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Mugabe at large
The EU/ACP summit has come and gone and to me, even from this distance,
it
looks like they succeeded in restricting Mugabe's ability to
dislocate the
summit. They seem to have done this by carefully managing his movements
and
opportunities and seem to have had the help of most African leaders -
especially those from the SADC region. His body language this morning
was
very revealing - an old man looking tense and somehow reduced in
stature.
There was little of the swagger and arrogance that we have seen
previously.
A large billboard on the road from the Airport to Lisbon stated -
'Mugabe,
Racist, you are not welcome' and today a light aircraft flew over the
conference venue dragging a large banner that said - 'Mugabe, you
are next
for The Hague. Then the Vigil guys from London and their Portuguese
associates did a great job, actually forcing Mugabe to change hotels
and
clashing with a group of local thugs employed to defend Mugabe - all
grist
to the mill, there was no other story and the media blitz on the
Zimbabwe
delegation was total - I doubt if Grace managed any of her legendary
shopping.
The current Chairman of the G8, the Chancellor of Germany, was
typically
straight on the issue of Zimbabwe. 'This situation, economically,
socially
and politically, was unacceptable and was not the responsibility of the
European States to address. This was an African problem and required an
African solution'. At least 6 European Heads of State stayed away
from the
summit on account of the attendance by Mugabe - that is a significant
number
of the 27 States that make up the European Union today. Overall I rate
the
summit as a diplomatic disaster for Mr. Mugabe.
It also sounds as if the summit did some good things. It is now many
years
since European States administered colonies in Africa and it is time we
moved on and established a more modern relationship between the
sovereign
States and groups of States of both Europe and Africa. The negotiation
process of the new Economic Partnership Agreements is now well down the
path
to finality - the one with the SADC will be finalized in 2008 and
hopefully
the MDC will be the government to do it for Zimbabwe. The colonial era
is
past and we must now concentrate on the future - for all our sakes.
Then there is the situation behind closed doors at the summit. I doubt
very
much if Mugabe could have ever imagined that his timing could have been
so
far out. Just 4 weeks ago we stated our view at the SADC sponsored
talks
that if action was not taken to enforce the decisions made at the talks
and
to halt the violence against the MDC, we could see little point in
continuing. This resulted in the direct intervention of President Mbeki
who
came to Harare on his way to Chogum and had a session with the main
principals to the talks.
The talks resumed immediately afterwards but a week later, Zanu PF
submitted
a document to the facilitators making the outrageous statement that
since
there was insufficient time to implement the agreements reached after
months
of negotiation, that the elections to be held in March 2008 should be
held
under current laws and administration. They had the audacity to suggest
that
the government elected in the March elections should then take
responsibility for implementing the agreement and that this would then
govern all future elections! If this is what they have been angling for
since March, they must have been shaken by our response. Enough to say
we
totally rejected the suggestion and instead demanded that the
negotiators
agree to a list of minimum demands by the 15th of December - two
weeks away,
or we will review our whole participation and consent to what had been
discussed.
Our National Executive met to discuss the stance taken by our
leadership and
endorsed it unanimously and issued a statement to the media to that
effect
as Mr. Mugabe took off for Lisbon. In Lisbon were all the leaders of
the
SADC region - the actual sponsors of the talks as well as a
high-powered
delegation from South Africa led by the State President. I have got no
doubt
that sideline meetings have been held and that in those meetings there
were
strong words. From the very beginning, the Zanu PF team and Mr. Mugabe
in
particular, have dragged their feet, agreed to things in private with
the
SADC leadership and then gone on to do the opposite. They have tried to
circumvent the region and to subvert the South African role at every
step.
Last week, they went a step too far and the timing could not have been
worse.
I expect that very shortly, in one form or another, we will see
evidence
that Mr. Mugabe has been forced to back down and agree to the minimum
demands of the MDC. The talks are continuing in South Africa and by
next
weekend (in fact the 15th) we expect to hear that the agreement has
been
wrapped up and signed. At our request it then comes back to us and we
have a
period during which we can take the agreement to our structures and
partners
in civil society and get their reaction and approval to sign off on the
deal. If that goes as we expect, we would then agree to the
implementation
of the agreement and proceed to the next step, which is implementation
with
full international and regional supervision and then the campaign and
the
elections themselves.
In a strange way the EU/ACP summit may have been the exact sort of
event
that was needed to bring this situation into focus, get leaders to meet
together and agree on what was needed and then take the required steps
to
see that it happens. I am glad that it did not derail the main agenda
and
that real progress was made. This was an historic event for both Europe
and
Africa and might well have been a running point in the resolution of
the
Zimbabwe crisis.
As for the situation at home, it's raining and that is always
welcome, it
looks as if we will have a decent wet season. But nothing else has
changed
or improved - prices are doubling weekly, the dollar has crashed and
everything is in very short supply. People are desperately poor and
hungry
and it is going to be a lousy Christmas for all of us. Lets just pray
that
we can report back to the people of Zimbabwe that there is light on the
horizon at last.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 9th December 2007
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