Zimbabweans should seize the initiative

At the beginning of the crisis in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the anti-Senate Movement for Democratic Change, called on South Africa to cut off Zimbabwe’s power supplies. A practical-joker technician from the power utility cut off power supplies to his house.

But seriously, the idea was that if the people of Zimbabwe were denied power, water, access to the Durban port and other necessities, they would be moved to revolt against Robert Mugabe’s government.

It was a measure that harked back to the 1970s. John Vorster’s government forced change in Rhodesia by getting Ian Smith — whose forces were neither winning nor losing the war — to negotiate with the nationalist forces whose guerrilla war was gathering pace and sliding the whole country into a veritable total war zone.

The South African government refused to impose sanctions and, by default, we have arrived at the same scenario that would have been obtained if South Africa had imposed sanctions. Zimbabwe has an inflation rate of more than 7 000%, the formal economy has ceased to function and millions of its people have left. There are power, water, basic necessities shortages and the Zimbabwe populace is presumably content with its lot.

“The Zimbabwean people are a happy lot, and that’s why you don’t see any demonstrations. Zimbabwe is on course to become the Singapore of Africa,” Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, the Zimbabwean Information Minister, was moved to say recently.

More than any other government leader, Thabo Mbeki has been criticised for not doing enough through his quiet-diplomacy policy. His basic argument has always been the crisis should be resolved by Zimbabweans.

His critics say he should publicly condemn what’s going on. But other wary observers say if the Mbeki government condemns what is going in Zimbabwe, it may completely lose leverage over the change that is certain to come in the coming months.

By shouting at the government in Zimbabwe, they ask, will it not simply work to drive Mugabe over the precipice — if such a situation can be reached in Zimbabwe — into the hands of the Angolan government and other non-democratic forces like Moammar Gadaffi who have no interest whatsoever in a democratised continent?

Mbeki “rooftop diplomacy” might all be very well if the Zimbabwean people were actively engaged in emancipating ourselves. Instead of working to defend our freedoms we have chosen to fight by flight to South Africa, Botswana and Britain. Not that there have been moments that could have been seized, which were spurned by the opposition and the people of Zimbabwe.

Operation Murambatsvina is a case in point and the days following the 2002 presidential elections another. Then a thick cloud of anger hung over Zimbabwe. It an was anger that festered in the sun, unorganised by a scared MDC leadership that did not know what to do or knew but were too scared to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Fortunately, the opposition forces now recognise this and recently Arthur Mutambara, leader of the other MDC faction, said that “Zimbabweans cannot outsource their emancipation and liberation to foreigners. We must not be solely dependent on the Mbeki initiative. We must have an alternative programme of action on the ground that seeks to achieve conditions for free and fair elections.”

The Zanu-PF government itself has been saying as much, declaring that the destiny of Zimbabwe can’t be decided anywhere outside Zimbabwe.

The assault of Tsvangirai and other opposition members on March 11 and the momentum it applied to the SADC initiative is proof of this. It showed that no matter what the rest of the world does and says, at the end of the day, freedom, liberation and liberty are, by definition, concepts that no one can give to another. We should seize them.

There is so much that a neighbour can do and until we, as Zimbabweans, seize the initiative, we have no right to say our neighbours should do so on our scared behalf.