Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Tichaona Zindoga
31 August 2009
Harare — JUST a couple of weeks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed hope that South Africa would "use its influence to mitigate the negative effects of the continuing presidency of President Mugabe" in Zimbabwe, as fate would have it, South African President Jacob Zuma was in Zimbabwe for a two-day working visit last week during which he officially opened the Harare Agricultural Show.
Clinton met President Zuma, who is also the current chair of Sadc, in South Africa as part of her whirlwind tour of Africa, which saw her spending 11 days on the continent having travelled to seven countries.
But just when the world was thinking that President Zuma had received just enough drive from a flywheel of Western influence to point his famed machine-gun on President Mugabe, he showed them that Western stereotypes of the "good African" do not apply to him.
Speaking at a banquet hosted on his behalf by the First Family at State House after his arrival on Thursday, Zuma rebuffed the naïve Western hope that he would be "tough" with President Mugabe on behalf of former oppressors.
Zuma placed his country's relationship with Zimbabwe into the historical and current perspectives and said just about what some people, especially the West and their allies, least expected him to.
Said he: "The bonds that united us when we battled the inhuman systems of apartheid and colonialism still guide us today as we endeavour to build a better life for all our people."
He said South Africa remained committed, as guarantors of the Global Political Agreement and partners, to working with Zimbabwe to find solutions to their challenges.
The GPA, a Sadc-brokered accord signed by President Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the two MDC formations led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara on September 15 last year led to the formation of an inclusive Government early this year.
The agreement was facilitated by Sadc-appointed mediator, former South African president Thabo Mbeki, and also received the blessings of the African Union who, along with Sadc, underwrites it.
The inclusive Government was expected to solve a myriad of political, social and economic problems facing the country -- which it has modestly done -- but has been beset by problems of its own and the so-called "outstanding issues" which have remained unsolved almost a year after the agreement.
This has made President Zuma's visit very significant amidst a growing sea of expectations raised by the regime change-minded people like Clinton who saw a window of hope in President Zuma's perceived "outspokenness" as an opportunity to "get" President Mugabe, which Mbeki could not do.
Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy" received a barrage of criticism especially from the Western world and their sympathisers for its failure to complement Western regime change agenda on Zimbabwe by ousting President Mugabe.
President Mugabe, who is Head of State and Government as well as Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, courted the ire of the Western world when Zimbabwe embarked on the capitalist-upsetting land reform programme, which benefited hundreds of thousands indigenous Zimbabweans previously marginalised by a skewed land tenure system that upheld colonial injustices.
Britain, the former coloniser, has rallied the Western world against Zimbabwe and has even sought to isolate Zimbabwe through the United Nations.
As well as sponsoring the regime change agenda in the name of democracy and human rights, the West has tried to enlist the services of Zimbabwe's neighbours, one of the latest examples being that of Clinton.
And in the run-up to his Zimbabwe visit, the West and their media have all but tried to lay down the rules of President Zuma's engagement with his northern neighbours.
Because his country is by Western standards a "fledgling democracy", and Hillary Clinton personally beseeched him to act against President Mugabe, Cde Zuma was supposed to turn a blind eye to racial segregation and oppression, which Clinton's America was all too content to see continue ad infinitum.
In their view, he is an "outspoken" revolutionary, therefore a "civilised" revolutionary, who must be "tough" with former comrades who decide to be reclaim what was stolen from them during colonialism.
The South African president was supposed to "crack the whip" on those who provided South Africa accommodation during the long nights of apartheid, and offered material and moral support to his party, the African National Congress right up to its accession to power in 1994.
But President Zuma sent a different message to those who only grudgingly ceased to regard the same ANC, Cde Zuma included, as a "terrorist organisation" just last year despite the fact that they were people fighting an evil system.
The US is one of the countries that helped apartheid South Africa survive international sanctions by continuing to trade with the rogue regime, hoping that nationalists like Nelson Mandela would rot in prison.
The likes of Thabo Mbeki could choose to see their villages again, and possibly die, or be domiciled in foreign lands.
American-supported apartheid South Africa was responsible for anti-nationalism campaigns in countries such as Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
In fact, the US itself was also directly involved in supporting Ian Smith, who wanted to replicate South Africa's apartheid in Zimbabwe through his 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
But the US has lately wanted to convince the world and President Zuma that it has morphed into a saviour of those against whose self-determination they fought tooth and nail just yesterday.
Luckily, the South African leader refused to wield the same whip of former oppressors against his neighbours and acknowledged Zimbabwe's "positive developments" (as opposed to Clinton's "negative effects") saying the remaining issues "were not insurmountable".
South Africans were closely following positive developments taking place in Zimbabwe since the signing of the GPA and the subsequent formation of the inclusive Government, he said.
"These are positive developments that foretell good things that will come to the Zimbabwean nation. This achievement signalled to the people of Zimbabwe, the region and the world, that the Zimbabwean political leadership was ready to collectively tackle the political and socio-economic challenges head-on," he said.
President Mugabe commended South Africa for solidly standing by Zimbabwe in the face of unjustified sanctions and vilification by Western governments.
He recounted how South Africa has resisted the unwarranted attempts to put Zimbabwe on UN sanctions by "courageously fighting to stop the machinations of those who have liked to manipulate . . . the Security Council, for selfish political ends".
President Mugabe also praised President Zuma's predecessors, Cdes Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe for "handling the conflictual situation in Zimbabwe with great vision and foresight".
And it is the same great vision and foresight that President Zuma naturally demonstrated in Harare, least for his rejection of Western rules of engagement than for convincing the intended beneficiary Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, that African solidarity and progress is far more important than Western whims.
PM Tsvangirai said President Zuma had not come "as prosecutor or judge to the inclusive Government", as he was largely expected by hostile external forces, but to meet the principals and evaluate the progress of the agreement so far.
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Thank you President Zuma for staying commited to the Zimbabwain people and President Mugabe.We love you here in a America.People like Laybak68 really need to run for "The Spook That Sat By The Door".God bless Africa. Oweij Liebo U.S.A.
Laybak you are so right. Leviboone forget you. You are just another stupid Mugabe mouthpiece full of his crap.The Herald publication as a Mugabe ass licker conveniently never mentioned how stern Zuma was with Mugabe calling on him "for better governance, and the promotion of democracy and human rights." Zuma further addressed other African leaders saying "African nations should commit themselves to human rights, good governance and democracy if our continent is to extricate itself from bad boy image." Sounds to me like Mr Zuma is doing exactly what Mrs Clinton hoped for, for "South Africa to use its influence to mitigate the negative effects of the continuing presidency of President Mugabe." But President? He was not even elected by the majority of Zimbabweans and second time around, the bozo elected himself.
Will the herald crap paper never learn????? SA President Zuma is over the rubbish from Mugabe and wants him to comply with the Political Agrrement the he signed. SIMPLE!! ----Right??? Sanctions against his stolen money in overseas banks will never be over!! Heis best course of action is to simply become a catring human and rfealise his ZanuPF goons need to reign in their brainless persecution of everyone who disagreeas with their little ideas and become the statesman he wopuld like to be. Mugabe is slowly being ousted by the dawning realisation of nearby neighbour states that his lawless activities are destined to fail.