SADC, African Union: The two patrons of Africa’s misery

By Tanonoka Joseph Whande

OPINION – It is a matter of public record that people have been tragically disappearing in Zimbabwe, starting just after our “independence”.

Everyone knows that.

And, after so many years of murderous mayhem, both SADC and the African Union were impressed enough to ask Mugabe to be their “chairman” – an endorsement, not of the country of Zimbabwe but of the murderer they all knew.

To this day, neither SADC nor the AU has made any comment about the atrocities Mugabe committed but they, nevertheless, accept him to stand as a representative of Africa before the world.

Today, like hundreds of times before, yet another disappearance has occurred and suspicion is being cast on the African Union Chairman in a case in which one Itai Dzamara, a former reporter, was abducted from a barbershop in Harare mid-morning last Monday and has not been heard from since, a now familiar pattern employed by Zimbabwe’s “intelligence officers” over the years.

The 36-year-old Dzamara came to prominence when he led a group of activists to occupy Africa Unity Square in mid-town Harare, a few meters from Mugabe’s offices and directly in front of the main entrance into the Parliament of Zimbabwe.

His demand was simple and direct: AU Chairman Mugabe must step down from the presidency of Zimbabwe!

They vowed to remain there as long as Mugabe, also SADC Chairman, remained in the presidency.

Dzamara was reportedly “abducted by some unidentified men who were travelling in a white twin cab vehicle with a blurred registration number plate”, another tell-tale sign and modus operandi of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation known to Zimbabweans so well because it has been used many times before.

The decomposed bodies of some of those abducted were found in bushes days or weeks later. One or two managed to survive.

AU Chairman Mugabe has been celebrating his ascendency to this ceremonial position with severely negative extremes that give a very bad name to the continent.

After becoming chairman of both SADC and the AU, Mugabe not only upped his vitriol against “the few remaining white farmers” but actually continues to seize more farms. Interestingly, he is also seizing farms he gave to Zimbabwean blacks who once supported him but who he has since dumped.

Clearly, both the AU and SADC are glad that he is representing both organisations’ aims and objectives and want him as their standard bearer.

The AU Chairman has fired half of his cabinet and suspended more from his party without so much as affording them a fair hearing and, in search of fairness, the people he offended have resorted to the courts and even appealed to SADC, which Mugabe chairs.

After those he sidelined over unsubstantiated accusations filed court papers against him, the African Union Chairman publicly threatened his judges and magistrates against hearing any case in which he or his party are being sued.

He declared that he would “look into the educational backgrounds of any judge or magistrate” who accepts to hear the case against him. Why did he appoint unqualified people to such important positions? Now, not only that innocent people are being convicted but justice is being corrupted, destroying people’s lives.

Mugabe appoints and approves all these legal officials and knows their “secrets” which he keeps for use as blackmail at a later date.

Countless times he has behaved in deplorable ways since being given the leadership of these two organisations yet both continental bodies have said not a word.

Some of his behavior violates the constitutions of both the AU and SADC, let alone those of his country and his party. He dazzled African leaders with sham elections and they rewarded him.

He directed that aggrieved individuals within his party and outside may not seek recourse in the nation’s courts, saying that the courts have no jurisdiction over his party’s affairs.

Both SADC and the AU are overwhelmed – standing ovations and all – and can hardly contain their admiration for their chairman.

The AU Chairman, like the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA), has threatened his party members against ever taking party issues to court.

I am still to hear any complaints from both the AU and SADC about the behavior of their Chairman, or whatever stupid title they glorify him with.

A senile serial murderer abuses citizens on the African continent while wearing an African Union jacket adorned with SADC motifs but none of these two groupings he leads dare say a word.

What do the AU and SADC stand for, I wonder? Is Mugabe their logo, like Coca Cola’s red stripes or the three sided star of the Mercedes Benz?

We choose or follow leaders because they stand for what we want and believe in. Apparently, these two repulsive organisations agree with what their chairman Mugabe is doing to their brands.

By denying Africans their freedom of expression, congregation, speech and human rights, Mugabe has impressed Africa’s leaders.

If SADC and the AU, the two patrons of Africa’s misery, keep quiet when Africa’s citizens are denied a chance to seek recourse from courts of law, they should campaign for AU Chairman Mugabe to take over Sep Blatter’s job as President of FIFA because that is where individual members are humiliated and have careers destroyed while being denied the right to approach neutral arbitrators or even the courts of law when they feel wronged by FIFA itself, an organization of which they are members.

AU Chairman Robert Mugabe, like FIFA, like SADC, like the African Union, thinks the best way to protect people is to silence them by taking away their freedoms.

Jestina Mukoko of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a human rights organization, was kidnapped from her residence on the night of December 3 2008.

She, like Dzamara, was “accused” of being anti-government. After about three months, when friends, relatives and supporters had written her off as having been killed like all others before her, she popped up in March 2009 from undisclosed locations where she had been held incommunicado by the intelligence officers and was granted bail.

It is my wish, hope and expectation that Itai Dzamara is released immediately and, more importantly, in one piece and alive. Otherwise we hold both the African Union and SADC responsible for the safety of this young man.

SADC and the AU cannot continue keeping quiet when their leader behaves like a bandit while sitting in the chair of their authority; they must demand that their leader stops terrorizing citizens forthwith.

The SADC/AU Chairman has already soiled these two organisations more than they have done to themselves in many years.

If Mugabe is the best that the collective African leadership can come up with in terms of guidance, vision and goals, our continent is doomed.