Munjodzi Mutandiri and Luke Zunga on BTH
A South African facilitation team was reportedly heading back to Zimbabwe on Thursday (last week) to try and resuscitate deadlocked power sharing talks. SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma speaks to political analysts Munjodzi Mutandiri and Luke Zunga, and asks if the South African mediation effort is producing any results or has simply become another endless talk-shop, designed to prolong Mugabe’s stay in power?
Interview broadcast 29 April 2010
Lance Guma: Hello Zimbabwe and welcome to Behind the Headlines. This week, facilitators working on behalf of South African president, Jacob Zuma travelled to Zimbabwe in an effort to save the power sharing government. Two weeks ago, Zuma received a report on the progress of the political talks aimed at ending a deadlock threatening the shaky one-year coalition government.
On this programme this week we are looking at whether South African intervention in Zimbabwe ’s affairs will yield anything, are they not simply leading us up the garden path to nowhere? To help me answer this question I have political analysts Munjodzi Mutandiri and Luke Zunga. Gentlemen thank you for joining me on the programme.
Let me start with you Mr. Zunga, facilitators back, does this mean anything? Is it significant? I’m seeing most of the news agencies are completely ignoring the story almost as if they are fed up with it.
Luke Zunga: Yah, Lance you know the facilitators have to do that, it’s part of their mandate to go back and discuss issues. Obviously they have looked at the document that came out of the last report after the end of the period they agreed to come to some agreement. So I’m sure they are trying to find avenues where they could engineer more progress on the GPA. So according to their mandate they’re entitled to go back and do as much as they can to try and make progress on that front.
Guma: Right let me come to you Mr. Mutandiri, Zimbabweans have indeed expressed frustration with the slow pace of this progress because the frustrating thing for them is that in September of 2008 the three political parties signed an Agreement, known as the Global Political Agreement, so what is there to negotiate?
Munjodzi Mutandiri: Yah that’s precisely I think the question that has been on every Zimbabweans mouth – that is it worth it after going through an election and then at the end of the day you are forced to negotiate with a loser and to move forward. My point of interjection Lance is that basically what is going on in Zimbabwe to me is a charade, it is a joke, in that, for exactly the same reasons that you have highlighted, that we had an election which if someone had willingly sort of moved out of power, we wouldn’t be where we are.
But coming back to your question around the facilitation team being in Zimbabwe I think actually we will continue to see the prolonging of the Zimbabwean crisis until we get to a point where people will begin to qualify South Africa’s role in the mediation team in Zimbabwe. I think the over emphasis on South Africa as being the great or the mighty South Africa that must make sure that Zimbabwe goes forward is part of the problem that we have, that I think South Africa has no more role than any other SADC country, so the sooner we realize that it must be a regional effort it must not only be South Africa, we will continue to move and circles.
And mind you South Africa , the politics of the region will tell you that it is the newest member of SADC in as much as people who say its economy and etc e.t.c give leverage to be facilitators in Zimbabwe . Unless there is equal commitment from the SADC countries to see Zimbabwe moving forward, I don’t think that we will be able to move forward. But in earnest, basically I think this process is a charade and it will not take us anywhere.
Guma: Coming to you Mr. Zunga, there are some who believe dialogue is a tool of war. Em…is ZANU PF not using this strategy entangling the MDC in this endless dialogue and it’s in a sense leading to paralysis in terms of the way the coalition government is working?
Zunga: Yah in a way I think, you see Lance, I will agree with what Mutandiri is saying. The problem we have is that South Africa is playing a role of facilitator which is unending and as long as they are there, everybody will sit back and wait to see what South Africa is doing and the whole of SADC will not do much until South Africa says we have reached this end and hand it back.
So I would like to see that point where we the citizens challenge South Africa and we started that last, this month, on the 4 th of April we went there and said – part of our document said can South Africa give a timetable when they will say they are finishing this process and report back to SADC rather than hanging on there, pretending or doing whatever they are doing but leading us nowhere. And one of its arguments was whether if that process they are doing is going to lead to a free and fair election, and examples abound about the increase in the levels of violence, the failure of the country to put together a constitution, the failure of any electoral process on the ground to facilitate a free and fair election which should have been the final aim of the GPA.
Now if those two things are not happening, what role would South Africa be doing? So I agree with Mutandiri, we must come to a point where we must face South Africa and say – now look, finish your work, get a report to SADC and get everybody in SADC to be involved, otherwise they are leading us a garden path which is not going to lead anywhere. So to the question whether we think that dialogue is being used by ZANU PF – yes ZANU PF are always saying and you will realise they are always in agreement, they will say no there’s progress, no there’s progress because as long as they say there’s progress, they’ve got the backing of SADC and everybody will wait and will not criticize them too much.
As long as that dialogue is there, South Africa and SADC will not say much. They will leave it, (inaudible) it, hold it nicely to see what end product is likely to be They are not criticizing the violence that is on the ground, the random arrests, the application of law which is unequal, they not criticizing it because they think no they are in the process of negotiation. So I think ZANU PF is making ground against MDC on the basis of these negotiations.
Guma: Now let me come to Mr. Mutandiri, now ZANU PF’s argument in refusing to fulfill the provisions of the Global Political Agreement is that they want targeted sanctions placed on members of the ruling elite by the west, removed and they are saying the onus is on the MDC to have this done. Do they have a legitimate point in as far as their argument that the sanctions are undermining the coalition?
Mutandiri: I think that’s nonsense, the usual nonsense from ZANU PF. They fully understand that the MDC does not have the capacity in the first place to remove those sanctions and secondly that the MDC is not the United States government or the European Union which imposed those sanctions on Robert Mugabe in the first place, but that said Lance, I think we must begin to ask ourselves as Zimbabweans that can external pressures and everything else substitute our structures and the internal pressure that we can give as a people.
So unless I think we start to build, use this small space that was created by this unity regime to organize the structures of the democracy movement that were destroyed obviously in 2008 when we had the elections we will not be able to basically achieve anything so I think from now going forward we must begin to reorganize the democracy movement in its fullness. Its structures must be functional, it must be clear that no amount, SADC has shown us, I think the example of South Africa that we have been talking about has proved to us that we cannot have any movement from external pressures to achieve what we want to achieve.
From this unity government I think like I said it is a charade and the only three things that we can be able to achieve are firstly, using it to organize and redo the structures as I said and making sure that the constitutional reform becomes what it was in the past ten years and use as a democracy movement the constitutional reform as an arena for the struggle and lastly we must begin to say that elections must happen but that should not be our preoccupation – that let’s have an election – we must be preoccupied by the environment in which the election will be held.
So I think as Zimbabweans, when we begin to preoccupy ourselves, I agree with Luke that obviously elections have to be held at some time, we have to have a clear timetable where we are going but the moment we start to preoccupy ourselves with the issues of elections without being worried about the environment in which the elections will be held, we’ll not be able to move forward, but we can only achieve what we want to achieve, not because sanctions have been removed or not removed but because the structures of the democracy movement in Zimbabwe are fully functional and Mugabe can see like he saw when he was dragged to the negotiating table, that no, Zimbabweans had the capacity to take power from him and define the kind of a Zimbabwe that they want to move forward.
Having an election without a constitution that has the true input and genuine input of ordinary Zimbabweans will be a mistake because we want first to qualify the struggle, the democracy and the society that we have been struggling for, for the past ten years, even 30 years I’m going back.
Guma: Mr. Zunga, just to seize on what Mr. Mutandiri has said, what’s the culpability of the MDC in creating this scenario? Have they reached a stage where we can now say they are now part of the problem by refusing to extricate themselves from this mess or are they right to be where they are – fighting within the institutions of the State?
Zunga: You see, the MDC have ceased to be the mouthpiece of the struggling people because in their own way they want to be seen as succeeding in the GPA and maybe losing the vocal position that they were propounding which made them in what they are. I think they need to look at this whole thing – if at the end of this process, there is no free and fair process for a free and fair election, then the whole thing is a charade as Mutandiri is putting it. Zimbabwe has never held a free and fair election before. We can relate from 1980, ’85, ’90, ’95, 2000 and onwards – not one – until we were at the beginning of this process we were hopeful that the GPA might produce a constitution and a free and fair election.
But without a constitution, I agree, even if you go to the election without leveling the playing field, nothing will happen, actually we’ll lose ground. So the MDC are actually losing ground and they are not taking with them the faith of the people that have been suffering in their name. There are a lot of people suffering here who are saying we are now let off we don’t know what to do, they cannot go back. Why is it that after so many months in the GPA, Zimbabweans cannot go back to the country, cannot freely return? I asked the Prime Minister myself whether I can freely come back, he could not answer, so what is the purpose of this GPA if the parties that were supposed to facilitate it cannot facilitate the return of their own citizens?
So I think the MDC is losing ground on this and if they continue to do this they will find themselves in cohorts with Robert Mugabe, that’s what it’s going to end up and we the citizens are suffering. So coming to organization of resistance, we are saying let’s have a meeting, we put a little meeting yesterday, we are going to have another one at an executive level next week. On the 22 May we want to put a public meeting in South Africa to test the people to say – do you think that this GPA is going to self serve us? If not we must put pressure by denouncing and telling them that we are out of this thing, so that SADC will know that if the citizens of Zimbabweans here in South Africa, all over the world, are voicing concern about this process then it is not going to work.
We must also voice against South Africa ’s role – it is playing a hide-and-seek role, they must come out very clear, we did tell them and put some threats because in point of view if you don’t have threats, you are not going to win. Tell them what you are going to do if they don’t do A, B, C. So I think, without sounding like I’m deciding for others, we are going to put this matter for discussion, 22 May, a public meeting to see if we can come to a consensus how to handle this question of GNU, how to handle this GPA process.
Guma: Well we are clearly running out of time but I need to slot in one more question. I’ll start with you Mr. Mutandiri, remarks by African National Congress Youth League President Julius Malema that the ANC was firmly behind ZANU PF, calling the MDC puppets, did that undermine South Africa ’s involvement in the mediation completely? Do you think the geopolitical terrain is the same after those remarks were made?
Mutandiri: I am in South Africa Lance and we have been in touch, not only with the comrades who are in the ANC Youth League but the YCL, the Young Communist Youth League, SASCO, that’s the South African Students Congress and COSAS, the students body at high school level, I have no doubt in my mind that the ordinary youth in South Africa in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe and I’ve talked to a lot of comrades who are even in the ANC Youth League structures and I’ve no doubt that obviously they don’t have the same view as what Julius was trying to portray.
What we can only say is from his, I think, uncalled for utterances is that he doesn’t have that, he cannot choose for Zimbabwean youth the kind of leadership that they would want to have. They chose Jacob Zuma as their President; as Zimbabwean youth it is not within our right to then say they must choose so-and-so, we can only support what they say, so at the very least I think those were reckless statements and we have dismissed them with the contempt they deserve. It is up to Zimbabwean youth to decide, as decided in 2008 that Morgan Tsvangirai must begin to drive that country forward.
Until such a time when the people of Zimbabwe decide to the contrary, then I think that’s when I think we can begin to take Julius’ utterances which I think must be retracted by the Youth League anytime from now. The terrain has not changed, Zimbabweans must begin to organize, my emphasis Lance is that we must begin to make sure that the democracy movement comes back to life. Mugabe must begin to see that the people of Zimbabwe have the capacity to organize, we should not put our faith in external structures and external bodies to make the change that we want.
We know the kind of the change that we want, the struggle that we have been struggling for the past ten years or so, we know them, we can define them, we know exactly the kind of a Zimbabwe that we want and nobody can tell us, can tell us that Zimbabwe from outside, so we must begin to rise up, organize ourselves, make sure that we are fully functional and visible on the ground.
Guma: Well that’s Munjodzi Mutandiri there giving us the final word in this edition of Behind the Headlines. Many thanks, to political commentators Luke Zunga and Munjodzi Mutandiri for joining us on the programme. It’s been a pleasure having you gentlemen. SW Radio Africa
Feedback can be sent to [email protected]
or http://twitter.com/lanceguma
If you would like to be a guest on the show you can also get in touch on the same e-mail or call +44-777-855-7615.
[newsletter]
