On November 5, 2009 the SADC Troika met in Maputo, Mozambique, as they tried to save Zimbabwe’s unity government, which was teetering on the brink of collapse after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had partially ‘disengaged’ from the government and cut off further contact with Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF colleagues.
The unity government came out of the so-called Global Political Agreement (GPA), which SADC, South Africa and the African Union forced on Tsvangirai and his party.
Right from the very beginning, the unity government was beset by problems, including fights over cabinet posts, fights over some appointments, and simple refusal to implement the GPA.
Mugabe was always stalling and caused numerous problems along the way until Tsvangirai had had enough and pulled his cabinet ministers out of government offices, refusing to cooperate until all “outstanding issues had been resolved”.
Some of the outstanding issues included the immediate swearing into office of provincial governors, over whom Mugabe continues to drag his feet since this would require him to drop his people to be replaced by MDC officials.
There is also the contentious issue of the Attorney General, Johannes Tomana, and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Gideon Gono.
The MDC says Tomana was appointed outside the set parameters of the GPA and must be dismissed, while Tsvangirai also says Mugabe extended Gono’s tenure without authority of other members of the Government of National Unity.
Tomana and Gono are staunch Mugabe loyalists. Tomana is currently personally prosecuting Roy Bennett, a Tsvangirai loyalist whom Mugabe has refused to swear into cabinet as deputy minister of Agriculture, accusing him of trying to assassinate him.
Gono, on the other hand, is alleged to be Mr and Mrs Mugabe’s personal banker and the MDC does not want him anywhere near government tills, accusing him of having assisted Mugabe to ruin the economy through the reckless printing of money, which resulted in Zimbabwe breaking historical and current inflation records.
Meanwhile, the country slowly slides into chaos again.
Farm invasions that had almost ceased started again. The arrest of MDC officials on trumped up treasonous charges continues in earnest, disappearances continue while, all of a sudden, people, notably those deemed sympathetic to the MDC, have started “committing suicide” while in police custody.
There was never a good working relationship among ZANU-PF and the MDC.
“Our marriage with Zanu-PF in the inclusive government is that of a man and woman who just bear children but are not in love with each other,” said Tongai Matutu, a Tsvangirai parliamentarian and co-chairperson of the select committee on the constitutional reform process. “We are not in love with Zanu-PF that is why you saw us partially pulling out of the government over the outstanding issues.”
There seems little urgency among the three. The Maputo meeting directed that the three “principals” must sit down and iron out their differences in 15 days.
That time limit expired yesterday (Saturday November 21) while Tsvangirai was on his way to Libya via morocco.
Mugabe has also been away to a UN food conference in Europe where he took with him an entourage of 60 people.
Reports say that a meeting on Monday between Tsvangirai and Zanu PF negotiators, Patrick Chinamasa and Nicholas Goche, and MDC-T’s Tendai Biti did not last long because of the absence of Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, key MDC-Mutambara negotiators.
“I don’t know when the negotiations will take place,” Biti is quoted as saying. “Ncube and Priscilla are not in the country and the talks cannot go on without them.”
As he also prepared to fly out of the country, Tsvangirai said the negotiators would meet soon.
“The whole urgency of the matter is to try and rescue the credibility of the inclusive government,” he said, before he left the country for Morocco and Libya. “I am going to Morocco at the invitation of an institute and also to have a detailed discussion on areas of cooperation with the Moroccan government.”
At the height of last year’s intense negotiations that ushered in the unity government, someone in Morocco invited Tsvangirai over there and he came back home with an award of some sort.
From Morocco, Tsvangirai travels to Libya, the current African Union chair, where he said he will brief Muammar Gadaffi on the unity government.
On Friday, MDC-Tsvangirai posted a statement on their website in which they launched a stinging attack on negotiators from the MDC-Mutambara, branding their counterparts as “mischievous and insincere” for delaying talks to resolve the outstanding issues in the unity government, saying it was extremely concerned at the lack of urgency shown by ZANU PF and Arthur Mutambara’s party, in resolving the outstanding issues as soon as possible, as instructed by the guarantors.
“The deadline set by the SADC troika for the resolution of outstanding issues has once again been missed because of the intransigence, mischief and insincerity exhibited by the political players who are not taking the plight of the people of Zimbabwe seriously,” the statement said.
Welshman Ncube, Mutambara’s Secretary General, rejected the accusations and blamed the other parties for alleged failure to commit themselves to the talks.
“People are there but they are saying they have other commitments,” said Ncube. “I do not know what their commitments are.”
That all these principal players can actually go globe-trotting when there is so much important and urgent business to be attended to is a mystery never meant to be solved.
Mugabe too left to attend two obscure conferences then thumbed his nose at the EU as he entered a European country for a UN Food conference where he showed his decaying side by insulting people and demanding money from Britain.
The two key Mutambara MDC negotiators decided that attending a World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference in Europe was of more importance than to take seriously the deadline set by SADC.
Tsvangirai, apparently leaving the negotiations to his juniors, left for Libya, reportedly to brief Gaddafi, the “chairman” of the AU, about the progress of the GNU.
If I had it my way, I would confiscate these carefree people’s passports, lock them up in a room with minimal ventilation and tell them to go to work.
For the whole top group to rush to get on planes when the people and the nation are so desperate for solutions at such a critical point is all the evidence we need to kick all of them out of office.
What is it that should urgently be told to Gaddafi that cannot wait? Zimbabwean ministers and negotiators go to a world trade conference, for what? What are they selling? What are they buying?
It is such a shame to see the MDC behaving in such a manner. It is insulting and insensitive on their part to do what they have always accused Mugabe of. At least they could have taken their trips at a time that did not belittle the efforts of SADC.
SADC gave them time limits because they believed how urgent this exercise is but as soon as they left Maputo, Zimbabwean negotiators went straight to their homes to pack their bags and leave so that the deadline would come and go in their absence.
Can we be faulted to conclude that Zimbabwe’s so-called “principals” and their ministers want to perpetuate the misery because they are all benefitting from it? They all ran to hide from the SADC deadline and we are, once again, made to wait for them to assemble at their own convenience not at the convenience or beckoning of the nation.
Kick the rascals out!
