2008 Articles 25 Dec Kingdom Come 21 Dec Christmas 15 Dec Step Forward 5 Dec Beginning 1 Dec Amendment 30 Nov Facilitation 26 Nov Genocide 24 Nov Running Out 17 Nov Crisis 15 Nov Somalia 12 Nov What Next? 8 Nov Leadership 2 Nov Chipo 1 Nov Rome Burns 29 Oct Failure 25 Oct High Noon 19 Oct Never Easy 10 Oct Abyss 8 Oct Filibustering 4 Oct Chaos in Zim 29 Sept A Mule? 21 Sept On Step 16 Sept The End 12 Sept New Beginning 11 Sept Deal? 6 Sept Consequences 3 Sept Need a Deal 2 Sept Dollar Died 31 Aug Steering 29 Aug Unstuck 23 Aug Betrayed 18 Aug The Devil 13 Aug 13 Aug 08 12 Aug Today 11 Aug Cliffhanger 8 Aug Whats Going On 27 Jul Progress 22 Jul Agree to talk 21 Jul Mbeki kicks 16 Jul Crunch Time 13 Jul Economics 9 Jul Reality Looms 2 Jul Where? 30 Jun Looking Glass 26 Jun Battle 22 Jun What Now? 21 Jun The Commitment 16 Jun Do or Die 13 Jun Morning After 10 Jun Closing Doors 26 May Current Outlook 24 May Fan Club 19 May Tyranny 17 May End Game 15 May Flushing 8 May Violence 6 May Bizarre Process 25 Apr Cornered 20 Apr Electoral Fraud 19 Apr Jesse 17 Apr This Farce 11 Apr The Devil 6 Apr Wounded Buffalo 1 Apr Dying Kick 31 Mar Politcl Tsunami 27 Mar Current Situ. 26 Mar 4 days to go 21 Mar 8 days to go 15 Mar Election Time 27 Feb Games Begin 17 Feb Public Office 11 Feb Choices 4 Feb Decision Time 26 Jan Ambushed 25 Jan The Struggle 20 Jan Truth or Fiction 12 Jan Mugabe Mistake 8 Jan Surprise 2 Jan Kenya Lessons
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Impartial Facilitation
Over the past 10 years during which the MDC has sought to achieve a change
of government via legal, political and peaceful means, we have always
thought that the rightness of our cause would find a ready hearing in the
other democracies of southern Africa. How wrong we were.
Ten years down the line we now know that a network of patronage spreads out
from Zimbabwe across the region and that because of this, many regional
leaders are either silent on the issues that are presented to them by the
Zimbabwe crisis or are in open support of the illegal regime of Robert
Mugabe. The patronage links take many forms - illegal contracts that finance
political parties, secret holdings in companies that earn hundreds of
millions of dollars from regional enterprise and deals and are paid directly
outside the country. Illicit dealings in gold and diamonds, copper and
cobalt and even in just hard currency looted through the accounts of the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe are involved. Just the other day the Reserve Bank
sold 2 million carats of diamonds in Mumbai, India - the proceeds going to
destinations unknown.
We have evidence of many heads of Government being involved in this
activity. The list is astonishing and those who are involved can be
identified by their silence or complicity in the Zimbabwe crisis. Why for
example does the South African, Zambian and Congolese governments not
complain about a tax levied on every tonne of cargo that transits the
Beitbridge border over the New Limpopo Bridge? Why is it only the Botswana
government that complains about the monopoly granted to the BBR on rail
traffic from central Africa going south to South Africa and from South
Africa going north?
This willingness to cast principle aside in return for small or even large
favors and perhaps hard currency transfers to private accounts is saddening.
It also casts doubt on the ability and willingness of many African leaders
to support the very principles they have for so long supported in public,
only to despise in private.
The demand by the Mugabe regime that they be left alone on the grounds of
sovereignty and independence and not called to account for the manner in
which they have abused their power and responsibilities in government, is
just another example of regional leadership using the power of language to
defend the indefensible. When he rises at international forums (as he will
do today in the Middle East) Mugabe should be greeted with derision and
laughter. He lost the election in March, then carried out a presidential
rerun election that was so fraudulent and violent that not even his closest
allies could endorse the results. He heads an illegal regime and runs a
government without a budget. Yet regional leaders call him 'President' and
allow him to sit in their forums. He enters into negotiations to resolve the
crisis in his country; signs a deal and then breaks every principle
enshrined therein.
He hosted Chogum in Harare and chaired the sessions that produced the Harare
Declaration on basic rights and good governance. He then promptly went on to
abuse every principle enshrined in the Declaration and finally withdrew from
the Commonwealth when challenged. He claims to have two degrees in economics
and a high level of basic intelligence yet does not even understand the very
basics of how to manage a country's financial system. He speaks out at the
UN on issues such as poverty and human and political rights whilst at home
his regime destroys the economy, impoverishes a whole nation and denies its
entire population all the basic rights enshrined in the UN Declarations.
If I were an observer from another planet watching from outer space - I
would find this all rather bemusing. But I am not; I am just another victim
like millions of others who have had their personal lives destroyed by a
corrupt and incompetent government in Africa. Having listened to and
believed in the high sounding promises of leadership seeking to rectify
injustice in pre-independence Africa, I must say it is easy not to hold out
any credence that African leadership can resolve the problems of Africa.
Then there is Mr. Mbeki - famous for the 'African Peer Review' mechanism,
the 'African Renaissance' and the Rainbow nation. Holding out such promise -
a quiet, pipe smoking intellectual with a Marxist background. A scion of an
iconic family in South Africa that has been synonymous with the struggle for
justice and human rights.
What a huge disappointment he has been. He turned out to be corrupt, a
racist and locked into an ideological straight jacket that was not used to
direct the State in the direction of greater equity or the elimination of
poverty or the rehabilitation of the South African family, but fostered the
fastest growth in the number of new millionaires in any country in the
latter half of the 20th Century, created huge disparities in welfare and
wealth and supported distorted views of HIV/Aids that led to the deaths of
hundreds of thousands who might otherwise have lived.
Appointed as the mediator or facilitator in the Zimbabwe negotiations, he
has acted in a partial and negative manner from the very start. MDC
negotiators have recounted that they were often confronted in the talks by a
solid phalanx of opposing sentiment - Zanu PF and the Mutambara group
joining the South African facilitation team in opposition to the MDC
position.
In a 37 page memorandum in 2002, Mbeki wrote about the Zimbabwe crisis -
accurately predicting the outcome of the illegal farm invasions and advising
Zanu PF to abandon the exercise - not on principle or in defence of the
rights of those being abused or the legal principles that were involved but
on the grounds that the Party of the Revolution' would run the risk of
being dispossessed. In pages of closely reasoned argument, he set out the
case to defend the right of the 'Party of the Revolution' to retain power -
at any cost.
In the 6 years since that time he has done everything in his power to
subvert the MDC and to prevent the MDC from coming to power. He has
subverted its leadership, supported its opponents, protected Zanu PF in
international forums and used his considerable power and influence to deny
the MDC recognition in Africa. In the past two years - even as he 'mediated'
the talks, he manipulated events and outcomes in a desperate effort to
protect the Zanu PF from the very consequences he predicted in his 2002
memo.
Since Monday this week Mr. Mbeki has shown himself to be true to form -
still locked into a straight jacket imposed by his past. He has tried to
bully the MDC negotiators, derided their principals and supported a
fraudulently based version of legal agreements designed to create an
inclusive government in Zimbabwe.
MDC is not responsible in any way for the crisis in Zimbabwe and will not
allow the efforts of Zanu PF to intensify the crisis as a means to force us
into a bad deal. We are fully committed to the deal signed on the 11th
September and want to see it implemented in full as soon as possible. But we
no longer accept Mr. Mbeki as facilitator but will continue to press the
other Zimbabwean participants for a reasonable outcome.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 29th November 2008
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