Editor’s desk: Can Sadc survive without Zimbabwe?
Sunday, 22 August 2010 18:43
We have always known, haven’t we, that Zimbabwe is the big brother in the
Southern African Development Community (Sadc)?
Coincidentally Zimbabwe and the regional body are both 30 years old. People
might want to be reminded that Sadc was born out of an organisation which
used to be called the Frontline States.
At its inception Sadc was called the Southern African Development
Coordination Conference (SADCC). The Frontline States had come together to
help liberate the whole region from colonialism. When Zimbabwe gained
independence in 1980, only South Africa and Namibia remained under the yoke
of minority settler rule.
It is important to mention that the man mandated to lead SADCC in its
formative stage was Zimbabwean. Simba Makoni who had been a central figure
in Zanu PF until he broke away in 2008 to contest the presidency against his
erstwhile leader Robert Mugabe was entrusted by the region to babysit the
organisation until it was 10 years old when it was then transformed into
Sadc.
In 1980 Zanu PF which won the people’s mandate to run the newly-independent
country inherited (ironically) an economy which was the most robust in the
region outside apartheid-ruled South Africa. Almost all the other countries
that surrounded it had collapsed. Zambia, after the copper bubble burst
because of low prices on world markets and also because of the wars it
supported, was comatose. Malawi had been rundown by the dictator Kamuzu
Banda. Mozambique had been ravaged by war having fought its own against its
Portuguese colonial masters and after also supporting the Zimbabwean
liberation struggle. Botswana was not yet the jewel it has become now and
had a miniscule population of under a million people.
Zimbabwe at transition from Rhodesia had the best agricultural system based
on highly mechanised commercial farming. It could feed not only itself but
the region as a whole. There was no commercial agriculture to speak of in
the rest of the region.
It was only befitting that Zimbabwe’s role in the new regional organisation
was that of ensuring food security in the region.
Tanzanian statesman and founding president Mwalimu the late Julius Nyerere
called the country Africa’s jewel.
Zimbabwe’s footprint in Sadc is therefore all-pervasive. To add to that, in
Sadc, Mugabe is the longest-serving president. This is important because he
can claim to be the last custodian of the regional body’s founding
principles; he hinted this in Namibia last week.
He told the region’s leaders gathered for a Sadc summit that the new crop of
African leaders should learn from “the principled stance of the continent’s
founding fathers if they are not to undo the selfless work in liberating the
continent”.
Can we envision a Sadc without Zimbabwe? Hardly!
That is precisely why Mugabe is treated with kid gloves whenever the
Zimbabwean crisis comes up for discussion.
Member states of Sadc are overly aware of Mugabe’s bravado. He pulled
Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth in December 2008 leaving it divided because
he did not accept the decision made at the Abuja summit, to maintain
Zimbabwe’s suspension from it indefinitely. Zimbabwe had been suspended
because of the presidential poll of 2002 which was widely seen as flawed.
The issue split Commonwealth leaders, with South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia
and Zambia extremely upset at the move. The summit came to an end amidst
acrimony and division.
The Commonwealth however did not split and no country has followed Mugabe’s
move. But the Commonwealth and Sadc are based on a different set of values
hence its survival after Mugabe pulled out.
Sadc’s values, if any, are amorphous. It purports to stand for democratic
values but it doesn’t. Violations of human rights have continued in almost
all of its countries, especially Zimbabwe, but nothing has been done by the
regional body to rectify this.
Zimbabwe has in the past 10 years gone through hell because Zanu PF, which
Mugabe fronts, has continually refused to accept election results. It has
used all tools at its disposal to deny the people of Zimbabwe their
democratic right to choose leaders of their choice.
If Sadc followed its founding principles Zimbabwe would be a pariah state in
the region but instead it seems to be everyone’s favourite; see the kind of
camaraderie and mass hysteria that accompanies Mugabe whenever he “graces”
the capitals of the region.
This has undermined the regional body’s credibility.
Sadc was expected to stand firmly against Mugabe over the issue of the Sadc
Tribunal. There was a loophole in the treaty that set it up but it is common
knowledge that in the past Zimbabwe had supported it and subscribed to its
values. Zimbabwe had even seconded a judge to the tribunal. But Sadc leaders
in Windhoek last week, according to their shared wisdom, thought it was more
important to deal with a technicality than deal with the very real denial of
people’s democratic rights.
Sadc has said it is against racism but where racism has been committed the
perpetrators can get away with it because the agency that should deal with
it is not properly constituted! What this means is that the regional body,
in the face of such crimes against humanity as genocide would rather look
aside because of flaws in its statutes.
Sadc was again a letdown concerning the outstanding issues of the global
political agreement. The regional body knows full well what has been
impeding the full implementation of this agreement.
It knows that Zanu PF intransigency has been at the heart of this. But again
instead of chastising Mugabe firmly he has been let off the hook. Mugabe and
the other principals, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, were given a
month to straighten whatever was crooked in the GPA, but we all knew this
was not going to happen.
Already Mugabe has reneged on the Sadc order and was only on Friday telling
the central committee of his party that he would not make any new
concessions in negotiations despite what Sadc had said he should do.
NEVANJI MADANHIRE