SOUTH AFRICA/ZIMBABWE:While averse to attacking a former ally, President Mbeki also has a near-pathological fear of going it alone on regional security, writes Joe Humphreys
He is facing growing international criticism, and the censure of his country's opposition parties, trade unionists, and religious leaders but he is stubbornly refusing to alter his stance on Zimbabwe.
The president in question is not Robert Mugabe - but his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki.
As the presidential successor to struggle-icon Nelson Mandela, and the leader of Southern Africa's economic powerhouse, Mbeki has been urged to take a strong position against Zimbabwe's ever-worsening human rights record.
Instead, he has been virtually silent. A wishy-washy statement about the need for dialogue was issued on his behalf last week - but only after an unprecedented global outcry over Mugabe's latest abuses of power.
Tellingly, Mbeki didn't once mention the "Z" word in his customary "letter to the nation" this week. The omission led one South African newspaper to accuse him, in an editorial, of having "lost the plot".
Just why South Africa remains reluctant to criticise Zimbabwe, despite its increasing disregard for the rule of law, has much to do with local rather than global politics.
Leaving aside the implications of attacking a former ally that helped South Africa's black struggle during the dark years of apartheid, Mbeki has a near-pathological fear of "going it alone" on regional security.
In part this stems from bitter experience. When Mbeki was deputy president in 1995, he was sent to Nigeria to negotiate the release of Ogoni activist and playwright Ken Saro Wiwa. It was the post-apartheid government's first foray into African politics, and a complete disaster. Mbeki was sent packing, and Saro Wiwa brutally executed. Mbeki later said the killing "highlighted the potential limits of our influence as an individual country . . . and the need to act in concert with others and to forge strategic alliances in pursuit of foreign policy objectives".
The South African president, and his aides in the ruling African National Congress (ANC), also feel they have been burnt on previous attempts at regime-change.
In 1997 South Africa backed the removal of Congo's ageing dictator Mobuto Sese Seko until they discovered his successor, Laurent Kabila, was even worse at maintaining law and order. In August 1998 South Africa led what was meant to be a peacekeeping force into the tiny neighbouring state of Lesotho. Nine months later, it left amid bitter recriminations about civilian casualties and the destruction of infrastructure - its reputation as a disciplined military force badly damaged. All these part-explain Mbeki's policy of "quiet diplomacy" on Zimbabwe. However, they don't justify it.
Ironically, South Africa has more reasons than most to complain about its troublesome neighbour. An estimated three million-plus Zimbabweans have fled to South Africa over the past eight years, fuelling problems such as poverty and organised crime.
There is also a growing awareness in business and government circles of the damage Mugabe is doing to the reputation of South Africa and the entire region. Elements within the ANC believe the crisis is discouraging foreign inward investment, and may even undermine South Africa's planned hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
Two of Mbeki's most vocal critics on "quiet diplomacy" are the trade union umbrella group, Cosatu, and the South African Communist Party, which along with the ANC make up South Africa's ruling "tripartite alliance". Even the president's brother Moeletsi Mbeki, a political analyst who used to work in Zimbabwe, has condemned South Africa's "failed" policy, saying this week that Mugabe "doesn't care" anymore about his international reputation.
Yesterday, Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa also questioned South Africa's approach, saying "quiet diplomacy has failed to help solve the political chaos and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe".
Prof Brian Raftopoulos, an analyst on Zimbabwe with the Cape Town-based Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, said he believed the South African government was "moving towards a crunch point on whether to continue with quiet diplomacy".
"There is clearly a strong debate taking place in the ANC. There is a general sense of embarrassment and a sense that Mugabe has not been honest in his dealings with South Africa." While he believed the policy would continue in the short term, Raftopoulos said "you will see, if not outright criticism then, strong talk in private" at South Africa's next meeting with regional governments under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
This meeting has been scheduled for next week (March 26th-27th) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and it could provide a breakthrough if Zimbabwe's closest allies - Namibia, Mozambique and Angola - are challenged on their support for Mugabe. However, sorting out Zimbabwe isn't the sole responsibility of South Africa, nor indeed of the SADC. The EU could play a more active role, and potentially mediate between Zimbabwe and the western "bad cops" of the UK and the US.
A case could be made for a country such as Ireland to play a special role, perhaps by providing an envoy who would understand Harare's anti-colonial sensitivities. At the very least, Ireland and other EU states could be more welcoming to Zimbabwean asylum seekers and exiled politicians. They could also give far more financial and diplomatic support to pro-democracy activists.
Proposed economic, cultural and sporting boycotts may have merit - so long as they are not merely aimed at easing western guilt. Mbeki is right in one respect: Zimbabwe needs solutions, not token gestures.