While president Thabo Mbeki was making preparations to continue his mediation efforts in Zimbabwe with support from the African Union and the United Nations, Nelson Mandela, Africa’s greatest citizen, was celebrating his 90th birthday.
Madiba, a man who has devoted his entire life to the struggle for the liberation of his people, losing nearly three decades in prison in the process, had one thing on his mind as world attention focused upon him: that South Africans remember the poor and less fortunate people of our country, that the haves not lose sight of the have-nots.
Of course, this is what we have come to expect from a man who walked out of prison after 27 years and immediately started a campaign to bridge race gaps and unite an entire country. A leader with an astounding ability to forgive and an insatiable desire to uplift his people.
Many, many happy returns Madiba, from the planet.
Meanwhile, back at the mediation ….
We have all witnessed the staggering human and financial cost to Zimbabwe of the never-ending Mugabe presidency. As was made clear recently in a document sent by Mbeki to Mugabe, in 2001, our president knew exactly where the problems lay, as well as the solutions. Of course, as the president of this country, he also knew of the suffering of the Zimbabwean people, their mass exodus to South Africa and the cost it was having on the South African economy.
In addition, he would be aware that between three and four million exiles had descended upon the biggest victims of apartheid — the poorest communities of South Africa; people who had been forced to endure the degrading outrages of a dehumanising segregationist agenda under that system, now supposedly liberated, being required to compete for limited resources with the millions of victims of a Zimbabwe that we have helped to create.
Five million Zimbabweans on the brink of starvation, millions of their exiles in South Africa competing with the millions making up our poorest communities, who can least afford it — a recipe for a disaster of epic proportions.
Xenophobia is not about criminals; criminals simply tag along with the outraged masses of our country — never forget that. Don’t ever let politicians insult and dismiss the rightful claims of the poorer communities of this country by branding them a bunch of criminals.
Besides the actual cost to both countries and the region, there is the money lost through investments that are not going to happen as a result of the region’s instability right now.
Who loses? No prizes for guessing. As I’m sure everyone has noticed by now, the fat cats in both countries never run short, no matter how bad their economies.
Knowing all this we have gone about and maintained our quiet diplomacy, blocked the UN and AU from intervening, vetoed whatever resolutions came along, ignored wholesale murder on our borders and never as a country condemned this outrage.
The result being the enormous hardship suffered by the poor people of South Africa and Zimbabwe, and a vastly reduced capacity to deliver to these poorer communities.
As I say, distinguishing between Mandela and Mbeki is poor.
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