(HERALD) Luanda Troika Summit: A tale told by a fool
Luanda Troika Summit: A tale told by a foolTuesday, 05 June 2012 21:09
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Goes Macbeth's famous soliloquy in William Shakespeare's book by the same name. Whats immediately striking about this soliloquy is the phrase "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. "
This phrase aptly describes the two, or is it three, MDCs’ reactions whenever they misconstrue Sadc resolutions for acceptance of their reactionary agenda. They did it after the ill-fated Livingstone Summit which ended up signifying nothing, and like Shakespeare’s proverbial idiot, they are at it again, full of sound and fury after the routine Troika meeting in Luanda, which to all intents and purposes did nothing more than re-state the obvious. That we go for elections.
“Mugabe loses poll push”, “Mugabe poll push rubbished”, “Mugabe poll push crushed”, “Sadc snubs Mugabe poll”, “Mugabe’s double loss”, “Mugabe faces end of political career”, and ‘‘Tsvangirai outfoxes Mugabe’’ were some of the private media’s screaming headlines fed from Harvest House, the MDC-T headquarters.
Yet a perusal of the Sadc communiqué would leave one wondering from where the newspapers were carving the headlines.
This is what the extra-ordinary Summit’s communiqué says:
* On Zimbabwe Summit commended stakeholders for their commitment, co-operation and efforts towards the implementation of the Global Political Agreement and urged the parties to the GPA to finalise the constitution-making process and subject it to a referendum thereafter.
* Summit also urged the parties to the GPA, assisted by the Facilitator, to develop an implementation mechanism and to set out time frames for the full implementation of the Roadmap to Elections.
* Summit further commended His Excellency Jacob G Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa and Sadc Facilitator of the Zimbabwe Political Dialogue for his efforts to towards the the realisation of full implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).
Any reasonable person would naturally wonder where such headlines or notions of ‘‘victory’’ for the MDC formations, and ‘‘defeat’’ for Mugabe in Luanda are coming from?
Either the MDC formations — given that they are greenhorns in the workings of Sadc — misunderstood the communiqué or were just being wilfully mischievous in a bid to placate their restive constituency.
How anyone would think Luanda, of all places, Luanda whose infrastructure still bears the pockmarks of Jonas Savimbi’s ruinous guns, quisling politics and banditry would become Mugabe’s Waterloo and the equivalent of the Normandy Landing for Tsvangirai defies logic.
If Mugabe was isolated in Luanda, how then do the sages in the MDC and their private media hacks explain the summit of liberation movements from southern Africa that begins in Harare tomorrow? A summit aimed at enhancing synergies to outflank the neo-colonial designs of the erstwhile coloniser who is destabilising the region through proxy parties like the MDCs?
The African National Congress of South Africa, Angola’s MPLA, SWAPO of Namibia, Frelimo of Mozambique and Chama Cha Mapinduzi of Tanzania — all of which lead governments — are among the parties coming for the meeting of secretaries-general of the liberation movements.
The meeting is providential, coming as it does at a time the war-mongering US has identified southern Africa as an alternative source of energy to the Middle East during this decade.
A report that was released by the Bush administration’s think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in 2006 titled ‘More than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa’ predicted that; ''By the end of the decade (2000 to 2010), sub-Saharan Africa is likely to become as important a source of US energy imports as the Middle East.
“China, India, Europe, and others are competing with each other and with the United States for access to oil, natural gas, and other natural resources. The world’s major powers are also becoming more active in seeking out investments, winning contracts, and building political support on the continent.''
In the report the CFR made it clear that the foreign policy of the US towards Africa is geared towards control of the continent’s resources, that is, it is ‘‘more than humanitarianism.’’
Add to this Uncle Sam’s attempts to have a base for the so-called US Africa Military Command, AFRICOM, and the picture becomes ominous.
As the introductory statement to the CFR report says, the West has identified the Middle East and Southern Africa as its sources of energy this decade. We have already seen what Uncle Sam has done to the Middle East to lay his hands on oil. The onus is on our leadership here to outflank the West’s neo-colonial projects. While Sadc has acquitted itself well in resisting western attempts to demonise Zimbabwe for daring to empower its people, it is not in dispute that Sadc could have done much more than just resisting, the bloc should actually have worked to bust the sanctions.
Zimbabwe has consistently shown its neighbours how to respond whenever a member state is threatened by external aggression, ‘injure one, injure all’ should be the bloc’s motto.
Our forces moved into Mozambique to serve Frelimo from the insurgency launched by the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) bandits who had the backing of apartheid South Africa.
As former South African president Thabo Mbeki revealed recently when he came for the University of Zimbabwe fundraising dinner, Zimbabwe delayed land redistribution for South Africa’s benefit. President Mugabe did not want to scare the apartheid regime into thinking that once black people become independent, they proceed to dispossess their former rulers of ill-gotten colonial gains.
When the Democratic Republic of the Congo was invaded by rebels led by Rwanda and Uganda; Zimbabwe which was then chair of the Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation moved into to protect the territorial integrity of the DRC along with Angola and Namibia under Operation Sovereign Legitimacy.
Uganda and Rwanda’s incursion into the DRC was backed by the US which wanted to install a puppet regime to succeed Mobutu Sese Seko’s, so that it could continue pillaging the country’s vast resources while the citizens hacked each other to death.
Our intervention and successful campaign against the US-backed rebels disturbed the envisaged feeding frenzy; which is why our economy was targeted for sabotage from 1997 to this day. Operation Sovereign Legitimacy is one of the reasons why the US openly says the policies adopted by the Government of Zimbabwe continue ‘‘to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States.’’
Tsvangirai and his handlers should stop popping the champagne, the region is not fooled for ‘‘the actions and policies of proxy movements pose usual and dangerous threats to the region’s independence’’.
Sadc cut its teeth as the Front Line States that spearheaded decolonisation, it will be a cold day in hell that they forget that illustrious history.
The MDCs must be the change they want, change to be truly African. Then they wouldn’t have to misrepresent Sadc resolutions to assuage their supporters. Their politics would become palatable.
Sadc cut its teeth as the Front Line States that spearheaded decolonisation, it will be a cold day in hell that they forget that illustrious history.
Labels: SADC
posted by MrK @ 4:31 PM
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