The African National Congress’s lack of policy clarity and direction on how to approach the Zimbabwean crisis has placed it in an awkward position with its alliance partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), political analyst Aubrey Matshiqi said on Thursday.
The Zimbabwe government, in a vitriolic dismissal of Cosatu, described the trade union movement as ”working with well-known pro-Western interests opposed to Zimbabwe’s land reform … pseudo-Africans who represent hostile neocolonial … non-African interests”.
Matshiqi described these comments as ”a deliberate and disingenuous ideological attack aimed at delegitimising the stature of Cosatu”. He said the fact that the ANC has not rallied to its alliance partners’ defence ”is indicative that the party was prepared to sacrifice Cosatu’s credentials on the altar of quiet diplomacy not to annoy the Zimbabwean government and its President, Robert Mugabe.
”The dynamics in the tripartite alliance might be such that the ANC is peeved that Cosatu did not seek its permission before embarking on their mission.”
The ANC has continued its egg dance around the Cosatu deportation debacle in Zimbabwe despite pressure from its alliance partners.
Cosatu officials, who had gone to Zimbabwe on a fact-finding mission, were unceremoniously removed from a meeting with the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions and summarily deported from the country on Wednesday. The deportation was carried out despite an order granted by the Zimbabwe High Court on Tuesday interdicting the government from deporting them.
South African Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota admitted that ”the whole thing was a bit embarrassing to us as the ANC — these are our alliance partners”.
The chairperson of the Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition, Brian Kagoro, said the deportation was part of Zanu-PF’s ploy to discredit any organisation that is critical of its human rights record.
He said Harare, by labelling the labour movement proxies of the British ahead of the March 2005 election, was trying to get the South African government to exclude the trade unionists from the South African observer mission. He noted that Harare had already discredited the South African Council of Churches. Earlier this year Mugabe also launched a scathing attack on Archbishop Desmond Tutu for voicing his displeasure with the situation in Zimbabwe.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said the events in Zimbabwe were unfortunate. But he refused to elaborate, saying he was awaiting more information.
Ngonyama said ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe had gone to the Cosatu offices on Wednesday afternoon to meet the union’s secretary general but had not found him. The other alliance partner, the South African Communist Party, called on the government to strongly condemn the Zimbabwean authorities.
Cosatu has threatened to blockade the South African-Zimbabwean border and generally step up mobilisation against the Zimbabwean government.
While attempting to appear non-committal, the South African government drew ire for its statement that ”Zimbabwe, as an independent, sovereign state, has an inalienable right to determine and to apply its immigration legislation as it may deem appropriate and in its own interest”.