Is Zimbabwe a province of South Africa? ; Vote ANC to prop up Mugabe?

Why is it that, despite overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and ever increasing calls for an end to the Mugabe regime, the SADC and its worst offender, South Africa, refuse to accept that this will be the inevitable short-term outcome? All that we are really waiting to see is how short the period will be and how much damage this will occasion for the region and the people of that country.

Notwithstanding millions of people on the brink of starvation, diseases bred in the cesspit that Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has become and the financial impact of refugees on countries in the region, the SADC has refused to take decisive steps to implement the wishes of the people of Zimbabwe.

We have heard calls from the Elders, Graca Machel, Archbishop Tutu, the various churches, members of the UN, the USA (President Obama determined to oust Bob), the EU — which has now increased sanctions — and a whole stream of others calling for an end to Mugabe’s term without the SADC budging an inch. If anything they have become even more determined to do the wrong thing and continue to “treat the loser, ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe, as a bona-fide ‘president’, despite having lost the elections” (Cosatu — Strong words in a strongly worded press release from an Alliance partner).

“COSATU welcomes the convening of a SADC summit meeting on Monday and demands that the Southern African leaders give the kind of leadership which they have failed to provide so far. They must stop treating Mugabe as a legitimate head of state and insist that either any new government reflects the will of the people as expressed on March 29, or that fresh elections be held, under international supervision.

“COSATU will be stepping up its campaign of solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in the coming weeks.”

On Monday the SADC convened an urgent summit in an attempt to finally tackle the festering sore that is Zanu-PF run Zimbabwe. Regardless of what some might be claiming it was a further disaster, which has resolved absolutely nothing. The MDC has clearly expressed its disappointment at the outcome and confirmed that it would be meeting this weekend to decide on its formal response.

The MDC has repeatedly said that unless there is inter alia an even distribution of cabinet posts, resolution of the New Security Council issue and freeing of all abducted members and activists, then they cannot see their way clear to joining this power-sharing government.

The upshot of the SADC meeting was that all the MDC problems are to be put on hold and, once the government is formed and working, they can raise them again. In other words, the fact that Mugabe has refused to see reason despite the planet calling for him to go, threatened intervention and suggestions that charges of crimes against humanity be brought against him , the actual way to make him see reason is to hand Zimbabwe over to him again and try and achieve this miracle through working committees. This from a man who would rather butcher his people and let them starve than hand over the keys to Grace Mugabe’s private bank account known as the Zimbabwean Reserve Bank.

If the MDC were to decide to accept these resolutions, which are not binding upon them as the SADC cannot implement them themselves, they will have effectively signed themselves into marginalised oblivion with the added benefit of being tarred with the same brush as the party that has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. Tons and tons of pain and blame without any gain. I may be wrong but I will be stunned if they decide to accept the SADC resolution as things stand at the time of writing.

Of course the fact that South Africa, despite her own financial concerns, exponentially increased by the cost of the Zimbabwean refugees to our economy, has just handed over R300-million to Mugabe, posing as agricultural aid, should not be overlooked. Before anyone tries to break our hearts by classifying this aid to Mugabe as “assisting the victims”, we need to understand that that blood money, taken from our taxpayers, would have been totally unnecessary if Mugabe had been removed, as the losers of elections normally are. Western countries have confirmed that they would inject billions into that economy if Senor Satan was gone and reform put on track. So not only did we prop up Mrs Faust’s son Bob, but we denied the Zimbabwean people a realistic financial package with which to start turning their financial corner.

In the last few days we’ve also heard about Zimbabwe Reserve Bank Governor Gideon “I’m trying to hit the Quadrillion percent inflation rate before February” Gono (I’m telling you lot this in confidence; apparently it must Gono further) wants to adopt the rand as an anchor currency. Brilliant! He can use the anchors from the submarines to keep the tons of Zim dollars from blowing away in the wind when we surface them for the arms deal inquiry. Of course every day we are hearing about cholera in the Limpopo, Gauteng, the Kruger Park and on and on. This is usually followed by confirmation that local cholera outbreaks are not a problem followed by the reason why we are making the border (is there still one?) with Zimbabwe even easier to access.

In other words, South Africa is not only ensuring that the voters of Zimbabwe don’t get the government of their choice and that they are denied — as a direct result thereof –the bailout package promised to them, but in addition is acting as the major catalyst that is keeping them from redemption.

Why?

Financially Mugabe and the Zanu-PF are poison and a huge drain on the region when it comes to overseas investment. Tsvangirai and the MDC? Whether they are puppets or not, as if that has real relevance with China’s foot soldier Bob in power, it is impossible for them to destroy a country and a region in the way that Mugabe has done. There is no damage that they could possibly inflict that would even begin to approach that done by Bob and his henchmen. Answerable to the West? As we all know Mugabe has made it clear that he owns Zimbabwe and the world be damned. His generals claim they will only serve Mugabe not other Zimbabweans — where does all of that leave Zimbabweans?

Foreigners in Mugabeland?

Yet regardless of disease, financial cost, refugees pouring across our borders and knowledge of murder on a grand scale in Zimbabwe — knowing full well that Mugabe and the Zanu-PF lost the election, badly, South Africa blocks interference and uses our money to continue propping up Mugabe. Yesterday our police had to use rubber bullets because protestors stormed the SADC conference to tell that genocidal dictator what they thought. Our police had to act like Zimbabwean police (criminals? Hard to tell which they are) to protect this genius.

Why?

One of my readers suggested the following:

[“My “insight” is: (1) SA/Zim is effectively a political union. (2) Many Zimbabweans are now, effectively, South Africans. As you know, millions of Zimbabweans are living in SA. If they weren’t, there would be widespread starvation in Zim. Hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of people would be dying. (3) Zim is a rand/dollar economy. The fact that the Zim dollar is worthless is further evidence that Zim has no sovereignty. (4) SADC and the AU are irrelevant. (5) SA aid will continue to support Zanu PF.

Why is it important to understand the above five points?” The reasons are: (1) Commentators, like yourself, can start to evaluate the implications of this analysis. It is no longer appropriate just to see Mugabe as “insane/stupid” or to see the ANC’s policy re Zim as misguided/stupid etc. (2) You can start to evaluate the rational reasons why Zumalema PF has followed Mbeki’s policy. (3) You can start evaluating whether it is really in SA’s interest to incorporate Zim into SA. (4) What sort of future does Zumalema-PF see for the province of Zimbabwe? (5) What are the implications for SA politics and life in SA?

I believe that neither Mugabe nor Zumalema-PF will lose any sleep if hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans start dying. It should be seen as “ethnic cleansing”. They see the population levels in Zim as unsustainable. Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe are no longer needed. It actually makes sense to have millions of Zimbabweans living in SA. They are generally better educated than SA’s indigenous population and more docile.] (Blacklist Dictator)

At first I considered it a ridiculous suggestion without any foundation whatsoever. While I don’t believe that Mugabe would ever see himself as being part of any union, much less a junior partner to South Africa, and while I don’t believe that Jacob Zuma is impervious to the plight of the Zimbabweans, what I cannot offer is a single rational reason why the government of this country would want to behave in the way that they do. In light of our conduct in Zimbabwe I would ask anyone to come up with a cogent reason why we are adopting the approach that we have.

There is no financial or other logical reason that makes sense of our policies in Zimbabwe. Does the ANC see the Zanu-PF as some sort of extension of itself? If it doesn’t, let them answer the following questions:

1.Why should the winners of an election, rigged to beat them, share power?

2.Why won’t you let the loser of the election be forced to step down and allow the billions promised to reach Zimbabweans?

3.Why should South Africa pay to assist Mugabe? That must come out of party and not government funds. South Africans don’t want to help him.

4. If anyone should accommodate anyone else it’s Zanu-PF. They lost — accordingly, why must the MDC accommodate them?

5. Is there any act of genocide, brutality or depravity committed against primarily the black people of Zimbabwe that you would consider a basis for removing Mugabe? Five million set to starve and tens of thousands murdered along the way hasn’t achieved it. Is there any conceivable act or crime that Mugabe could commit that you would consider unacceptable? (Please describe — we need numbers that exceed tens of thousands because you didn’t blink at that number)

If they can answer any of those then I might begin to understand the ANC’s motives and conduct in Zimbabwe.

Take your time; let us all know.

SA Foreign Affairs minister Dlamini-Zuma on Zimbabwe Crisis