Foreign Office Cautioned Against Military Action to Overthrow Robert Mugabe

Recently released documents show 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 "Depressingly Healthy" Dictator

Internal documents from the then Prime Minister's government show officials weighed up options on how best to handle the "remarkably robust" 80-year-old leader, who declined to leave office as the country fell into violence and economic chaos.

Faced with the ruling party winning a 2005 election, and a year after the UK participated in a US-led coalition to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Downing Street asked the Foreign Office in July 2004 to develop potential courses of action.

Isolation Strategy Deemed Ineffective

Officials agreed that the UK's policy of isolating Mugabe and building an international consensus for change was not working, having not managed to secure support from key African nations, notably the then South African president, the South African leader.

Options outlined in the documents included:

• "Seek to remove Mugabe by force";
• "Go for tougher UK measures" such as seizing finances and shuttering the UK embassy; or
• "Re-open dialogue", the approach supported by the then departing ambassador to Zimbabwe.

"We know from Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia that changing a government and/or its harmful policies is almost impossible from the outside."

The FCO paper rejected military action as not a "realistic option," and warned that "The only candidate for leading such a military operation is the UK. No one else (even the US) would be willing to do so".

Cautionary Notes of Heavy Casualties and Legal Hurdles

It cautioned that military involvement would cause heavy casualties and have "serious consequences" for UK nationals in Zimbabwe.

"Barring a major humanitarian and political catastrophe – resulting in widespread bloodshed, large-scale refugee flows, and instability in the region – we assess that no nation in Africa would support any attempts to remove Mugabe forcibly."

The document continues: "Nor do we judge that any other international ally (including the US) would authorise or join military intervention. And there would be no legal grounds for doing so, without an approving Security Council Resolution, which we would not get."

Long-Term Strategy Recommended

Blair's foreign policy adviser, Laurie Lee, warned him that Zimbabwe "will be 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 discounted, "it is likely necessary that we must play the longer game" and re-open talks with Mugabe.

Blair seemed to concur, noting: "We should work out a way of revealing the lies and malpractice of Mugabe and Zanu-PF up to this election and then subsequently, we could attempt to restart dialogue on the basis of a firm agreement."

The departing ambassador, in his final diplomatic dispatch, had advocated critical re-engagement with Mugabe, though he recognized the Prime Minister "would likely be appalled given all that Mugabe has said and done".

The Zimbabwean leader was finally deposed in a military takeover in 2017, at the age of 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 strongly denied by the ex-British leader.