The
Foreign
Office
cautioned
against
UK
military
intervention
to
overthrow
the
former
Zimbabwean
president Robert
Mugabe in
2004,
advising
it
was
not
a
“serious
option”,
recently
released
documents
show.
Policy
papers
show
Tony
Blair’s
government
weighed
up
options
on
how
best
to
handle
the
“depressingly
healthy”
80-year-old
dictator,
who
refused
to
step
down
while
the
country
descended
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
coalition
to
overthrow
the
Iraqi
leader
Saddam
Hussein,
No
10
asked
the
Foreign
Office
in
July
2004
to
produce
options.
Officials
agreed
the
UK’s
policy
of
isolating
Mugabe
and
building
an
international
consensus
for
change
was
not
working,
and
had
not
managed
to
secure
support
from
key
Africans,
notably
the
then
South
African
president
Thabo
Mbeki,
documents
released
to
the National
Archives
at
Kew, west
London,
show.
Options
outlined
included:
“seek
to
remove
Mugabe
by
force”;
“go
for
tougher
UK
measures”
such
as
freezing
assets
and
closing
the
UK
embassy;
or
“re-engage”,
the
option
advocated
by
the
then
outgoing
ambassador
to Zimbabwe,
Brian
Donnelly,
according
to
the
files.
The
FCO
paper
dismissed
military
action
as
not
a
“serious
option,”
and
advised:
“We
know
from
Afghanistan,
Iraq
and
Yugoslavia
that
changing
a
government
and/or
its
bad
policies
is
almost
impossible
from
the
outside.
If
we
really
wanted
to
change
the
situation
on
the
ground
in
Zimbabwe
we
have
to
do
to
Mugabe
what
we
have
just
done
to
Saddam.”
It
adds:
“The
only
candidate
for
leading
such
a
military
operation
is
the
UK.
No
one
else
(even
the
US)
would
be
prepared
to
do
so”.
It
warns
that
military
intervention
would
result
in
heavy
casualties
and
have
“considerable
implications”
for
British
people
in
Zimbabwe.
“Short
of
a
major
humanitarian
and
political
catastrophe
–
resulting
in
massive
violence,
large-scale
refugee
flows,
and
regional
instability
–
we
judge
that
no
African
state
would
agree
to
any
attempts
to
remove
Mugabe
forcibly.”
It
continues:
“Nor
do
we
judge
that
any
other
European,
Commonwealth
or
western
partner
(including
the
US)
would
authorise
or
participate
in
military
intervention.
And
there
would
be
no
legal
grounds
for
doing
so,
without
an
authorising
Security
Council
Resolution,
which
we
would
not
get.”
Blair’s
foreign
policy
adviser
Laurie
Lee
warned
him
Zimbabwe
“will
be
a
real
spoiler”
to
his
plan
to
use
the
UK’s
presidency
of
the
G8
to
make
2005
“the
year
of
Africa”
at
a
summit
at
Gleneagles.
Lee
concluded
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
clear
understanding
of
what
that
means.
So
we
could
try
a
variant
of
what
Brian
D
[Donnelly]
says.
I
can
see
a
way
of
making
it
work
but
we
need
to
have
the
FCO
work
out
a
complete
strategy”.
Donnelly,
in
his
valedictory
telegram,
had
advocated
critical
re-engagement
with
Mugabe,
though
understood
Blair
“might
shudder
at
the
thought
given
all
that
Mugabe
has
said
and
done”.
Mugabe
was
finally
deposed
in
a
2017
coup,
aged
93. Mbeki
claimed
in
2013 that
in
the
early
2000s
Blair
had
tried
to
pressurise
him
into
joining
a
military
coalition
to
overthrow
Mugabe,
a
claim
strongly
denied
by
Blair.