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(HERALD) Sadc snubs Tsvangirai

Sadc snubs Tsvangirai
By Mabasa Sasa and Sydney Kawadza

SADC has rejected MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai’s request for a meeting to reopen debate on the allocation of ministries in Zimbabwe’s inclusive Government. Speaking to journalists in Harare yesterday, Sadc executive secretary Dr Tomaz Salamao said the bloc had no plans to convene such a meeting.

Earlier in the week, Sadc chair and South African President Cde Kgalema Motlanthe rejected Mr Tsvangirai’s request for him to facilitate a "confidential meeting" with President Mugabe, telling him to instead immediately join the inclusive Government with Zanu-PF and MDC.

"The Sadc executive is the only office with a mandate to call a meeting of regional leaders in consultation with the chairman and the chairman of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security (King Mswati III of Swaziland).

"I am currently consulting within the region and no letter has been written to convene such a meeting on Zimbabwe," Dr Salamao said.

Dr Salamao said while he had heard reports that the MDC-T leader was in Botswana, which hosts the Sadc headquarters, Mr Tsvangirai had never bothered to approach the offices with his grievances.

According to information at hand, on Tuesday President Motlanthe summoned Mr Tsvangirai to Tshwane where he told him he could not entertain his request as it would undermine the role of the facilitator, Cde Thabo Mbeki.

He also made it clear that MDC-T could not in one breath rubbish a binding resolution passed by a Sadc summit while at the same time asking the regional group to help him push Cde Mugabe out of power.

The rejection comes on the back of indications that the South African government recently told United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer to respect the Sadc initiatives in Zimbabwe and stop treating the country as if "it is in America’s backyard".

South African sources told The Herald that Frazer tried to "intimidate" them into forcing President Mugabe out of office and picking someone else to represent Zanu-PF in the inclusive Government because "Tsvangirai was too weak to handle" the Zimbabwean leader.

"President Motlanthe told Tsvangirai that there was no way he would facilitate a meeting on the issue of the inclusive Government while excluding (Prof Arthur) Mutambara and the facilitator.

"He pointed out that Tsvangirai had insulted Sadc leaders by rubbishing the resolution in Sandton on the structure of the inclusive Government and that it should be constituted immediately.

"As such, it was highly irregular to expect him to chair another meeting whose outcome Tsvangirai could just as easily insult. His final words to Tsvangirai were that he should return home, join the inclusive Government and seek to solve any other outstanding issues from inside for the sake of progress," a diplomatic source revealed.

President Motlanthe, the source said, indicated that it was "highly irregular" for him to be seen to be usurping the facilitator’s role.

The South African leader’s rejection of Mr Tsvangirai’s request prompted the latter to convene a crisis meeting in South Africa to re-strategise in the face of regional resistance to their demands.

Observers yesterday questioned why Mr Tsvangirai was holding the meeting with his executive in South Africa rather than returning to Zimbabwe.

President Motlanthe’s position, according to observers, leaves MDC-T with few options to pursue their agenda of using Sadc to push President Mugabe out of the agreement.

It also means they will be hard pressed to get the African Union to think any differently because the continental bloc acts in sync with Sadc’s resolutions.

Further compounding Mr Tsvangirai’s headache is the revelation that the South African government told America’s

Frazer that they viewed the US as a bully with no respect for Sadc’s initiatives in Zimbabwe.

According to an official in the South African Embassy in Harare, Frazer last month tried to convene a meeting with President Motlanthe and Cde Mbeki during her regional tour but eventually settled for an audience with one of the facilitators in the talks.

In the meeting with Cde Sydney Mufamadi, who is part of Cde Mbeki’s team, she insinuated that South Africa was arm-twisting the rest of the region to be "soft on President Mugabe".

She admitted that the September 15 agreement was "a good framework" but the US would not allow it to be implemented as long as President Mugabe was involved because "Tsvangirai was too weak" to work with the Zimbabwean leader.

Frazer — a former US Ambassador to South Africa — said Mr Tsvangirai was "no Odinga" and would not be able to "handle President Mugabe" and so the latter would have to step aside and appoint someone else to represent Zanu-PF in the inclusive Government.

"She effectively said the US would only recognise a weak Zanu-PF leader who would make it easier for Tsvangirai to pursue their agenda in the country and the region.

"Frazer wanted Sadc to persuade President Mugabe to step aside and she claimed the rest of the region agreed with this but was afraid to confront South Africa.

"Mufamadi responded to her saying ‘Zimbabwe is not in Latin America, it is not your backyard. It is Sadc’s backyard and Sadc knows best what Zimbabwe needs. This is not an American issue. What gives you the status of declaring veto over a Sadc decision? Who are you?

"You say that South Africa is bullying the rest of Sadc but the truth is that you are the real bullies. You go to countries that depend on you for budgetary support and you ask them to give you their views on the Zimbabwe issue.

"’What kind of answer do you expect to get from them when they still want budgetary support from you? They will tell you what you want to hear’," he said.

The official added: "When Frazer pressed on Mufamadi became annoyed and told her pointblank to just instruct her man to join the inclusive Government and resolve his issues from inside for the sake of progress.

"Our Foreign Affairs Minister (Cde Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma) told her the same thing and she said she would take up the matter with them again when she returned from Lesotho. But that was the last that was seen of her in South Africa."

He said South African officials told Frazer that the US and Mr Tsvangirai were "acting as if their words were cast in stone like the Law of Moses and everyone should obey them".

After Frazer’s visit, Washington’s chief diplomat in South Africa, Eric Bost, tried to press home the line that President Mugabe should appoint "a weaker person" to take his place in the inclusive Government.

In a letter to the Star newspaper on January 6, 2008, Bost wrote: "We are calling on the leaders of the Sadc to unite strongly and publicly in their call for Mugabe to step down and give the political parties in the country space to work together."

Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to South Africa, Cde Simon Khaya Moyo, said the letter demonstrated American arrogance and lack of respect in trying to tell Sadc what to do.

"The United States ambassador must surely know that Sadc leaders do not take orders from Jendayi Frazer or from Washington. It is baffling that Frazer continues to speak at cross-purposes with Sadc in clear defiance of African sentiment and the consistent advice that she received from all the South African leaders that she interacted with while in South Africa."

Cde Khaya Moyo said African leaders had shown a lot of restraint in the face of "provocative and insulting behaviour from the United States".

"In a further show of US ignorance and arrogance, the US ambassador in his letter calls on Sadc leaders to ‘unite strongly and publicly in their call for Mugabe to step down . . . ’ Sadc leaders have never at any point called for President Mugabe to step down. Not in the Sadc meetings; not in the resolutions adopted. Never!"

Labels: KGALEMA MOTLANTHE, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, SADC, THABO MBEKI, TOMAZ SALOMAO

posted by MrK @ 8:37 PM