Wene Owino
23 April 2008
analysis
Gaborone — When the time came for Zimbabwe opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai to flee his country Zimbabwe because his life was in danger after the March 29 general elections, his options became limited by the exigencies of regional politics.
Because he needed to be closer home where he can exert pressure on veteran dictator Robert Mugabe, there were only four countries he could escape to as they share a common border with his country.
Of these Mozambique was out of the question because of two reasons. It is a Lusophone country with its attendant language problems in a predominantly Anglophone region and a lightweight in regional politics.
The second option, Zambia would have been a good place for refuge. But ever since President Levy Mwanawasa was reportedly brow-beaten into softening his stand on the Zimbabwe by Mugabe, it was not a good destination.
To appease Mugabe, Mr Mwanawasa might not have been willing to give succour to somebody the Zimbabwean leader sees as a colonial minion. An obvious and popular destination for Mr Tsvangirai would have been continental powerhouse South Africa.
He could have easily made an about-turn and taken cover in South Africa where he had just come from when he landed in Zimbabwe and learnt about threats to his life.
However, the close relationship between President Thabo Mbeki and Mugabe ruled out this option. On many occasions, Mr Tsvangirai's MDC has loudly lamented that President Mbeki has failed in his role as mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis.
Moreover, the MDC and the rest of the region feel that Mr Mbeki has been too soft or even afraid of Mr Mugabe.
With Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa ruled out of the exile equation, the only option Mr Tsvangirai had was Botswana.
So on the night of April 8-9 or thereabouts, the MDC leader slipped into Botswana and unannounced. He was given state security and made a state guest because his life was in danger in Zimbabwe.
With a new president who was just in his second week in office, Botswana took up the case of Mr Tsvangirai with enthusiasm.
Hours after arrival in Botswana he held a meeting with President Ian Khama who immediately got SADC chairman, Mwanawasa to summon an extra-ordinary session of the 14-national regional grouping to discuss Zimbabwe.
Despite opposition from certain countries, Botswana took Mr Tsvangirai to the Lusaka summit.
Botswana Foreign Minister, Phandu Skelemani explained that they took the decision and stuck to their guns because they felt the two sides to the Zimbabwe dispute needed to be heard at the summit.
He was quick to add that Botswana has not taken sides in the Zimbabwean crisis but he was categorical that contrary to what Mbeki said after meeting Mugabe, there is a crisis in Zimbabwe over the delayed release of presidential elections results.
In taking in Mr Tsvangirai, Botswana took a major diplomatic risk in the region. Some have explained the decision on the fact that Mr Khama is a no-nonsense man who is not easily intimidated.
They say the new Botswana president was brave in instigating the SADC summit on Zimbabwe in less than two weeks after coming to power.
While the Khama government has been bold in sticking out its neck for the Zimbabwean opposition, the rest of the region has continued with its quiet diplomacy associated with Mbeki's mediation efforts. This was the approach adopted by Khama's predecessor, Festus Mogae.
While support for the MDC in Botswana has been unequivocal from the government, political parties and civil society, the same is not true in South Africa.
It seems the main reason for the fierce divisions in South Africa on the Zimbabwe crisis has been exacerbated by the heightened rivalry between President Mbeki and ANC president Jacob Zuma.
Mr Mbeki's discredited quiet diplomacy in the Zimbabwe crisis has been roundly condemned for favouring Mugabe. On the other hand Zuma and his allies have been very vocal in denouncing Mugabe's rule.
The irony is that Mr Zuma, the trade unions and left-leaning organisations baying for Mugabe's blood could have supported the Zimbabwean leader if not for the fact that Mbeki had beaten them to it.
Trade unions and their allies in South Africa have been calling for faster economic empowerment of blacks in the style of Mugabe's land grabs.
The capitalist-colonialist enemies that Mr Mugabe has been condemning with venom are the same monsters that South African trade unions and communists have slammed for turning the clock in their country at the expense of blacks and the poor.
It is perhaps possible that Mr Mbeki supports Mugabe because of three reasons. The old boy connection at the summit of power in African politics still counts for a lot and Mr Mbeki and Mr Mugabe are currently the longest serving presidents in the region after the retirement of Mogae.
Like Mr Mbeki, Mr Mogae was a keen student of quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe unlike his successor Khama.
The loudest supporter of Mugabe was the veteran Sam Nujoma before he retired as Namibian president.
Another reason Mr Mbeki could be coddling Mugabe is that he is caught in a time-warp. He still seems to believe in the culture of the Big Man in African politics of which Mugabe is one of the last breed.
It is public knowledge that Mbeki tried his version of the Big Man in South African politics by concentrating too much power in the presidency.
The more derisive have dismissed Mr Mbeki's support for Mr Mugabe as typical of the South African president's bizarre and wayward world view best exemplified in his discredited denial of the link between the HIV and Aids. His position of the Zimbabwean crisis therefore means that Mr Tsvangirai did not consider South Africa a good host.
In Botswana, Mr Skelemani says that the MDC leader is free to speak his mind and move as he pleases, an arrangement that would have been a bit tricky if he was holed in South Africa.
Another dimension
The presence of Mr Tsvangirai in Botswana and the impotence of Zimbabweans against Mugabe has added another dimension to the perception of Zimbabweans in Botswana. The most despised immigrants in Botswana are easily Zimbabweans. They are everywhere and they do everything from the most menial tasks to sophisticated white collar jobs.
They excel in technical jobs like motor mechanics, masonry and make the best and most loyal housemaids. They dominate the commercial sex trade and are rightly or wrongly the first suspects in crimes like robbery, house-breaking and theft.
On any day, massed ranks of desperate Zimbabweans are found in many parts of the Botswana capital city, Gaborone begging for temporary work as house cleaners, maids, laundry, gardeners among others.
Some of them live in pathetic conditions and meet untimely deaths in Botswana. A majority of them are illegal immigrants who have overstayed or jumped the border to escape the economic, political and social crisis back home. Every week, the Botswana authorities repatriate them by the lorry-load.
Ever since the current electoral crisis hit Zimbabwe, the battered reputation of Zimbabweans as the most despised immigrants in Botswana has suffered further knocks.
Suffering victimisation
Besides suffering victimisation and derision as criminals, commercial sex workers and beggars, Zimbabweans are now being scorned in Botswana as pathetic cowards who cannot deal with Mugabe, an ageing dictator well past his sell-by date. In neighbouring Botswana, some are puzzled why Zimbabweans are so helpless.
They cannot fathom the meekness of Zimbabweans after they
promised Mugabe that the post-election violence witnessed in Kenya will be a walk in the park compared to what they will do if the old dictator tried to tinker with last month's elections.
It is now weeks before the results of presidential elections are released as Mugabe tries to reverse the losses he suffered in parliamentary contest.
No Kenyan-style protests have been witnessed in Zimbabwe while the man who is supposed to have handed Mugabe a beating at the polls has run away to Botswana.
People in Botswana expressed utter disappointment when Zimbabweans failed to heed a call by the opposition to stay away from work.
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