Motlanthe must demand Home Affairs, Finance for Tsvangirai

Yesterday’s decision by the South African cabinet to withhold certain aid to Zimbabwe until a representative government is in place is highly commendable. This along with the strong message that they sent to Mugabe et al that this country is running out of patience with our neighbour’s leaders is long overdue.

We can only hope and pray that the rest of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) seizes our initiative and jumps on board. Up until now it has been Botswana taking on Zimbabwe single-handedly.

Vital however, in breaking this power-sharing deadlock, has to be a solution which ensures that Tsvangirai and the MDC, as part of their cabinet posts allocation, take control of Home Affairs and Finance for the following reasons:

• It will afford the MDC de facto control of the country thereby achieving international recognition. Without achieving this it is pointless even reaching agreement because recovery can’t commence in earnest if nobody of substance will underwrite it.

• It will also end the reign of terror because the police will return to fulfilling the ordinary function of a police force rather than acting as Mugabe’s political battering ram. This will normalise the country and restore law and order.

Zanu-PF and Mugabe cannot have failed to take notice of the ever-increasing unrest in Zimbabwe with more and more interest groups taking to the street in protest. The situation is becoming so untenable that even doctors and other medical staff feel compelled to express their outrage at the collapse of healthcare in that country, the seriousness of which must be seen in the light of a cholera epidemic which has broken out.

While it is our responsibility to assist our fellow Africans during these times of severe hardship we must not lose sight of the fact that most of the damages have been self-inflicted by Mugabe and the Zanu-PF. Moreover, rather than picking up the tab for the wasteland that they have created, it is South Africa and the rest of the SADC countries who are paying the bills.

President Motlanthe needs to offer Zimbabweans the carrot and Mugabe and Zanu-PF the stick. Play fair and not only the SADC but the planet will assist you. If you don’t listen to reason we will leave you to your own devices and that means facing up to the millions of people whose lives you have destroyed.

When Mugabe and Zanu-PF totally censored the media, rigged constituencies to favour rural voters, outlawed international election observers, murdered, intimidated and bribed voters, manipulated the electoral commission, doctored the results and ensured that the millions of exiles could not vote and still lost the election to the MDC it gave us some indication of just how much Zimbabweans hate these people.

Why would we ever want to try and foist them back on our neighbours? If they won’t accept their medicine let the people of Zimbabwe deal with them once and for all.

With all their guns and spite they’re going to find five million desperate people, who really have nothing to lose, far more than they can handle. As this begins to dawn on the army and police they will start to abandon in droves leaving a certain small circle of elite exposed.

Let them beg for mercy from the people they have shown no mercy to.