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Financial Gazette (Harare)

Southern Africa: SADC Summit Reflections - the Other Side

Jameson Timba

22 November 2008

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opinion

MY dear brother Arthur Mutam-bara's article in The Sunday Mail of November 16 2008 titled "Refle-ctions after the SADC Summit: Constructing a Contextualised Way Forward", makes interesting reading.

It does so more to me because it was a continuation of the conversation we started at the airport on our way from the SADC summit. Unfortunately we did not complete our discussion, and it appears he chose to complete the same in The Sunday Mail and share it with our countrymen.

I have no qualms with that and I hope he will also have no qualms with me responding to him via the same media. I hope I will get the same acres of space that he was granted in the state controlled media that has been denied to many Zimbabweans who hold views different from those of the establishment.

But again miracles still happen. There is another side and context to the coin that he tossed on November 16 in which he proffers what he called a contextualised way forward.

The other side of the coin is the view held by me, others and the majority party in the House of Representatives. I do not agree with the SADC resolution and his reasons for urging others to support it.

I do not agree with his views about the non-existence of key ministries in a government. I also do not agree with his views regarding the role of the African Union (AU), neither do I agree with his views about an election not being an alternative to the Global Political Agreement.

The context of the debate

My attitude towards the outcome of the SADC summit, the impasse in the Zimbabwe dialogue and the way forward in my view can best be contextualised within the motive and essence of the AU resolution of Sharma EI Sheikh. The African Union Summit Resolution on Zimbabwe, adopted at the 11th Ordinary Session of the African Union Assembly on 1 July 2008 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt reads:

DEEPLY CONCERNED with the prevailing situation in Zimbabwe;

DEEPLY CONCERNED with the negative reports of SADC, the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament observers on the Zimbabwean Presidential runoff election held on June 27, 2008;

DEEPLY CONCERNED about the violence and the loss of life that has occurred in Zimbabwe.

CONSIDERING the urgent need to prevent further worsening of the situation and with a view to avoid spread of conflict with the consequential negative impact on the country and the sub-region;

NOTING the willingness of the political leaders of Zimbabwe to enter into negotiations to establish a Government of National Unity;

NOTING FURTHER the preparatory discussions on this matter had already started, under SADC facilitation;

Hereby decide:

1. TO ENCOURAGE President Robert Mugabe and the leader of the MDC Party Mr Morgan Tsvangirai to honour their commitment to initiate dialogue with a view to promoting peace, stability, democracy and the reconciliation of the Zimbabwean people;

2. TO SUPPORT the call, for the creation of a Government of National Unity;

3. TO SUPPORT the SADC Facilitation, and to recommend that SADC mediation efforts should be continued in order to resolve the problems they are facing....

The inferred essence of the resolution, particularly the preamble is that the AU inclusive of SADC did not recognise the process leading to and the outcome of the event of June 27, 2008, which the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and other like-minded people wanted to pass for an election. The resolution also recognised that the electoral dispute was between two presidential candidates i.e. Robert Mugabe of ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai of MDC, and as such these two were urged to negotiate for the purpose among others of coming up with a government of national unity.

The election results of March 29,2008 on the other hand inferred that the sharing of power between the two should almost be 50:50 or equitable. In order to move the process forward, the AU recognised that SADC had been seized with the Zimbabwe crisis for more than 12 months and as such delegated it to mediate through one Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki in his wisdom or lack of it, saw it fit to expand the parties to the Presidential election dispute to include Mutambara and the party that he leads notwithstanding the fact that he had chickened out of the Presidential race in support of one Simba Makoni, and thus was not party to the dispute.

If Mbeki's reasoning was to have everyone represented in parliament on the table, then the good Associate Professor from Tsholotsho Jonathan Moyo should have been one of his guests on the political dinner table in Tshwane. These are the facts in my view from which any analysis and contextualisation of the way forward must be based.

The SADC decision

I hold different views as to the mandate of the SADC summit and our expectations as we went to Sandton. The parties, or at least our party, in my view went to SADC because the mediator, Mbeki, had failed to resolve a deadlock. Our party, in my view, also went to SADC because it felt that the mediator Mbeki was biased against it.

The fact that SADC appointed a mediator to act on its behalf does not take away the delegated mediation role from itself. By the same token, the fact that the AU delegated mediation to SADC does not also take away the mediation role from itself. The AU is therefore the mediator and the rest are acting on its behalf. Therefore its ultimate role in the resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis can neither be ignored nor overlooked.

The parties went to SADC by way of an appeal to a higher mediation body to mediate and not arbitrate on various issues, chief among which are the equitable distribution of all ministries between the parties including Home Affairs; the outstanding issue of the distribution of governorships among the parties following the unilateral appointment of the same by the President of ZANU-PF on Sunday August 24, 2008 when all of us were at church and contrary to the power-sharing spirit of the GPA; the fraudulent changes to the agreement signed between the parties on September 11,2008; the need to have Constitutional Amendment 19 as a pre-condition for the establishment of an inclusive government; the need to agree on a formula for the appointment of permanent secretaries, ambassadors and other key government appointments, and finally the need to have a Parliamentary bill outlining the composition, functions and powers of the National Security Council considering the infamous partisan nature of security and intelligence agencies in this country.

The Global Political Agreement rightly or wrongly does not have an arbitration clause, neither does the SADC Treaty empower the summit to be an arbitrator. It is therefore erroneous for anyone to suggest that the parties went to SADC for arbitration and as such bound themselves to its decision in advance.

Firstly, in terms of expectations from SADC, it is my view that the parties or at least our party, expected SADC to consider all the outstanding issues and recommend and guide both the facilitator and the negotiators as to how the deadlock could be resolved after listening to all sides.

SADC, in its wisdom or lack of it, instead turned itself into a quasi-judicial body and made a ruling. In its ruling, it completely ignored all the issues that MDC had tabled before it, save for the issue of the 19th amendment and the issue of the Ministry of Home affairs.

It also did not have the courtesy of indicating to MDC or anyone else its views on all the other issues, neither did it give its reasons for its decisions. Avoiding those issues is not a solution but a postponement of the problems.

Secondly, if the summit decided to turn itself from a regional political and economic integration body into a quasi judicial body, then it must accept that its decisions will be judged on the principles guiding such bodies such as the principle of natural justice which demand that every party to a dispute must be heard fairly and that one party to the dispute cannot sit in judgement of its own case as the leader of ZANU-PF, Mugabe did during the summit.

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