SA President Zuma Makes Another Meaningless Gesture To Tsvangirai
South African President Jacob Zuma has made another of his frequent meaningless statements about concern and readiness to assist resolve Zimbabwe’s crisis.
But Zuma’s expression of concern no longer carries weight as he has watched Robert Mugabe’s excesses and listened to Morgan Tsvangirai’s pleadings for intervention without taking any action since he was installed as President.
Tsvangirai has rightly taken his case to Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, chairman of the security troika of SADC which has been lumped with the responsibility over Zimbabwe by an indecisive SADC, chaired by Zuma and whose leaders are easily manipulated by Mugabe.
The SADC brokered the unity agreement and set deadlines for implementation of the agreement, and for resolution of what were then called outstanding issues, but President Robert Mugabe not only ignored the deadlines, but contemptuously allowed his judiciary and security forces to continue to abuse the MDC officials with impunity.
Only when the MDC’s patience snapped and it ordered its President and Ministers to disengage from Zanu (PF) does President Zuma now start making more noises about being concerned and about his readiness to assist in the full implementation of the unity pact.
The statement was reportedly made after Zuma had met President Morgan Tsvangirai in Cape Town, following various other statements by the South African presidency asking Tsvangirai to come and ask for help, as if Zuma could not act on the authority he already has as chairman of SADC.
South Africa, acting on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), last year brokered Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal that gave birth to the Harare coalition government and also gave SADC the mandate to intervene in Zimbabwe to force implementation of the agreement.
But Zuma, the chairman has failed to do anything to ensure implementation of the agreement for the whole of last year, and may have even strengthened Mugabe’s hand through support given at the United Nations where South Africa keeps calling for lifting of sanctions instead of dealing with the conditions that led to the sanctions.
Even when Zulus ran riot in South Africa, killing Zimbabweans, who still do not have proper accomodation and are not recognised as refuges, President Zuma buried his head in the sand and blamed a third force.
Seeing no help coming from the guarantors of the agreement, the MDC Standing Committee and its National Executive Committee decided to pull out from the coalition government, saying they are suspending all cooperation with President Robert Mugabe because the veteran leader was refusing to fulfil commitments made under the power-sharing agreement.
The statement from Zuma’s office voicing concern about the situation in Zimbabwe may be seen as a sign of support for Tsvangirai’s calls for the region to intervene to diffuse the crisis in Harare, but it can also be taken as another meaningless statement by Zuma who has made similar statements even while he was President of the African National Congress, but before he was President of the Republic.
Zimonline reported that a senior Angolan official sounded ambiguous when commenting on Tsvangirai’s diplomatic effort in the region, telling reporters in Harare on Wednesday that Tsvangirai would be given good advice on how to keep Zimbabwe united -clearly a symptom of the divisions among SADC leaders over Zimbabwe which is likely to advantage Mugabe.
So emboldened, he is more likely to dig in and take more unilateral decisions in an attempt to frustrate the MDC and drive the former opposition party from the coalition government.
But the MDC has already said that its aim is not to leave the coalition but to put pressure on Mugabe to implement what was agreed, and on SADC to play its part, failure which the MDC would take its case again to the African Union and the United Nations.
Even if the MDC’s case does not succeed at the AU or the UN it would further expose the SADC and the AU’s lack for sincerity in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis, and weaken their positions in multilateral negotiations where they will not be seen as serious partners for Washington or Brussels.
Guebuza who is still finding his feet as a relatively new player in the SADC – relative to old timers like Mugabe, despotic King Mswati and Dos Santos of Angola – was reported to be considering sending a representatives to Harare to assess the dispute between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
Mugabe has been known to ignore envoys or to lie to them out rightly about the situation, then manipulating the Press to believe his position, thus scuttling the intentions of the senders of the envoys.
He has done this with then United Nations Secretary General Koffi Annan’s envoy, Anna Tibaijuka, and also with African Union envoy, Jakaya Kwikwete whom he told that Tsvangirai was beaten up because his party was sponsoring terrorism, and again with Thabo Mbeki who infuriated the world when he left Harare saying there was no crisis when violence against the opposition was at its peak.
Tsvangirai wants to highlight this lack of credibility of Mugabe’s government in the hope that SADC, the AU and the UN can take stern action to force the corrupt government of Zimbabwe which has caused untold suffering to its people, to hold an election.
The transitional government has done part of its job, stabilising the economy; what is left is agreeing a constitution and organising an election. Mugabe knows he is going to lose the election and is doing everything possible to scuttle the transitional government in order to avoid the election.
Additional reporting: Change Zimbabwe
Posted by Dave Fish Eagle
on October 22, 2009. Filed under Politics.
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