The only way Southern Africa can ever hope to reassert its lost influence over Zimbabwe is if the various countries in the Sub-Continent were seen to be at the forefront of international efforts to rebuild Zimbabwe.
There should be an admission that mistakes have been done in the past, but that the future of the Zimbabwean people lies in rebuilding their lives.
No amount of good governance and observation of Human rights will make Zimbabwe stand up again.
What is needed is that over and above good governance there be material and financial resources committed to that country.
The sooner that is done the better!
If there are too many strings SADC attaches before helping Zimbabwe out, it will not be long before the ordinary Zimbabweans lose faith even in what promises to be the best hope for that country out of the morass; The Government of National Unity.
We call on the Botswana Government, which has been at the forefront of condemning Robert Mugabe, to also be at the forefront of all efforts that are likely to bring sanity, economic recovery and prosperity to Zimbabwe.
Helping Zimbabwe out is a direct way of helping SADC.
As a country and as an economy, Zimbabwe is an integral component of SADC.
There is no way the economy of SADC could be fully functional for as long as Zimbabwe is on its knees.
We have our own reservations about Mugabe’s sincerity to share real power with the Movement for Democratic Change, but natural justice dictates that we should give him the benefit of doubt.
In the same breath we make no pretensions that the road to Zimbabwean recovery will be any easy.
The point to underscore is that there simply can never be a way through which the Government of Zimbabwe on its own would rebuild that country.
While the countries of the West have their own reasons to continue with their sanctions against Zimbabwe, the reasons advanced by those countries cannot be shared by SADC countries.
Countries of the West have no direct interest in Zimbabwe other than that of spreading their democratic ideals.
As for the rest of the SADC region, their people and those of Zimbabwe are one, bound together by blood and cultural relations which cannot be wiped away, however passionate our hatred for Mugabe and his criminal cronies is.
We appreciate the economic difficulties that SADC countries are going through as a result of the global economic down turn, but if fully functional economies could be in such dire straits, what then of Zimbabwe.
Rather than the current difficulties being the reasons to turn our backs on Zimbabwe, we pray that they be all the reason why Botswana would want to help.
Early signs so far are encouraging and we hope that over and above pleading an international case for Zimbabwe, the Government of Botswana will dig into its coffers to help out, if not as a gesture of symbolism then, at least, as a show of cultural solidarity.
