The harassment of Zimbabwean civil society leaders followed hard on the heels of the deportation of regional NGO leaders and journalists.
Among those deported were the Executive Director of SADC-CNGO Abie Ditlhake, Executive Secretary of SATUCC Austin Muneku and Executive Director of FOCCISA Malcolm Damon and two Mozambican journalists.
Four Zimbabwe civil society leaders were detained for close to four hours upon arrival at the Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport in Luanda.
Four Zimbabwe civil society leaders, Crisis Coalition Regional Information and Advocacy Coordinator Dewa Mavhinga and the coalition's spokesperson Phillip Pasirayi, Elections Resource Centre Director
Tawanda Chimhini and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights Manager Dzimbabwe Chimbga were detained at the airport for over five hours while officials went through their bags.
The four were joining a dozen civil society leaders from Zimbabwe who had travelled to Luanda to lobby SADC leaders who were gathering there for their annual summit where the expectation was that SADC will continue to build consensus around credible elections preceded by genuine, fundamental reforms.
"Our experience entering Angola has reminded us that it is no easy task to build regional consensus around human rights respect and democracy norms," Mavhinga told The Zimbabwean from Luanda. "Where
many now feel fatigued and frustrated over little progress on Zimbabwe, we continue to painstakingly campaign for political change for the sake of the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who yearn to return to normal life."
He said they were only let into Angola after state security and immigration officials confiscated over 300 reports on the political situation in Zimbabwe, on making a case against political violence and on the partisan role of the military in Zimbabwe's political and electoral affairs. The reports had been translated into Portuguese for advocacy in Luanda.
"No reasons were given for the seizure of the materials although one of the officials indicated that the materials would assist the officials in further investigations," Mavhinga said. "We remain undeterred with an unshaken hope that a fully thriving democratic culture will soon be a reality in southern Africa."
Zimbabwe was on the SADC summit agenda, with expectations that at least three reports will be delivered in matters related to it, namely, a report from the Zimbabwe facilitator – President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, a report from the outgoing SADC Organ Troika for Defence, Politics and Security Cooperation and a report on the SADC Tribunal.
Ahead of the Luanda SADC Summit – that ran from 16 to 18 August – Zimbabwe civil society leaders last week embarked on an extensive regional lobby initiative that included meeting President Zuma’s facilitation team and the South Africa Ambassador to Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwean heard that representatives from Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, the National Association of NGOs, Zimbabwe Election Support Network and the Women’s Coalition briefed the facilitation team on the volatile political situation that continues to prevail in Zimbabwe as characterized by arrests and harassment of civil society activists – notably seven Restoration of Human Rights activists arrested while protesting outside the High Court for the release of MDC activists from jail last week, Zanu (PF) supporters’ violent disruption of parliamentary hearings on the Human Rights Commission Bill and stalled Global Political Agreement (GPA) reforms.
Mavhinga said the civil society representatives presented several documents with facts, figures and analysis of the situation and raised concern regarding the elections roadmap which so far does not address the need for security sector realignment, fresh recruitment of Zimbabwe Election Commission staff to ensure their independence and non-partisanship and the immediate end of all state-sponsored violence.
In turn, said Mavhinga, the facilitation team assured civil society leaders of its open-door policy and its commitment to consult all stakeholders on the basis that the issues at stake, particularly elections, affect every Zimbabwean.
"However, they noted that the powers of the facilitation team were limited to monitoring the GPA and to making recommendations on what can be done to restore normalcy to Zimbabwe," Mavhinga said. "Other civil society leaders were simultaneously deployed to Mozambique and Botswana to meet with senior ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and to South Africa to brief civil society allies."
Meanwhile, Zanu PF was also on a parallel regional lobby offensive ahead of the Luanda summit to solicit support for what appears to be its three-pronged offensive namely, to call for President Zuma to step down as facilitator, to frustrate efforts to finalize an elections roadmap and to divert SADC attention by focusing on the tired and irrelevant sanctions issue.
The former liberation movements in SADC meeting in Namibia last week endorsed Zanu PF's call for the immediate lifting of targeted sanctions slapped on President Mugabe and members of his inner circle.
It appears Zanu (PF) is prepared to go for broke by breaking consensus among SADC leaders, abandoning critical reforms and forcing an early sham election, possibly later this year.
Civil society leaders addressed a news conference in Luanda on Monday where their key message to SADC leaders was that they should remain steadfast in their call for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe that take place under conditions of free political activity and in the absence of violence or intimidation.
"To achieve such an environment, it is necessary that the elections roadmap spells out measures to re-align the security sector, to return all soldiers currently deployed across the country back to their barracks, to finalize constitutional reforms and the referendum and to recruit afresh ZEC staff to ensure their independence, impartiality and professionalism," said the press statement.
"Instead of entertaining frivolous arguments for the replacement of the facilitator, SADC should endorse President Zuma’s work on Zimbabwe and urge Zimbabwe’s political leaders to speedily implement reforms that will take the country in a different political direction. The bottom line remains that, whether or not president Zuma remains facilitator for Zimbabwe, given its economic and political clout in the region, South Africa will remain instrumental to achieving political reforms in Zimbabwe. As they say here in Angola, it is Aluta Continua!"
Post published in: News