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Zimbabwe needs an eminent person to redirect dialogue
Tananoka Joseph Whande, Zimtownship.com
October 12, 2008

http://www.zimtownship.com/index.php?PageT=ReadNews&act=Empty&ID=2588

I am concerned about the extent to which Zimbabwe, particularly the MDC, has become heavily reliant on South Africa to solve our problems.

Reliance on South Africa to arbitrate or help to solve the problem in Zimbabwe has now gone way past the normal mediation functions to something resembling a preliminary systematic auctioning of our country, and it is being done with the aid of both the MDC and ZANU-PF.

The MDC's over reliance on South African mediation has now become a cowardly way of handling negotiations.

The MDC misled both the Zimbabwean people and the international community, and signed an agreement before the negotiations had been concluded and now the nation is once again in despair, marooned in the political darkness of ZANU-PF's double dealing.

While the MDC meant well, Robert Mugabe was toying with people who were trying to bring some semblance of sanity to our country.

But the MDC's haste also betrayed a complete lack of foresight and a disturbing absence of alternatives that a leading party ought to have.

Instead of a neutral arbitrator, we got Thabo Mbeki.

He failed.

Instead of an impartial African eminent person to help bring antagonistic political players together, we got Mbeki who fanned more chaos within one of the parties at his negotiating table. Then, instead of an honest mediator, we got Mbeki again. He failed and was also immediately fired by his own party and lost the South African presidency hardly two weeks after engineering a barren and ridiculous agreement between Zimbabwe's opposing sides. What a missed opportunity! But even after losing the support and trust of his own people, South Africa again chose Mbeki to "continue" with his "mediation" efforts in Zimbabwe.

Mbeki is now clearly lethargic and totally unenthusiastic about this assignment because he knows that having failed to achieve something of note while he was a sitting president of South Africa, he won't achieve much as a private citizen.

He knows his limitations and the damage he caused to himself through his ill-advised 'quiet diplomacy' which was clearly designed to give one of the protagonists, Mugabe, an edge in lopsided negotiations.

And now, to strengthen Mbeki's hand in negotiations, the South Africans have now sent their Intelligence Minister to be involved in the ZANU-PF/MDC negotiations talks. Intelligence minister, why? Spies negotiating peace in public as if these particular ones did not play a role, through deliberate neglect or otherwise, in destroying Zimbabwe? Does Africa not have enough diplomats to bring warring sides to the table that Zimbabwe has to be overwhelmed by South Africans who have let this issue drag on for so long as they attempted to keep an unpopular dictator afloat?

The Zimbabwean stalemate requires another child of Africa to handle it with firmness, impartiality, fairness and with clout from SADC, the AU and the UN. The South Africans rested Mbeki and they should also rest him in a case he has failed to solve for many years. Mbeki might have the time to play around but Zimbabwe is in dire straits and needs a real solution now. Mbeki leaves too much room for Mugabe to play around with a nation he has ruined.

However, South Africa's designs go beyond solving the Zimbabwean problem. South Africa is not necessarily interested in settling the Zimbabwe quagmire; they are interested in establishing a business foothold that will effectively make Zimbabwe a province of South Africa.

Only a few weeks ago, South African farmers had loaded their trucks and "stood willing to assist Zimbabwe at any time".

So too were business and financial institutions who have already put aside millions and millions to invest in Zimbabwe as they "assist" in reviving Zimbabwe. Mbeki's strategy on Zimbabwe, whether intentional or otherwise, clearly benefited South African business. They watched the country slowly disintegrating over decades while they prepared precisely for this moment. Now, because of their proximity, they are at the doorstep "ready to help".

The disappointing collapse of the agreement means further suffering for Zimbabweans who have not known peace since 2000 and who have experienced little of it before that.

I applaud Tsvangirai and the MDC for going out of their way to seek a solution to the problem that confronted the nation. I applaud Tsvangirai for his patience and honest attempt to change the fortunes of our country. In that vein, they pushed and shoved to get Mugabe and his ZANU-PF to the negotiating table.

They then went on to make a big mistake and signed an agreement before the negotiations were complete.

And now the nation is once again back to square one after having placed so much hope in those talks although we suspected that nothing would come out of the talks because the people and civil society had been sidelined.

Now the MDC admits they made a mistake and the nation is once again teetering on its weak legs, inviting business vultures already circling near our borders.

It is clear now that Mugabe never had any intention to honour any agreement. It was all a façade to buy time and hoodwink the international community into believing that an honest effort was being made to resolve the crisis.

Mugabe wanted to use Tsvangirai to have sanctions removed and to have donors coming with money.

Thankfully, it did not work for him and we, once again, find ourselves staring into the abyss.

We came close to achieving something and I would have hoped that we could just pick up the pieces and try again. But Mugabe was never serious so he brings his broom-boy Simba Makoni back into play again.

It is amazing that at a time when the whole nation is practically on its knees praying that something positive comes out of the agreement, there are some people who still dream of forming political parties, especially so soon after being rejected by the same constituency.

For the second time this year, Simba Makoni announced this week that he is forming a new political party.

What, may I ask, does Simba Makoni hope to achieve? Who does he want to replace? Or is he just a power hungry misguided technocrat who is peeved to see the likes of Mutambara enjoying the unholy camaraderie with Robert Mugabe?

But we know what Makoni is doing. He is trying to move attention from Mugabe's handling of the agreement. Makoni is shielding Mugabe again.

Who is Makoni opposing? The people? ZANU-PF or the MDC? It can't be the MDC because the MDC is not in power. It can't be ZANU-PF because ZANU-PF is an opposition party.

Makoni, just like Welshman Ncube and Arthur Mutambara, comes to muddy the political landscape by spouting old manure about nationalism and pan-Africanism. As Tsvangirai and his MDC eat humble pie and admit that signing the deal was a big mistake, Makoni returns on the scene and welcomes "the all-inclusive government deal signed on September 15 between Mugabe and the leaders of the two formations of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara".

Reports that are yet to be confirmed say that Mugabe went ahead on Friday and allocated ministries to his party (15) and to MDC (13) with the other faction being allocated three. He is doing this unilaterally and outside the good faith of the agreement.

The move will, of course, be rejected by the MDC again because, for one, Mugabe kept for his party the key ministries of Finance, Defence, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Information and the ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Resettlement.

Tsvangirai's MDC was reportedly allocated ministries such as Economic Planning and Investment Promotion, Sports, Arts and Culture, State Enterprise and Parastatals Energy and Power Development and others.

Zimbabwe needs a better, strong, serious, impartial negotiator not Thabo Mbeki who actually babysat our problems until they graduated into full-fledged and deadly mayhem.

* Tanonoka Whande is a Botswana-based Zimbabwean journalist.

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