Former SA President Thembo Mbeki gives a
plausible explanation why he did not want the Khampepe report made public and
why he will not apologise for not making the report public. The MDC-T leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai, who has been calling for the apology certainly does not
deserve the apology!
President Mbeki explained that the two SA judges
were asked to look at the legal framework in Zimbabwe’s election process and
not on the contact of the 2002 elections. There were other bodies like South
African Parliamentary Observer Mission (SAPOM), constituted and deployed by
Parliament without any intervention by the South African government and an essentially
civil society 50-member South African Observer Mission (SAOM) from SA alone tasked
to observe the elections. They all gave favourable reports contrary to the Khampepe
report. The later had also exceeded their brief in an area others had more
direct involvement than them.
The SA government had based its position to accept
the elections as free and fair on the basis of the reports from all other
observer groups rather than Khampepe report.
The SA government had resisted realising the Khampepe
report because it was never meant for public consumption from the start.
On the basis of the reasons above, the former
President said he would not apologise.
“We owe and will make no apology to anybody
whatsoever both about resisting the publication of the Khampepe report and
respecting the determinations made by the SAPOM, the SAOM and the other African
observer missions about the 2002 Zimbabwe presidential elections,” he said.
Ever since the release of the Khampepe report
after a court ruling compelling the SA government to do so, Zimbabwe’s opposition
MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has demanded an apology from SADC and SA, accusing
them undermining democracy in Zimbabwe by failing to realise the report.
"When the genocide in Rwanda was taking
place, the majority of African leaders remained silent about it. Likewise, when
violence flared up in Zimbabwe with innocent civilians being butchered in broad
daylight, Sadc countries turned a blind eye,” charged Tsvangirai.
"To an extent, the spirited efforts to hide this report shows that South Africa has wittingly or unwittingly aided the subversion of democratic processes in Zimbabwe, wantonly violating official Sadc guidelines on the conduct of free and fair elections, which they helped to create."
"To an extent, the spirited efforts to hide this report shows that South Africa has wittingly or unwittingly aided the subversion of democratic processes in Zimbabwe, wantonly violating official Sadc guidelines on the conduct of free and fair elections, which they helped to create."
In the face of all the other Election Observers
from SA , SADC and AU giving their thumbs up to the 2002 elections it was not
unreasonable for President Thembo Mbeki and SADC to go with the finding of the
other bodies. It is therefore unreasonable of MDC to ask him to apologise for
having made what is a rational decision.
Would making the Khampepe report public back in
2002 have made any difference to Zimbabwe’s politics? It is hard to see how
since the main political player, MDC, was well aware of Zanu PF’s political
culture of intimidation, rape, vote rigging and even murders. Sure Tsvangirai did
not need a report by SA judges to tell him Zanu PF rigged elections.
It is preposterous that Tsvangirai of all
people should be the one accusing SADC Heads of State of “wittingly or unwittingly
aided the subversion of democratic processes in Zimbabwe” when they are the
ones who reminded him again and again to implement the democratic reforms throughout
the GNU years and he ignored them. If MDC had implemented the reforms then Mugabe
would not have rigged the 2013 elections.
SADC Heads of State said of Tsvangirai and his
fellow MDC leaders that they were “enjoying themselves whilst in government and
forgetting why they were there”; out of sheer frustration at MDC’s failure to
implement even one democratic reform.
It is Tsvangirai who should be apologising to
SADC and, most important of all, to the people Zimbabwe for failing to
implement even one democratic reform and thus allowed Mugabe to rig the
elections and landing the nation in this mess!
It is bad enough that neither Tsvangirai nor
any of his MDC colleagues has ever apologised to the people of Zimbabwe for
wasting the best chance this nation has ever had in 34 years to end the Zanu PF
dictatorship. It is an insult to the nation that Tsvangirai should seek to
blame SADC for his and MDC’s breath-taking incompetence.