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 20, 2007
SADC leaders’ great betrayal of the embattled Zimbabweans
The news coming from the Lusaka summit for the Southern African Development Community appears to indicate that the region’s heads of state did not produce any meaningful strategy in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis.
Reports that they privately gave Robert Mugabe a tough talk about political reforms are de javu. Zimbabweans have heard this before in previous meetings.
The SADC leaders’ expression of satisfaction at the way the talks between MDC and ZANUPF were progressing amounted to pathetic ignorance about what really was happening on the ground. Had they listened to Mugabe’s crony, Patrick Chinamasa, on Zambian radio interview only a day or two before, SADC leaders would have heard him say ZANUPF does not need to have any talks with the MDC.
Had the SADC leaders also cared to listen to MDC vice president, Thokozani Khupe’s remarks they would have learned that talks were not going well. And had they bothered to read or listen to mass media reports in the past few weeks they would have noticed that the ZANUPF delegation had absconded from some of the scheduled talks in Pretoria.
Given the above realities on the ground, the SADC leaders’ statements only confirmed what Zimbabweans had feared, namely, the regional leadership was going to swallow, hook, line and sinker all the propaganda fed to them by South African President Thabo Mbeki and Robert Mugabe.
The thunderous applause Robert Mugabe received at the summit was a clear message that SADC leaders have resolved to bury their heads in the sand in as far as the Zimbabwean problem is concerned.
And Zambian president, Levy Mwanawasa’s statement contained nothing that reflected a serious concern and resolve to play a proactive role in tackling the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
This should not surprise anyone. The SADC leaders’ position has consistently been that of a solid support for Mugabe while creating the smokescreen that they were engaged in quiet diplomacy. SADC leaders are still intoxicated with their perpetual admiration for Mugabe’s so-called struggle for independence over 30 years ago. This is the Mugabe they are most comfortable with. They would rather see or hear nothing else about Mugabe who has now become in their mindsets a political holy shrine for the nationalist agitation for independence.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has reflected this SADC spectator approach to the Zimbabwean problem. Notwithstanding all promises to talk tough to Mugabe, Mbeki and SADC leaders have now closed ranks and formed a protective ring around Mugabe. They have closed their eyes, ears and mouths to the brutal repression of Zimbabweans by Mugabe.
This, in fact, was the essence of the SADC leaders’ thunderous applause for Mugabe.
They chose not see or hear that the same Mugabe they were wildly cheering was responsible for the politically motivated murders of thousands of innocent civilians in Matabeleland and as well as over 400 supporters of the MDC since 2000.
They became the Biblical Sadducees in the parable of the good Samaritan when they chose not even to look, let alone act, on Mugabe’s crimes against humanity which are growing daily.
SADC leaders also chose not to see or be reminded of the grisly pictures of Mugabe’s victims who had been assaulted by Mugabe’s well-known thugs and whose pictures have been splashed around the world’s mass media.
In their drunken stupor with admiration for Mugabe, SADC leaders even refused to acknowledge a humanitarian crisis that has plunged Zimbabweans into a Stone Age existence where each day is an uphill struggle for survival.
These are the same SADC leaders who in the heydays of the frontline states agitation against colonialism and apartheid in Southern Africa had they their eyes on the ball in as far as atrocities in those countries were being perpetrated daily by the white minority regimes.
In their famous and historic 1969 Lusaka Manifesto the frontline states talked passionately and with great empathy about the suffering masses under the brutal white minority regimes. The frontline states talked of lack of humanity, lack of basic human rights and the denial of voting rights for the masses and warned that the minority regimes had two options: either to negotiate with the representatives of the masses or face a violent uprising.
But now the same atrocities are being inflicted at regrettably an even worse scale by a black regime of Mugabe. It seems there is no problem with that as far as the SADC leaders are concerned. In fact, the thunderous applause for Mugabe appeared to reflect what can be easily interpreted as a tacit approval and a reward for Mugabe’s dictatorship. How else does anyone explain this?
It now turns out that President Mwanawasa’s remark a few months ago that Zimbabwe was a sinking Titanic was an accidental and naïve anecdote which had no substance to it. This explains why his foreign minister was at pains to erase the remark and replace it with sing- song praises for Mugabe.
Reports of a SADC economic bailout for Zimbabwe are more rhetoric than real action. With the exception of South Africa SADC countries, notwithstanding their modest economic growth rates, do not have any sustainable capacity to rescue Zimbabwe which used to be a regional economic powerhouse and a breadbasket for SADC.
It will take the active intervention of the international community and organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank to put together a viable rescue package for Zimbabwe.
At any rate Mugabe is unlikely to accept the so-called called conditions attached to the economic rescue package from SADC, just like he spurned a similar offer from South Africa a few years ago. Having been promised some aid from China and Libya Mugabe does not feel he is in a tight corner that would compel him to accept conditional aid from SADC.
SADC leaders have been hoodwinked by the Mugabe propaganda that the economic problems have been caused by sanctions, and that SADC must lobby the West to lift them. They do not seem to understand that 30 years ago Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia under Ian Smith, was under United Nations sanctions. Yet the situation never deteriorated as low as today.
Zimbabweans are today openly stating that life under Ian Smith was better than today. This is not to say they wish they could be ruled by Ian Smith again. What they are reflecting on here are broken promises, lack of basic human rights and a decrepit social and economic infrastructure that characterizes post colonial Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans are not in anyway suggesting they expected at independence to inherit a land of milk and honey. What they are simply appalled at is the fact that what started as a hopeful promise for a free, secure and progressive life immediately after independence has now deteriorated to levels that no one could ever imagine in independent Zimbabwe.
What are lessons learned from the SADC summit in as far as Zimbabwe is concerned?
First and foremost, SADC heads of state are an elite club. They share common interests. For this reason they see their mission as that of protecting each other. They will not abandon each other and they will not sacrifice each other just to promote democracy, free and fair elections or human rights in each other’s countries. They see each other as more important that the people they rule.
Secondly, SADC leaders see Mugabe as indispensable, and as far they and their interests are concerned Zimbabweans are dispensable. This is why Mugabe can commit unspeakable atrocities and never draw a single word of condemnation from the SADC leadership.
The third lesson to be learned from the Lusaka summit is simply that Zimbabweans cannot look up to the SADC leadership for any kind of help to rid them of the oppressive regime of Mugabe. What SADC leaders have, to all intent and purposes, told Zimbabweans is: You are on your own.
When President Mwanawasa said SADC was available to help Zimbabwe he was not referring to Zimbabweans but to Mugabe and ZANUPF. Proof of this is none of the SADC leadership would meet with representatives from the opposition movement or civil society who had come to present their side of the story at the Lusaka summit. In other words, here were concerned Zimbabweans appealing for help from SADC leadership and yet being shown a political middle finger. Some of them never made it past the Zambian border. Others were detained.
Another lesson learned from the SADC summit is that the opposition movement in Zimbabwe must now lobby civil society in the region. There is need for a regional organization of civil societies that will bring pressure to bear from within their countries. The SADC leaders are too close, and too friendly, to Mugabe to be honest brokers in resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe.
But lobbying regional civil societies must be part of a wider strategy that should include internal acts of civil disobedience. These two strategies will be a useful complement to economic and other pressures that are piling on Mugabe and ZANUPF.