Foreign Office Cautioned Against Armed Intervention to Topple Robert Mugabe

Recently released papers show that the Foreign Office advised against British military intervention to overthrow the former Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, in 2004, advising it was not considered a "viable option".

Policy Papers 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 dictator, who refused to step down as the country fell into violence and economic chaos.

Following Mugabe's Zanu-PF party winning a 2005 election, and a year after the UK joined a US-led coalition to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Downing Street asked the Foreign Office in July 2004 to develop potential courses of action.

Isolation Strategy Considered Not Working

Diplomats concluded that the UK's strategy to isolate Mugabe and building an international consensus for change was failing, having failed to secure support from influential African states, notably the then South African president, Thabo Mbeki.

Options outlined in the documents included:

• "Attempt to remove Mugabe by military means";
• "Go for tougher UK measures" such as freezing assets and closing the UK embassy; or
• "Re-open dialogue", the option supported by the then outgoing ambassador to Zimbabwe.

"Our experience shows 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".

Warnings of Significant Losses and Jurisdictional Barriers

It cautioned that military intervention would result in significant losses and have "considerable implications" for UK nationals in Zimbabwe.

"Short of a major humanitarian and political catastrophe – resulting in massive violence, large-scale refugee flows, and instability in the region – we assess that no nation in Africa would agree to any attempts to remove Mugabe forcibly."

The paper adds: "We also believe 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 authorising Security Council Resolution, which we would not get."

Playing the Longer Game Recommended

Blair's foreign policy adviser, a senior official, warned him that Zimbabwe "could become a significant obstacle" to his plan to use the UK's presidency of the G8 to make 2005 "the year of Africa". Lee concluded that as military action had been discounted, "it is likely necessary that we must adopt a long-term strategy" and re-open talks with Mugabe.

Blair seemed to concur, writing: "We must devise a way of exposing the falsehoods and misconduct of Mugabe and Zanu-PF up to this election and then afterwards, we could attempt to restart dialogue on the basis of a firm agreement."

The departing ambassador, in his valedictory telegram, had advocated cautious renewed contact with Mugabe, though he understood the Prime Minister "would likely be appalled given all that Mugabe has said and done".

Robert Mugabe 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 armed alliance to overthrow Mugabe were vehemently rejected by the former UK premier.