Whoever originated the saying, "Silence is golden", played a very cruel and sick joke on Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki believed the hogwash and, trying to stand out among presidential imbeciles, and especially trying to camouflage his cowardice, labeled his political inadequacy 'silent (or quiet) diplomacy'.
Talk, Mbeki. Talk, my friend! It is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. Zimbabwe is full of people with freedom to gain and nothing to lose. Silence, Mbeki, is usually linked with consent. And it's far from being golden.
Mbeki was fired from mediating in the Cote d'voire crisis because of his 'partiality'; that is my 'quiet diplomacy' too. The truth is that they fired him because Mbeki is just no good in such things. Mbeki has the regrettable tendency of being mesmerized by the bad guys in any negotiations. We in Zimbabwe could have told the Ivorians, had they asked us. After firing Mbeki, the Ivorians found common ground and only last Tuesday, the leader of the contras, Guillaume Soro, was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Ivory Coast under a president he once bitterly fought against. Due to pressure from outside Africa, Mbeki tried to mediate in Zimbabwe and failed dismally. The people he tried to bring together ended up thousands of kilometres further apart than they were before he came on the scene. Later, there were reports that he actually zeroed in on the opposition party, encouraged and bankrolled a group of dissident supporters to form a splinter faction, a development that continues to benefit Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe to this day. But, surprisingly, even Mugabe, the man Mbeki so embarrassingly seeks to protect, does not think much of Mbeki and clearly does not have much faith in him. Mugabe has always considered Mbeki a lightweight, otherwise he would have conceded a little to give Mbeki's horrid quiet diplomacy some credibility.
Hopefully, Botswana is not too caught up in self-praise and diamonds to remember they are in Africa. Botswana is in danger of destroying its tomorrow under a ridiculous avalanche of foreign praise. Botswana ought to be careful. They are our brethren and, in spite of the praise and elevations from abroad, we still herd our cattle together, right here in Africa, foot and mouth and all. SADC, particularly Botswana and South Africa, cannot afford to remain silent when deaths and mayhem occur in Zimbabwe.
"We must speak out against the situation in Zimbabwe the same way we spoke against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s when we were a small nation criticising a big power," Botswana's Specially Elected MP, Botsalo Ntuane, told a local daily. "I can't reconcile this contradiction. What is the worst that can come out of speaking out and saying enough is enough? I am pleading with the government to say 'enough is enough' because this has not brought any dividends for us."
Ntuane added that 'rising crime, loitering and government expenditure in daily repatriation are the bitter fruits that Botswana has reaped from the Zimbabwean crisis.'
What has transpired in my home country in the last three weeks is evidence enough that Zimbabwe has become one huge political orphanage full of people running away from themselves.
How does Botswana feel to be in the front line of a lawless state that brutalizes its citizens and even attempts to murder its own elected members of parliament? Is it democracy for Botswana to keep quiet when such things happen? Is Botswana obligated to say or do anything about what is happening across its border?
"This belief that speaking against a sister African government amounts to interference in the nation's sovereignty is illogical," Ntuane said. The world, it appears, is mesmerized by the brutality and evil exuded by Mugabe to such an extent that it is immobilized.
Unlike Zimbabwe, South Africa was liberated, not by war, but by international pressure, outsiders speaking and pressurizing. "Isn't it a shame," said one observer on the BBC, "that Mbeki behaves the way he has, whether it is about AIDS or Zimbabwe? It is a shame that those who benefited from other people's speaking up for their rights when they were oppressed have now become enablers and apologists for today's oppressors. Shame on Mbeki and his government for their behavior. It should not be about Mr. Mugabe, it is about the people."
Botswana, like the rest of SADC, is obligated to talk and to do something about what is happening in Zimbabwe because, by so doing, it would be protecting its democracy, its economy and its citizens.
'Artificial' measures are always being introduced to protect the Pula and the Rand from the economic chaos in Zimbabwe. With its inflation at 5.3 percent and that of Botswana at 7.2 percent, how do South Africa and Botswana reconcile their economic relations and trade in the region with a neighbour whose inflation rate is over 1700 percent? Regional cooperation on cross-border matters of mutual interest are hampered or scampered by Zimbabwe because of its worsening crisis, economic, political or otherwise.
"Now more than ever," says Joe Seremane, Chairperson and spokesperson of South Africa's Democratic Alliance, "Thabo Mbeki needs to break his curious silence on the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe or face further ridicule in this regard".
To us Zimbabweans, it is especially painful that our leadership risked our lives and a lot more, including bombings and assassinations, with some of apartheid South Africa's culprits still serving jail terms in Zimbabwe today. With the support of the international community and the so-called 'Frontline States', Zimbabwe spoke out and applied the pressure on the apartheid government. Were it not for that, would South Africa be free today? Would Mbeki, an 'accidental' vice-president (by compromise), be President today? "Those who cannot remember the past," said Spanish-American philosopher, George Santaya, "are doomed to repeat it."
"Why," wonders Bubakar Sillah of Banjul, in The Gambia, "is the international community reluctant and delays in intervening in situations like Zimbabwe where weak, oppressed and helpless people are trying to effect change on their own? Look at Darfur, Guinea, etc."
Meanwhile, Zimbabweans cannot just sit there and die from political violence and hunger. They cease to respect international borders and leave just so as to survive. Their illegal presence in both Botswana and South Africa immediately becomes a problem to them and to the host countries.
"The problem is not Mugabe, rather it is the ineffective organisations like the African Union that do nothing when the sons of Africa are suffering," said Arafat Ibrahim of Kampala, Uganda, on 'Have Your Say'. "We need a collective response. The manner in which Mugabe treats the citizens while nothing is done...paves the way for other leaders, like Museveni of Uganda, to follow the ranks of dictators with economic and political turmoil being the order of the day."
Evil motivates people more often than good. African leaders must lead and stop supporting each other in unfruitful camaraderie when things go wrong. I hope remarks by Zambia's Levy Mwanawasa about Zimbabwe being like the legendary Titanic will be heeded by fellow leaders. African leaders should just take the initiative from the impotent Thabo Mbeki. Africa has too many problems to give the likes of Mbeki a playground littered with skulls of African men, women and children.
"I don't know why everyone is up in arms about Zimbabwe," Walter Meyer of Sydney, Australia, wrote to the BBC. "As a Malawi-born white African and having left Africa 15 years ago, I say, why bother, man? Let them (Africans) carry on and self destruct. The rest of Africa have this apathy and silent support for Mugabe and regard him as a hero. Standing ovations at African summit talks, etc. ... Let them carry on. What's new in Africa?"
Pressure is important. It liberated South Africa. And Botswana, of all countries, knows that pressure forms diamonds. Well, Botswana, what d'ya say?
*Tanonoka Joseph Whande is a Zimbabwean journalist.
