For the 30th time in as many years, the Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community will meet tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday to blow their own trumpets in self praise under the motto “SADC, 30 years progressing towards regional integration”.┬á
There are some who are waiting to hear about SADC’s successes during the past 30 years. They, like me, are particularly interested to know which SADC country was assisted to solve its problems by SADC or even which SADC country ever used SADC guidelines to run its elections?
This time around, SADC reportedly put Zimbabwe on its agenda and it remains to be seen who is going to say what about the deplorable situation in Zimbabwe and whether or not there will be any admonishing of Robert Mugabe who has caused so much suffering and abuse of people for as long as SADC has been in existence.
Disagreements over the Global Political Agreement, which gave birth to the moribund unity government in Zimbabwe, have been clogging up progress from since before the unity government was forced upon the Zimbabwean people.
The unity government has known nothing but disagreements and the two principal parties in government have shown their displeasure with each other by abandoning the talks at one time or other.
Most of the so-called outstanding issues have been outstanding from the time the unity government was consummated.
Two weeks ago, South African President Jacob Zuma sent his emissary to Zimbabwe to re-start the stalled talks.
What is of surprise is that the talks in question concern the current unity government and dwell on issues to do with the Global Political Agreement yet the parties in this coalition are all talking about elections as early as next year.
As Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe for South Africa on Friday on his way to Namibia for the SADC Summit, his party, the Movement for Democratic change (MDC), said Zimbabweans expect SADC to find lasting solutions to the outstanding issues which have dogged the unity government since its formation in February 2009.
I don’t know why they must keep looking back as the unity government nears its end.
Meanwhile and at the same time, Tsvangirai MDC spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, said their party “urges SADC to draw up a clear roadmap to free and fair elections and to deploy a SADC monitoring force from six months before elections until six months after balloting”.
This is what they should be fighting for now, not endless talks about an expiring coalition.
Time is being wasted on an agreement and on a government whose days are numbered.
It’s deliberate; it’s all in aid of Mugabe.
Attention is being taken away from the pressing issue of preparing for the forthcoming elections, which are most likely going to see the deadly replay of the 2008 elections in which so many people died from state sponsored violence.
Already, there is mayhem in Zimbabwe right now as, once again, Mugabe has unleashed the army, police, war veterans and the notorious Youth Brigades who go about threatening and beating up people, forcing them to reject a new constitution, which is an absolute necessity for the holding of any free and fair elections.
On Wednesday, Jabulani Sibanda, the leader of Mugabe’s war veterans, threatened Tsvangirai, likening him to “a fly on the window” which he could swat dead at anytime.
“If a fly is sitting on the steering wheel of a Kombi, it should not think that it is in control of the vehicle,” Sibanda said. “Tsvangirai is like a fly and we can crush him anytime.”
The constitutional outreach programme had to be suspended in several areas because of state sponsored threats and violence and yet this very important exercise is not being treated with the kind of urgency and importance it deserves.
Zuma and SADC are immune and silent on the ongoing abuse.
Despite having achieved absolutely nothing in Zimbabwe and having shown his partiality towards Mugabe, Zuma on Friday pre-empted any possible meaningful debate at the SADC summit by saying that “Zimbabwe is on the correct path”.
It is so sad to see state presidents playing such dangerous games with people’s lives.
What really do Zuma and his SADC colleagues want Zimbabweans to do?
Early this week, as Zuma trumpeted the nonsense about Zimbabwe being on the correct path, some 450 youths in Zimbabwe from different political backgrounds and tired of the ongoing violence, came together over the weekend “to kick out” political violence.
It was a touching effort and gesture by victims and perpetrators of political violence.
As Zuma sugar-coated the unfolding violence in Zimbabwe, lawyers in Southern Africa came out and called on regional leaders “to take action against Zimbabwe, for its ongoing disregard of rulings made by the SADC Tribunal”.
Zimbabwe has thumbed its nose at the SADC Tribunal several times, particularly over rulings concerning farms forcibly taken from some white farmers.
The General Council of the Bar of South Africa on Tuesday repeated calls by the SADC Lawyers Association last week, for SADC leaders to take “robust and decisive” action against Zimbabwe during this week’s SADC Summit in Namibia.
But Zuma is marching to the sound of a different drum.
“He (Zuma) will recognise that the task in Zimbabwe is not completed but the overwhelming picture is favourable,” South Africa’s Foreign Ministry Director General, Ayanda Ntsaluba, told a news conference in Pretoria. “There is a semblance of stability and Zimbabwe is on the correct path.”
On Wednesday, South Africa backed Zimbabwe’s sale of an estimated $72-million-worth of diamonds from the notorious Chiadzwa diamond mine, where so many people were murdered by the army.
It was the first such sale of diamonds after the Kimberly Process surprisingly gave its go ahead.
Ironically, Tsvangirai officiated at the sale.
But a US-based international network of diamond buyers and suppliers quickly advised its members to boycott diamonds from Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa fields.
It threatened “to expel and blacklist anyone who violated the ban on trading in gems from the controversial area”.
Zimonline reported that the New York-based Rapaport Diamond Trading Network said that although trading of Marange diamonds may be legal in certain countries, companies owning or selling the diamonds are prohibited by US, European Union and United Kingdom governments.
It boggles the mind why SADC wastes so much money and time holding these summits and coming up with principles, guidelines and regulations, which they themselves never follow then do nothing whenever a member state violates SADC’s own protocols.
I have never believed that SADC can solve anyone’s problems and I still believe so today.
SADC is a waste of resources and a shelter for leaders who abuse their people in the region.
SADC has failed the people in many countries, especially in Zimbabwe and Swaziland.
SADC put a tribunal in place but allows member states to ignore its pronouncements; it is a very expensive joke.
Thirty years of existence without achieving anything spells a lot of wasted money, time and resources.
One of these days, SADC just has got to try to solve just one problem in the region to acquire relevance.
“Frankly I don’t think we can put much hope in SADC. We couldn’t in the past and there’s certainly nothing to indicate that has changed,” said writer and human rights activist, Eleanor Sisulu. “The MDC has raised issues and basically they’ve been ignored by SADC. You can say SADC is a toothless bulldog that Zimbabwe ignores.”
No one listens to SADC, not even SADC itself.
