The inside story on Britain's shifting attitude towards Zimbabwe

The arrival of the Zimbabwean Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, in London signals a new chapter for Zimbabwe's relations with its former colonial master.

Britain's Foreign Minister, the sometimes clownish but intelligent Boris Johnson was happy to meet with Chinamasa, a point of departure from previous visits where NO British politician wanted to be seen in the company of a ZANU PF Government minister.

This relationship building exercise has been in the making for years under the stewardship of the current British Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Catriona Laing. She put her head on the block and openly supported Emmerson Mnangagwa when it was unfashionable to do so.

Public intellectuals like Miles Tendi and Ibbo Mandaza ridiculed her for offering such support.

Tendai Biti continuously embarrassed her at every corner and opportunity giving her a derogatory nickname, Kapfupi, The Short One. Other western ambassadors spoke in hushed tones about their disquiet around her overt support for the Lacoste faction.

The military intervention made her the rock star of the diplomatic community. She had backed the right horse after all and Britain has since had 3 Government ministers dispatched to Harare.

A feat no other government has achieved since November, not even African countries that are struggling to get appointments for their ministers and ambassadors approved by the Zimbabwean Foreign Service.

Chinamasa's visit has further cemented that bond between the two countries, a bond of convenience of course. Britain needs a successful Zimbabwe but it doesn't have the resources to single handedly bank roll Zimbabwe's economic recovery. All it has for now are the endorsement credentials.

Britain has a Brexit headache to deal with and Zimbabwe has to move fast whilst Britain can still get European Union consensus on issues like Zimbabwe before the United Kingdom exits the EU.

Almost all western ambassadors that I have spoken to have told me that they would follow Britain's call on Zimbabwe, because they see Zimbabwe, as they called it, "…as Britain's baby."

Catriona Laing has been called names for supporting Lacoste and subsequently the Emmerson Mnangagwa administration. However, there is another truth that has not been told in order to understand what was happening in ambassadorial compounds. Britain realized that the sanctions were not working before Catriona was even appointed ambassador to Zimbabwe.

With the permission of the previous British ambassador, Debora Bronnert, I will share some insights.
I was one of the guests at a dinner hosted by Bronnert to welcome her British counterpart to South Africa, Judith Macgregor. Judith had recently been appointed Britain's Lady in Pretoria, so she was in Harare to familiarize herself with the region.

We were joined at the dinner table by the World Bank Country Director, Mungai Lenneiye, the French ambassador, Laurent Delahousse and his Germany counterpart, Hans Gunter Gnodkte. We were later joined by the Malawian ambassador to Zimbabwe, Jane Kambalame.

Malawi was key because its former President, Joyce Banda, was the SADC Chairperson at the time.

We sat outside the British ambassador's residence in Greendale, as we ploughed through our mouthwatering dinner, it became clear that the Germans and French had grown weary of the EU sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Mungai Lenneiye explained to the British ambassadors how the sanctions regime was a useless political gimmick which was counterproductive. Diplomats are always diplomatic, as a journalist I go straight to the point, I broke the ice by telling them how sanctions were an important tool in Robert Mugabe's electoral toolbox.

I explained how Mugabe would find it hard to justify his incompetence without using the EU and US sanctions as an excuse.  Before I had finished, the German and French ambassadors looked at each other as if to say, "we have been telling the Brits this same message."

Unlike most actors that meet ambassadors, I am always asked to meet them for expert advice which hinges on my work in the media.

All ambassadors do this, my first such meeting was with the then Zimbabwean ambassador to the UK in 2000, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, in the Strand where he wanted to understand the impact of the the land seizures within the British media.

I was not surprised when Emmerson Mnangagwa reappointed him a cabinet minister. I remembered that after our lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we stood outside the Zimbabwean embassy opposite the Charing Cross police station.

I asked him about Mugabe's departure, he didn't want to disclose much to a journalist. Typical of journalists, I asked him who was likely to take over. "Emmerson Mnangagwa," he said emphatically.

"Interview him when you go back home, he is smart, shrewd and prepared for the job," he said as a parting shot.

I never repeated this story when he was now serving as Mugabe's foreign minister, he would have been fired for something so innocent. I however told him that business considerations are what should drive the political agenda. A message which never got anywhere until Mugabe's removal.

It is important to always tell these diplomats what they have to hear, not what they want to hear.

By the time we got to deserts and coffee at Deborah Bronnert's home in Greendale, it was quite evident to me that the British were frustrated with the lack of traction on the Zimbabwean question.
The Malawian envoy was honest and blunt, sanctions don't work and SADC would never support them.

I volunteered to be the dinner secretary, the next morning I sent out an email to all who had attended the dinner, the sum total of my email message was that sanctions needed to be removed.
I explained why they weren't working and why they never worked.

I had also suggested the previous night the importance of engaging with sane and logical voices in ZANUPF. This had been happening but the British ambassador was talking to dishonest people.
Basically, the British were tired of this never ending crisis. They wanted a solution.

The 2013 election results convinced them that the MDCT was no longer the solution. Nations act in the interests of their own people not in the interests of foreigners. This is one thing that our opposition hasn't understood and mastered.

They made noise at Britain's change of strategy instead of engaging them. Nelson Chamisa made some snide remarks at Catriona Laing's relationship with the present government at Morgan Tsvangirai's burial. You engage and not ostracize and ridicule them.

When Catriona Laing replaced the affable Deborah Bronnert, she took over something that was already in motion. Sanctions had been removed except for Mugabe and his wife. This was essentially a bilateral dispute between Mugabe and Britain and the rest of Europe had been dragged into it.

However, the Mugabe government was not smart, they seized properties under bilateral business agreements belonging to farmers from other European countries.  This galvanized the support that Britain needed against Robert Mugabe.

Farms and conservancies belonging to German and Dutch nationals were seized in the sometimes corrupt frenzy to grab lucrative properties by the ZANU PF political elites. The opposition whilst in the GNU also started behaving like Robert Mugabe.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara kicked out of his office the former German ambassador to Zimbabwe Hans Gunter Gnodkte, when the later came to remonstrate against the seizure of the Save Conservancy.

He did this in front of the then EU ambassador to Zimbabwe, Aldo Dell'Ariccia. A German national, Wilfried Pabst was a major investor in the conservancy which was protected by Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs).

Mugabe was isolated and so was his government and invariably the citizens suffered immensely.
Some of his partners had started behaving badly like him too. This was to have negative consequences for some in the opposition.

This German problem has now come to haunt the current Zimbabwean president and his administration. German has refused to welcome Patrick Chinamasa in Bonn because of the seizure of farms owned by their citizens which were taken by the Mugabe regime.

This they say they want finalized first before any meaningful engagements. Zimbabwe has the goodwill of Britain but Albion has no capacity to bankroll the Zimbabwean government on its own.
German is the biggest economy in Europe followed by France and as such, our government will have to to be strategic in the decisions it takes if it wants real growth in the economy.

One western diplomat said to me that all Zimbabwe has to do is give back those farms to the Germans and reallocate land to the Zimbabwean farmers affected, otherwise we will be entering into another unnecessary ideological and counter productive battle with a country which we need more than it needs us.

The realities of modern politics require pragmatism as opposed to the Mugabe politics of yesterday which put rhetoric first whilst people suffered. There is more to be gained by being practical and looking ahead at one's long term interests, something Robert Mugabe never understood.

National interests should be long term and practical and should be measured against the alternative, the opposite of doing the right thing for country in pursuit of misplaced glory and unhelpful rhetoric!
The former president of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo did this with the Bakassi peninsula border dispute.

Instead of using Nigeria'a military prowess to determine the future of the disputed oil rich peninsula, he handed it over to Cameron. Interests should not be narrow and shallow and decisions should be balanced against economic repercussions.

Mugabe punched above his weight and with disastrous economic consequences to the country and citizens. The British changed their strategy after realising that their years of waltzing with the MDC had produced nothing tangible. Zimbabwe continued to be a painful and festering wound on Britain, its citizens sought political and economic refuge in Albion.

Together with the rest of the western aid agencies, it also had the burden of feeding Zimbabweans starving back home through food aid. This had to end and it had to be done in a way that saves face for both countries. The only hindrance was Mugabe.

Catriona Laing invited me to her office last year. I asked her how she coped with all the attacks from people like Tendai Biti and Ibbo Mandaza. The rest of the conversation was confidential but she did say that the days of the activist ambassador were over.

She said it was a mistake to ostracize the government of the day and she said that the role of the ambassador is to engage the government of the day and all stakeholders. She said that previously, Western ambassadors from about 2000, had shelved that international relations doctrine.

So as Catriona prepares for her next assignment in West Africa, it will only take an incompetent and ungrateful government to undo all the work she did to bring Zimbabwe out of the cold.

As a western diplomat said to me recently, "…she means well and she is doing everything possible for Zimbabwe to succeed. She believes it will (succeed) although her confidence is sometimes misplaced and betrayed by the Zimbabwean government's failure to simply follow common sense."

Our government has been talking politics for too long. It now needs to talk business, commerce and trade. A recent visiting American delegation remarked on how the people they met were bogged down in too much politics instead of commerce and trade.

The delegation also remarked that the opposition was no different, all they offered were empty democracy platitudes. These delegations are compromised of seasoned political actors, they can see through the rhetoric.

It is only commerce and trade that will see the realization of a new and successful Zimbabwe. That is the only language our political actors should be talking for now. We have had 17 years of experience to know that ideological outburst are just that, outbursts.

The president's clarion call is that Zimbabwe is open for business, how he will deal with the German issue will show whether Zimbabwe is indeed open for business. Most western diplomats are convinced that ZANU PF will win the upcoming general election. It is what it will do with that mandate that will determine whether we have indeed put the Mugabe years behind us.

Open for business will be determined by a free media, respect for the rule of law, an independent judiciary, adherence to constitutionalism, prosecution of corrupt government officials and so on.
Capital is afraid of flowing where all the above are missing.

The president will have to overhaul his administrative bureaucracy if he wins the elections.
He can't expect change with the same people who drowned us into being a pariah state.
He will need to retire a lot of the dead wood in the civil service.

Failure to do so will see Catriona Laing's dream of seeing Zimbabwe succeed remain a dream deferred. A pipe dream only to be thought of, but never achieved. Her sceptic counterparts will be sending her messages to Abuja saying that "…we told you so!"

Let us hope that there won't be any need for such messages.

Hopewell Chin'ono is an award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is a CNN African Journalist of the year and a Harvard University Nieman Fellow. His next film, State of Mind looking at mental illness in Zimbabwe is coming out in March.