Mbeki must tame the dictator

When Harold Wilson slapped sanctions on Ian Smith's rebel white regime in Rhodesia in 1965, he said the rebellion would be over in 'weeks, not months'. His bluster failed and it was another 14 years before Smith came to London to surrender power at the negotiating table at Lancaster House. It was the South Africans who forced him there.

The names have changed but the strategic geography remains the same. In Zimbabwe, once Rhodesia, President Robert Mugabe is at odds with Britain. He has borrowed much from Smith, including his ruthlessness, obduracy and repressive security laws.

Britain, ironically in the person of Peter Hain, the former anti-apartheid campaigner, shouted at Mugabe, but his words bounced off. Sanctions followed, stopping Zimbabwe's top 20 political bosses travelling to Europe and the United States and freezing their assets there, but again to no effect. Little money was found in the frozen bank accounts and Zimbabwe's elite can go to Dubai or Singapore to buy trinkets for their wives and girlfriends. Mugabe's behaviour got worse. On Friday, Hain admitted that British influence on Zimbabwe was limited. It was, he said, an African problem that needed an African solution.

Now, as then, South Africa holds the key at a critical moment in Africa's history. In 1965 Prime Minister John Vorster backed Smith to keep the war against southern Africa's white governments at a distance. When Smith began to lose the war and became a liability, Vorster ditched him by threatening landlocked Rhodesia's trade route. Today about half of Zimbabwe's imports and much of its electrical power come from South Africa. A flick of the switch and a few special customs checks and Zimbabwe will grind to a halt.

On Tuesday two African Presidents, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, will meet in London with the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, to decide whether or not to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. It is only symbolic, but their decision will define the world's view of Mugabe's re-election. That in turn will define the world's view of Mbeki and Obasanjo, who are trying to persuade the rest of the world that it is time to give Africa a better deal.

Mbeki does not possess the same steeliness as his predecessor. Twenty years younger than Mugabe, he has been in power for a fraction of the time. Therefore, according to African tradition, he treats his elder with respect, even defers to him. Rather than condemn, he prefers to persuade him. He does not understand Mugabe. They come from different political traditions. South Africa's African National Congress came from a liberal democratic tradition. The party was run by the Soviet-supported South African Communist Party, many of whose senior members were white, but they always understood the ANC had to be a broad church.

Mugabe's Zanu-PF is an Africanist movement, exclusive, race-based, that has become a Shona tribal movement headed by a king. Its Marxist language is a veneer, but Mugabe wanted a one-party state with all power concentrated at the centre.

Up against such a man as Mugabe, Mbeki's softly-softly approach has been as ineffective as Britain's tough talk.

Mbeki's plan was to allow him to win the election, then sweet-talk him into stepping down or forming a government of national unity. He was suspicious of Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and did not want them to replace Mugabe. He did not think Tsvangirai wanted to win the election, and made no secret of his low estimation of him and his inexperienced party. The South African plan was to persuade Mugabe to appoint a moderniser and moderate, such as Simba Makoni, the Finance Minister, as Prime Minister and include some of his defeated opponents in his government. That was the message South Africa's Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, took to Harare last week.

He made little headway. There is little sign that Mugabe is ready for national reconciliation or a government of national unity. There has been no meeting with Tsvangirai and the general secretary of his party is detained and charged with treason. On Thursday the police broke up a meeting of trade unionists. On Friday his government enacted a law putting further restrictions on journalists, and his thugs killed a farm security guard and beat up the farm owner.

Mbeki has until Tuesday to decide. His dilemma is summed up in a South African government statement on Friday which included the contradictory reports of four election observer missions. They range from 'transparent, credible, free and fair' from the Organisation of African Unity, to 'conditions... did not adequately allow a free expression of will by the electors' from the Commonwealth. Two statements from the South African government, followed by retraction and denials, suggest Mbeki and his government are as confused as the election observers' reports.

If the South Africans pull the switch on Zimbabwe's power supply or impose a blockade, they might cause the implosion of Zimbabwe they wish to prevent. That would send thousands of refugees pouring across the border. But if Mugabe cracks down on the opposition, the implosion will come anyway.

If Mbeki accepts an unreformed Mugabe as the legitimate ruler in Harare, confidence in South Africa will fall further, foreign investors will turn away, taking the rand further down.

It will also mean goodbye to the New Partnership for African Development, by which African governments commit themselves to better governance in exchange for more aid, debt forgiveness and better trade access to the rest of the world.

Mbeki and Tony Blair have been the chief architects of this plan and Blair was to speak for it at the G8 summit in Canada in June. If Mbeki embraces Mugabe, Blair's attempts to persuade his colleagues that they should help South Africa will be laughed at.

If Mbeki does not deal with Zimbabwe, there is another possibility: South Africa's trade unions. Tsvangirai was Zimbabwe's trade union leader and has links to South Africa's trade union association, Cosatu, whose members are suffering because of Zimbabwe's steep economic decline. They do not need the South African government to tell them to delay truck and train drivers heading to and from Zimbabwe, or to play with the switches on its power supplies. The union could organise that among its own members.

It was that threat by Vorster that sent Smith to Lancaster House. Used now, it could persuade Zimbabwe's elite that it is time for a change.