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Africa Forum's lofty ideals evaporate into thin air at the mention of Zimbabwe
Peter Fabricius, Cape Times (SA)
November 06, 2006

In principle, it's a good idea to set up a forum of former African leaders to advance the cause of democracy and good governance in Africa. So the establishment of the Africa Forum earlier this year should, provisionally, be welcomed. The forum held its first substantive meeting in Johannesburg last week. Nineteen of the 30-odd surviving former heads of state or government attended, as well as five former heads of relevant international organisations such as the OAU (now the African Union). The forum concluded with the issue of a communique filled with plans for the ex-leaders to get involved in places like Darfur, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to which they immediately dispatched a mission. A good idea, since the country is balancing on a knife edge waiting for the results of the presidential elections.

The forum also expressed some very encouraging sentiments, starting off with a commitment "to help in any way possible to ensure the consolidation of democratic institutions in Africa". The ex-presidents and prime ministers also promised to help all African governments, the AU and other international organisations to promote good governance, the rule of law, and eradication of poverty in Africa. More assertively and critically, they promised "to condemn, in unequivocal terms, emerging tendencies towards the suppression of opposition within African states, the deprivation of human rights, neglect of the rule of law, mistreatment and/or arresting of journalists, suppression and muzzling of the media, partiality of the judiciary, security forces and electoral commissions in any part of Africa". And, after commending some governments for fighting corruption, they resolved "to denigrate Â. visible instances of the resurgence of this cankerworm in some African states."

Most encouragingly, they resolved "to solemnly hold ourselves out to provide a high moral ground where elder statesmen in Africa can stand up and be counted for condemning serious economic and social perversions plaguing our continent". The perceptive reader may have been a little concerned about this last-mentioned commitment, because of the absence of the word "political" among the "perversions" which the ex-heads promised to condemn. Nevertheless, they had already made clear that they would condemn the "suppression of opposition", "deprivation of human rights", "muzzling of the media", "partiality of the judiciary". These phrases seemed to describe pretty accurately what's going on in Zimbabwe, and so it was not surprising that a television journalist asked at a press conference after their meeting, whether, apart from the DRC etc, they had also perhaps discussed Zimbabwe.

This prompted a flurry of prevarications from which one could extract only one definite conclusion - Zimbabwe had not been discussed. Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano, the forum's chairman, muttered something about Zimbabwe being a very complex issue. Former Commonwealth secretary-general Emeka Anyaoku said that the Southern African Development Community had concluded there were no human rights violations in Zimbabwe. So at that moment, in a single puff, all those fine and encouraging sentiments in the communique just evaporated into that place in the stratosphere where so many of the commitments of Africa's leaders to democracy and human rights reside.

At the start of the Africa Forum's meeting, President Thabo Mbeki had addressed the leaders and praised their intentions of applying their "reservoir of expertise and experience" - as Chissano had put it - to help solve Africa's problems. He even promised to persuade the African Union to assemble a committee of serving heads of government to help raise funds for the forum, which is apparently a bit short of cash. But, judging by the revelation about Zimbabwe, the ex-leaders are simply going to be an AU old-boys club, no more courageous about tackling Africa's real problems than the current leaders are. If I were a potential donor, I would say, before I give you a cent, prove to me that you are not just a bunch of leaders suffering from summit-withdrawal symptoms now that you are no longer in power. 

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