Each time Tsvangirai has hit a brick wall in the GNU because Mugabe would not honour his GPA agreement he has asked SADC to intervene. Again and again SADC leaders have nothing more than slapped Mugabe on the wrist and every time Tsvangirai has gone over the moon with joy convinced SADC was this time firm and decisive. After the 11 June SADC meeting the regional leaders gave no firm roadmap on any of the teething Zimbabwe problems; the drafting of the new constitution is still bogged down, the political violence is getting worse, no meaningful media and security sector reforms have been carried out, etc. So what is it that Tsvangirai and his MDC supporters are crawling about?
Ever since the SADC meeting two weeks ago both Mugabe and Tsvangirai have competed with each claiming regional leaders supported their position with the MDC leader going to the extend of calling Mugabe a liar at an MDC rally.
“The problem in this country is that people like lies and don’t want to tell the truth. We were also there and can’t be lied to. It’s surprising that a grown up man lies about what happened but we will tell the truth,” Tsvangirai told his supporters. The truth is SADC leaders once again failed to address the core issues; and Tsvangirai said nothing about this failure.
The 11 June 2011 SADC meeting on Zimbabwe was billed as the meeting where President Zuma was going to tell off Mugabe and give a sense of direction and purpose in Zimbabwe political crisis. President Zuma “vachaudza Mugabe chinotadzisa imbwa keseka kunyenama ichigona” as we would say in Shona. None of these things happened!
It will soon be three years since the signing of the GPA and there is no clear date when the new constitution will be ready to be put to the people’s vote. It is almost certain; the new constitution will contain enough Zanu PF contaminants to make it unacceptable.
Mugabe will use his dictatorial powers to ensure there are clauses in the new constitution giving him dictatorial powers to negate all the other positive clauses contained in the rest of the new constitution thus making the whole document unacceptable. It is in his DNA as a dictator to do so.
MDC’s COPAC representative, Douglas Monzora has been arguing people not to reject the new constitution before they have seen the document. Zimbabweans have good reasons to prejudge it because
a) the constitution writing process has taken nearly twice as long already as the more than generous time of eighteen months by the GPA (to say nothing of the cost) and there is still no end date in sight. The nation suffered its worst economic melt down in 2008 and yet all economic recovery plans have been put on the backburner until the end of this GNU. Just how much longer is this nation supposed to wait?
b) Zanu PF thugs did hijack outreach meetings and so the data on which the new constitution will be based has been contaminated already. One has to be really naïve to believe the end product will not have the same contaminants.
c) MDC was warned against signing GPA because it was foolish to give Mugabe dictatorial powers and then hope he would not use them to disrupt attempts to bring about any meaningful democratic reforms. It is not surprising therefore that the drafting of the new constitution is proving to be a long drawn out process nor that Zanu PF thugs hijacked outreach programmes, etc. Mugabe is a dictator and he can not be expected to president over democratic change; he has his own agenda of resisting regime change at all cost.
MDC is facing the same stubborn resistance from Mugabe and Zanu PF in its efforts to reform the Media, Police, etc. as it is facing over the new constitution.
“We have a politicised military. They are everywhere, terrorising people. There has to be security sector reform, soldiers must stay in the barracks, police must stay in the barracks,” Minister Tendai Biti told the same rally.
PM Tsvangirai and Minister Biti should not be reminding us again what the outstanding GPA issues are but tell us the truth of how the party has failed to have these issues resolved nearly three years since the signing of the GPA.
Recipe of the COPAC inspired new constitution for Zimbabwe:
Glass of milk + 5 spoon of sewage = glass full of sewage
Zanu PF thugs successfully hijacked the outreach programmes to ensure the Cholera contaminated sewage is included in the recipe. MDC are fighting a rare-guard battle to ensure the spoonfuls of sewage are not increased. It is a matter of indifference as to how many spoonfuls of sewage will be added since the end product will not change – it will still be a glass full of sewage!
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