APPOLOGIES TO SADCC!!!

We the people of Zimbabwe extend our appologies for the utterances made by Robert Mugabe last Friday. His opinions do not reflect the collective vision of Zimbabweans. As you might be aware that the President is now in his advanced age, and his utterances should not be taken as fact, but should just be ignored. The president is suffering from Cancer, maybe the infection has now reached the brain hence the disturbing statements from the president`s side.

AT the launch of his political party (Zanu PF) manifesto for the July 31 2013 harmonised elections last Friday, President Robert Mugabe made some rather shocking remarks as regards the Southern African Development Community (SADC) The statements may be forgivable given that they were made within the context of our never ending electoral campaign season but they would still warrant reasonable critique.

When President Mugabe intoned that SADC was after all a membership organisation and that Zimbabwe reserved the right to withdraw its membership if it felt its rights as a sovereign state were being violated, it was as though he was speaking about the Commonwealth or our membership of some abstract nostalgic colonial organisation. President Mugabe opinions, on the face of it, may appear to be fair statements were it not for the fact that Zimbabwe owes components of its liberation struggle and achievements to the then Frontline States and subsequently the Southern African Development Coordinating Committee (SADCC, now referred to as SADC).

Given the fact that SADC is not an ahistorical, let alone, simplistic geographical grouping of nations, President Mugabe’s statements were unfortunate; more-so because they come from a liberation struggle icon not only in Zimbabwe but also in the Southern African region. This is an important point to make because even if Zimbabwe’s inclusive government was established via the facilitation of SADC, the meaning of the political importance of the latter cannot be downplayed on the basis of an ephemeral diplomatic tiff.

As has been widely reported in the media, when President Mugabe accused members of the SADC facilitator’s mediation team of being ‘street kids’, he probably meant South African President Jacob Zuma’s international relations advisor, Lindiwe Zulu. While one cannot argue with the President in finding fault with the manner in which Zulu has conducted herself as regards the Zimbabwean political impasse, the fact that he then had to intimate that our country would possibly ponder a withdrawal from SADC was to say the least, an over-reaction.

Disputes with the SADC-appointed facilitator’s representatives cannot be allowed to undermine the historical political integrity of SADC. Zimbabwe’s independence would not have been won without our neighbours. Agreed, the same can and should be said for South Africa (which has found itself in the unenviable role of a post-colonial hegemony) which attained its independence after a collective regional push for the freedom of its people from the clutches of apartheid.