The unwillingness of governments, multilateral bodies and big business to promote rudimentary democracy and social justice in Zimbabwe is now glaringly obvious. Renewed solidarity initiatives can be taken with more confidence by grassroots activists on both sides of the Limpopo River and beyond, writes Patrick Bond.

Item: Kofi Annan appears to have been intimidated into not taking a trip to Harare, after Thabo Mbeki raised expectations he would achieve a breakthrough.

Mbeki last week passed the buck to Annan and Robert Mugabe: ‘It’s best left to them, to the UN and the Zimbabwean government and hopefully that will produce its outcome so that we remove this particular matter from the international agenda.’ Mugabe simply refused to give Annan an audience.

Item: Last Friday, the head of the European Commission’s Harare mission and the Austrian ambassador to Zimbabwe wrote a letter to the Herald newspaper firmly stating, ‘There are no economic EU sanctions against Zimbabwe. There have never been economic EU sanctions against Zimbabwe.’

The bureaucrats were right, and they pointed out that for the latest year data are available, 2004, ‘Zimbabwe had a trade surplus of E261 million [R2.23 billion] with EU states.’

Item: A few days earlier, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told parliament that Pretoria would not wield targeted 'smart' sanctions against Zimbabwe's rulers: ‘It may not be a very useful tool to use right now because it doesn’t seem to be yielding results, even in the hands of the most powerful block in the world.’

Of course not, but for a simple reason: Pretoria is a smart-sanctions ‘buster’ by permitting the Zimbabwe elite’s shopping visits, real estate speculation and illicit financial holdings. If Pretoria joined in imposing smart sanctions, the results would be immediate and formidable.

Item: big business is again hopping into bed with Mugabe, according to Dianna Games of the SA Institute of International Affairs writing last week in Business Day: ‘Many South African companies believe that Zimbabwe is still a better and easier place in which to do business than many other African countries because of its strong business culture, diversified industrial base and relatively good infrastructure. And many companies are still making good, albeit often declining, profits.’

Pointing out that more than two dozen large SA corporations employ about 20 000 Zimbabweans in mining, retail, franchising, commercial agriculture and banking, Games concluded, ‘There may be no better time for investors to take a long, hard look at the opportunities that Zimbabwe presents right now.’

That was also a point made last year by Tony Hawkins, professor of business studies at University of Zimbabwe and well known to Financial Times readers: ‘South Africa has gained market share in exports, tourism and services. SA’s share of investment in Zimbabwe has also risen as there has been an element of bargain-basement buying by some mining and industrial groups.’

Added Hawkins, ‘SA is also taking significant skills from the country, especially scarce black skills in health, education, banking, engineering and IT. It would be too much to say that SA has benefited in net terms, but there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that it is securing some gains from the crisis.’

Reflecting business confidence in Mugabe’s ability to hold on, two large multinational firms – South Africa’s Implats and the French bank BNP Paribas – last week announced, respectively, a R1.7 billion platinum investment (36% of which represents a gift to government for crony ‘empowerment’) and a R332 million credit secured by future nickel export revenues.

Another new Mugabe ally is the brutal dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who visited Zimbabwe in March and whose country’s oil began flowing to Zimbabwe last week. Nguema wants the British mercentary Simon Mann extradited from Harare, where Mugabe’s forces are holding him after he transited Harare in a 2004 attempted coup bid.

Is pressure being applied by the West, as Mugabe often claims? Aside from an arms embargo on the government, the EU’s smart sanctions apply to just 100 key ZANU(PF) leaders, and take the form of travel bans and a threat to freeze any assets they place in European banks. There are similar provisions in the US, but these countries together provide in excess of R1 billion in aid to Zimbabwe, largely for food and humanitarian relief.

No one calls for that aid to be turned off because it feeds millions of people for whom Zimbabwe’s own farms – especially the small-scale and peasant sectors – generated maize surpluses, prior to the more general meltdown of the country’s agricultural infrastructure. The starvation threat has less to do with the takeover of white farms and more to do with the general lack of access to rural transport, fuel, pesticides, fertilizers, farm implements, electricity and the like.

What about a renewed diplomatic initiative from the West? A good reflection of the US imperial agenda in Zimbabwe may be last week’s report in a Harvard University journal authored by Todd Moss and Stewart Patrick of Washington's Centre for Global Development.

Moss and Patrick argue against existing sanctions: ‘The US and EU may need to review their sanctions legislation to ensure that it does not create a legal problem or disincentive for re-engagement or private investment.’

They also argue that a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe government will ‘have to deal with an inherited external debt of some $5 billion. Clearing arrears will be the first step, but the arrears accrued within the past few years account for nearly half the current debt stock, suggesting that some special dispensation may need to be found with the multilateral institutions and the Paris Club of creditors.’

In contrast, the position advocated by civil society campaigners, such as the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development and Zimbabwe Social Forum, is that the vast but useless 1990s loans advanced by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank should be completely cancelled.

Indeed, following the lead of the Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, Zimbabwean civil society may need to more publicly advocate serious sanctions, given the lack of pressure from opportunistic politicians and businesses.

Patrick Bond, director of the UKZN Centre for Civil Society in Durban, is coauthor of the book Zimbabwe's Plunge - and author of Uneven Zimbabwe. This article first appeared in The Mercury on June 7.)

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