Foreign Office Advised Against Military Action to Topple Robert Mugabe

Recently released documents reveal that the Foreign Office cautioned against British military action to overthrow the then Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, in 2004, advising it was not considered a "serious option".

Policy Papers Reveal Considerations on Handling a "Depressingly Healthy" Dictator

Internal documents from the then Prime Minister's government indicate officials weighed up options on how best to handle the "depressingly healthy" 80-year-old leader, who declined to leave office as the country descended 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, No 10 asked the Foreign Office in July 2004 to produce potential courses of action.

Policy of Isolation Deemed Not Working

Diplomats concluded that the UK's strategy to isolate Mugabe and forging an international consensus for change was not working, having failed to secure support from influential African states, notably the then South African president, Thabo Mbeki.

Courses considered in the documents included:

• "Seek to remove Mugabe by military means";
• "Implement tougher UK measures" such as freezing assets and shuttering the UK embassy; or
• "Re-open dialogue", the option advocated by the then outgoing ambassador to Zimbabwe.

"Our experience shows from Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia that changing a government and/or its bad policies is almost impossible from the outside."

The diplomatic assessment rejected military action as not a "realistic option," and warned that "The only candidate for leading such a armed intervention is the UK. No other country (even the US) would be prepared to do so".

Cautionary Notes of Significant Losses and Jurisdictional Barriers

It cautioned that military involvement would cause heavy casualties and have "considerable implications" for British people in Zimbabwe.

"Barring a severe human and political disaster – resulting in widespread bloodshed, large-scale refugee flows, and instability in the region – we judge 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 sanction or join military intervention. And there would be no jurisdictional basis for doing so, without an approving Security Council Resolution, which we would not get."

Long-Term Strategy Advocated

Blair's foreign policy adviser, Laurie Lee, advised Blair that Zimbabwe "could become a significant obstacle" to his plan to use the UK's leadership of the G8 to make 2005 "a pivotal year for Africa". 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 seemed to concur, noting: "We should work out a way of revealing the lies and malpractice of Mugabe and Zanu-PF ahead of this election and then subsequently, we could attempt to restart dialogue on the basis of a clear understanding."

The then outgoing ambassador, in his final diplomatic dispatch, had advocated critical re-engagement 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, at the age of 93. Earlier assertions that in the early 2000s Blair had tried to pressure the South African president into joining a military coalition to overthrow Mugabe were strongly denied by the former UK premier.