The refugee �embarrassment�
Mmegi Editor | Thursday November 24, 2016 12:07
From the days of the Frontline States where neighbours aided and abetted those fighting to overthrow colonialist forces in the region, SADC’s heads of state can certainly look back with pride.
What they cannot do, however, is become stuck looking down memory lane, while neglecting the myriad of pressing crises the region faces going forward.
For a long time, there has been a secret or hidden refugee crisis in Southern Africa that the heads of state in their various summits over the years have conveniently ignored. SADC as an organisation has also turned a blind eye to this crisis, as evidenced by the absence of action and the tardiness in responding to the numerous appeals by those affected.
Those affected include Botswana, home to 2,113 refugees mostly from Namibia, Zimbabwe and other African countries. With the UNHCR scaling down its operations in Botswana, local taxpayers will have to foot an even higher bill to provide the refugees at Dukwi with food, health care, education and security. The existence of refugees from SADC states in Botswana is clearly an embarrassment for the leaders of Namibia and Zimbabwe, being symptomatic of the failure of their economic and political systems. That citizens from a fellow SADC country have found it fit to flee to a neighbouring state and stay there for decades is a mortifying indictment of the governance in Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Apartheid and other colonialists were a clear target and common enemy for the Frontline States to coalesce over. Poverty, trade, industrialisation, HIV/AIDS and other challenges are equally issues to unite over. However, the refugee crisis exposes the failure of SADC’s peer review system, and confirms that the heads of summit is an Old Boys Club where gratuitous back-patting and mutual affirmation are the order of the day.
The summit leaders cannot disagree or engage each other. The Frontline States mentality, still prevalent today, demands like-thinking and discourages introspection. This status quo is clear whenever mavericks such as Botswana break ranks continentally and the loudest criticism comes from fellow southern Africans.
The SADC summit thus, betrays its citizens who are refugees in fellow member states, while simultaneously narrowing the space within which affected countries such as Botswana, can fruitfully engage to relieve themselves of the refugee burden.
Besotted as some of them are with the past, our regional leaders would do well to remember that the fight against apartheid and colonialism was precisely for the freedom and equal standing of ALL citizens. Resolving the refugee crisis is key to sustainable peace in SADC, if not for the sake of dignity, then because today’s refugee is tomorrow’s rebel fighter.
Today’s thought
“No state, no home, no identity, no right to work. Doesn’t the world see this injustice?”
- Ismail Haniyeh