Dear Mr Mbeki, (From Mr Bornwell Chakaodza!)

An open letter to President Mbeki and SADC leaders 

 

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=2833
 
Core of SADC executive secretary's visit lies in getting fundamentals right

 

 

THE Southern African Development Community (SADC) extraordinary summit held recently in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania was not a failure after all.

As mandated by the 10 heads of state and government who attended that summit, the SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salamao is here in Zimbabwe to study the economic situation with a view to seeing how the region can assist the country to recover economically.
On the political front, the summit mandated President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa to mediate in the Zimbabwean crisis and he is reported to have already appointed a negotiating team to engage the ruling ZANU PF party and the opposition MDC in search of a lasting solution.
My open letter to President Mbeki and SADC leaders in their entirety and my message to SADC executive secretary, Tomaz Salamao, is that unless they get the political and economic fundamentals right, both missions are doomed to fail. Politics and the economy are intertwined here and there is no way the two can be separated. To me, this is the bottom line.
It is very important to identify issues really at stake in our present situation. There is no way Salamao can propose measures to assist in the economic recovery of the country in the absence of political normalisation. In my book, the two things are not even two sides of the same coin — they are firmly located on the same side of the one coin. That is how firmly inter-connected they are!
The point must be made that the source of Zimbabwe's economic crisis is the abnormal political environment that we have at the present moment. And the holistic solution that we are all seeking is one that is rooted in the acceptance of this simple fact. Anyone trying to navigate the murky waters of Zimbabwe must separate fact from fiction.
Blaming President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair as the root causes of our crisis as government spin-doctors are fond of doing and saying day in and day out is a mantra which has lost all meaning. The political leadership here is the author of our problems and it will equally be, by and large, the author of the solution that we are seeking.
I do not minimise the problems that President Mbeki and Salamao will face but all I am trying to do is to appeal to them to have a correct perspective, a correct interpretation of the issues in this country. Facing the truth and having a sense of perspective can free us of needless fears and give us hope and assurance for the future.
Nobody quarrelled with the need and the imperative of correcting a historical injustice as far as land reform is concerned. What people quarrelled with — Zimbabweans and non-Zimbabweans alike — was the methodology and the way the whole exercise was carried out. Things could have been done differently and certainly much better than the way they were done. But that is all now water under the bridge. The country must now move on. And this is the point that I am making here.
Looking back at past glories such as the war of liberation and the like does not add value in any way to looking forward, which is what is important at this stage. The challenge that President Mbeki and the SADC executive secretary face is to make sure that they do not sorely play to the beat of the propaganda machine emanating from government and the ruling party. It is important to listen to all sides including government, the opposition parties and Zimbabwean civil society as a whole.
There is a lot of dishonest journalism here particularly in the government-owned media. The issue here is not of regime change or anything like that. The issue is one of governance and the pressing need to have a political settlement which enables a government of a new Zimbabwe to be accepted both by its own people and the entire international community. And on both points, we have been failed by those currently in power.
Unless South Africa and the SADC regional bloc as a whole takes the lead in helping Zimbabweans find a solution, the whole world will be paralysed as in fact it is paralysed now. There is obviously a limit to what the UK, the USA and the EU can do in this regard, as in a number of ways, these countries have actually played into the hands of President Mugabe and the ruling party by their injudicious statements at times. And it is in this regard that the people of Zimbabwe to a very large extent welcome the two SADC initiatives as something that is bound to breathe the much needed new life into the country's economic and political conundrum.
What is important now is action on the part of SADC. Action based on talking to and listening to all Zimbabweans, not just the government and the ruling party. I want to underscore the importance of President Mbeki and Tomaz Salamao listening to other Zimbabweans beyond the government and the ruling party. President Mugabe has become the region's nemesis and I think it is crucial that SADC employs both the carrot and the stick in dealing with him.
I am absolutely convinced myself that SADC knows what it has to do to transform the political and economic fortunes of this country but for some reason is unable and unwilling to take the bull by its horns. But for many of us here, the new mood in SADC to try to engage all stakeholders is something that we hope will finally enable the region to see the light and begin to walk hand-in-hand with the people of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is gravely ill at the moment and a potent cure has to be found. In terms of helping Zimbabweans, it is on President Mbeki and SADC, by and large, that most eyes are turned to in our hour of need. Every hour, minute that passes deepens the sense of gloom and pessimism here despite the resilience and determination of Zimbabweans to go on with life and the feeling that something better will come.
It would appear that President Mugabe's government has entered a new phase of brutality going by what has been happening here in the last few weeks. It need not be like that. And there is no sign either that the government is bending to pressure from within the country and outside. For SADC therefore, not only is it a race against time but it is also a mountain to climb.
The nation of Zimbabwe waits with bated breath for results from the current SADC initiatives in order to rescue us from a situation which is going from bad to worse. It is in this context that SADC must not become a public relations machine for the government of Zimbabwe but a vehicle for the resolution of our crisis. Analysing the problems that we presently face as Zimbabweans from the perspective of the ruling party only can lead us to a blind alley in the search for solutions.
Even in the darkest days, there is a silver lining. It is our fervent hope therefore that President Mbeki and the SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salamao will do the right thing at the right time. In these two gentlemen, we place our hopes and trust.

E-mail: borncha@mweb.co.zw

 

---

Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for your free account today.