POLITICS-AFRICA: Zimbabweans Rubbish SADC’s Sanctions Call
Southern African leaders have once again failed the people of Zimbabwe by making a show of support for the country’s long-serving dictator.
The unresolved issues plaguing Zimbabwe’s coalition government is set to drag on after southern African leaders once again failed to call President Robert Mugabe to book for reneging on his coalition promises.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders instead supported Mugabe’s Zanu PF party and called for the lifting of sanctions which the regional bloc says were imposed on the country by the international community. Analysts say this show of support for the dictator is likely to harden Mugabe as he digs in his heels refusing to bow to pressure from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to honour his part of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that led to the formation of the coalition.
Mugabe continues to stall the swearing in of Roy Bennet, MDC’s Deputy Agriculture Minister designate, insisting Bennet has a pending criminal case before the courts which must first be decided before Bennet is sworn into cabinet. Mugabe has also stalled the appointments of both a new attorney general and a central bank governor.
He instead insists the MDC must pressure 'its Western allies' and call for the lifting of sanctions. Mugabe has accused the MDC of calling on the West to impose the sanctions on the country as part of what he has called an 'illegal regime change agenda'.
Many Zimbabweans have looked up to the SADC leaders to reign in Mugabe to honour his collation government promises.
But they have been disappointed by the show of support for Mugabe at a SADC meeting currently being held in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
'We are of course disappointed because it has become obvious that SADC will not solve our problems for us,' said Tinashe Zulu, a primary school teacher who is one of many who downed their chalks last week pressing for salary increments.
'We have always said it — African leaders fear Mugabe for some reason, and for anyone to expect anything from them is wishful thinking. We just give our fate to the gods,' Zulu complained.
Zulu was echoing the frustrations of many in a country where humanitarian agencies say hundreds of thousands of people are crossing the boarders into neighbouring countries in search of work.
In a communiqué at the end of the Kinshasa meeting where DRC president Joseph Kabila — a close ally of Mugabe — assumed the rotating SADC chair, the leaders of the regional group said they noted 'the progress made in the implementation of the global political agreement and called on the international community to remove all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe'.
This, however, was in stark contrast to calls by the MDC that little progress was being done by the coalition towards fully implementing the GPA. Hardliners in Mugabe’s camp have been accused of stalling for time as they look ahead for the next polls whenever they are called at the expiration of the coalition’s term.
'This is the nature of these nationalist parties,' said Effie Ncube of the Matebeleland Constitutional Reform Agenda.
'They rally behind fellow leaders against the West and go on about imperialism and nothing is mentioned about bettering the lives of people back home. They claim sanctions are harming the so-called ordinary man but forgetting that all attempts by the ordinary man to choose a government of his own has been met with violent suppressions. All that does not matter to them,' Ncube told IPS.
Zimbabwe’s long time rivals Mugabe and Tsvangirai formed a coalition in February this year, but for Mugabe’s Zanu PF party, the condition has been that the MDC must call for the lifting of what it calls 'illegal' sanctions on Zimbabwe.
This is despite recent signs that international money lending institutions were easing their tough stance on assisting the government toward economic reconstruction.
Last week the International Monetary Fund, which suspended funding in 1999 after Zimbabwe failed to service its loans, injected a half billion dollar loan as part of the country’s economic recovery efforts.
There is already jostling between MDC secretary general and Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Zanu PF appointee Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono over who will control the funds.
But the sentiment on the streets has always been that there are no sanctions imposed on the country but rather they have been imposed on Mugabe and more than 100 of his party loyalists. They have been banned from travelling to Europe and America by respective governments which accuse them of, among other things, presiding over gross human rights abuses and electoral fraud.
'I have never believed the country is under sanctions,' said James Chuma, a vendor in the city’s central business district who is among many who play cat and mouse with the police (street vending is illegal in Zimbabwe) in a country where labour unions claim there is over 90 percent unemployment.
'They closed down productive farms and factories and in my rural home where our parents worked peacefully with white farmers, the people are suffering and for me this has nothing to do with sanctions even though I’m not educated I know enough not to believe everything the government says,' Chuma told IPS.
'It is tough here and it is these people who want to rule forever who blame their failure on someone else,' said an emotional Chuma.
But as the impasse on the so-called outstanding issues of the GPA continues with SADC leaders once again failing to push Mugabe to comply with the spirit of the GPA, there are concerns that Zanu PF will continue using the sanctions card to blame the failure of the government of national unity on Tsvangirai.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service