The sense of disappointment and frustration following the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit this week matched that experienced after apartheid president PW Botha’s notorious Rubicon speech.
The ringing endorsement of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe followed mixed messages from countries of the region on the eve of the meeting.
Instead of undertaking seriously to discuss the political and economic breakdown in Zimbabwe, as the Tanzanian hosts promised, the leaders cheered Mugabe to the rafters.
They then called on the United States and the European Union to lift the sanctions slapped on the Zimbabwean government.
Finally, Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa turned the knife suggesting that Zimbabwe’s media was being unnecessarily critical of Mugabe.
European and American diplomats say it would have been better for the SADC meeting to have aped the African Union summit in July and glossed over Zimbabwe.
”This is certainly what we were led to expected from South Africa and other SADC members who briefed us before the summit,” said a European diplomat who specialises in the region.
”Then Tanzanian Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete told us that economic and political developments in Zimbabwe would be among the main items on the agenda.
”What eventuated was nothing short of a farce. The leaders tried to blame sanctions for Zimbabwe’s malaise. These sanctions are specially designed to hit a specific group of individuals in the Zimbabwe leadership,” the diplomat said.
”Far from hurting the man in the street in Zimbabwe, they are designed to stop Mugabe and his cronies from living the good life abroad at the expense of ordinary Zimbabweans. To suggest anything else undermines the credibility of the organisation. The effect of actions and statements made in support of Mugabe by the summit must inevitably have people in our capitals counting how many of the SADC leaders themselves are at the helms of recognised democracies,” the diplomat said.
”The obvious question is how many SADC leaders feel that supporting Mugabe is the best way of protecting their own insupportable regimes?”
Western diplomats were not convinced that the defence pact signed by the SADC leaders would ever be used by them to intervene in Zimbabwe. ”This was certainly another part of the mixed message we were given,” said a diplomat who concentrates on defence matters.
”Whatever noble intention there might be behind such a pact, we have to measure it against the failure of the AU to get its Peace and Security Council off the ground. The problem is lack of resources and of political will. The SADC pact merely places a heavier burden on those countries in the region willing to play a role.
”South Africa is obviously at the forefront here. But it is severely limited by a softly-softly policy towards neighbours resentful of its power and of growing political sensitivity at home to the cost of its increasing intervention in African crisis and conflict control and prevention.”
Diplomats insist that Zimbabwe cries out for immediate political pressure from the region rather than the prospect of military intervention in the event of a total collapse there.
The irrational defensiveness displayed by SADC leaders on the Zimbabwe issue overshadowed more positive elements of the summit. These included a serious discussion on formulating a common strategy to take to Cancun in Mexico next month for the start of the next round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.
SADC members will push for an easing of patent laws to lower production of cheaper drugs to fight the dread diseases of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/Aids. They will also fight against subsidies for Western farmers, which severely limit markets access by agricultural products from the developing world.