Dear SADC leaders,
I have the utmost respect for the founding ideals of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) but limited faith in your credentials and leadership.
Today I write to you to express my extreme displeasure with your reckless response to US sanctions on Zimbabwe. Your biased, problematic meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs, at a most difficult time, is, to be honest, very unhelpful.
In a country ravaged by drought, fuel shortages, runaway inflation and 90% joblessness, over 5.7 million Zimbabweans, according to a 2019 World Bank report, are living in extreme poverty. Clearly, SADC can no longer afford to tiptoe around such economic doom and gloom.
By participating in the anti-sanctions march scheduled for October 25, you have chosen to engage in a costly but futile propaganda exercise and have in fact abandoned the very people whom you purportedly want to demonstrate African solidarity with.
As you must very well know, Zimbabwe’s economy is actually reeling from widespread mismanagement, corruption and poor leadership, and much less from the imagined effects of US sanctions.
Yet, you haven’t seen it fit to stand tall for millions of hapless citizens and speak truth to power. You haven’t advised the ruling Zanu-PF party to adopt policies that safeguard individual, economic and human rights, measures that don’t foster perpetual political instability, global condemnation and economic mayhem.
Indeed, you haven’t had a quiet word with President Emmerson Mnangagwa and explained to him that the Cold War is truly over, so Zimbabwe’s economic and foreign policy considerations must reflect the bare, unshakable realism of a world order led by the US.
Grandstanding along Julius Nyerere Avenue in Harare or picketing outside the US Embassy in Windhoek won’t alleviate our individual plights in Bulawayo, Harare or Mutare’s townships or move Washington to remove sanctions.
The Zanu-PF government must, as it were, learn to play the field and progressively embrace a measured, flexible and pragmatic stance towards not only America and the European Union, but also the MDC-A, Zimbabwe’s largest opposition party.
Suffice it to say that a long-term, viable solution to Zimbabwe’s increasingly complex economic problems rests with enacting extensive political, media and security sector reforms and upholding the rule of law always.
Zanu-PF’s close, historical ties with Russia and China, two mostly illiberal serial human rights abusers, won’t diminish the need to do business with the world’s richest nation on its publicly stated terms. The US, after all, is an independent country.
If sanctions satisfy its moral standing and geopolitical objectives, the US has a right to refuse to do business with Zimbabwe, and vice-versa. Still, the guiding base of US sanctions, a sensible, welcome stand against gross human rights violations, holds abundant moral and legal weight for a traumatised, famished and dejected population.
It’s absolutely obvious that until it enacts substantial reforms, holds free and fair elections and governs in a style beyond global investigation and domestic rebuke, Zimbabwe will not find tangible relief from US sanctions. However, since Zanu-PF’s propaganda on US sanctions sits well with you, why don’t you go a step further and actually bankroll a few of Zanu-PF’s grand economic plans?
SADC can set up a special purpose vehicle to raise money for Zimbabwe’s economic regeneration. It can mobilise and guarantee funds to bail out our failed parastatals and establish lines of credit for Zimbabwean companies ravaged by rash, dubious economic policies. What’s more, SADC could spearhead investments in cash-strapped mining, agriculture and industrial concerns.
The said interventions, if implemented, would be a stellar example of advanced, constructive Pan-African solidarity. It certainly is time for SADC to extend its camaraderie with Zanu-PF beyond the relatively painless acts of organising demonstrations, publishing press releases and showboating at global forums.
Only until SADC’s money and support is lost to corruption and plain incompetence, only until Zimbabwe’s security establishment shoots and kills unarmed, peaceful demonstrators again, will you begin to understand that a stubborn, outdated, tactless and always ruthless Zanu-PF is solely responsible for the financial dystopia and political instability afflicting Zimbabwe.
As such, as a matter of urgency, SADC really has three possible positions to consider. Firstly, it can adopt a strong, uncompromising stance towards Zanu-PF’s obstinate reluctance to enact political, media and security sector reforms.
Thus, it could help to establish a fully democratic disposition in Zimbabwe and steer us towards universally acceptable standards of governance. Secondly, SADC could put its money where its loud, quarrelsome mouth is and lend financial assistance to Zimbabwe.
Finally, SADC could continue to totally disregard Zanu-PF’s bad governance, high-levels of corruption in state-owned entities and recurring electoral skulduggery.
To the detriment of our troubled wellbeing and Southern Africa’s stability, it could stand back and watch Zimbabwe’s implosion continue unabated. Take your pick, dear SADC ‘leaders’. The ball, as the Americans love to say, is in your court.
Best Regards,
Tafi Mhaka
Tafi Mhaka is a Johannesburg-based writer and commentator. His debut novel, Mutserendende: The African in Us, is scheduled for release in 2020. Follow him on @tafimhaka / tafi.mhaka
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