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All eyes on Zim
Mandy Rossouw, Mail & Guardian (SA)
April 25, 2008

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=338048&area=/insight/monitor/

Civil society organisations from across the continent are flexing their muscles to draw the attention of the world to Zimbabwe this Africa Day. Organisations from countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya and Senegal are planning marches and public speeches in the run-up to May 25 to keep the political crisis in Zimbabwe in the public mind.

An emergency conference of 200 organisations held in Dar es Salaam this week agreed to use any available opportunities to promote the cause of the people of Zimbabwe. The newly elected chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Nonkosi Khumalo, asked for new "heroes of the struggle" to be identified. "We must find our heroes in the struggle. We must find those who died in the post-election violence and name the people who died. That is how we will honour and respect them."

Civil society will put pressure on their respective governments to take a stronger stance on Zimbabwe, following the mediation process led by President Thabo Mbeki that did not deliver lasting results.

The conference called on the African Union to deal with the crisis in Zimbabwe expeditiously and said African civil society organisations must compel their governments to speak out against the post-election human rights abuses there.

The conference, organised by George Soros's Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa) and the Open Society Initiative of East Africa, with the East African Law Society, urged the AU to refuse to recognise President Robert Mugabe as the leader of Zimbabwe. This would mean that Mugabe will not be invited to summits in his capacity as head of state and will not be afforded the same red carpet treatment that these summits usually roll out.

The organisations will also disseminate information in their home countries about the post-election violence in Zimbabwe. At the conference photographs of victims of the wave of post-election violence were distributed. Some showed a 15-year-old girl, whose buttocks were scalded with boiling water by militia because she refused to tell them where her mother, a Movement for Democratic Change polling agent, was.

It was decided a panel of eminent people, chosen by the AU, should be sent to Zimbabwe to assess the situation. "The AU has the capacity to establish a fact-finding mission on the human-rights violations. The Southern African Development Community [SADC] has been a disappointment. We must start naming and shaming these countries and organisations who are unable to deal with the situation," said Harun Ndubi of the Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice (KPTJ).

Elinor Sisulu of the Zimbabwean Crisis Coalition told the conference that Zimbabwe is a "symptom of a continental illness that came to a head". She referred to the disputed elections in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda and to Angola's government, which recently kicked the United Nations Human Rights Commission out of the country without giving reasons. She also asked that SADC observers, who returned to Harare last week to monitor the recount of votes in 23 constituencies, be recalled. "SADC's continued involvement in the election must be withdrawn. If there is a run-off it must be internationally supervised, not by SADC alone."

Information on state-sponsored violence gathered by Zimbabwe's Crisis Coalition, Doctors for Human Rights and the MDC will be sent to countries that are part of the AU to strengthen the conference's appeal for strong intervention from the AU, Sisulu said.

But criticism was not levelled only at Zanu-PF: the MDC also came in for a tongue lashing, with some delegates saying their "boastful statements" -- that they had won the elections and would take power -- were unhelpful. The conference also took countries such as China to task over their support for the Mugabe regime.

In the communiqué released at the end of the conference, the AU was asked to call on China and other supporters of the Zanu-PF regime to stop "propping up" an illegitimate government.

Suggestions were made by representatives from the Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum that the help of veterans who were part of Umkhonto we Sizwe -- the military wing of the ANC -- should be called upon to talk to the war veterans of Zimbabwe.

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