IRA.
We hunger for a man, a name to which we can put a face, on whom justice is seen to be done. It is an understandable appetite, and indulging it can be both satisfying and convenient, as the French found when they placed the burden of guilt for wartime collaboration on Marshal Petain, thus allowing former Vichy fonctionnaires such as Francois Mitterrand off the hook. But it does not make it right, nor necessarily just; for prosecuting one man, whether dictator, terrorist or war criminal, does not remove the complicity of all the others, often the thousands, who have supported or participated in their crimes.
Further, baying for such punishment can end up having the effect of prolonging the actions we wish to condemn. For all that governments pretend they will never talk to terrorist groups, for instance, it is only when they do, and combine that with ceasing threats of retribution, that those groups can shed their violence and enter the political realm. Similarly, efforts to bring Mugabe to the International Court of Justice will not increase the likelihood of his voluntarily relinquishing power (and there is no imminent prospect of his leaving in any other way).
If opposition figures and the Obama White House are willing to contemplate dealing with the military as part of Burma's future, then the Zimbabwean president, who, for all his misdeeds, does not have a record as appalling as the Burmese generals, may have to be recognised as part of the solution in his country, too.
Forgiveness – and refusing to seek legal vengeance for Robert Mugabe's crimes may be seen as an expression of that – may be hard. But if one day it helps an old dictator become an old ex-dictator, it may prove far sweeter than revenge.
The author is Assistant Editor of the New Statesman
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Comments
Are you prepared to forgive anybody, any atrocity that they choose to commit? If not, how bad does it have to be for you before you prosecute?
I believe that criminals and mass murderers should be brought to justice. Perhaps you should consider the victims in Zimbabwe and their years of suffering. They deserve to see that justice is done and that bad people are punished. It really is that simple.
The record of our allegedly altruistic interferences on behalf of justice and democracy in other places is sufficiently flawed that we do better to refrain from putting our oar in.
Except perhaps over certain sanctions, which touch on whether we ourselves want to do business with such a man. Personally I think that the sanctions that are specifically targeted at the ZANU PF elite should remain.
In the interim though, we can speak out about the regimes and try to affect some change. The problem with sanctions, as Saddam Hussein taught us, is that they hurt the population and do very little to the dictator. He lived a lavish lifestyle while the populace was deprived of food, medicine and simple things like pencils. If we are to impose sanctions, we have to find a way to design them such that they actually hurt the person at fault.
I suspect that the many thousands of people who had friends or relatives who were killed or just 'disappeared' under Robert Mugabe's regime would feel somewhat less forgiving toward him than those actually fortunate enough to survive his brutality, and they would have every right to want vengeance and justice for their loved ones. That people should be made to pay for their crimes is one of the fundamental principles of *justice*, after all.
And if we forgave Mugabe, and did not put him on trial for crimes against humanity, what message would this send to other dicators, either current or nascent? If they thought that they too will escape justice, and need never fear the consequences of their actions, what would act as a deterrent to them? And what message would this send to those guilty of lesser - though still horrendous - crimes? If we were prepared to let off a dictator for the torture and murder of thousands of his own people, for the sake of political expediency, then could not murderers and serial killers demand the same leniency, especially given that their victims were fewer in number?
Really, My Byrnes, I don't think you've thought through implications of your argument to their logical conclusion. Please try some joined-up thinking.
What we need is not the appeasement of tyrants (as forgiving them is a form of appeasement), but a stronger United Nations and international community, with the unity, the political will and the means - political, economic or military - to punish them and bring them to justice.
The only context in which anything like justice would be done would be in small countries, or (thinking of Kossovo) parts of countries, which had no clout in the world, and where no powerful nation had a particular interest. Murderous dictatorships in powerful countries, or in smaller countries where the powerful nations had a strong interest, would get off the hook.
The Americans, the Russians and thre Chinese would exempt themselves as a matter of principle, as they do now. For better or worse, the world's not ready for what you suggest.
While oppressed and victimized, the African "freedom fighters" in south Africa were also guilty of the worst human rights violations you can imagine." They raped, murdered, and tortured, going above and beyond anything they received, to win out so don't please don't give them sainthood. I am glad they chose to not make averyone accountable for their behavior or they would have had to hang themselves as they conducted themselves horribly.
In fact - forgiveness is a lot easier if some form of justice has been done.
I would agree with other comments that it is not the international community - and surely not Mr. Byrnes -who could ever have the right to decide to forgive Robert Mugabe. This decision should be made by the victims of his regime and those close to them