SADC leaders betrayed Zimbabweans at Lusaka summit!!

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Tuesday 04 September 2007


By Tanonoka Joseph Whande

GABORONE – President Robert Mugabe got another standing ovation for capably pulling in the opposite direction of where the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is trying to go.

The ovation came, not from those rent-a-crowd mobs we see at airports whenever an African president leaves or arrives home, but from the African Heads of State themselves.

In the last 15 years and more, Mugabe has done nothing but ruin a country, murdering a nation and its economy. It’s sad that we are losing count of those citizens whose deaths he is responsible for.

Mugabe has literally chased judges and magistrates out of the country, with most of them now in Britain, Botswana, South Africa and surrounding countries. So are Zimbabwean engineers, doctors and other professionals.

Many Zimbabwean journalists, in and outside the country, have been attacked; many have gone missing, with others turning up dead.

Mugabe withholds food from the hungry citizens because he suspects them of being loyal to opposition political parties.

The economies of South Africa and Botswana, countries both whose presidents were in the crowd applauding Mugabe, are the saddest victims of Mugabe’s behaviour.

Mugabe has even had the temerity to refuse food help for the starving people and, for years now, has even been denying women access to donated sanitary pads, which are no longer available in the country.

As they gathered in Lusaka, Mugabe achieved an inflation rate of 7 634.8 percent. And for that, he got a standing ovation!

SADC leaders applauded Mugabe for killing a nation. So it came to pass that I was betrayed in a little town called Lusaka in Zambia. The whole nation of Zimbabwe was betrayed by these leaders.

Villagers in Angola, Lesotho, the DR Congo, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and women and tribesmen in the whole of southern Africa were betrayed as well.

And they are the ones who are paying for the now conspicuous and indefensible buffoonery of regional leaders. How many of its men, women and children does Africa bury everyday?

Dead at the short-sightedness of Africa’s leaders. We are at war with ourselves. And we kill while our presidents applaud. As per their annual custom, our leaders met to deliberate on our difficulties.

Africans, always full of faith, bred in compassion and optimistic, waited expectantly. The wart on Africa’s face remains.

Our leaders came back home to be met, at the airports, by cabinet ministers and cheering members of society congratulating them for having put, like Pink Floyd said, another brick in the wall, closing out any possibility for change in Zimbabwe.

Like numerous times before, all SADC leaders applauded a murderer in their midst. It was betrayal and treachery of continental proportions.

Thabo Mbeki, who miraculously succeeded to get all SADC leaders into a full nelson, poisoned the gathered leaders and shielded Mugabe. And none of the SADC leaders dissented or yelled for help.

Instead, they applauded the murderer among them, calling him a liberator to whom, apparently, they gave the assignment to kill his own citizens and top it all with destroying not only their countries but the progress of the African continent.

Treachery is ugly and that is what we all got from our leaders. Who is Mugabe fighting in Zimbabwe? Mugabe is fighting his own defenceless citizens. Zimbabwe is not at war but lives worse than one at war.

Zimbabwe is not under sanctions but, rightfully, Mugabe and his cohorts are. SADC leaders lackadaisically ignore that. For years now, SADC leaders have been betraying the African people.

SADC leaders must be charged with negligence, sedition and treason. They always claim collective responsibility, don’t they? Oh, George Bizos, where are you?

The shameful betrayal in Lusaka sent totally wrong messages beyond our region.

SADC continues to betray Africa. And someone must pay. I am more pained because we were betrayed by presidents from our own region who had gathered to debate the problems in our own region and yet decided to ignore the source of our region’s regression.

The fiend, Mugabe, himself, calls African leaders ‘cowards’ and SADC leaders congregated in Zambia to prove Mugabe right. Instead of censuring Mugabe, they promised him money which, of course, they don’t have.

A collection of what I would like to believe was ‘a bevy of popularly elected southern African leaders’ gathered in Zambia and decided that what is happening in Zimbabwe is inconsequential; they decided that it did not warrant urgent action or intervention.

Mwanawasa made a u-turn and declared that the problems in Zimbabwe are exaggerated, really? African leaders said they would rather give Zimbabwe money than stop Mugabe from killing his citizens and messing up the region.

And we heard the regular nonsensical ‘tough talk.’ This time it was from SADC executive secretary, Tomaz Augusto Salomao.

In a report, Salomao repeated the International Monetary Fund’s war cry, saying Zimbabwe must undertake “comprehensive economic reforms that should include currency reforms, expenditure cuts and a stable policy environment.”

Utter rubbish! Why skate the issue? No amount of money will make a difference in Zimbabwe unless there is political, not economic, reform.

The prevailing political atmosphere in Zimbabwe can neither support nor accommodate an economic renewal.

Who would invest in Zimbabwe today when property ownership depends on the pillow talk between the president and his spouse? Where there are no property rights, there are no human rights.

Zimbabwe needs political reform first before an economic renaissance. And no meaningful political reforms will ever materialise as long as Mugabe is around or in power.

The IMF is interested in money matters, which is why they have always bankrolled dictators around the world. Why, I wonder, do Africans so easily forget the rancid experience of oppression?

Unless Salomao is only there to mime his masters’ voices, he should just quietly enjoy his perks. SADC leaders left for Zambia knowing fully well how Mugabe, the individual, not Zimbabwe the nation, is hurting their nations.

They ignored that but agreed on decisions that do not benefit their own countries or the people of Zimbabwe. And, for what even God would love to understand, they decided to please Mugabe, the one individual who has destroyed not only Zimbabwe but is disturbing the entire region.

They applauded Mugabe, the very man who is causing them sleepless nights. How could they? Yes, just how could they? I do not believe for one moment that President Festus Mogae, let alone Botswana, agrees with what transpired in Lusaka.

Are Tanzania’s Kikwete and Zambia’s Mwanawasa sure about what they are letting happen in Zimbabwe? I agree that we should all forgive Thabo Mbeki because the man is out of his depths.

Mugabe’s defenders tell the world that the Zimbabwean issue can only be solved by Zimbabweans themselves. And yet they know what kind of grip the country is under. Zimbabwe ceased to be an ‘internal problem’ decades ago.

Have we not seen what Mugabe does to elected parliamentarians, the very custodians of democracy in any normal country? Zimbabwe needs outside help.

SADC leaders will be surprised to find that, since the last time they blinked, Mugabe had turned them into unwitting dictators; for one does not have to oppress his own people to be a dictator or tyrant.

SADC leaders huddle behind the irresponsible and reckless notion of collective responsibility. They should not continue to play games. There now exists a serious possibility of an armed insurrection in Zimbabwe, an armed struggle - if you prefer.

And, when it happens, the dissenters will not ask for permission from neighbouring countries. It is called spontaneity and spontaneity is untamed.

SADC leaders, you better listen; this catastrophe is coming to a country near you. That is collective responsibility!

*Tanonoka Joseph Whande is a Botswana-based Zimbabwean writer