HARARE - It is not revolutions in North Africa that should be a concern for SADC and the African Union (AU), but the coup in the Ivory Coast where a dispute over who won a November 2010 election triggered all-out conflict, says a respected thinktank. The dispute between pro-Alassane Ouattara and pro-Laurent Gbagbo forces killed thousands of people and displaced more than a millThe Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) notes that the AU Constitutive Act enshrines the sovereignty of all member states, but also states that this can be disregarded in cases of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against
humanity.
“This will always be the trump card in the Zanu (PF) propaganda pack: sovereignty,” says a RAU report titled ‘Land reform, sanctions, regime change, and sovereignty’.
Whenever any of the other cards fails, Zanu (PF) plays this one, and it was played again in the aftermath of the SADC Troika meeting in Livingstone, when an angry President Mugabe warned South African President Jacob Zuma against
attempts to prescribe a solution to Zimbabwes problems, and said neither the regional bloc nor the AU could dictate solutions to Harare.
While the Troika did not directly criticise Mugabe, it raised most of the concerns voiced by Tsvangirai, who says Mugabes
allies in the security forces have intensified a crackdown on his MDC party ahead of new elections expected later this year or early 2011.
The RAU report says Mugabe and his party were invoking the sovereignty Mantra for political expediency.
“It matters not that Zimbabwe has voluntarily agreed – through the signing of all the treaties, conventions, agreements – to limit its sovereignty. If an international undertaking discomforts Zanu (PF) it will raise the sovereignty argument,” the report says.
“Essentially this means that, if any international undertaking or agreement is in conflict with Zanu (PF)s current interests, it will be repudiated without hesitation.”
“Given Zanu (PF)s general aversion to being held to Agreements it has made, we will be amazed if SADC manages to overcome the sovereignty principle. However, if political parties, civics, labour, churches, and the like, support strongly the Troika decision, then perhaps for the first time Zanu (PF) will have to accept that it is a member of the international community and obliged to adhere to common standards, including accepting a loss at the polls. And there is no
more certain result, in a genuine election, than Zanu (PF) will have to accept loss, and a loss that has been avoided since 2000.”
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