Zambia broke the regional silence on Tuesday over the deteriorating political conditions in Zimbabwe, telling its counterparts in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to stop pretending ”all is well in Zimbabwe”.
”We should not pretend that all is well in Zimbabwe. There is a serious problem and ostracising Zimbabwe will not help solve the problems there,” Foreign Affairs Minister Mundia Sikatana told SADC executive secretary Thomaz Salomao in Lusaka.
Sikatana made the remarks to Salamao during the latter’s visit to Zambia to organise the annual SADC summit set to take place in Lusaka in August, at which Zambia is due to take over the community’s 12-month rotating chair.
Sikatana said the summit should aim to help stem the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe by engaging authoritarian Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the European Union on the issue of sanctions.
”We should engage the EU over its sanctions against Robert Mugabe. This should be on the agenda,” he said.
Salomao said the SADC secretariat will look at addressing the issue of the sanctions, which have ”crippled the economy and resulted in widespread chronic poverty”.
Sikatana said ending the sanctions is key to ending the food crisis in what used to be known as the breadbasket of Africa.
Zimbabweans, who are already jumping the border into South Africa in droves, are now also flooding into Zambia seeking food, he said.
Unless the issue of the confiscation of white-owned farms is resolved quickly, the situation will attain catastrophic proportions exacerbated by flooding and drought, he said.
It is up to SADC states to take the bull by the horns and help Mugabe realise that dialogue is the best recipe for sustainable peace and stability, according to Sikatana.
Diplomats in Lusaka told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that regional economic powerhouse South Africa is the only state with the clout to persuade Mugabe to tone down his crackdown on the press and the opposition.
Zimbabwe is a hotly debated issue within the 14-member economic and trade bloc, with some members, including South Africa, still feeling the need to show loyalty to their erstwhile freedom-struggle-era comrade-in-arms.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has been criticised for remaining curiously quiet on the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.
Cosatu signals strike
Meanwhile, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will be demonstrating ”in all the establishments of the Zimbabwe government”, including its high commission in South Africa, in solidarity with the general strike called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) next month.
Cosatu has also emphasised — in communication with its sister union federation in Zimbabwe — that it will not turn a blind eye to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s abuse of workers and human rights in his country.
The strike is set for April 3 and 4.
In a statement released from Zimbabwe, the ZCTU noted that Cosatu, at its central executive committee meeting held recently, had taken note that both the economic catastrophe and the attacks on human rights in Zimbabwe had worsened, ”as reflected in the swelling tide of migrants fleeing into South Africa, which has led to widespread exploitation of these workers by unscrupulous employers who are taking advantage of their situation whilst at the same time distorting the South African labour market”.
The central executive committee also resolved ”to struggle to organise and protect these and other vulnerable immigrant workers and to demand harsh penalties for employers breaking the labour laws”.
Responding to communication from the ZCTU urging Cosatu not to view Mugabe as a left-wing hero like Venezuelan President Hugo Chàvez and ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Cosatu international secretary Bongani Masuku said that while Cosatu did recognise ”the heroic role” played by the Zimbabwean government and people in the liberation of South Africa, this did not mean that it would ”close its eyes when Mugabe’s government tramples on workers’ and human rights while blaming all his country’s problems on imperialists”.
It did appreciate, however, that ”perhaps President Mugabe” and Chàvez, were among the ”very few world leaders willing to confront head-on the naked hypocrisy and general aggression of the United States government”, said Masuku.
”Whilst it is true that the global balance of forces limits space for more radical change, he [Mugabe] too must take personal responsibility for leading his country from being the breadbasket of our region and continent to being the basket case of our region and continent,” he added. — I-Net Bridge, Sapa-DPA