Du Pisani, a former Dean of Economics at the University of Namibia and consultant to SADC, pointed out that Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party have been systematically violating every core principle of the 1992 SADC Treaty. The fundamental principles of this treaty enshrined, as general principles, respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, as well as the peaceful settlement of political disputes, he said. These principles are also the core values of the United Nations Charter and the Constituent Act of the African Union, all of which Mugabe’s government ratified at the time.
More specifically, Mugabe himself is a signatory to the Strategic Indicative Plan on the SADC Organ for Defence, Politics and Security Co-operation, the foundation of which is safeguarding the region from instability arising from a breakdown in law and order, on inter-state and intra-state level, as a result of aggression and conflict.
“Of especial importance here is the commitment to promote the development of democratic institutions by state parties and observance of human rights,” Du Pisani said. “But these principles have been grossly abused by Zimbabwe under the pretext that the Zimbabwean situation is purely a domestic one,” he said. “It’s absolutely clear that the Zimbabwean situation flies in the face of every one of the constituent principles of not only SADC, but the AU, the African Peer Review Mechanism and Nepad.”
However, Mugabe had consistently exploited “the politics of memory” – blind loyalty among the former liberation movements – such as the ANC, Swapo in Namibia, the MPLA in Angola and Frelimo in Mozambique – to prevent censure from his former comrades-in-arms, Du Pisani said.
“Among the former liberation movement leaders, it’s simply inconceivable that they could move against each other,” an aspect that has immobilised SADC’s leadership ever since the DRC crisis, when Mugabe used his chairmanship of the SADC Organ on Defence, Politics and Security Co-operation to justify his intervention (and looting by his army) in the DRC in 1998.
With Zimbabwe now officially termed as a “lapsed democracy”, with all the attendant problems of economic collapse, mass migration and emergence of transnational criminal syndicates pouring over its border, SADC was faced with the most profound crisis in its history – period.
Should Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, as current SADC chair, call for an emergency summit on Zimbabwe (something that Mugabe’s allies are frantically lobbying against), the ageing dictator could end up with only South Africa and Namibia in his corner. Most SADC countries have now unequivocally condemned Mugabe’s regime. Even Angola, which backed Mugabe’s DRC adventure, has turned against it’s erstwhile ally; President Thabo Mbeki, seeking appeasement, will be politically neutralised, leaving only Namibia’s Swapo Government to fend for their old friend, he said.
The Namibian government has remained silent on calls for Namibia to sever diplomatic ties with Mugabe’s regime immediately. So far, only Prime Minister Nahas Angula has reiterated support for SADC’s mediation efforts; the Minister of Foreign Affairs Marco Hausiku has so far ignored requests for stating Namibia’s position publicly.
Other analysts and local civil society see this as a sure sign that Swapo is still firmly under the thumb of Mugabe’s staunchest regional ally, former President Sam Nujoma, whose hardliners refuse to even acknowledge the Harare regime’s most barbaric excesses. As if to underline this, Namibia’s Chief of the Army General Martin Shalli this week paid a formal visit to his Zimbabwean counterpart, Commander General Constantine Chiwenga.
But Shalli insisted to local media that Namibia was “neutral” in Zimbabwe’s political stalemate, and backed Mbeki’s mediation efforts. But former Foreign Affairs Minister Hidipo Hamutenya, expelled from the ruling Swapo Party for opposing Nujoma, is far more direct: Swapo has a shameful history of backing dictators like the late Sani Abacha of Nigeria, and was on record that it would not countenance “regime change” in the region, his party, the Rally for Democracy and Progress, has noted.