Zimbabwe crises should be addressed by SADC!

Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been a huge disappointment in addressing the Zimbabwean crises. There is a lot of denial, dragging of feet and plain dismissal of the plight of Zimbabweans. What has not been understood, or perhaps accepted, is that Zimbabwe is under siege from within. The State has laid siege on the people of Zimbabwe and the results have been devastating - destitution, intimidation of ordinary citizens through arbitrary arrests and lynching by state police, interference in the markets through price fixing. Press freedoms and more generally, freedoms to self expression, have long since disappeared in Zimbabwe.

Its not an exaggeration to point out the Zimbabweans are worse off now than they were 5 years ago? What’s there to exaggerate about quadruple digit inflation, hitherto unheard of unemployment levels, shortages of almost all major commodities especially food, rising levels of corruption. Name any negative economic indicator or outcome and it is currently playing itself out in Zimbabwe. Perhaps the SADC leaders use a different barometer to determine adverse circumstances in a country. Surely if SADC leaders believe that the problems in Zimbabwe are exaggerated (i.e. "not that bad") it could only mean, by deduction of their reasoning, that they believe economic circumstances in their own countries are understated (i.e. "excellent"). Could this possibly explain why most SADC leaders are dismal performers on the economic front? Are they convinced that as long as their own countries are relatively better off than, say, Zimbabwe, which according to them is "not as bad as it seems", then they themselves are surely performing well?

It is impossible to comprehend this denial of the realities in Zimbabwe by our SADC leaders or lack of resolve to confront President Mugabe about how he is managing the affairs of Zimbabwe. The cowardly position taken by SADC leaders has been to drift between two flawed positions: I). Let Zimbabweans resolve their own problems. It is a sovereign country and we need not interfere. II). we resolve issues the African way - Quiet Diplomacy?

None of these positions is actually tenable. In the case of the former, to suggest that the people of Zimbabwe should resolve their own problems on their own is akin to the police sending a physically abused wife back to her abusive husband with the advice, "we can't really help you. It's your house, you have to help yourself." The message the SADC leaders are sending is that as long as the atrocities are being perpetrated by an African leader upon his own citizens, in an "independent" country, then no one need interfere. This position may point to a deeper problem, that of a lack of real leadership in Southern Africa.

The latter position, which argues for quiet diplomacy, would have been a little more plausible had it not been for the fact that the leaders have been "quietly diplomatic" with President Mugabe for 5 years, without results. It’s pretty obvious to anybody with at least peripheral intelligence that President Mugabe, individually, is a significant factor in the Zimbabwe crises. There is, therefore, a real need for SADC to confront him directly and impose specific sanctions against him and his leadership in his neighbourhood - SADC. Instead he is being courted as a hero making his attitude towards his own people even more callous.

What bothers the discerning observer is that ALL SADC leaders, in their own countries at least, seem to be proponents of the very freedoms being denied the Zimbabwean people. How can they allow such a contradiction where on one hand they proclaim to be champions of democracy, whilst on the other, condone and perhaps applaud dictatorship right next door?

It does not instil confidence in our region, SADC, whose leaders seem to merely cheer on as Zimbabwe implodes. It may be Zimbabwe today, South Africa, Zambia or Mozambique tomorrow. What is certain, with the lessons we are learning from the cowardly attitude of SADC leaders, is that we would be sure to know that there would be no one in our neighbourhood - SADC - courageous enough to help us fight a rogue leader terrorising us from within! How encouraging?

Ntheye Lungu.