IT is hard to know exactly how much responsibility Malcolm Fraser bears for the installation of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, but it is generally agreed that he played an important role.

Fraser’s 1987 biographer Philip Ayres wrote: “The centrality of Fraser’s part in the process leading to Zimbabwe’s independence is indisputable. All the major African figures involved affirm it.”

Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere said he considered Fraser’s role “crucial in many parts”, and Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda (whose own achievements included making his country a one-party state) called it “vital”.

Mugabe is quoted by Ayres: “I got enchanted by (Fraser), we became friends, personal friends … He’s really motivated by a liberal philosophy.”

Fraser’s role also attracted tributes from Australian diplomats. Duncan Campbell, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has claimed that Fraser was a “principal architect” of the agreement that installed Mugabe and that “he was largely responsible for pressing Margaret Thatcher to accept it”.

Former Australian diplomat and Commonwealth specialist Tony Kevin has also claimed that Fraser “challenged Margaret Thatcher’s efforts to stage-manage a moderate political solution”.

Veteran British Conservative politician Julian Amery also commented on Fraser’s activities, though in less favourable terms.

When Fraser was working to install Mugabe, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia had a black majority government under bishop Abel Muzorewa, a moderate without Mugabe’s Marxism or association with terrorist atrocities. This government’s constitution reserved 28 of 100 parliamentary seats for whites, still a disproportionately large number. There was universal adult suffrage.

Muzorewa was apparently prepared to work closely with whites, who he recognised were vital to the economy, and he was also favoured by Thatcher (the “moderate” solution that Kevin credits Fraser with opposing). His record suggested he was a man who rejected violence and sought a peaceful settlement.

There had already been considerable changes away from white supremacy in the latter days of the Ian Smith regime. The armed forces, for example, had been taking black officers.

A Muzorewa regime might have failed, though with strong British and other Commonwealth support it could have had a good chance of success. In any event, it is hard to imagine how a Muzorewa-led Zimbabwe, retaining the whites’ agricultural, commercial and administrative expertise, could have led to a worse outcome than that which has transpired, with the country bankrupt, people starving and democracy in ruins.

Mugabe never changed his spots: Before turning on the whites, he waged a quasi-genocidal war against the Ndebele people, with an estimated 20,000 murdered. He also committed thousands of troops to a vicious, largely pointless war in the Congo. There have been endless reports of brutality and torture, including the vicious punishment of police who tried to show humanity to prisoners.

Mugabe came to power tainted with atrocity. Some members of the Patriotic Front, of which he led the biggest faction, specialised in cutting the noses and lips off uncooperative blacks, and shot down civilian airliners, in one case then massacring the survivors at the crash site. Naturally, no one was prosecuted for these crimes.

Until the recent elections, Fraser had never publicly criticised the Mugabe regime or said anything to encourage the democratic Opposition in Zimbabwe, not even when Mugabe’s thugs raided the Zimbabwe office of aid organisation CARE and abducted the director, though Fraser had been chairman of CARE Australia and president of CARE International.

This is despite Fraser’s continuing interest in African affairs and also despite his various lectures to the Howard government on morality. He suggested in the 2002 Walter Murdoch lecture that Australia was deficient in respecting the “rule of law”, when Mugabe had just arrested and manacled a retired High Court judge who had dared to find a Mugabe crony guilty of contempt of court. In the same lecture he said: “We should not seek to live in a state of denial concerning our past.”

On April 20, 2000, a letter writer to The Australian asked Fraser to comment on Mugabe’s behaviour. The editor wrote: “Malcolm Fraser has been recovering from surgery. He will write on this subject for The Australian next week.” I hope the questioner has not been holding his breath.

This month, Fraser admitted that Mugabe has done enormous damage to Zimbabwe and called for him to stand aside. But given his longstanding friendship, surely he could exercise more influence to pressure Mugabe to leave as quickly as possible.

It is to be hoped that Mugabe will be brought to justice for his crimes, if only as an example to discourage other tyrants, but the main thing is that he go.

After decades of violence, torture, misrule and deepening madness, Mugabe is in the Fuhrerbunker stage. Perhaps concerted lobbying by Fraser of Mugabe and his African cronies would encourage the Opposition, show Mugabe all is lost and do something to speed his departure.

Given the role Fraser as prime minister played in his installation, it might also be a good thing for Australia’s national honour.

Hal G.P. Colebatch is an Australian author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor and lawyer.

MALCOLM FRASER’S REPLY

Why I backed Mugabe Font Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Malcolm Fraser | April 17, 2008 FACT, mythology and vain hope are mixed together in Hal Colebatch’s article about Robert Mugabe. Certainly Mugabe should have gone, and long ago, but Colebatch has a short memory of history.

A veteran Australian diplomat was leading a delegation of observers during the election that Mugabe’s party won. He would ask people in the villages about the recent past. How difficult had it been? Was there anyone who would help you when you needed it? Would the government people help you? No. What about Bishop Abel Muzorewa; were his people any help? Don’t be foolish. Was there anyone you could turn to for help? The local Mugabe man.

That diplomat predicted a Mugabe victory in an election, largely organised and sponsored by the British and Ian Smith’s regime. The diplomat’s questioning gave a simple answer as to why. Any effort to install Muzorewa in power would have involved Margaret Thatcher taking her army out of Northern Ireland and placing it in what became Zimbabwe.

If you are not prepared to impose a solution, which she was not, you have to have a solution the warring parties are prepared to accept. It was that simple argument that led to Thatcher’s change of mind and to her acceptance that there needed to be change in Zimbabwe.

Nothing I say should be taken as condoning any of the excesses of a most terrible regime but, for those who have asked in recent years, I have spoken my mind quite plainly.

Years ago there were significant disturbances in Harare. CARE had then, and still has, an office operating in the country. The director of the office rang me to make sure that I did not say anything publicly about the disturbances in Zimbabwe because he feared it would put at risk people working in CARE in remote parts of the country. It was advice I accepted at the time.

Because the past 15 years have been so increasingly bad, people forget that initially Mugabe started reasonably well. While his first wife, Sally, a Ghanaian, was alive, the government was much more moderate. He sat down and discussed reconciliation with Smith.

Given the past relationship between Smith and Mugabe, I doubt if I would have been able to do that.

When Mugabe was in jail, Sally Mugabe was in England and their only child, a boy aged five or six, was very ill. An English bishop said he would play hostage for Mugabe in jail in what was then Salisbury if Smith would allow Mugabe to visit Sally and give support to her because of the severity of the child’s illness.

Smith’s answer was a blunt no: it was a communist trick, he would have none of it. Soon after, the bishop repeated the offer, but with a difference. He would be hostage for Mugabe in jail if Smith would allow Mugabe to go to England to be with Sally at the boy’s funeral. Smith’s response was as blunt as before: he had already said that it was a communist trick. The fact the child was dead did not alter that.

How many fathers could sit and talk reconciliation with such a man?

It is easy to forget such instances. It is easy to forget the first eight or 10 years because of the deprivation, the stupidity, the brutality, the injustice, almost the rape of Zimbabwe that has occurred during recent times.

Through my life I recognise sometimes that however much you want to change a person, if they are not changeable then it won’t happen.

There is an inflexibility, a determination that is beyond reach. The Commonwealth tried on one or two occasions, but the architects of those trials were Tony Blair and John Howard. Howard led the mission on Zimbabwe. The Commonwealth showed a grievous error: a white face was not going to work, it was not going to be successful, it was going to open the door to Mugabe’s vitriol. From the outset the Commonwealth should have taken a different tack.

When Olusegun Obasanjo was president of Nigeria, he certainly wanted to act in relation to Mugabe, but anything he did was not going to be successful unless he had the full support of South Africa and Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki was never prepared to give that support and still is not prepared to do what he ought to do.

All the countries of southern Africa suffer greatly because of Zimbabwe. There are three million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa alone, exacerbating unemployment, housing and poverty, but also setting an extraordinarily bad example in terms of land policy and other policies that make it even harder for South Africa to maintain stability.

No country has more to gain from a well-governed Zimbabwe than South Africa, so why has Mbeki refused to act? Why was he unwilling to support Obasanjo? Together the two would have been supported by almost all the countries of southern Africa in seeking to change Mugabe or getting him to go. Together the two would have been a powerful voice and neither could have been accused of having a colonial history.

No white face has been capable of changing Mugabe for many years, if ever. Why the quality of his Government changed so dramatically after the death of Sally Mugabe is an open question. The central mistake that Colebatch makes is failing to recognise that to keep Muzorewa, would have involved substantial British forces being sent to Zimbabwe, forces Britain did not have.

Ireland was on the boil at the time and no British government would have been prepared to send forces to Zimbabwe anyway. Almost certainly it would have prolonged a civil war in Rhodesia that had already claimed more than 25,000 lives. Mugabe was installed as prime minister in Zimbabwe only after a protracted negotiated settlement that was applauded by the entire global community and a democratic process that was universally judged as free and fair.

It is a sad chapter in the history of the human race, but me playing a role and perhaps being instrumental in getting Thatcher to see that there had to be a negotiated solution, as opposed to an imposed solution, wasmerely recognising the reality of the time.

Malcolm Fraser was prime minister from 1975 to 1983

Why I backed Mugabe Malcolm Fraser | April 17, 2008

FACT, mythology and vain hope are mixed together in Hal Colebatch’s article about Robert Mugabe. Certainly Mugabe should have gone, and long ago, but Colebatch has a short memory of history.

A veteran Australian diplomat was leading a delegation of observers during the election that Mugabe’s party won. He would ask people in the villages about the recent past. How difficult had it been? Was there anyone who would help you when you needed it? Would the government people help you? No. What about Bishop Abel Muzorewa; were his people any help? Don’t be foolish. Was there anyone you could turn to for help? The local Mugabe man.

That diplomat predicted a Mugabe victory in an election, largely organised and sponsored by the British and Ian Smith’s regime. The diplomat’s questioning gave a simple answer as to why. Any effort to install Muzorewa in power would have involved Margaret Thatcher taking her army out of Northern Ireland and placing it in what became Zimbabwe.

If you are not prepared to impose a solution, which she was not, you have to have a solution the warring parties are prepared to accept. It was that simple argument that led to Thatcher’s change of mind and to her acceptance that there needed to be change in Zimbabwe.

Nothing I say should be taken as condoning any of the excesses of a most terrible regime but, for those who have asked in recent years, I have spoken my mind quite plainly.

Years ago there were significant disturbances in Harare. CARE had then, and still has, an office operating in the country. The director of the office rang me to make sure that I did not say anything publicly about the disturbances in Zimbabwe because he feared it would put at risk people working in CARE in remote parts of the country. It was advice I accepted at the time.

Because the past 15 years have been so increasingly bad, people forget that initially Mugabe started reasonably well. While his first wife, Sally, a Ghanaian, was alive, the government was much more moderate. He sat down and discussed reconciliation with Smith.

Given the past relationship between Smith and Mugabe, I doubt if I would have been able to do that.

When Mugabe was in jail, Sally Mugabe was in England and their only child, a boy aged five or six, was very ill. An English bishop said he would play hostage for Mugabe in jail in what was then Salisbury if Smith would allow Mugabe to visit Sally and give support to her because of the severity of the child’s illness.

Smith’s answer was a blunt no: it was a communist trick, he would have none of it. Soon after, the bishop repeated the offer, but with a difference. He would be hostage for Mugabe in jail if Smith would allow Mugabe to go to England to be with Sally at the boy’s funeral. Smith’s response was as blunt as before: he had already said that it was a communist trick. The fact the child was dead did not alter that.

How many fathers could sit and talk reconciliation with such a man?

It is easy to forget such instances. It is easy to forget the first eight or 10 years because of the deprivation, the stupidity, the brutality, the injustice, almost the rape of Zimbabwe that has occurred during recent times.

Through my life I recognise sometimes that however much you want to change a person, if they are not changeable then it won’t happen.

There is an inflexibility, a determination that is beyond reach. The Commonwealth tried on one or two occasions, but the architects of those trials were Tony Blair and John Howard. Howard led the mission on Zimbabwe. The Commonwealth showed a grievous error: a white face was not going to work, it was not going to be successful, it was going to open the door to Mugabe’s vitriol. From the outset the Commonwealth should have taken a different tack.

When Olusegun Obasanjo was president of Nigeria, he certainly wanted to act in relation to Mugabe, but anything he did was not going to be successful unless he had the full support of South Africa and Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki was never prepared to give that support and still is not prepared to do what he ought to do.

All the countries of southern Africa suffer greatly because of Zimbabwe. There are three million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa alone, exacerbating unemployment, housing and poverty, but also setting an extraordinarily bad example in terms of land policy and other policies that make it even harder for South Africa to maintain stability.

No country has more to gain from a well-governed Zimbabwe than South Africa, so why has Mbeki refused to act? Why was he unwilling to support Obasanjo? Together the two would have been supported by almost all the countries of southern Africa in seeking to change Mugabe or getting him to go. Together the two would have been a powerful voice and neither could have been accused of having a colonial history.

No white face has been capable of changing Mugabe for many years, if ever. Why the quality of his Government changed so dramatically after the death of Sally Mugabe is an open question. The central mistake that Colebatch makes is failing to recognise that to keep Muzorewa, would have involved substantial British forces being sent to Zimbabwe, forces Britain did not have.

Ireland was on the boil at the time and no British government would have been prepared to send forces to Zimbabwe anyway. Almost certainly it would have prolonged a civil war in Rhodesia that had already claimed more than 25,000 lives. Mugabe was installed as prime minister in Zimbabwe only after a protracted negotiated settlement that was applauded by the entire global community and a democratic process that was universally judged as free and fair.

It is a sad chapter in the history of the human race, but me playing a role and perhaps being instrumental in getting Thatcher to see that there had to be a negotiated solution, as opposed to an imposed solution, wasmerely recognising the reality of the time.

Malcolm Fraser was prime minister from 1975 to 1983

EXTRACTS FROM SOME OF THE BLOG RESPONSES TO THE ABOVE ARTICLE…

I vividly recall a report on the ABC on Mugabe’s lecture at Latrobe University shortly after he was installed with the enthusiastic assistance of Malcolm. At the time there were reports that Mugabe was going to install a one-party state in Zimbabwe. In the question time that followed his lecture, he was asked whether this was true. Mugabe’s response was: “We are one nation; we are one people; why not one party?” This response earned him a thunderous ovation from those present. From the outset he proceeded to crush the supporters of Joshua Nkomo and the Nbtebeles and sowed the seeds of the destruction of the country both economically and politically. ….

“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me… a veteran Australian diplomat…” 1) Really knowledgeable people had known for months before that election in 1980 that Mugabe had made it plain through his thugs that if he was not voted in, worse things would happen than what his lot had been up to in the previous five or six years. 2) After that election in 1980, he systematically punished those who had not voted for him. 3) He has continued to be the same person that he always was.

What has changed are the attitudes of people like Malcolm Fraser have finally realised what his nature has always been. The penny took a long time to drop for most. I have excused the ignorance of people like Malcolm Fraser back in the late 1970s. Then in the 1980s one had to excuse their pride as the truth started revealing itself when thousands of Matabele were murdered. They refused to acknowledge the butchery because they were still congratulating themselves for having solved the problem….