Khama�s words will echo long
Mmegi Editor | Tuesday May 5, 2015 12:25
Khama reportedly told Mugabe that his policies were solely responsible for the collapse of his country’s economy and the resultant immigration crisis that – in part – has stoked xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Not phantom Western enemies or “uneducated Kalangas” in southern Zimbabwe who are genetically hard-wired to jump the border into South Africa. Mugabe himself is responsible for the mess, Khama said to his stunned peer’s face.
As we have repeatedly noted in previous editorials, the Old Boys Club that is Southern African Development Community (SADC), by form and function, has never been equipped to deal with evils within its ranks. As a body rising out of the Frontline States movement and geared primarily to fight apartheid, SADC was never equipped to introspect. By virtue of its beginnings, the organisation’s founding ethos was the protection and preservation of African liberation, a tenet that by necessity precludes the censure of errant state leaders. Peer review would come in later years, but the philosophy within the organisation was well entrenched, particularly with the tacit urging of long-serving regional leaders such as Mugabe, who had and has much to gain from a toothless peer review organ.
Even prior to the first signs that Zimbabwe had a political problem, SADC had scarcely been a formidable economic, developmental and political spearhead for the region.
Rather, it was the equivalent of a country club, where non-binding resolutions were made, ineffective and voluntary institutions established and meaningless communiqués inked in the breathtaking scenery of random regional tourist hotspots. The hard questions, such as Mugabe’s repeated election theft, his dismantling of the rule of law, his patently racist land dispossession policies and subsequent dubious redistribution efforts, were met with feeble remonstrations by SADC. The Old Boys Club closed ranks around Mugabe, with Khama the only Doubting Thomas.
As the crisis deepened in Zimbabwe, the laws of economic osmosis saw millions of political and economic refugees cross over into the region, some skilled, others criminal, bringing both joy and woe to their host countries.
In Harare, with Khama and other leaders privately expecting Mugabe to use the recent xenophobic attacks to address the root of this crisis, he reached into his pocket, brought out the Frontline States’ card and expected the region to again close ranks around him.
Khama, indeed, was spot on in his criticism of the ageing Zimbabwean leader. An economic crisis has besieged that country for the better part of three decades and the region is filled with the evidence in economically displaced, desperate Zimbabweans.
Khama should be applauded for swimming against the tide and we hope this is the beginning of earnest and heartfelt transformation within SADC.
Today’s thought
“Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.”
- Mahatma Gandhi