It is disheartening for all disenfranchised and suffering Zimbabweans at home and away, to see how the president is always more than ready to embark on trips to Europe, yet just over a month ago he snubbed an invitation to the SADC Special summit that gave Zimbabwe an opportunity to resolve its political impasse through a regional framework which Zimbabwe does not only belong to, but also represents the very African solution which Mugabe himself always waxes lyrical about.
Perhaps time has come for Mugabe to be reminded that his obligation is, first and foremost, to the citizens and the nation, before his pretentious concerns with issues of global concern such as the summit currently going on in Rome. It certainly defies logic how a president with a country that has a sky piercing inflation of over a million % and a colossal unemployment rate of 80%, all occasioned by his policies, can be in the corridors of FAO partaking in discussions about the bio-fuel induced global surge in food prices, when the country is going through an unprecedented period of hunger, malnutrition and deprivation caused by bad political and economic governance.
Zimbabwe faces a peculiar self-inflicted problem which is not about food affordability, but about lack of food availability due to the politically-motivated land reform that lacked any economic planning, foresight and rational.
Mugabe is now seen by the entire world as a leader who has completely lost the plot and has turned against his own people by violating every one of their inalienable human rights. This is why his presence at the world summit has been likened by many to inviting Pol Pot to a human rights conference or the devil to a Christian fellowship.
However, it is not a question of whether Mugabe must have attended the world summit or not, but a question of him being seen to act in support of the principles of hunger and poverty alleviation in his country first where millions of people are starving and several children malnourished while 80% live on less than US$1 a day.
 While the UN has an obligation to invite him as the head of state, one is forced to ask what moral justification does Mugabe have and what useful policy inputs can he make when his own national food and agriculture policies have been a disastrous economic nightmare for his citizens? Although his speech painted a positive picture of a successful land reform, the grim reality on the ground is that commercial agriculture in Zimbabwe has collapsed and his government was responsible for its feudalisation through its visionless agrarian reform. The 300,000 so-called proud farmers referred to by Mugabe in his speech are no more that peasant farmers who have no skills, no equipment, no capital and no capacity for crop yields that can meet the nation’s food requirements.
But the question is why does Mugabe attend these international summits when he knows that world opinion is increasingly seeing him in negative light as a leader who has turned one of the best economies in Africa into a nation of beggars and food handouts? His love of international summits goes no further than enjoying the media spotlight and being pedantic with his oratory skills to those who care to listen.
For all the degrees he has, his speeches have always exposed him to be somewhat of a novice in the field of diplomacy and international relations – rather than a statesman who has the interests of the welfare of his people and the nation at heart, because all they have done is occasion more alienation for the country and more suffering for the people.
The tragic events and painful experiences of the last eight years to his people, his country, the land, and the national economy provide undeniable evidence that Mugabe’s old politics of the seventies of belligerent confrontations with the West is not only now irrelevant and anachronistic, but also counterproductive as it stands against the much needed opportunities for the resolution of the crisis through dialogue and negotiation. As he did yesterday, whenever the President opens his mouth in these platforms, he criticises all and sundry except himself and his government if they are infallible. Yet the irony is that the very ideals of global equity and distributive justice he purports to be fighting for at global level are flouted by his regime on a daily basis in Zimbabwe where citizens have to carry ruling party cards in order to get food or a piece of land.
Post published in: Opinions