Standing Idle As A Bully Disintegrates SADC

It really is difficult to see Mugabe’s relationship with his SADC counterparts as anything other than him being the bully who no one else is able to stand up to? The alternative is a cynical view that the other heads of state are kow-towing to him because they expect the same leniency when they too veer off track.
Barely a week had passed since a SADC summit reportedly pressed Mugabe to postpone the country’s national elections because conditions long-agreed upon were not in place for voting to take place on 31 July – the date that he deliberately proclaimed just before the meeting – and Mugabe responded by threatening and insulting his fellow leaders.
“Let it be known that we are in SADC voluntarily. If SADC decides to do stupid things, let it be known that we can withdraw from SADC,” he told a rally to launch the campaign of Zanu-PF in apparent defiance of SADC’s request that time was needed for proper reforms and cleaning up of the voters’ roll before elections took place.
“An ordinary woman says ‘no you can’t have elections on July 31?’,” Mugabe lashed out when referring to Lindiwe Zulu, an envoy of South African President Jacob Zuma [who is the lead SADC broker for the Zimbabwean peace process], and a member of SADC’s facilitation team for the elections. “Really, did such a person think we as a country would take heed of this street woman’s stupid utterances?” he continued bashing Zuma and SADC.
Clearly the 89-year-old Mugabe has gone way too far in aiming his chutzpah-filled rude tongue at the same people who have saved him and Zimbabwe countless times over the past 15 years, often at the expense of their own citizens. But nary a word of rebuke has come from the SADC leaders.
Sadly, they all appear to treat the fact that Zimbabwe is on fire as an internal matter for Mugabe, his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai and the people of that country to sort out. If so, what is regional integration all about?
Mugabe, Zimbabwe and all other of the 14 member states of SADC should not be allowed to disregard the rules they set for regional integration. Their silence is proof of duplicity – they talk of basic rules that each country must abide by in order to be part of SADC, but balk every time a bully like Mugabe rants.
They squirmed a couple of years ago when Mugabe disregarded the rulings of the Windhoek-based SADC Tribunal and forced them into disbanding the regional court, making it subservient to national ones and thus sacrificing common regional interests. At this back-peddling rate, forget about economic empowerment for the masses and development ambitions like Vision 2030.
The irony, as happened before, when Mugabe goes to SADC asking for help, whether it is to get money to prop up the Zimbabwean economy that he willfully destroyed or to attack the West that he loves to use as the red-herring for his shenanigans, the regional leaders will bend whichever way the Zanu PF leader tells them to.
Mugabe has time and again showed he is a selfish man willing to ruin everything unless he gets what he wants. He has taken his country down with him and now he is threatening to take SADC down too.
If anyone needed evidence that our leaders did not have the will to iron out obstacles such as cross-border tariffs, harmonised border-posts and passports for their citizens to interact and trade with ease, Mugabe has made it abundantly clear that the problem does not lie with technicalities.
Mugabe and his ilk have been allowed too long to cook and mix that simmering potion for regional disintegration. SADC leaders could save us the energy of swimming against the tides and concentrate instead on matters that will help individual nations develop rather than continue their duplicitous ways and selling us false hope.
Zimbabwe and Madagascar are their latest tests and they have flunked them hopelessly.
* See a readers letter on page 14