Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has accused the government of again washing its hands of responsibility and abetting Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ”survival programme”.
Writing in her weekly newsletter on the DA website on Friday, Zille also urged increased international pressure on Mugabe.
There was now no doubt that the endgame had been reached in Zimbabwe.
”No doubt, except in the minds of the governments of both South Africa and that unhappy country,” she said.
The task was to turn the endgame into a bold new beginning, as speedily and as intelligently as possible.
By any definition of a modern state — a functioning economy, effective public service and distinct civil society comprising media, courts and related institutions — Zimbabwe barely existed.
”The empty supermarket shelves and marauding militias we saw are final, unavoidable proof: the self-destructive policies set in motion seven years ago by President Robert Mugabe have destroyed the country.”
Mugabe’s desperate attempts since 2000 to stave off his own defeat at the polls, via land-grabs, constitutional gerrymandering, and police-state thuggery, had sent the economy into freefall while eclipsing any vestiges of a free and democratic process, Zille said.
”It is hard to overstate what that ruination means for those who live there.”
According to long-time Mugabe critic Archbishop Pius Ncube, ”Politics in Zimbabwe are all about Mugabe’s survival.”
The crisis had been developing for many years. As long ago as the mid-1980s, Mugabe masterminded the killing of thousands of opponents in Matabeleland, foreshadowing today’s wanton destruction, Zille said.
As a result, the apocalypse — mass starvation and a headlong flight from the country, chiefly into South Africa — had arrived.
According to the United Nations, South Africa should now brace itself for ”arguably the most extraordinary exodus of people from a country not at war”.
”How has our government reacted? After all, in his dealings with our northern neighbour President [Thabo] Mbeki has long echoed the famed ‘special relationship’ of Britain and the United States, maintaining economic links, staving off international criticism and maintaining warm fraternal ties with Zanu-PF,” she said.
When the Southern African Development Community (SADC) tasked Mbeki with brokering talks between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, it was a covert admission that the government’s policy of ”quiet diplomacy” had failed to set Zimbabwe on the right course.
Mugabe’s contempt for the subsequent talks in Pretoria — which the South African tax-payer was funding — was confirmed this week when Zanu-PF failed to appear.
”In fact, it is almost certain Mugabe ordered the pull-out himself.”
Faced with this humiliating rejection of South Africa’s mediation efforts, and the unfolding collapse that had seen South African nationals arrested for failing to reduce prices, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma jetted off on a state visit to Cuba.
”Thus has Mbeki’s government once more washed its hands of responsibility and abetted Mugabe’s survival programme,” Zille said.
The question remained: What could South Africa do to salvage from the wreckage a new start for Zimbabwe?
”I want to argue that the stronger and more widely supported the international case to arraign him, the stronger the threat of such prosecution can be used to prise Mugabe out of office.
”International pressure does impact on Mugabe’s hold on power.”
One way to confirm Mugabe’s pariah status was to bar him from international gatherings and so embolden his associates to urge his resignation.”
It was also important to pressurise the international community to consider charging Mugabe for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.
”What is critical is that Mugabe and his inner circle be forced to step down.
”We need to act vigorously and unambiguously if we are to begin the long, painful process of restoring a shattered country to life.
”The endgame is over; beginning anew will call for all our courage as well as our compassion,” Zille said. — Sapa