Electronic and print media would spend weeks reminding anyone who cared to listen about diplomatic coup against the party of 'puppets' MDC and its foreign handlers. Remember the retort "What crisis?" by one Thabo Mbeki when he refused to see what was evident to everyone else about the mess our country was in.
In Mbeki, Mugabe had a friend indeed just like the Chinese and the Russians who shield him each time the West tries to bring Zimbabwe before the Security Council. With friends like these Zanu (PF) could afford to do business as usual – bludgeoning the opposition into submission, rigging elections, denigrating opposition leadership and promoting hate speech through the public media, well aware of their impunity from regional and international condemnation was assured.
But since the Livingstone Troika meeting, things look like they are falling apart in Zanu (PF). And with the release of the comminuque of the Sandton Summit, the 'spin doctors' have been trying hard to show the world that nothing is rotten in the state of Zimbabwe.
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi talks of diplomatic parlance in his attempt to lecture us on the meaning of the term 'note'.
Well, maybe I missed something, but to all intents and purposes, the latest communique accepted and recognised the decisions of the Troika summit. This recognition must be a bitter pill to swallow to those who were clamouring for the Livingstone summit to be thrown out. What a set back to those merchants of death who wanted to force us into elections before the full implementation of the GPA.
We now wait to see whether the ideals in the GPA are going to be implemented on the ground. Zanu (PF) has two options – either they swallow their pride and implement the outstanding issues of the GPA, which include the security sector and media reforms, or else they choose to damn SADC the way they did Commonwealth. Talk of being caught between Scylla and Charybdis. – Hasani, London
Post published in: Letters to the Editor