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Despite the economic harm and human toll that his policies have
inflicted on Zimbabwe, Mugabe does enjoy the support of a segment of
his nation's population. He also enjoys popular support amongst a
large proportion of the black population who live in poverty,
squalor and destitution in neighboring South Africa. This segment
makes up the majority of South Africa's population and Mugabe's
influence over them has given him tremendous influence within the
ranks of the South African government. He has on several occasions
addressed the South African House of Assembly. Canadian foreign aid
played no small role in helping Mugabe acquire the kind of influence
he now enjoys in South Africa.
Mugabe was able to take
advantage of an opportunity that came about after the collapse of
communism across Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union. South
Africa's apartheid era government had been vehemently anti-communist
and acquired covert support from Washington after the Suez Canal was
closed to shipping following the Six Day War in the Middle East
in 1967. Oil tankers that carried crude from Saudi Arabia to
American oil terminals in the Gulf of Mexico were diverted via South
Africa. A powerful anti-communist government in South Africa could
assure secure shipping lanes past the Cape of Good Hope.
Communism collapsed across Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and the
Soviet Union during the late 1980's. These events coincided with the
re-opening of the Suez Canal to international ship traffic. There
was no further need for South Africa's pro-apartheid government to
continue to enforce harsh anti-communist repression as a means to
protect the international shipping lanes through their waters. South
Africa had feared a communist inspired overthrow backed by Russia.
Their government had not expected Mikhail Gorbachev to abandon
communism and indirectly set the stage by which to end the regime of
apartheid.
Changes that had occurred
in international politics as well as in international shipping gave
the South African government little choice except to bring about
political change. Such attempts had resulted in the political
upheavals that occurred there during the late 1980's and early
1990's. Such events had been predicted by French political theorist
Alexis de Tocqueville in his treatise entitled L'Ancien régime et
la révolution and they occurred in South Africa. Tocqueville
wrote that:
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Experience has shown that the most dangerous moment for a bad
government is usually when it enters upon the work of reform.
Nothing short of great political genius can save a sovereign who
undertakes to relieve his subjects after a long period of
oppression. […] The abuses which are removed seem to lay bare
those which remain and to render the sense of them more
acute(1). |
The political situation in South Africa had become dangerous and
vulnerable to outside political influence. The social and political
situation was one that a wily foreign political leader could have
easily manipulated to his advantage. Canada literally gave Mugabe a
golden opportunity to rise to the occasion in this regard. A
Canadian Prime Minister who at the time had placed extremely low in
the popular opinion polls literally secured a place in history by
assisting Mugabe in "bringing to an end the regime of apartheid in South
Africa." But that the unsung hero in this regard was Mikhail
Gorbachev.
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