Zimbabwe Information Center in North America
A project of the North American Coalition for a Free Zimbabwe (NACFREEZ)
MDC
By Stanford G. Mukasa
Letter from America
August 13, 2007
The Letter and Spirit of the 1969 Lusaka Manifesto Must Prevail at this week's SADC Summit
The heads of state and government of the South African Development Community are meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, this week amidst a rapidly deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe. The situation was dramatically described as a “sinking Titanic” by Zambia’s president, Levy Mwanawasa, although his foreign minister later toned down these remarks.
President Mwanawasa is hosting this year’s SADC summit. For the next year he will be the spokesman for SADC on a variety of issues, including Zimbabwe.
President Mwanawasa will give his counterpart, Robert Mugabe, and his entourage the usual welcome with huge and generous hugs, ear-to-ear smiles, and he will exchange all kinds of friendly banter with the dictator.
President Mwanawasa and other heads of state will by now have received a thick 40 plus-page, nicely designed and packaged folder containing information purportedly to be evidence of the alleged violence by the Movement for Democratic Change. This package will have come from Mugabe’s propaganda department that masquerades as the Ministry of Information and Publicity.
SADC leaders will also be given a report stating the talks, brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki, are progressing well and an agreement is very close between the ZANUPF and the MDC. The objectives of these documents are very obvious – to give SADC leaders the impression that Mugabe is actively engaged in finding solutions to the country, and that the country’s problems are a direct result of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the western countries, notably, Britain and the United States.
When he addresses SADC, Mugabe will say that Zimbabwe is taking tough measures against the opposition MDC as part of its fight against what he calls t"errorism perpetrated by the MDC." He will say his regime and Zimbabwe are being punished by the West because he is promoting black empowerment and the indigenization of the economy.
The big challenge for President Mwanawasa and other heads of state is whether they will swallow hook, line and sinker Mugabe’s propaganda, leading to the SADC summit ending with strong support for Mugabe.
But if President Mwanawasa maintains his position that Zimbabwe is a sinking Titanic then he, as the SADC host for this year’s summit, will take a more objective look at what is really happening in Zimbabwe today. SADC heads of state must try to truth-check Mugabe’s propaganda with the following Zimbabwean realities:
What Mugabe calls terrorism by the opposition movement is a mischievous distortion of facts, a myth that is not supported by substantial evidence. Mugabe’s cases against all MDC officials and supporters who have been arrested and tried for this so-called terrorism have failed dismally in courts which, ironically, are full of judges who were appointed and politicized by Mugabe. Yet the same judges have found it ludicrously difficult to rule in favor of the State.
In one ruling a judge had the courage to say the State had fabricated evidence against the accused. Referring to the allegation of training camps in South Africa the judge noted that none of the state witnesses or accusers was able to identify the location of those camps. State witnesses and the prosecutor would not even mention the name of towns or cities where the camps were supposedly based!
In a remarkable contrast to allegations of MDC violence as peddled by the Mugabe regime, almost all, if not all, eye witness accounts, reports by the international media, and pictures, point unequivocally to violence by Mugabe’s dreaded thugs, police, and the army. And the results of that violence have been horrid pictures of badly assaulted members of the MDC.
Even Mugabe himself has on a number of occasions been quoted as boasting about assaulting the members of the opposition movement.
Human rights organizations and others have independently and meticulously documented in detail overwhelming evidence of ZANUPF violence against opposition members. Opposition members are arrested, assaulted almost on a daily basis for peaceful demonstrations, political gatherings, worshipping, or even playing football! Yet, ZANUPF supporters can demonstrate, assault opposition supporters, or even commit other unspeakable crimes against humanity without being restrained or arrested.
Since 2000, an estimated 500 supporters have been murdered in cold blood, thousands have been assaulted or had their property destroyed, sometimes in the presence of the police.
Just this year alone 400 or more supporters of the opposition movement, including the leadership, have been badly assaulted. Some of them, including those seriously beaten have been denied medical treatment.
MDC deputy secretary for international affairs and also a victim of violence by ZANUPF, Grace Kwinjeh, correctly described this mayhem by ZANUPF more than an assault. She called it attempted murder for which none of the perpetrators was ever brought before the courts. Evidence of police complicity was that many of these assaults took place in police cells and were inflicted by the police themselves.
On the economic front Mugabe and ZANUPF have more than amply demonstrated that they have reduced the economy into shambles. They bear over 90 percent of the responsibility for economic crimes against humanity.
Where else in the world would you find a government arbitrarily ordering shops to cut by half the prices of goods they sell, and then sending thugs and police to harass, assault and arrest shop owners who do not lower the prices out of a genuine fear of losing money? The result of this stupid policy has been the empty shelves in many shops, with shop owners refusing to restock.
The very same public whom Mugabe was hoping would benefit and, therefore, gain him and ZANUPF some political support have now become victims worse off than ever because they cannot find the basic commodities in the shops.
Mugabe’s argument to SADC that this meltdown of the economy is a result of sanctions is simply not true.
Many people and analysts have climbed on this sanctions bandwagon.
But according to the foreign trade statistics of the United States Census Bureau Zimbabwe has traditionally had a surplus balance of trade with the United States. This means Zimbabwe had a surplus or profit in its trade with the United States.
Let us look at the trade figures starting from the year 2000.
In the year 2000 the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$52. 3 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$112.5 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$60.2 million.
In 2001 the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$31.3 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$90.7 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$59.4 million.
In 2002 the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$49.4 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$102.8 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$53.4 million.
In 2003 the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$41.7 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$56.6 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$14.9 million.
In 2004 the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$47.3 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$76.2 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$28.9 million.
In 2005 the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$45.5 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$94.3 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$48 million.
In 2006 the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$47.6 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$103.3 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$55.7 million.
Between January and May of 2007 this year, the United States’ exports to Zimbabwe totaled US$16.7 million, and imports from Zimbabwe were US$28 million, leaving a surplus balance of trade in favor of Zimbabwe of US$11.4 million.*
*[Source: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c7960.html]
What these figures show is that Zimbabwe’s economy has had a lucrative and beneficial trade with the United States in the past seven years. There are no indications that this trade will change its pattern in the near future. So where are the sanctions if Zimbabwe is benefiting profitably from trading with the United States?
If SADC heads of state accept whatever Mugabe tells them about the cause of the precipitous economic decline, namely sanctions, then they are burying their heads in the sand and refusing to accept the reality of the Zimbabwean tragedy.
On the Zimbabwean question President Mwanawasa, as host of the SADC summit, will have two options.
He can choose to accept whatever Mugabe tells him and issue the now familiar and routine bland statements of solidarity with, and support for, Mugabe at the end of the summit.
Or, President Mwanawasa can choose to follow up on a statement he made a few months ago when he said that Zimbabwe was a sinking Titanic. This would entail taking a stronger stand against Mugabe.
Mugabe’s behavior threatens the security, economy and stability of SADC countries. Virtually all SADC countries have less than 20 percent inflation rates, and have recorded modest economic growth rates. Compare this to Zimbabwe’s inflation rate of between 5,000 and 10,000 percent and the negative growth rate for the past seven years.
In some ways, the Lusaka SADC Summit resembles the meeting of the frontline states during the apartheid era in South Africa. The then frontline presidents issued what came to be known as the Lusaka Manifesto in 1969.
In this Manifesto the frontline states stated they were not fighting against apartheid or minority rule in the then Rhodesia because these countries where governed by whites. They were fighting against the lack of humanity, lack of political equality, lack of basic human rights that had been denied to the oppressed masses in those countries.
The Lusaka Manifesto gave the apartheid rulers and minority regimes two options. Either the white regimes seriously negotiate a peaceful resolution of the crisis they had created or face a violent uprising.
Today the new apartheid monster in southern Africa is the repressive and dictatorial regime of Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Will the SADC leaders have the same courage; vision and humanitarian concern for the embattled Zimbabweans to be able to stand up condemn Mugabe for doing exactly, if worse, what apartheid rulers and Ian Smith in Zimbabwe were doing to the blacks?
The SADC summit must put aside the fact that Mugabe is black, was involved in the freedom struggle or that he is standing up to what he calls western imperialism.
The SADC summit must condemn Mugabe simply for his excessively repressive and dictatorial regime, and for denying the masses of Zimbabwe their basic human rights and their humanity. This was the essence of spirit of the Lusaka Manifesto. It must prevail at the SADC summit 38 years after it first issued.