Daily Dispatch
Fast, savvy game on in Zim
AS EVENTS in Zimbabwe unfold they continue to hold our attention here in South Africa. The ability of the antiMugabe faction to harness and restrain the Zimbabwe Defence Force and so avoid violence, as well as to outmanoeuvre the regional and continental oversight bodies and prevent their involvement in what was clearly a coup has been remarkable.
Whatever question marks may exist around the track record of Robert Mugabe’s successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is evidently an extremely shrewd strategist with a thorough understanding of the political machinery of his country and the continent.
The same deft savvy has not been evident from the South African government or the ANC in responding to what is arguably the most significant event in southern Africa since the fall of apartheid and the death of Nelson Mandela.
Both the state and the party have been out of their depth. President Jacob Zuma was basically reduced to Mugabe’s pliant tool as the latter sought to save himself by trying to draw in the Southern African Development Community, which Zuma chairs.
As we now know, the SADC was outplayed. Little wonder Zuma was nowhere to be seen in Zimbabwe when Mnangagwa was sworn in.
Then there was the South African delegation, supposedly sent to Harare to help defuse the crisis after Mugabe was confined to his house “for his own protection”.
We saw the Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and the novice (and already possibly compromised) State Security Minister Bongani Bongo posing in token photographs with Mugabe and a few others in a room, but no evidence whatsoever of their having played any meaningful role.
Moving on to last week’s scenes of wildly jubilant Zimbabweans celebrating across the length and breadth of their country and also here in South Africa, the response of the ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe was to “advise caution” and acknowledge Mugabe for his role as Zimbabwe’s liberator.
It was a mind-bendingly narrow and selective application of the word “liberator”, not to mention a wholly inadequate response. Where, one has to wonder, has Mantashe been since 1983 when Mugabe initiated the first wave of genocidal killings in Matabeleland and then began to systemically violate virtually ever other human right, including through extra-judiciary killings and electoral fraud. Working on “quiet diplomacy” round two?
One of the greatest blots of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency was his failure to take a principled stand to defend Zimbabwe’s people against injustice. While a moral response is not expected from Zuma on any issue, he and Mantashe have bumbled and fumbled the Zimbabwe crisis like two old men hunting for a ball in the change room while the new game has started on the field.
And it’s a fast, sophisticated and pacesetting one with savvy players.
As close neighbours, our histories and fortunes are intrinsically linked. Blunder much more and South Africa’s leadership may well find itself sitting in the dust alongside a man once called the liberator of Zimbabwe.