With only four days left before the Southern African Development Community (SADC) heads of state assemble for the Malawi Summit, an obscure group calling itself the Pan African Forum Limited (PAFL) has called for the repudiation of Botswana, accusing it of being a liability to SADC and the African Union (AU). Botswana according to PAFL, is a tool used by Western countries to “destabilize Africa” and it continues to make SADC bleed by opposing many of its activities including economic ones.
“The Forum would like to bring to the attention of SADC and the African Union the insubordinate character of a member state (Botswana) and call for the respective bodies to whip Botswana, dissembling dissatisfaction on African resolutions into line. If not checked Botswana has the possibility of being the conduit of precipitating a Syrian type of crisis in Zimbabwe,” said CEO of PAFL, Dr David NyekorachÔÇôMatsanga, who describes Botswana as “a country where either the leadership is mentally derailed or it has sickness from imperialism”.
He announces on the group’s online network that Botswana’s demand of a recount in Zimbabwe, which is based on a suspicion of election fraud is simply a “mollifying illusion”.
“Our poignant view concludes that Robert Mugabe was poised for an emphatic and historic win.
Whatever nonsense Botswana wants to bring we shall counter it word by word,” said Dr Matsanga.
The criticism from PAFL ,an informal organization made up of Academics, University Students leaders, youth and African patriotic members from 54 nations of the AU, comes as a result of Botswana calling for an audit on the recently ended Zimbabwe elections.
Botswana further declared that it will not recognize Robert Mugabe as President of Zimbabwe.
Botswana, once again, finds itself at odds with its regional and continental counterparts as Member states of SADC such as South-Africa, Tanzania, Namibia, and Zambia have accepted the results to the extent of declaring that the elections were free and peaceful.
Matsanga gives examples of the angry backlash from the continent earlier this year when the Botswana Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani made utterances about the Presidential election process in Kenya. Botswana’s stand differed from that of SADC and the AU; the Minister later retracted his statements.
