Government leaders on Thursday February 20 went on the offensive against Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), accusing it of being made up of ”crybabies” and warning it against becoming a ”fight-back opposition” like the Democratic Alliance in South Africa.
Briefing the media in Parliament, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad also denied there was a South African government policy to sideline the MDC.
It was customary for governments to have contact with governments and parties with parties, Pahad said, and the African National Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe had regularly met MDC leaders.
Pahad had been asked why South Africa’s customary multilateral approach to the resolution of conflicts did not seem to apply in Zimbabwe. The MDC has complained that the South African government is not ”an honest broker” in the Zimbabwean conflict, and that visiting South African ministers systematically fight shy of it.
Minster of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Minister of Land Affairs Thoko Didiza and Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana made no contact with the MDC during recent trips to Zimbabwe, and returned singing the praises of the government’s land-seizure programme.
Indirectly accusing the MDC of party politicking, Pahad said: ”South Africa is committed to finding a solution, but I am not sure we are getting the same commitment by various sectors in Zimbabwe to really seek solutions rather than continuing to just look at what is wrong.”
”If there is a single message I can give the opposition and civil society in Zimbabwe: don’t become a fight-back type of opposition we have got in this country.”
It is known that South Africa has tried to prevail on the MDC to drop its court application to have last year’s presidential elections annulled. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is currently on trial on treason charges.
Pahad said that unless Zimbabweans worked together, all the efforts of the outside world to broker a settlement would fail. The ANC was not prepared to do anything that would hasten the collapse of Zimbabwe, as this would have disastrous consequences for South Africa.
Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota, also present at the briefing, said he had been available to meet MDC leaders visiting South Africa, including secretary general Welshman Ncube.
However, Lekota, also the ANC chairperson, said he was not aware of any letter or other approach by the Zimbabwean party for a meeting with the ANC. ”They can’t sit back and be crybabies,” he said.
Pahad sidestepped a question about whether he shared his minister’s view, expressed at the ANC’s conference in December, that Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu-PF, was a ”progressive” organisation. ”What does ‘progressive’ mean?” he asked, adding that he did not believe in labelling parties.
Senior Zanu-PF official Emerson Mnangagwa had been invited to the ANC conference because Zanu was a sister organisation, unlike the MDC.
In relation to Iraq, Pahad distanced himself from Motlanthe’s reported statement this week that South Africa was vulnerable to invasion by the United States because of its mineral wealth. South African policy was not anti-American, and there was no conflict between the stance of the government and the ANC.