Recently released documents reveal that the UK's diplomatic corps cautioned against British military action to overthrow the former Zimbabwean president, the long-serving leader, in 2004, advising it was not considered a "viable option".
Government Documents Reveal Deliberations on Addressing a "Remarkably Robust" Leader
Policy papers from Tony Blair's government show officials considered options on how best to deal with the "depressingly healthy" 80-year-old leader, who refused to step down as the country fell into violence and economic chaos.
Faced with Mugabe's Zanu-PF party winning a 2005 election, and a year after the UK joined a US-led coalition to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Downing Street asked the Foreign Office in July 2004 to produce potential courses of action.
Isolation Strategy Considered Not Working
Officials agreed that the UK's policy of isolating Mugabe and forging an international consensus for change was failing, having failed to secure support from key African nations, notably the then South African president, the South African leader.
Options outlined in the documents were:
- "Attempt to remove Mugabe by force";
- "Go for tougher UK measures" such as seizing finances and closing the UK embassy; or
- "Re-engage", the option supported by the then outgoing ambassador to Zimbabwe.
"We know from conflicts abroad that altering a government and/or its harmful policies is almost impossible from the outside."
The diplomatic assessment rejected military action as not a "realistic option," and warned that "The only nation for leading such a military operation is the UK. No other country (even the US) would be willing to do so".
Warnings of Significant Losses and Legal Hurdles
It warned that military intervention would result in heavy casualties and have "serious consequences" for UK nationals in Zimbabwe.
"Barring a major humanitarian and political disaster – resulting in widespread bloodshed, significant exodus of refugees, and instability in the region – we judge that no nation in Africa would agree to any attempts to remove Mugabe forcibly."
The document continues: "Nor do we judge that any other international ally (including the US) would sanction or participate in military intervention. And there would be no jurisdictional basis for doing so, without an authorising Security Council Resolution, which we would not get."
Long-Term Strategy Recommended
Blair's foreign policy adviser, Laurie Lee, advised Blair that Zimbabwe "could become a real spoiler" to his plan to use the UK's leadership of the G8 to make 2005 "the year of Africa". The adviser stated that as military action had been ruled out, "we probably have to accept that we must play the longer game" and re-engage with Mugabe.
Blair appeared to agree, writing: "We should work out a way of exposing the lies and malpractice of Mugabe and Zanu-PF up to this election and then afterwards, we could try to re-engage on the basis of a firm agreement."
The departing ambassador, in his final diplomatic dispatch, had advocated cautious renewed contact with Mugabe, though he recognized the Prime Minister "might shudder at the thought given all that Mugabe has uttered and perpetrated".
The Zimbabwean leader was finally deposed in a 2017 coup, aged 93. Earlier assertions that in the early 2000s Blair had tried to pressurise the South African president into joining a military coalition to overthrow Mugabe were vehemently rejected by the ex-British leader.
