LONDON: Zimbabwe has haunted the Commonwealth for half a century. With Robert Mugabe winning a fifth term as president on March 13, it is still doing just that.

Long after the problems created by white settlers in other parts of Britain’s former African colonies have resolved themselves, those in what was until 1980 Southern Rhodesia remain.

Britain made a disastrous mistake in 1923 when it gave self- government to the whites in Salisbury (now Harare): it held a referendum among them to decide whether they wanted to become self-governing or join South Africa. By 8,774 votes to 5,989 they chose to go it alone.

The country became what was called “a self-governing colony” and for most of the 57 years until independence Britain tried to hide behind the argument that this strange constitutional status made it difficult for Whitehall to intervene. In fact, Britain had retained some residual powers enabling it to do just that in an emergency.

After World War Two the whites in Salisbury tried to extend their grip on Central Africa by persuading the British to form a Central African Federation - Southern Rhodesia, and the separate colonies of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi). Southern Rhodesia, as the most economically advanced, would inevitably dominate the federation and that was the name of the game. The experiment lasted just 1,000 days. African pressure - not least from Zambia and Malawi - forced the federation to disintegrate, and then in 1964 the whites of Southern Rhodesia voted in Ian Smith.

A year later Smith made his unilateral declaration of independence - technically a rebellion against Britain and the Queen. Britain huffed and puffed and imposed sanctions, but refused to reimpose its rule by sending in troops, arguing that it was logistically impossible. Years later the Falklands operation was a far more difficult one in that respect.

It all ended in a civil war that cost 30,000 lives. Several times Britain tried to make a near sell-out deal with Smith that would have held back majority rule, but pressure from the other Commonwealth countries prevented that.

The Commonwealth mediated independence for Zimbabwe.

Since then Zimbabweans, including Mugabe himself, have always acknowledged this critical and historical role played by the Commonwealth. The British, however, had wanted to keep Mugabe out of power and believed right up to the last days that the elections in March 1980 could somehow produce a coalition between the rival party, ZAPU, led by Joshua Nkomo, and Bishop Muzorewa who had lined up with Smith in a transitional government.

It was never going to happen. In recent months it has been put about that Mugabe won the 1980 election by intimidation and fraud. Not so. There was some of that, but the people were overwhelmingly in favour of Mugabe. The Commonwealth observer group was a long and thorough operation. The election was carefully carried out with many supervisors from Britain and other countries.

Robert Mugabe is right when he says the British did not keep their part of the bargain. But the bargain was never properly spelled out. It was what Margaret Thatcher was fond of calling a fudge. She did not like fudges, but she was prime minister at the time of the talks and she let that one happen.

The understanding was that a fund would be set up with British and American money to finance land reform. The fund and the American money never materialised.

Now Zimbabwe has come back on to the Commonwealth agenda, and again it is causing divisions. In essence the problem may seem the same as it was 50 years ago - about land and settlers and African rights. In fact, it is quite different. The remaining old white Rhodies, as they were nicknamed, long ago came to terms with the fact of African rule. Most of the newer generation are quite different from their parents and grandparents.

At 78 Mugabe, who preached and practiced reconciliation between Africans and Europeans for so long, started to return to the racial rhetoric of the years of his liberation struggle, picking on Britain as the colonial enemy. The bitterness with Britain welled back into his mind, even though for years after independence he had a good relationship with the British, in particular with Margaret Thatcher.

It was the Commonwealth in the end that was the main international player in helping win independence for Mugabe. The question now is whether the Commonwealth can be the main player in bringing Zimbabwe back to stability and economic health.—Dawn/Gemini News Service.