Thabo Mbeki to liaise with a reference group (from SADC, AU and UN) on the Zimbabwean crisis
Via IOL:
A reference group consisting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) with which President Thabo Mbeki will liaise on an ongoing basis has been set up to mediate in the Zimbabwean crisis.
This is according to a statement released by the Presidency in Pretoria on Friday.
The statement was issued following a meeting between Mbeki and the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, the special representative of the chairperson of the SADC Organ on Defence Politics and Security, George Chikoti, and the special representative of the UN Secretary General, Assistant Secretary General Haile Menkerios.
The meeting was convened by Mbeki in order to brief the parties on developments in the SADC-mandated facilitation process in Zimbabwe.
“All parties agreed with the framework proposed by President Mbeki to facilitate a solution to the challenges in Zimbabwe.”
The parties endorsed Mbeki as the mediator in Zimbabwe and pledged to support his efforts.
July 18th, 2008 22:09
This is the best MT can hope for at this stage of negotiations. The UN representative will be the bulwark against any shady dealings or biased compromises from Mbeki.
I would have thought that the UN would have announced their preferred person at the same time this announcement was made. Perhaps there is still some serious negotiations taking place on the locations and format of the discussions.
I await the next 48 hours with some trepidation but hope.
July 18th, 2008 22:14
How an organ like SADC would even encourage the mediation of Mbeki in these talks, baffles the mind. What is the definition of mediation in this context.
Mbeki has failed and we now know why. He is behind the atrocities in Zimbabwe by colluding with zanu and supplying them with arms and all the dirty tricks and passive responses.
A mediator is expected to exhibit a sense of urgency and evident diplomacy which is lacking in him. No wonder the MDC has rejected his stance.
Someone once talked of the situation in Zimbabwe infecting other countries.
I have seen the infection already at work on Mbeki and the SA media. Anyone who doesn’t is a collaborator to murder, plain and simple.
July 18th, 2008 23:09
This whole thing is so sad to see. Zim had a chance to be a “big player” on the African stage.
http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cszpe&uc_full_date=20080705
pf
July 19th, 2008 11:59
With Mbeki firmly in charge of the “framework,” Zim freedom is finaly lost. What Zimbabweans will eventually have, instead of freedom, is socialist ‘peace.’
‘Peace’ and ‘freedom’ (human rights) are two entirely different philosophies. Every thug will permit marches for ‘peace,’ but no thug dares to permit demonstrations for ‘freedom.’
Goodbye, Zim. Enjoy your socialist peace.
July 19th, 2008 17:01
The reference group must have been a diplomatic way of edging out Mbeki without throwing him out, and at the same time giving confidence to MDC that their concern about Mbeki is being taken care off. Quite a balancing act of avoiding publicly embarrasing Mbeki. what is crucial is the terms of reference and powers of this group, and their level of autonomy and authority in case they do not agree with Mbeki who has been too pro-Mugabe. Hope the composition will not be of individuals who are compromised politically in their own countries. This demands people o own integrity. good progress. The VIOLENCE must stop though,
July 19th, 2008 21:23
Kofi Anan, did it with such speed everyone was impressed. I can imagine he must have been impartial, firm and assertive. He must also have been working with patriotic Kenyans who could perceive the benefits of a peaceful nation.
What we have in the zimbabwean situation is a self proclaimed but partial expert, a deluded mediator who thinks appeasement and dithering are the way to go while blood is being spilt in the name of misdirected diplomacy.
Also a faction operating like zanu, not divested of its powers and not controlled, before these talks commence, makes the process farcical.
Like the mediator’s theatrics and the zanu clowns’.
July 19th, 2008 23:48
I am an African and proud to be one.
I may sound daft at this point, but I have a silly question to ask.
Can someone explain to me with detail befitting what a daft person could understand:
What is an African solution to an African problem?
I remember Nyerere stating this sometime ago.
Is it something like the AU peacekeeping force in Darfur? The peacekeeping forces in the great lakes during the mass murders in the great lakes? Thabo Mbeki’s ‘diplomatic’ attempts at Zimbabwe’s political impasse.
Have these African solutions been successful please also give examples. I may have overlooked our successes in my frustration.
And why are we part of the UN as Africans if we do not allow the rest of the world to see what we do in Africa.
With the insistence of the Chinese and the Russians!?
Who are part of the rest of the world.
July 20th, 2008 12:32
Matibili, you do not strike me as being daft at all, quite the reverse. The easiest way of answering the question: What is an African solution to an African problem? is to use the little analogy which I have posted here before.
There once was a house called Africa, when the white man said he was leaving a few people made a great rush for the door and shut it quickly, leaving all the others outside. You see, since that happened, it is for the other Africans, the ones that did not, and do not, want to subvert everything they stood for before the pre-independence days, to draw on the base and experience of hundreds of years of democracy, following their own earlier experiences, of western nations. Those earlier experiences were only different and successful because of an unusual and freedom loving group of men and women who drew up and adhered to their democratic constitutions.
Now, belatedly, Africa is changing and it will find its own way. And it is for Africa to come to terms with its future and indeed find a way of turning its own page in history. It will be all the prouder and stronger for it when it has succeeded in mastering the solution itself.
July 20th, 2008 14:28
Tsvangirai said it best: There are not African rights and European rights, there are universal Human rights.
Of course Africa should find its own way of delivering those rights to its people and should not be shy of experimenting with the frameworks for achieving this. But people should keep a clear head about when they are talking about rights and when they are talking about methods for delivering on those. Today there is a worrying number of commentators and pundits (mostly speaking from the comfort of Europe), who suggest that anything that is enjoyed in the West is somehow a Western imposition and should be avoided by African people - including apparently those basic rights. It is easier for some people to believe in some grand political theory than to believe in everyone having the right to self-determination, peace and freedom.
So perhaps the first step in finding an African solution is to ignore those strident voices from outside Africa - including non African Pan-Afrikanists, Marxists, Neo-Conservatives and anything else out there regardless of where it sits on on the (non African) political “spectrum”. Ignore Grand Theories and ignore the politics of hatred and envy.
July 20th, 2008 17:38
Thanks True Grit
I remember reading Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s ‘Writers in politics’ Where he aptly states that for a genuine African leader to take over leadership of an African nation, he must destroy the former (coloniser) occupant’s dwellings (my words).
I get it somehow, the house was rushed into, and people forgot about the deceptions of its luxuries until they realised that they were failing to pay for the pantry supplies, the electricity bills etc and had also denounced their accountability to their children, beating them up for their request for food, shelter and clothing.
When they realised they could not cope they started calling their neighbours names, confiscating their prosperous sons’ little wealth, exiling some. They also allied themselves with criminal tenants who taught them a new culture of dishonesty and accountability. Even murder.
I get it. And Mike also talks about the politics of hatred and envy. Phew! now we have it in a nutshell some people are not as holy as we thought, they are playing around with political philosophy and finding themselves deeply entangled in that which they can’t extricate themselves from. Populist stances have alsways been perishable. Mugabe has been a Maoist, Lenninist, Marxist, Socialist, capitalist, pan africanist, afrocentric, free trade advocate, racist, tribalist, murderer, theif and lastly a liar and a pervert. What a chain of grand titles!!
He must be proud of himself and himself alone. He must be contemplating himself becoming a Muslim. That’s another area he could find himself some philosophical escapism.