Zimbabwe’s Too-Silent Neighbors

President Robert Mugabe is driving Zimbabwe into abject poverty, political chaos and civil unrest. He brushes aside critics of his autocratic rule as enemies of the state, particularly if they come from the political opposition or white farmers in Zimbabwe or from Western governments.

Leaders of southern African countries at a recent summit refused to condemn Mugabe publicly, and there is something to be said for not trashing a neighboring government in a public forum. But the regional leaders, especially South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, must make it clear to Mugabe that his policies are causing irreparable harm to Zimbabwe and threaten regional stability. African governments have a shameful history of noninterference in some horrendous bloodletting within their midst. They should not make that mistake again with Zimbabwe.

Mugabe’s latest outrage is the invocation of special powers to seize land from white farmers. He failed to gain expropriation authority in a constitutional referendum last February. Since then, supporters of the ruling party, encouraged by Mugabe’s fiery speeches, have invaded and occupied hundreds of farms, killed at least 17 political opponents and injured many others. Mugabe launched his electoral campaign Wednesday by declaring that squatters will continue to occupy farms until most of the land is taken away from the white owners and made available for resettlement.

Land reform, all agree, is badly needed. Nearly 20 years after independence, most black farmers still struggle for survival on tiny plots, while the best land, taken by European colonizers, remains in the hands of white farmers.

Yet land reform is not Mugabe’s aim. Under his land policy, millions of acres of farmland already expropriated have been leased to his cronies for trivial sums or left uncultivated in the hands of the state. The British government, once the colonial master in Zimbabwe, has pledged $63 million for repurchase and redistribution of white-owned lands on condition that squatters leave the farms first. Mugabe rejected the offer and angrily denounced Britain as an enemy of Zimbabwe.

For the first time in the 20 years of his rule, Mugabe is struggling for political survival, and that’s why the 76-year-old president is stirring racial unrest. He postponed the April parliamentary election and has not announced a new date. In the meantime, he is invoking special powers to accomplish by decree what a majority of the people, black and white, denied him in a popular vote.

Some members of the British Commonwealth, to which Zimbabwe belongs, have denounced Mugabe’s failure to uphold the rule of law. South Africa and other neighboring governments should do so as well. Otherwise, Mugabe, isolated and embittered, will interpret their silence as approval of his increasingly dictatorial rule.