What’s good for the goose
The manufactured crisis in Zimbabwe is once more bubbling to the surface. The ongoing goal of regime change, which started 18 years ago with the imposition of economic sanctions, has not been achieved. The expected uprising from a failed economy has failed. The Zimbabwe electorate blames the Western countries, not their government, for their economic problems. They resent outside interference in their political destiny.
The rule book on regime change in Zimbabwe has not changed since 2002. US president Donald Trump unwittingly revealed it the other day, worried about his own re-election prospects. To rig an election,Trump suggests, one must first delegitimise the electoral process. To this end he has already declared the upcoming US presidential elections fraudulent, adding he may not accept them. The same script as in Zimbabwe but now used for personal gain. He has even appointed a new post office head to slow down mail delivery on election day and disrupt the vote counting.
The other crime levelled against Zimbabwe is violation of human rights. This concern is relatively new. In the old days it was communism that put a country in trouble.
But accusations of human rights violations have their flaws. It is hard to distinguish between riot police actions in Hong Kong and riot police actions in Seattle on TV screens. The human rights violation accusations in Zimbabwe have been different: mostly accusations of kidnapping of doctors, journalists and opposition MDC party leaders. But they have all been found hiding in bushes, their cellphones working, not remembering any information to help investigators. Not even Zimbabwean Lives Matter has submitted any tangible evidence, it seems.
SA President Cyril Ramaphosa’s strategy of deploying special envoys to Zimbabwe was a good move. We need to raise our profile and our ability to assess developments in Zimbabwe.
However, we need to support the work of the Motlanthe Commission, which is tasked to help resolve outstanding issues. The government has repealed the Public Order and Security Act but the boundary between policing powers and peaceful assembly is still contentious. In his last visit to the country Clément Voule, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association, cited the use of tear gas and batons as evidence of violations of freedom of assembly. But tear gas and batons were used in Hong Kong and Seattle. Lawful assembly in Harare should not be different from lawful assembly in New York.
Raising the profile of the Motlanthe Commission as the platform to resolve differences in Zimbabwe should be part of the role of Ramaphosa’s special envoys.
— Wongaletu Vanda, via e-mail