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AU resorts to shooting the messenger
Mavis Makuni,The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
January 26, 2006

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=588

Has the African Union adopted a version of a quintessentially American procedure – the filibuster – to avoid attending to controversial issues brought before it.

Reports from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to the effect that the continental body has thrown out a report on Zimbabwe submitted by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) confirm widespread suspicion that the AU leaders are using delay tactics in solidarity with one of their peers. A filibuster is defined as: holding the floor of the United States senate to delay proceedings and thereby prevent a vote on a controversial issue …"

The history of the ACHPR report on Zimbabwe’s human rights record, on which the AU has forestalled debate for one reason or another over the last four years raises questions about the commitment of the organisation to tackling serious issues affecting ordinary people in member countries. The AU, through its inertia, is holding the floor for ordinary Zimbabweans.

The ACHPR is, after all, an arm of the AU created through a charter agreed upon during the existence of the AU’s forerunner, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The AU should therefore be anxious to see this organ of its own creation functioning to meet the objectives which it was set up to achieve, which include seeing whether governments are observing the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.

An ACHPR delegation led by Jainaba Johm of Gambia , which included prominent South African academic Barney Pityana and Fiona Adolu of Uganda came to Zimbabwe in 2002 to probe persistent allegations on human rights violations Johm said at the time that the delegation had come "because of the allegations of violations of human rights by law enforcement agencies and threats to civil liberties as well as charges of invasions of the rule of law and concerns about the independence of the judiciary."

After widespread consultations with various stakeholders, Johm’s delegation produced a report that was scathingly critical of the Zimbabwean government’s human rights record but over the last five years, using one form of subterfuge or another, African leaders have avoided discussing the matter.

More than two years ago, an executive summary of the ACHPR’s report was all set to tabled at a meeting that was to be held in July2004, when Zimbabwe’s then foreign minister Stan Mudenge, at the last minute came up with the most implausible reason to delay scrutiny of Zimbabwe’s conduct. He incredibly got away with telling the unlikely story that Zimbabwe was not ready to respond to the allegations because it had not seen the report. The reason for this was that a sister ministry to which the report had been inadvertently sent had sat on it for months on end.

The decision of the Council of Ministers to throw the report back to the commission prior to the AU summit in Khartoum this week proves that political games are still being played to avoid tackling the matter. The Council of Ministers, which deliberated before the African heads of state and government began their summit, said they had sent the report back to the ACHPR because it had noticed "irregularities and procedural flaws", according to a report published in a Zimbabwean daily newspaper on Tuesday.

The irregularities and procedural flaws apparently included charges that the latest report resembled another rejected by the AU at a summit in Addis Ababa in 2004. Another bone of contention was that the ACHPR report included a resolution for the AU to act on an adverse United Nations report on Zimbabwe’s clean-up exercise, Operation Murambatsvina, which caused an outcry both at home and abroad last year.

Another "irregularity and procedural flaw" noted by the Council of Ministers was that the ACHPR document was the work of non-governmental organisations that had submitted allegations on Zimbabwe’s conduct in relation to the judiciary, the press, and the enactment of laws perceived to be repressive or unjust.

Unnamed diplomats were quoted in the newspaper report saying the African heads of state gathered in Khartoum could not be expected to debate the UN report, which they "did not cause" or the ACHPR report because the commission had not taken the report through the various stages.

It is noteworthy that in their duplicity over the Zimbabwean issue, the AU heads of state and government have chosen to place more importance on purely legalistic aspects while ignoring the substance of the ACHPR report and the implications thereof. The AU has never come out openly to say it is satisfied that the allegations levelled against the Zimbabwean government are untrue, and therefore do not warrant to be scrutinised.

Instead of being principled enough to take a stand on the matter, the leaders, some of whose countries have also been accused of similar abuses, have chosen to sit on the fence and keep their options open.

Following the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 during which close to a million people were butchered , the UN and Western countries came under attack for not having responded fast enough to avert the catastrophe. Never again, leaders vowed. But a decade later, history is repeating itself.

The AU has persistently ignored distress signals from one of its member countries and has instead resorted to shooting the messenger, the ACHPR. The question African leaders should answer is why they bother to set up arms or agencies of AU if they turn around and treat these organisations as foes with suspect motives.

It is inconceivable that if the real reason for keeping debate on Zimbabwe’s human rights record in abeyance was failure to follow procedures, the leaders would have taken all these years without giving the ACHPR an ultimatum to put its house in order so that the report would be tabled before them as soon as possible.

As it is, they seem happy to clutch at the flimsiest reasons to avoid confronting the matter. But if the allegations against Zimbabwe are untrue, the only way to exonerate the government is to facilitate open scrutiny and debate at the continental level.

The refusal to table the ACHPR report because non-governmental organisations contributed to its contents and compilation is ridiculous. It implies that the AU would only have been ready to listen if the complaints have come from official government sources! It does not make sense either for the continental body to refuse to address a pressing issue such as the humanitarian crisis caused by Operation Murambatsvina simply because their attention has been drawn to it by the United Nations.

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