Zim situation a dire warning to SA

Watching the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Zimbabwean High Commission in Pretoria exchange insults, is a bit like watching the clowns fight at the circus. It is priceless that the EFF should grandstand on the issue of human rights in Zimbabwe when less than a year ago it was mourning the loss of Robert Mugabe, who pushed his country and its people into penury.

Julius Malema and his crew are, however, the arch-opportunists and have recently been attacking Zimbabwe for selling out on the land issue by committing to compensate white farmers who were dispossessed of their land in the early 2000s.

The Zimbabwean High Commission in return said the EFF was demonstrating its “pretentiousness” in presuming to lecture their northern neighbours about politics and land.

What is even more interesting is that, for once, the EFF has found reality beyond its own rabble-rousing rhetoric, calling the ruling Zanu-PF party “part of a long line of oppressive regimes and failing liberation movements which no longer have a vision for the continent”.

While that is also clearly a dig at the ANC and the shambolic state of post-apartheid South Africa, it correctly idenfities Zanu-PF and its ageing gang of kleptocrats as the reason for the disintegration of Zimbabwe.

When Mugabe was overthrown in 2017, the “new dawn” promised by new President Emmerson Mnangagwa has proved to be just as elusive as the one Cyril Ramaphosa sold South Africa.

Mnangagwa has become even more dictatorial in recent days, locking up opposition party members and journalists, banning meetings and having his thugs terrorise anyone who speaks out. He claims “dark, foreign forces” are behind a sinister plot to destroy Zimbabwe.

More than ever before, Zimbabwe is a dire warning for us about what happens when a party starts to believe it has a divine right to rule forever.