SADC MEDIATOR in CHIEF Thabo Mbeki was not worth ANC trust but is good enough for Zimbabwe according to SADC
Sadc Heads of State misfired yet again when they “resolved” that feuding Zimbabwe politicians must forthwith form an inclusive Government at their meeting in Sandtown South Africa on 9 November 2008.
To be fair this resolution was nothing new to anyone who follows political developments in the impoverished nation.
The resolution was an iteration of the tripartite Global Political Agreement signed between Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara on 15 September 2008 which had been referred back to the Heads of State as underwriters of its implementation of secondary resort after Mediator in Chief and first underwriter of first resort Thabo Mbeki and his reference group had failed to oversee implementation due to disputed inequities in the power sharing model proposed by Zanu PF octogenarian leader Robert Mugabe.
Robert Mugabe lost credible elections for re-election to the country’s Presidency on 29 March 2008. He refused to concede outright defeat and withheld results of that election for an unprecedented 32 days while his Party Zanu PF, The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the Joint Operations Commission (JOC) secretly fidgeted with the outcome to justify a Presidential runoff poll.
He then used brutal force, thuggery, murder, rape and other heinous crimes of intimidation to campaign for his re-election in the illegitimate runoff poll he had forcibly secured from a cowered ZEC.
By the time the runoff was staged on 27 June 2008 Mugabe was the sole contestant after leading contestant Morgan Tsvangirai was pulled out of the race by his MDC sponsors who had lost over 130 key activists to Mugabe’s violent campaign and had over 300 000 supporters displaced.
Robert Mugabe declared himself “landslide winner” of the farcical runoff poll and vowed to defend that gain with his life if need be against anyone aggrieved by his “success”.
SADC Heads of State who together with AU Heads of State had cajoled Morgan Tsvangirai to contest the runoff on undertakings the election conditions would remain as they were when he won the initial contest on 29 March, were shamed by the reports from their observer emissaries to the 27June runoff that declared the conditions under which the runoff was staged unsuitable for conduct of credible elections and the result as an inadmissible measure of the will of the Zimbabwe electorate.
At that juncture SADC and AU had options to resolve the looming crisis the disputed Presidential poll had triggered in the country whose economy has been battered by years of mismanagement, rampant corruption and alienation with most former Western block trade and political allies over the country’s human rights abuses.
They had the option to sanction Robert Mugabe for failing to conduct credible elections as per their minimum standards and tell him straight his re-election was null and void and he could not join them in meetings and conferences for Heads of State until that anomaly was rectified.
Alternatively they could have decided that the March 29 election results in the country stood and the winner was the legitimate President of the country whom they will engage in all future dealings with the country.
Finally they had a choice to set aside their electoral standards rules and in their place substitute conciliation and mediation, as they did, to resolve the dispute in a less embarrassing manner for Robert Mugabe whom many believe deserves respect for sacrificing his all to liberate the country from colonial bondage.
In all these choices the ultimate objective should have been clarified to restore electoral democracy in the country where the electorate had been disenfranchised by Zanu PF electioneering violence.
The SADC Heads of State were awe stricken by Mugabe’s Liberation War credentials that they decided to put the desire to protect his dignity ahead of the objective to uphold the will of the Zimbabwean electorate and restoration of threatened electoral democracy in the country.
This is where as it always has been in the past where SADC missed the point by a mile if not further.
Those of us who have followed how the League of African Presidents works when one of their numbers is under threat of dismissal from office for failed management by the electorate in their respective countries knew then as we do now that the MDC had a mountain to climb if their stolen electoral was to be recovered without undue blood spilling of innocent members of the electorate and the aristocrats in civil strife.
The African solutions to African problems adage for us is an African Presidential Trade Union of Heads of State rallying cry against disenchanted electorates whose dictates are couched in the principle of resistance to electoral decisions until the electorate summons the courage to reclaim their franchise using equal or more military force than that at the disposal of the insolent leader in question.
In Zimbabwe, SADC and AU like anywhere else where there has arisen a dispute between the leadership and the electorate are not and will not mediate to assist disenfranchised and deprived politically and militarily weaker citizens reassert their legislated rights to be led by leaders of their choice of free will.
Rather they are mediating to keep their member in the job regardless of the gravity and accuracy of incompetency charges levelled against him.
The SADC and AU mediation effort in Zimbabwe will always return a verdict that continues to support Robert Mugabe retaining his esteemed position as President and defacto leader of the country regardless of the reality that Zimbabweans no longer faithfully subscribe to his leadership in their majority.
The dictum behind this irrational support of unpopular regimes in Africa is the entrenched belief in many current African leaders that leadership and or regime change can only occur when the incumbent leader becomes militarily weaker than his challenger.
This is why military coups in Africa result in as legitimate a Head of an African State as one elected by a credible or incredible democratic electoral process.
Sounds very foolish and irrational but that is the reality in Africa and Zimbabwe is no exception to that cardinal rule that derived credence from how most countries secured freedom from colonialism.
The sooner MDC realises that appeals to SADC and AU over political disputes in the country with a senior and revered African Presidential Trade Unionist like Robert Mugabe are futile before they even contrived the better they will tackle the Zimbabwe impasse the country faces.
Zanu PF has been dishing numerous selling signals that would make it embrace real regime change in Zimbabwe be it from within its structure or competing political formations which signs have not been exploited to date.
Zanu PF and Mugabe will vouch any day and night that there will be no regime change in Zimbabwe that it does not approve. Whenever they say that Zimbabweans must know that Zanu PF are infact declaring that they will only hand over power to he who can command military muscle that matches or outweighs that at its disposal.
No party has really taken this hint seriously but now it maybe the tonic needed to complete the prolonged people’s democratic struggle against Mugabe and his illegal Junta regime.
When the SADC Heads of State therefore ruled that they still stand by the GPA and ordered the feuding parties to form a unity Government they irked the MDC and its majority following in the country but none of the African leadership.
The oppressed Zimbabweans have every reason to be infuriated by the bizarre SADC determination that the Unity Government must have a co-chaired Home Affairs ministry because that ministry had become central to the stall in forming the authority to lead the country.
SADC are fully aware that the arrangement is fraught with dangers of implosion but it’s a risk they are prepared to tackle when it arises rather than allow to come in the way of forming an inclusive government and open doors for external interference with sanctions against the country which will seriously harm regional economies because of the central position the country physically occupies making it the hub of regional inland trade routes.
An international blockade against Zimbabwe will translate in a total blockade against trade lines between Southern East Africa and Southern West Africa as it will be a major blockade on inland transport logistics linking South Southern Africa and North Southern Africa.
SADC regional leaders are not prepared to pay that hefty economic price because of political haggling in Zimbabwe over a particular ministry and reason that if the ministry is shared that will buy them time to strategise.
They are wrong though because a significant part of the aid package Zimbabwe needs to revive its ravaged economy will not materialise and its useful trade infrastructure for the region will continue to disintegrate further.
Secondly the ministry has emotional sway in Zimbabwe politics because of the way it has been politicised to suppress and savage fundamental human rights in the past and not many Zimbabweans and foreign investors alike and will derive inspiration from its shared control as accountability will be difficult to pin down.
In any event it is a serious indictment of the unity in Government’s unity if they do not trust each other with a ministry.
But the real reason behind fierce competition to control the Ministry is because of its military capacity that Zanu PF wants to retain if it is to remain politically relevant.
In the premise the MDC must pullout of the deal now rather than waste time appealing to the AU which will endorse the SADC ruling and find means to escalate the dispute over Mugabe’s legitimacy to the UN.
A similar implosion in Kenya was only controlled when the UN’s special envoy Kofi Anan became ceased with the dispute mediation and as long as mediation efforts in Zimbabwe remain in a Sadc appointee’s control the impasse will continue unabated.
The call by Dr Lovemore Madhuku of the National Constitutional Assembly for the MDC to mobilise its supporters against Mugabe’s intransigence requires serious thought as it has the greatest potential to highlight the extent of the crisis gripping the country which the endless negotiation process is suppressing at the moment.
It is hard to mobilise in Zimbabwe where ruthless force is used to suppress demonstrations but it appears the only viable route left for Zimbabweans to dissociate with Mugabe’s Junta and reclaim their stolen vote of 29 March 2008.
Accepting the co-sharing of any ministry will be the worst level of capitulation by the MDC that could cost it dearly in the future.
Only downright African fools would accept a foolish SADC resolution to co-share a ministry with a single administrative structure. Zimbabweans maybe battle weary to engage in serious demonstrations against Mugabe but an official MDC pullout of the GPA may just prove the reinvigorating catalyst the people are waiting for to engage the Junta.
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