Washington Post Reporter Answered Your Questions on Zimbabwe's Political Unrest

And one them -- several of them, actually, asked but -- for instance a viewer, an online visitor from Annapolis, Md., noted that, you know, in many of -- other outbursts of violence we've seen on the African continent, tribal conflicts are at the heart of it. Are there tribal dynamics at play in Zimbabwe?

CRAIG TIMBERG: Yeah, absolutely, there are two major ethnic groups, and they don't particularly get along. But this -- at no point was this about the different tribal divisions. Both the ruling party and the leadership of the opposition are fundamentally Shona, which is the largest group in the country, and the violence was overwhelmingly Shona-on-Shona.

So, unlike Kenya, unlike a lot of the other conflicts you'll see around the continent, this really had nothing to do with tribe.

MARGARET WARNER: Meanwhile, Craig, Mugabe is president once again, and the campaign of violence is continuing?

CRAIG TIMBERG: That's right, I mean, almost every day I hear about new reports of people -- bodies turning up, and people being beaten or kidnapped. I mean, the campaign of violence didn't end just because the election happened, and now the death toll is well over 100.

And one of the real sticking points, in moving forward in Zimbabwe and negotiating some sort of resolution, is that the opposition says, "How can we come to a negotiating table when you're still, you know, killing and torturing our people?" And it's sort of hard to argue with that, isn't it?

MARGARET WARNER: Absolutely.

Now, was Mugabe ever popular with the people of Zimbabwe, and if so, what happened?

CRAIG TIMBERG: Yeah, he was quite popular for a long time, and he also was very popular among Western leaders who, for the longest time, saw Zimbabwe as an example of what could happen with a well-led government.

And there are -- a lot of things went right in the first 20 years he was in power, between 1980 and 2000. But, you know, the old saying, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," and I think that's what happened there.

Over the past decade, you've seen Mugabe become more ruthless, you've seen the economy deteriorate, you've seen political repression, in all its forms, spread. And now, he is incredibly unpopular.

MARGARET WARNER: An online visitor from Montreal said he'd worked in Zimbabwe in 1989 as a filmmaker, and he wanted to know what happened to all of those who really believed in Mugabe's leadership, and what happened to Mugabe's promise to rebuild the country with conciliation. Did Mugabe change, or did the circumstances change?

CRAIG TIMBERG: I think both changed.

You know, one of the things that Mugabe did that was very popular for a long time was he built up a, you know, probably one of the best public education systems in Africa. He built up a very sophisticated health system, and there's a lot of people who think that, at the root of Mugabe's deterioration was the, you know, the debt.

And that, at a certain point, they just couldn't service the debt. And so, they had to do more and more kind of crazy things to keep control of the country.

But, on the other hand, my view is that Mugabe was always exactly as ruthless as he needed to be, and so, as long as he could be a sort of fairly benign dictator, I think he was prepared to do that, and then as people got frustrated, and the opposition took hold, he became, you know, essentially more and more brutal as the circumstances warranted it.

MARGARET WARNER: How did his decision to basically take over a lot of the farms, of the white farmers, play into the economic problems that the country suffered?

CRAIG TIMBERG: Well, in an odd way, they were both a result, and a cause, of economic problems.

That situation came about when, you know, at a time when inflation was already setting in, and the peasants were getting poorer, and the people who had fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe during the 1970s, in particular, were very angry at him.

So he basically sent a signal out, "All right, here, there's all those beautiful farms, take them." And so, his followers went and took those farms, really, with his blessing.

Now, since then, the commercial economy -- the commercial, agricultural economy of Zimbabwe has almost totally collapsed, and it was a result, really, of people who had not ever run large-scale commercial enterprises before, just really running them into the ground.

Also, a lot of them that were, maybe a 1,000-acre farm was divided into, you know, 50 different plots. Each of those little farms are really not viable, economically, in the way the big, old ones were.

MARGARET WARNER: We had many questions on why Mugabe's neighbors in Africa have been so reluctant to press him to move in another direction.

First of all, how -- explain how Zimbabwe's neighbors, aren't some of them actually suffering from the unrest in Zimbabwe? Particularly South Africa?

CRAIG TIMBERG: Yeah, the Zimbabweans have been pouring over the border out of their country for a good decade now, and that has put stress on services, in some places it's raised rates of crime.

On the other hand, it's also provided an infusion of very talented and skilled people, particularly in South Africa, and so immigration there -- like immigration here -- has good and bad effects.

But, I think more broadly, the real issue is African leaders who have, you know, who feel abused by the larger world, and by the West, they tend to band together when the heat is on.

And in many cases, they also don't have spotless records at home, so, do they really want to gang up on one of their fellow leaders when five years down the road, they may need cover, as well?

So, there's been a real reluctance to criticize Mugabe. On the other hand, we've seen much sharper language and much more aggressive action over the past year than anything we saw before, really, with any country on the continent.

So, while it's clear to me that while it's not exactly what any of us would like to see happen, it's more than we've seen happen in the past.

CRAIG TIMBERG: I think it's a little complicated, and I think it's different things in different places.

Mugabe's rhetoric -- particularly his anti-Western rhetoric, always struck a chord in Africa.

And I can remember, when I first arrived in Southern Africa for this job, I was at the inauguration of Thabo Mbeki, and this would have been in April of 2004, Mugabe showed up, and he was cheered. And I believe that that was a response to his -- to the seizure of the white-owned farms, to the general, sort of, thumbing his nose at Western pretense, if you will.

So he did have a residual kind of appeal to people around the region.

I think that's almost entirely gone now. I think that that the level of destruction of his own country and his brutality towards the opposition, and towards even ordinary, you know, poor black people, in general, in his own country, has changed the chemistry, politically, around the region.

MARGARET WARNER: We had many questions about the role of Thabo Mbeki, in particular. "Why has he been such a staunch defender of the regime?" asks a viewer in Novado, Calif. One from Wisconsin asked, you know, "Why has the Mbeki government done nothing to really hold him accountable?"

CRAIG TIMBERG: You know, this is one of the most difficult and frustrating questions I have, as well, and I'm afraid I don't have a definitive answer.

I will share with you a couple of thoughts, I think the most important one is that, it's not like Mbeki hasn't been doing anything, he just hasn't been doing anything that's solved the problem.

And if you talk to the Mbeki administration people, and the diplomats, what they'll tell you is, is that what we believe in is, you know flying to Horari and sitting down with people and talking this out privately. We don't believe in standing on a rooftop and shouting about this.

And I'll tell you, from my position in Southern Africa, you know, as the denunciation rose around the world, it wasn't as though Zimbabwe suddenly got better. And so I'm -- in some ways I'm sympathetic to their desire to sort of do what they need to on the ground, to lay the framework for a successful resolution of the problem.

On the other hand, it's also clear that what they've done hasn't worked. So, if their diplomacy is not successful, then I think what we crave is at least the kind of the moral, you know, a clear moral statement of what's gone wrong.

And I think that's what's been missing. It's just the sense that for a Thabo Mbeki, or some South African leader to say, "Listen, this is really wrong. We're going to work on it behind closed doors to solve it, but this is unacceptable." And that's what we haven't heard.

MARGARET WARNER: Someone named Peggy Trot from Woodland Hills, Calif., wanted to know if Tanzania is playing any role, noting that Tanzania had been helpful in ridding Uganda of Idi Amin.

CRAIG TIMBERG: It's interesting, the Tanzanians have actually, have been fairly aggressive over the past few months. Their President Kikwete has been critical, he's clearly twisted some arms behind closed doors.

Now, Tanzania is essentially a one-party state as well, but in this case, they do seem to be playing a useful role in trying to bring the Zimbabwean crisis to a resolution.

MARGARET WARNER: Then if we look at the broader international community, of course, last Friday, China and Russia vetoes U.S.-proposed sanctions at the U.N. against Zimbabwe.

So, first of all, why, one viewer asks, "Why is Russia protecting of the Mugabe administration, and more broadly, does that mean, now, there's really no international pressure on the regime?"

CRAIG TIMBERG: I don't really know, exactly, why the Russians and Chinese did what they did, but I think, in general, countries that have found themselves on the other side of international censure tend to be very reluctant to apply it to other countries.

So, I think, that maybe part of what's going on.

But, yeah, in terms of meaningful international pressure, I don't know. I don't know what would qualify as meaningful international pressure.

I mean, the only resolution of this problem is the removal, not just of Mugabe, but of his entire government, of his regime. So, how do you do that?

One way is to invade, right? There is a military option, but it's not an option anyone is seriously contemplating. So, if we take that off the table, that there's no meaningful military solution to this problem, then what do you do? Do you close the border? Do you shut off the lights? Do you -- you know, there's a lot of things you could do that could increase the suffering in the country, but does that necessarily move towards resolution? I don't really know.

So, I'm just not totally clear on what the international community can do that would actually bring that place to some sort of resolution.

CRAIG TIMBERG: Absolutely. I mean, it's not -- we tend to think about it as one guy, you know, Robert Mugabe, you know, as sort of a part of a long tradition of African big men. But it's not really quite like that.

What we have is a leader a top -- really a tiger, if you will. If people who run this country are ruthless and they're scared, and we have now more indictments in Darfur, we have indictments in Conga, we have indictments in Uganda.

I mean, these guys know that if they step down, they're immediately vulnerable to being hauled before a court, and having everything in their lives essentially ruined.

So, there's a lot of motivation to not give in, even if they want to give in. So, it's a deeply, deeply complex problem.

MARGARET WARNER: So, one viewer from Sydney, Australia who said she'd been born in Zimbabwe, but was forced off her farm in 2001, asked, "Will any of these people be brought to justice?"

CRAIG TIMBERG: I wish I knew, I mean, I don't think any of them are going to be brought to justice until they're removed from power, and given that there is that specter of justice, I don't think any of them are going to leave power any sooner than they have to -- they'll do anything they can to stick it out.

You look at Charles Taylor and the dock and the Hague, and I mean --

MARGARET WARNER: In Liberia.

CRAIG TIMBERG: Yeah, I mean, there's a message to the despots of the world, isn't there?

MARGARET WARNER: You mean, that it's even more perilous to leave power than to stay in?

CRAIG TIMBERG: Yeah. It's not just that you lose the presidency or you lose the world's respect or you lose your money, but you lose your freedom.

And it's the dilemma at the heart of the whole international criminal justice movement, is how do you fulfill our righteous desire for accountability when people behave in such atrocious ways, but also giving the world the kind of political flexibility to maneuver some of these guys out of power, say five years or ten years earlier than they might otherwise go out of power.

MARGARET WARNER: We also had a number of questions about just the degree of safety or danger within Zimbabwe.

One viewer said, "We were scheduled to go to Zimbabwe on a tour in August, are we crazy?"

Another one asked about NGO [non-governmental organizations] activities, and whether any -- whether they're able to operate safely in the country, where are these things getting at?

CRAIG TIMBERG: No, in terms of the safety, I'm reluctant to give people advice that could conceivably get them in trouble.

As a general concept, you know, there haven't been meaningful attacks on foreigners -- this was a very targeted campaign, they went after the opposition, they had a list of people they wanted to beat up and torture and drive into submission, so it's not as though there's -- it's not as though there's sort of freelance violence and civil strife there.

On the other hand, you know, there are safer places. So, I guess you need to take that under advisement.

With regard to the NGOs? Look, some NGOs have found a way to work, but it's under increasing pressure of the government, they've made it very difficult to function there in a reasonable way, and lots of them have pulled out.

A few of them continue to operate, but it's under very difficult conditions.

MARGARET WARNER: And what about Zimbabwe for journalists? We talked a little bit about this on the air, in terms of how difficult it was for you to report this, and you had to do it with the help of an unnamed Zimbabwean journalist.

CRAIG TIMBERG: That's right, I mean, foreign correspondents are essentially banned from the country, Western journalists, anyway.  And so, you know, we find a way in, and we stay very low and -- not in every case, but in this case, I worked very closely with an extraordinarily good and brave Zimbabwean journalist who did a lot of the -- really of the most crucial work on that story, and so, you know, I can move around there reasonably well, but if I start, you know, pulling out my notebook on a street corner, I'm going to be in trouble fairly quickly.

And pictures and cameras are just a big red flag.

So, you just have to stay very low, and it put -- not only is it dangerous, but you're constantly doing the calculation, "Is this thing I'm going to do, is it going to make the story enough better that I'm going to risk getting myself arrested and getting other people in trouble?" It's just -- it's really quite a monstrous place to work, at this point.

MARGARET WARNER: And, of course, you pointed out, in terms of a video camera, or a camera-camera, a photojournalist camera, those are very dangerous to try to operate, and as a result, we don't have much pictorial evidence of what's going on.

CRAIG TIMBERG: That's right, and a lot of the pictorial and video evidence that has come out, has come at an enormously high price. Some of the very few videographers still working, some of them have been beaten and arrested, others have been killed.

You know, the regime is sophisticated, these are smart guys, and they understand that there's a difference between me going in with a pen and a piece of paper, and CNN going in with a video camera.

They understand the capacity to drive world opinion in ways that are destructive to the regime is more potent with video cameras. And believe me, they notice that stuff when you go in -- if you come to the border with a giant TV camera, you're going to get a lot of questions.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, we had a couple of questions from our viewers about your future, and Faith Graham in Hollywood, Florida just said, "A note of thanks for your courage and determination for doing this kind of reporting. Will you be going back to Africa any time soon?"

CRAIG TIMBERG: In fact, I'm just now launching on a book project about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and just how badly the Western-led effort to control it has gone, and how much, what we think we know about the epidemic is really built on misunderstanding, and that will bring me back in Africa, probably in a couple of months, and several times over the next year or so.

I don't think I'm likely to be going back into Zimbabwe any time soon, although it's one of my favorite countries in the world, and I love Zimbabwe, so I look forward to the day that I can really cross that border again, and see my old friends.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, thanks Craig. That is all the time we have for this week's Insider Forum.

I want to thank our guest, Craig Timberg, for being with us here today, and all of our viewers and online visitors who submitted questions.

Thanks for listening, and until next time, I'm Margaret Warner.