At the ongoing African Union summit in Addis Ababa, the AU, once again, refused to discuss the unfolding tragedy in Zimbabwe.
Jean Mfasoni, AU Commission Secretary, said that Zimbabwe was not on the agenda because it is “now calm and these days there is no more fear that the situation will degenerate into a crisis”.
It is beyond me how an AU Secretary, with all the intelligence and information at his disposal, can throw such a bold lie in the face of suffering people who are being subjected to daily violence in Zimbabwe.
The AU ignores the early warning signs of impending disaster, burying their heads in the sand as diplomats and other concerned politicians are gripped with the fear that a new round of elections under the prevailing circumstances and before reforms will lead to a repeat of the political violence seen in 2008 elections.
The army, war veterans and youth militia are being deployed into rural areas, intimidating and beating up people.
In Chitungwiza, ZANU-PF youths attacked two senior members of an MDC faction. After assaulting them, they destroyed a house belonging to one of the officials.
The assaulted men could not get medical attention without police escort and the police refused to offer protection for the man to get to the hospital.
Meanwhile, the township of Mbare, just outside Harare, is a powder keg waiting to explode as ZANU-PF youths, allegedly in the company of police officers, are instigating exploratory violence and attacking MDC offices.
Last week, dozens of MDC supporters were injured, some of them seriously, “in a wave of weekend violence that saw gangs of ZANU PF youths rampaging through the capital”.
An MDC official is recovering in hospital after he was shot in the leg and assaulted by the youth militia.
A week ago, Tendai Biti, MDC Secretary General, warned that Zimbabwe could face a ‘bloodbath’ at elections this year if the international community does not help to prevent the crisis.
But the AU’s Mfasoni says that things are calm and that there is no fear that the situation will degenerate into a crisis.
As if the AU has done anything elsewhere, Mfasoni says his organisation is dealing with the crises in Ivory Coast, Somalia and Tunisia, where he said “governments are in disarray or marginal at best”.
The AU has no business in Tunisia where the people, without even their political parties, have done a great job and removed a dictator on their own.
The Tunisian army and police have kept things under control and allowed people the freedom they need.
The minute the AU goes into Tunisia, things will change and unnecessary fighting will erupt.
We know the AU and its habit of supporting dictators in Africa; we are aware of its less than enthusiastic attitude towards democracy.
Even in the Ivory Coast, where the regional body, ECOWAS, is actively courting the AU, the UN and other governments for assistance, the AU is facing in the other direction.
The AU Summit is being held under the theme: “Towards Greater Unity and Integration through Shared Values” but I guess the tragedy in Zimbabwe does not qualify for the attention of the AU.
What unity?
What integration?
If African leaders themselves had any shared values, would they not be standing together, denouncing murder by fellow heads of state? Would they not be standing together and work for the people of Africa?
If they had any shared values, why would the AU go after Laurent Gbagbo and not Robert Mugabe?
If these African despots had any shared values, would they have let one man destroy a nation, a region and murder his people so relentlessly for so many years?
The AU is yet another useless organ in Africa where technocrats assemble to earn mega salaries for doing absolutely nothing for the continent.
As these ‘pet shop boys’ were having tea and slapping each other on the back in Addis Ababa, a Gabonese opposition leader, Andre Mba Obame, declared himself the new leader of Gabon, creating a conflict with President Ali Bongo, who inherited the country from his father.
“This (declaration by Obame) threatens peace and security in Gabon, amid an increasing trend of governance and election crises across the continent,” said Jean Ping, the African Union Commission Chairman.
Ping, who hails from Gabon, worries about political developments in his home country but not in other African countries.
After all these decades of ruin, Ping still does not consider Mugabe to be a threat to peace and security.
The African Union cannot and should not try to solve problems by avoiding them.
The African Union, as the continent’s largest grouping, should work for peace among its nations, should maintain peace and must, of necessity, promote unity and encourage integration.
They cannot achieve these noble goals by applying double standards to member states and by avoiding certain problems.
The AU should be leading by example yet many a time, foreign governments or organizations have taken a leading role in solving some of Africa’s thorniest problems with the AU not involved or showing little presence.
I view the AU as a failure that missed great opportunities to bring and maintain peace in Africa.
The AU failed to stop wars in Africa.
The AU should have been standing head and shoulders above the rest of regional groupings but is now being out performed by groups such as ECOWAS.
Africa is cursed with numerous organizations, most of which duplicate work done by other groupings.
The fragmentation is causing regionalism and duplication. We have the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and a host of other groupings.
Several countries belong to more than one grouping, creating problems when it comes to giving preference and prioritizing.
The African Union should stop considering itself as a diplomatic organisation but a problem solver.
For too long now, African organizations have existed for no benefit to the local people.
For too long these organizations have retarded progress and supported leaders at the expense of the suffering people.
The crisis in Zimbabwe should never have been allowed to go as far as it has done. Where was the African Union all these years?
Why is there this silly clause in the AU Charter that forbids interference in the internal affairs of member countries?
And these are the same African people who say are working “towards greater unity and integration through shared values”!
