Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
from Global News Journal:
Crunch time for Zimbabwe
Southern African leaders have decided at a summit that Zimbabwe should form a unity government next month but the opposition said it was disappointed with the outcome, raising doubts over chances for ending the crisis.
The 15-nation SADC grouping said after the meeting in South Africa - its fifth attempt to secure a deal on forming a unity government - it had agreed that opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be sworn in as prime minister by Feb. 11.
All parties agreed control of the hotly disputed Home Affairs Ministry, which has been a major obstacle to a final agreement, should be divided between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai's MDC for six months, said South African President Kgalema Motlanthe.
But the MDC quickly issued a statement after the SADC communique was read out, making clear its disappointment and raising the possibility that deadlock would drag on as Zimbabweans face growing economic hardship. The MDC said its national council would meet this weekend to define its position on the summit.
SADC said ministers would be sworn in on Feb. 13, which would "conclude the process of the formation of the inclusive government". Allocation of ministries would be reviewed six months after the inauguration of the government, it added.
Mugabe, in power since 1980, and his ZANU-PF party have urged the opposition to join a unity government but say they will not hesitate to form one without them.
As the dispute drags on, prices are doubling every day. Food and fuel are in short supply and the local currency has been rendered virtually worthless. The death toll from a cholera epidemic has neared 2,900.
Will Africa’s mega trade bloc take off?
Three African trading blocs comprising some 527 million people and with an estimated gross domestic product of $624 billion, have agreed to move towards a free trade area. It would span 26 countries from Egypt to South Africa, and would go a long way towards streamlining some of the continent’s numerous trading blocs. Africa is home to some 30 regional trade arrangements, and on average each nation belongs to about four groups, according to international financial institutions. This has led to conflicting and overlapping agreements.
So in a move to ease some of these issues, heads of state who chair the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), met in the Ugandan capital to draw up a pact on integration, and eventually hoping to have a unified customs union. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said at the meeting’s opening that: “The greatest enemy of Africa, the greatest source of weakness has been disunity and a low level of political and economic integration.” The meeting’s final communiqué said a timeframe for integration would be considered in one year. Rwandan President Paul Kagame cautioned delegates that African nations must make sure to enforce the protocols and treaties that they’ve adopted. Heads of state at the meeting stressed the need to create economies of scale, bigger markets equal more opportunities to grow, they said.
But many of the existing blocs have already run into trouble. The EAC’s integration, for example, has had some hiccups because some member countries felt their economies would be dominated by neighbours.
So, should Africa think bigger and bigger or try to work on existing institutions? Do you think the creation of a free trade zone spanning COMESA, SADC and the EAC will take off, or will it just remain on the drawing board? What do you see as the major challenges in implementing this agreement?
Well, we return here three years after to say that no progress has been done on that front. Simple, a great idea gone to the dogs……again.
What chance of success for Zimbabwe talks?
Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC are holding talks in Pretoria aimed at thrashing out a power-sharing deal to end the country’s political crisis.
President Robert Mugabe, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and a smaller MDC faction signed a framework for the talks in South Africa on Monday — a deal that South African leader Thabo Mbeki said committed Zimbabwe’s political rivals to an intense timetable.
But will Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s first handshake in a decade be enough to set aside the rivalries and distrust between the two men in the wake of Zimbabwe’s disputed elections over three months ago and the June 27 run-off which Mugabe won as the sole candidate?
Mugabe has said the agreement was to “chart a new way of political interaction” while Tsvangirai said not finding a solution is not an option.
Will two weeks of talks be enough for the rival parties to settle their differences and work out a way to set up a government of national unity, promoted by the African Union and Southern African Development Community as a solution to the crisis?
Negotiations are negotiations and compromises will be made. I suspect that a deal will be struck which may not go down well with everybody. That is politics. After all the chaos, politicians will sit down, shake hands and smile while we watch. Lets see what happens to all this madness…
Is Zimbabwe back to square one after AU summit?
Can President Robert Mugabe be trusted to implement the resolution of the African Union summit calling for dialogue and a government of national unity to end Zimbabwe’s long-running crisis? According to Mugabe’s camp, he can. “The AU resolution is in conformity to what President Mugabe said at his inauguration, when he said we are prepared to talk in order to resolve our problems,” his Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told Reuters a day after the AU passed the resolution on July 1.
While opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Demoratic Change (MDC) say they have kept the door open for negotiations, he says conditions are not yet right for talks. The MDC also makes clear its objective is a transitional arrangement leading to fresh elections rather than a unity government. The crisis could conceivably be stuck on that difference.
The summit followed Mugabe’s controversial re-election in a run-off poll in which he was the sole candidate. Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the first round but pulled out of the run-off amid violence and intimidation directed at the MDC and blamed on Mugabe’s camp. The AU resolution expressed concern about the violence.
The AU resolution clearly calls for a Government of National Unity (GNU) as opposed to demands by the MDC and Western governments for a Transitional Government. Political analyst Cheryl Hendricks of Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies makes a strong case for transitional government in Zimbabwe given the highly polarised situation in the country.
“We primarily have two polarised parties each asserting their legitimate right to rule without the prospect of settling the dispute amicably through elections in the near future,” Hendricks wrote in a paper posted on the ISS website on July 2. “The prospects of unity, given these conditions, are highly unlikley and a cobbled together GNU will be unstable.”
Here are further points to consider in relation to the AU’s resolution:
- The resolution upholds the mediation effort of the regional bloc SADC led by South African President Thabo Mbeki. The SADC formally appointed Mbeki to this role in March 2007 but he has been mediating in the Zimbabwe crisis since the country’s disputed 2002 presidential election. Mbeki has been widely condemned for his policy of quiet diplomacy with Mugabe.
- The resolution calls on the SADC to “establish a mechanism on the ground in order to seize the momentum for a negotiated solution” but it is not entirely clear what form this would take. In the case of the post-election mayhem in Kenya last December and January, the AU brought in former UN chief Kofi Annan to lead a high-powered mediation effort on the spot.
- The AU intervened more robustly in the Indian Ocean state of Comoros when it sent a military force to back the local army to expel renegade former gendarme Mohamed Bacar who seized power in 2001 and clung on after an illegal election last year.
- The AU has been cool to planned further sanctions by Western governments against Zimbabwe. Many analysts believe Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown, blamed on Mugabe, and the threat of further sanctions are the most potent means to bring down his government.
- Mbeki has openly dismissed a call by the European Union that Tsvangirai should head any transitional government, and has not disguised his dislike for solutions to the Zimbabwe crisis hatched from outside the region.
one important aspect of the recent deal of 21 July 2008 is having the UN and AU as part of the mediation process. this article delves into how impartial mediation is crucial:
http://www.bahaiperspectives.com/current -affairs/2008/07/16/world-cup-of-failed- politics/
Has Zimbabwe’s Mugabe been bolstered or weakened by Tsvangirai’s decision to abandon poll?
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to abandon a controversial run-off ballot against Zimbabwe’s strongman President Robert Mugabe would surprise few. Western governments and aid agencies have for weeks voiced the same accusations of violence and intimidation against the Mugabe camp which Tsvangirai cited in concluding that a run-off election stood no chance of being free or fair.
Hours before Tsvangirai’s decision, his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) reported that its rally in the capital Harare had been broken up by pro-Mugabe youth militia, something Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party denied.
Tsvangirai had appeared to be in a dominant position to win a run-off poll after defeating Mugabe in the first round — but only if the vote was going to be fair. Agreeing to participate in the run-off was indeed a gamble the opposition leader took in the face of contrary arguments by even some of his supporters who felt it was naive to expect a fair vote in a terrain dominated by Mugabe and his associates.
What happens now after Tsvangirai’s decision to pull out of the June 27 second round ballot? How will African governments and the international community react? What should they do? What options are left for Tsvangirai and his MDC? Could there still be negotiations, and if so should these still be brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki? What does all this mean for the people of Zimbabwe? Will this reinforce Mugabe’s position in power or hasten his demise? Have your say.
Vincent.
I have tried after your previous posting to avoid a direct debate with you but you have posed a question directly to me so I reply:
Your point is really a moral Catch 22. Such issues are as in this case very complex and what is known as a “wicked problem” and dependent on your perspective. The moral dilema here is that without the denial of access to international funding mechanisms would rural poor in Zimbabwe be better off?
A famous quote of Ian Smith was “in Rhodesia we have the happiest Africans in the world.” Economically the “Africans” in Rhodesia did have access to food and health services in a stable economic environment (i remember when a coke cost 5 cents and we had a 2.5 cent piece – the “ticky”). But this was only in a system based on racial oppression that denied fundamental political rights to blacks (Rhodesia Front paranoia) … it was untennable locally and internationally. A liberation war was launched and international sanctions applied to the minority regime. Who suffered? Was the suffering justified? Do the means justify the end?
In Zimbabwe Mugabe has justified his political oppression on the arguments of land and an attempt by Britain to re-colonise Zimbabwe. One thing that is often overlooked in the discussion of this issue is the land reform programme that operated from 1979 to 2000. As an employee of the Zimbabwe Government from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s and working on issues of rural development – I can tell you that we had a land reform programme and farms were being purchased for resettlement. It was more than willing buyer willing seller since every farm that was put up for sale first had to be offered to Government. Often we did not want those farms and issued certificates of non-interest. What happened after 2000 was not land reform. It was chaos! Orchestrated chaos driven by paranoia (ZANU PF paranoia)and a desire to maintain political control. The primary objective of the liberation struggle to achieve political freedom was sacrificed by the same leader that had brought so much hope in 1980. Who suffers?
The land taken after 2000 has for the most part not benefitted “landless blacks” but has been the subject of elite capture. There is a new land holding minority in Zimbabwe only this time they are black and they are almost exclusively Zanu Pf. Who suffers?
At independence we were extremely self sufficient with little dependence on international finacing instruments. It was Mugabe who “supped from the cup” of international finance and it was a poison that he was to suffer from later. I believe that Mugabe thought he could replace “disloyal” white farmers with “loyal” Zanu Pf cadres and achieve the same independence and productive output – he was wrong – Who suffers?
International finance is highly problematic at the best of times but I do not accept that it is part of some Machiavellian plot to re-colonise Zimbabwe. I had my problems with donors when working for Government but to be honest they were not trying to take over Zimbabwe as Zanu Pf would have us believe.
No Vincent I believe that the keys to international finance are in the hands of Zanu Pf BUT the price they would have to pay – losing political control through truly open and free elections – is a price they are not prepared to pay yet. So who suffers?
It is astonishing, depressing, bizarre, grotesque and appalling that Mugabe is still terrorising his own country simply by still clinging vainly to power.
Having lost all powers of logical reasoning or even the facility to be influenced by his own conscience, Mugabe straddles Zimbabwe without a care in the world for all the ills and evil he has inflicted on his own people.
The poges of history, Mr Mugabe, have already been written down and on those pages honest, objective people who have testified to the horrors and terrors of you morally bankrupt reign of chaos and mendacity.
The good people of the world pray that you will do a St Paul’s road to Damascus conversion, and finally see the folly and abject error of your dark and power-grabbing ways.
People have a right to be safe, fed and happy again. The deserve better than what Mugabe has given them!
But Mr Mugabe is deaf?