If there is one thing South Africa cannot afford right now it is the perception that our ruling party and government remain irresolute on Zimbabwe and unconvinced of the urgent need to address the situation there. Only a few days ago, President Thabo Mbeki encouraged members of his international investment council to believe that he was, indeed, seized with the situation there. And he led us to believe that he was convinced by their argument that what was happening in Zimbabwe was damaging the region’s economic prospects. He would, we were allowed to believe, soon be going to Harare to acquaint Robert Mugabe with reality.
But what is happening? Nothing. Niks. Lutho. Nchumu. Sweet Fanny Adams.
We publish a story in this edition in which the African National Congress, the presidency and the Government Communication and Information System talk variously of Mbeki heading off to Zimbabwe “soon”, “in three weeks” or of merely planning to have a chat with Mozambican President Joachim Chissano at which Mugabe may be present.
The ANC’s head of international affairs, Mavivi Myokayaka-Manzini, suggests in one breath that there is no urgency at all about the situation in Zimbabwe and, in the next, that matters are rather compelling. She also denies that, if Mbeki does soon meet Mugabe, he will take a “harder line”. She says she had a briefing with Mbeki on Monday this week and that “there is nothing that has changed” on South Africa’s policy towards Mugabe.
More disappointing, we heard Pallo Jordan, usually one of the ANC’s more thoughtful voices and occasionally also one of its more courageous, talking in Parliament in the kind of code that indicates Myokayaka-Manzini may not be misrepresenting her master’s voice. Jordan spoke about the Zimbabwean situation being comprehensible only in terms of the legacy of colonialism. Well, who ever would have thought so?
Jordan is not usually responsible for such stupefying insight. It is more likely, we can blame the ANC whip’s office in Parliament for much of the speech. But the code of much of the ANC’s recent commentary is clear in its meaning. It has given a veneer of justification to the impulses behind farm seizures, the displacement of the judiciary and the rule of law, the hounding of the opposition, the bombing and expulsion of the media in sum, to Mugabe’s and Zanu-PF’s hegemonic project as bearer of the nationalist kampf.
That Zimbabwe’s ruling party has become a repository for rogues, charlatans and robbers, and is presided over by a dangerous lunatic, is a truth now evident, apparently, only to those not blinded by this outdated and highly ideological mindset.
If his international investment advisers managed to produce in Mbeki only a very shortlived epiphany about the seriousness of the crisis in Zimbabwe or, if Mbeki and his advisers believe they can mislead some of the world’s shrewdest business people about their resolve to deal with Mugabe we are in serious trouble. For, not only will the Zimbabwean situation then continue to deteriorate to our considerable economic disadvantage but our national leader will have suffered another huge blow to his credibility. It is something neither we nor he can afford.
We need action from him. We need it now. We need it visible. And we need it effective.
Fudge, fudge and fudge
The decision by the ANC members on the parliamentary committee presiding over Maduna v Kluever to let the minister of justice off the hook is hardly surprising. The ruling party’s representatives on the committee have made little effort to hide their clubby urge to protect the minister. First there was the suggestion that the public protector had exceeded his brief by chastising the minister for his attack on Henri Kluever, the former auditor general, and by recommending that Parliament consider sanctioning the minister for his conduct. Then there was the contention that the committee did not have the powers to sanction Penuell Maduna.
The committee’s decision this week which steamrollered the call by its opposition MPs for Maduna to be publicly reprimanded is a travesty of justice. Maduna flouted the constitution when, almost four years ago, he accused Kluever of being party to the theft of R170-million of oil. The Constitution protects institutions like the Auditor General and the public protector from attack by other organs of state. South Africa being a de facto one party state, this protection afforded independent state institutions is one of its most crucial provisions.
The public protector’s inquiry torpedoed all Maduna’s accusations, and expressly recommended that Parliament sanction the minister. Maduna’s admission to the R30-million inquiry that he knew he had erred shortly after his attack on Kluever makes his exoneration even more preposterous.
The committee has therefore given the finger to the office of the public protector. After fudging and procrastinating for more than a year, it has undermined the watchdog’s credibility and, ironically, launched an implicit attack on another institution shielded by the Constitution. The public protector’s most expensive and time-consuming investigation ever has been rendered worthless.
We have observed before how Maduna is poorly qualified for ministerial office, and how his promotion to justice after his dismal performance in minerals and energy cast serious doubt on the government’s integrity.
Now the ANC has shown it will do anything to protect this man even if it means making a mockery of the public protector, Parliament and the Constitution.