MDC Shock as SADC Loses Credibility

In a move that has been described as mis­guided, the regional organ­i­sa­tion shame­lessly called for the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to remove all forms of sanc­tions on the south­ern African coun­try. SADC claims that progress has been made in the imple­men­ta­tion of the GNU agree­ment. Pre­pos­ter­ous it sounds indeed.

This move by SADC is an embar­rass­ment for the regional body because it not only legit­imises the bru­tal regime of Mugabe the dic­ta­tor; it all calls into ques­tion the cred­i­bil­ity of SADC in the face of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity.

It seems SADC is a loose col­lec­tion of South­ern African heads of state who suf­fer from a mild form of men­tal deri­sion.

For them to sit on a round table and come to a deci­sion like this is laugh­able. For heaven’s sake, these are heads of state of their respec­tive coun­tries and you can only imag­ine what exec­u­tive deci­sions these peo­ple have to make in their own coun­try with this back­ground of fool­ish polit­i­cal ges­ture to a cor­rupt regime.

This makes them look cor­rupt and they have now ulti­mately become accom­plices in the polit­i­cal and eco­nomic destruc­tion of the Zim­bab­wean peo­ple.

When you have some­one like Joseph Kabila chair­ing a meet­ing that will call for an end to Zimbabwe’s sanc­tion, you do have a prob­lem right there. When you have some­one like Jacob Zuma endors­ing this bla­tant dis­re­gard of the suf­fer­ing of the peo­ple of Zim­babwe you begin to won­der whether he really has the best inter­est of Zim­babwe at heart.

It seems that Zuma’s only inter­est for the west to end sanc­tions on Zim­babwe is to send pack­ing home the thou­sands of Zim­bab­wean refugees who are hav­ing a toll on the South African econ­omy. This is the pri­mary rea­son to sup­port this mind­less act by SADC. He may have ended up los­ing the respect of Prime Min­is­ter Tsvan­gi­rai who got assur­ances from him that he would call Mugabe to account.

The direc­tion Zim­babwe should take is in the hands of its own peo­ple. They can­not rely on SADC any­more to influ­ence much needed change in a coun­try that has suf­fered enough already.

Yes sanc­tions must end, but the mech­a­nisms have to be in place to have an effec­tive gov­ern­ment machin­ery to man­age what is left of Zimbabwe’s polit­i­cal and eco­nomic life. And Mugabe should have no role in that.

Lift­ing sanc­tions is one thing, get­ting Zim­babwe back on its feet is another. And Robert Mugabe has slowly lost the qual­i­fi­ca­tions to do this. Mugabe should give way to a new polit­i­cal and eco­nomic atmos­phere in Zim­babwe. If he can­not under­stand that he is the obsta­cle, then how can he iden­tify the solu­tion?