Johannesburg: If the Southern African Development Community (SADC) does not act urgently to halt increasing militarisation in Zimbabwe and secure effective implementation of the Global Political Agreement, there is a serious risk that Zimbabwe will slide back to the crisis levels of 2008, devolve into further widespread violence and that real gains in healtAhead of the emergency summit on Zimbabwe of the SADC Security Organ, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) calls on SADC , as the lynchpin to the survival of the GPA and future progress, to adopt a new approach on Zimbabwe.
In its briefing paper, Zimbabwe: A Way Forward, OSISA calls for the deployment of a comprehensive, standing presence of SADC to be stationed in Zimbabwe until such time as a new Constitution has been drafted, that the draft has been submitted to referendum and that free and fair presidential and legislative elections have been held. It also calls for that standing presence comprising experts and observers to be coupled with a pooled fund, supported by the international donor community, overseen by sector experts, to ensure that education, health care, water sanitation services and food distribution remain uninterrupted.
Oversight of the GPA cant rest with the parties themselves, says Sisonke Msimang, executive director of OSISA. The parties have shown themselves unable to effectively address differences relating to the GPA. Thats been made clear by the most recent deadlock. SADC, as guarantor of the agreement, must now put in place mechanisms for effective oversight.
Amid credible reports of increasingly military build-up in Zimbabwe, particularly in the Mashonaland provinces where political violence has traditionally generated OSISA also calls for the immediate deployment of a smaller, ad-hoc delegation to monitor and report on incidents of political violence in Zimbabwe.
Says Msimang: Despite the horrific levels of violence in 2008, we know that outside observers acted as a deterrent and saved lives. If there is to be no return to the brutality of 2008, that delegation needs to be put on the ground now.
OSISA also calls on SADC, as guarantor of the GPA, to secure, as a threshold for return to full cooperation in government, effective implementation of the GPA and a definitive resolution of the outstanding issues as per the SADC communiqu of 26-27 January 2009.
If the GPA cant be rescued, it will be a colossal failure for SADC, says Msimang. The proposals OSISA has made are ambitious, but there is ample precedent for them and theyre in line with observer missions that have been deployed in the past — for instance, the UN Observer Mission in South Africa from 1992 to 1994. If SADC doesnt alter its approach, there is the real prospect of a return to crisis and more suffering for Zimbabweans.
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