Financial Gazette (Harare)
Jameson Timba
22 November 2008
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.
Thirdly, SADC's decision cannot be supported by any right thinking person in that it is technically incompetent in that while it acknowledges the need for amendment 19 it did not acknowledge that its enactment or at least its drafting and signing-off by the parties was a pre-condition for the establishment of the inclusive government. This led to the pre-mature invitation to MDC to submit names for its cabinet members.
Fourthly, the decision to co-manage the Ministry of Home Affairs arrived at without the consent of all the parties was also technically incompetent in that it violates the Global Political Agreement signed by the parties. The parties signed for and agreed to have 31 ministries split in a given ratio.
The co-management of the Ministry of Home Affairs portfolio will impact on either the agreed number of ministries and/or ministers. So when the mediator and guarantor of the agreement violates it, how then can it be expected to reign in the numerous violations of the agreement by ZANU-PF? As to the explanation of one Tomaz Salamao, the Executive Secretary of SADC, I have no adjectives to describe his performance during the Press conference at the Convention Centre in Sandton.
Asked by journalists how the co-management of the ministry was going to work, Salamao said all the heads of state at the summit had confessed that they had never seen it anywhere in the world. He went on to say that he had been a minister for 22 years and he had not seen it, but notwithstanding that the summit had ruled that it be done in Zimbabwe. God help us. Mutambara, we should not criticise SADC but just accept what they say?
Finally, it is difficult and almost impossible to support the SADC decision since it is not a solution to the impasse in the Zimbabwe dialogue in that the MDC, which is a critical party in the dialogue, has resolved and stated in simple English that its participation in the inclusive government is conditional upon the resolution of all the outstanding issues it placed before the Summit contrary to the ZANU-PF propaganda being peddled as national news in The Herald. So that brings us back to square one.
While I agree with Mutambara that we must respect our African institutions, I strongly feel that we should not condone incompetence for political expediency or offer blind solidarity to institutions that for years have acted as trade unions for African dictators and not defenders of citizens' rights. We must hold our institutions to account if our continent is going to develop.
National interest versus partisan interests
Mutambara in his article also made some sweeping insinuations about the other two principals in the Zimbabwean dialogue which cannot go unchallenged. His view is that they are being partisan and putting their personal or party political interests before national interest. I disagree. I cannot speak for the leader of ZANU-PF but can comment on the conduct of our own party president. The facts on the ground and in the public domain with respect to MDC President Tsvangirai are as follows:
On June 22, 2008 MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the presidential race with his main reason being that it was no longer possible to hold a free and fair election and that his withdrawal would stop the needless killings that were taking place in our country.
Tsvangirai was the first of the three political leaders to call for a negotiated political settlement which would lead to an inclusive transitional government that we are talking about today
Tsvangirai has remained committed to the Global Political Agreement with his key unassailable demands being that he wants equitable sharing of power and responsibility with authority
In spite of personal humiliation by the government where to date two of his campaign vehicles are still being held by the state for no reason and six months after applying for his passport he still does not have one, he has remained engaged in the process of resolving the Zimbabwe crisis
Tsvangirai is also the only principal who to date has made a public appeal for humanitarian food assistance for the people of Zimbabwe including personally engaging UN food agencies and other non-governmental organisations involved in food distribution. He also personally put pressure on the regime to lift the ban on non-governmental organisations distributing food in the country.
On the basis of the above cited examples, I find it difficult for anyone to sustain the argument that he is putting partisan interests before national interests. As to Mutambara's insinuation that the MDC seeks state power, we plead guilty as charged because that is the reason for our existence. The pursuit of power in itself is not wrong.
In his address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August 16,1967 titled "Where Do We Go from Here", Dr Martin Luther King Jnr had this to say about power:
"Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. . ."
"Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly.
"What is needed is a realisation that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."
The purpose of the inclusive agreement
I agree with most of Mutambara's views regarding the purpose of the inclusive government. The government, as he rightly pointed out, must stabilise our economy, provide basic social services and most importantly democratise our country by among other things the enactment of a new people driven constitution.
However, I do not agree with his conclusion in this context that the end justifies the means. An inclusive government as envisaged in Zimbabwe is to all intents and purposes a forced marriage. Ours is made more difficult by the fact that the bride and groom come from different religious backgrounds.
Mutambara is privy to all the Zimbabwe dialogue meetings that have taken place to date and he has observed how ZANU-PF has been trashing the agreement by violating it with impunity and most importantly he experienced first hand the lack of a paradigm shift by ZANU-PF during dialogue meetings.
The survival of this government, if it is formed, therefore depends upon strict ground rules which must be agreed by the parties in advance in order to at least minimise frustrations for the coalition partners from the MDC.
To be continued next week
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