Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic change announced on Friday that they reject a recent ruling by regional leaders that compelled both Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change to share responsibility over the Ministry of Home Affairs and form an all inclusive government forthwith.
The ridiculous directive was the climax of deliberations by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) over the stalemate in Zimbabwe.
However, Arthur Mutambara of the splinter group of the MDC quickly responded to the rejection of the ruling by Tsvangirai’s main MDC group, calling Tsvangirai “foolish” and “un-strategic” by not accepting the SADC recommendations.
Desperate to be included in any settlement, Mutambara went on to tell those critics who are calling him a spoiler ‘to go hang.’
SADC should disband before it causes more embarrassment to both itself and Africa.
One of these days, their ineptitude and misguided decisions are bound to spark a civil war in a member state.
Their lack of direction has made them totally irrelevant to current issues bedeviling the region.
These highly paid “diplomats” (as of 2004, the salary of SADC Executive Secretary stood at US $82,000. He has had a massive double story house built for him behind State House in Gaborone) do not appear to be serving the interests of SADC citizens but those of some unknown masters elsewhere.
Even SADC member states flout the organisation’s regulations with impunity.
No one listens to SADC, not even SADC itself.
SADC lacks authority. It does not appear as if it was formed to tackle problems in the region but to provide comic relief to dictators as they take a rest from their constant abuse of citizens.
That and SADC’s reluctance to criticize member states has left the region with an organization that exists quite expensively but one which is not providing any tangible service to the region that is so much affected by many ills.
We hardly heard of anything SADC did when Mozambique was devastated by floods.
SADC did absolutely nothing when SADC citizens turned against each other in South Africa in the infamous murderous spree that came to be referred to as ‘xenophobia attacks’.
SADC has stood by and watched the mayhem in Swaziland as a king molested his own people and played no role as a regional organization in the DR Congo war which, once again, has returned to haunt the region and Africa.
Even in Botswana where Botswana was having an argument with some of its minority citizens of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, SADC shut its mouth and pretended not to hear or see.
If SADC cannot interfere and assist in the internal affairs of its member states, what is their mandate and how do they execute it?
Angola, a member of SADC’s own so-called troika responsible for regional Politics, Defense and Security, has just gone and joined the war in DR Congo on the side of the government of Joseph Kabila.
Angola, along with embattled Zimbabwe, finds itself back in the DRC without SADC’s mandate.
On Thursday, Botswana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Phandu Skelemani, told parliament that although decisions are reached by consensus “after which they reflect the collective position of the organization”, Botswana did not go along with decisions that SADC pronounced on Zimbabwe, saying, “It would be remiss of us if we did not express our strong reservations/disagreement, as we did during the Summit, regarding the co-management of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Zimbabwe).”
At the summit in South Africa, SADC shied away from putting Robert Mugabe on the spot and, instead, foolishly suggested that the contentious issue of who gets the Ministry of Home Affairs be solved by ordering the two political parties to appoint two ministers, one from each political party, to run the ministry simultaneously.
Really, how can anyone serious about issues listen to such childish and, clearly, foolish suggestion?
But Botswana publicly differed with SADC on such a cowardly pronouncement.
“The co-management of a ministry by two Ministers from different parties is unrealistic, impracticable and unworkable,” said minister Skelemani.
Even political parties hardly have any time for SADC’s pathetic display of regional peace brokering efforts.
On Friday, Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change issued a statement after a marathon meeting in Harare.
“The MDC rejects the SADC “ruling” and communiqu├® of the 9th of November 2008 on the basis that the same was unprocedurally arrived at in that Robert Mugabe, an interested party, sat in during deliberations in total defiance of the SADC Chairman’s ruling that the three Zimbabwean parties recuse themselves.”
At the Summit, SADC Chairman, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, had asked Mugabe to leave the room so that they could deliberate on the Zimbabwean issue. Mugabe simply refused and stayed, forcing SADC to debate the issue in Mugabe’s presence.
Even SADC’s own leaders did not find it worth their time to attend the circus. Only six out of SADC’s 15 Heads of State cared to attend this “summit”.
Blunders, mindless and short-sighted decision making, partiality, fear of criticising member states, appeasement and inability to formulate and adhere to policy, continue to plague SADC.
The organisation is not helping much in the region and the thousands spent on it are better used were the monies channeled to development projects in the region.
While Zimbabwe is SADC’s most glaring failure, it is still difficult to see any country in which SADC can claim they made a difference.
Whoever is funding the moribund SADC should hold on to their wallet and put their money to better use in this region that cries out for help and leadership.
SADC should just disband and leave individual countries to meet the challenges on their own.
Donor organisations, the EU, the US and other funders of SADC should apply some pressure on African countries that continue to retard good governance and that continue to support the murder, abuse and starving of innocent people in countries such as Zimbabwe; they should withhold their money.
The African Union and SADC watched the developments in Zimbabwe turning worse and worse but are now unable or unwilling to apply the right kind of solutions. Instead of stepping in and saving the abused people, SADC leaders would rather support a man Zimbabweans rejected at the polls and a man who is messing up the economies of other countries in the region.
