Speaking at a press briefing on the eve of a meeting of the SADC Council of Ministers, Salomao said that SADC’s main concern has been to avoid any repeat of the violence that characterized the second round of the 2008 presidential election.
The Global Political Accord (GPA), signed between the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, was initially intended to cover the period between 2009 and 2011 – but “various considerations made it necessary to extend this period, in order to conclude certain reforms, such as the new constitution”, said Salomao.
SADC was prepared for implementation of the GPA to take longer “because we don’t want to return to the events of 2008”.
However, Salomao regarded 2013 as a very real cut-off point, since that is when the terms of office of the members of parliament elected in 2008 expire. “With or without reforms, there have to be elections next year”, he said.
That meant that the three leaders – Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (who leads the main faction of the MDC) and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara (head of the breakaway MDC faction) – should work to ensure that elections could take place. Salomao said that SADC had been assured that a referendum on a new constitution can be held in October, followed by general elections six to eight months later.
As for the accusations that Rwanda is supporting the M-23 rebel group in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Salomao said that a SADC ministerial meeting had sent a group of military experts to the conflict areas, and their report was delivered on Monday.
Salomao thought it positive that Congolese President Joseph Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame had met at the recent Great Lakes summit in Kampala. “The important thing is that the two have continued dialogue”, he said.
Asked about the impact of piracy on SADC’s island members, Mauritius and the Seychelles, Salomao admitted that it was very serious. The Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands, depends on fishing and tourism, both of which have been severely damaged by the threat posed by Somali pirate gangs.
He said that the navies of South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania were patrolling the Mozambique Channel and cooperate with anti-piracy units from the European Union, Russia and China in the Indian Ocean.
“But the key question is solving the political question in Somalia”, Salomao pointed. “If Somalia is normalized, that will deprive the pirates of their rear bases”.
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