Tsvangirai launches fierce attack on SADC

By Our Correspondent

www.thezimbabwetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=353

HARARE, January 23, 2007 -Morgan Tsvangirai, the president of the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), has launched a scathing attack on African
nationalists and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for
inaction on the Zimbabwe crisis and for sacrificing ideals of liberation
struggles for the sake of camaraderie

In a hard-hitting speech, Tsvangirai said African nationalists believed they
could not be challenged while SADC as a regional grouping had let down the
people of Zimbabwe.

He was presenting a paper titled Challenges of the Century: A call for
collective leadership on the Zimbabwean question

Tsvangirai said: "Our heritage, our history has tended to be abused by a
certain nationalistic clique that spearheaded and directed our liberation
struggles. To them, the status quo must be protected despite glaring
inadequacies in our societies and a changing world."

"This clique considers itself unchallenged in directing our societies at the
expense of political, social and economic advancement. Our nationalists in a
number of African countries have sacrificed ideals of the liberation
struggle, delayed national integration programmes and distorted the
sovereign expression of millions of Africa."

He, however, said the SADC region had a regional framework recognising
historical unity. "But critical advances have been hampered by misplaced
solidarity among those in our political leadership at the expense of the
generality of the people."

Tsvangirai said millions of Zimbabweans were languishing in exile, putting
pressure on social and economic systems among Zimbabwe neighbours.

"Despite this anomaly, a united SADC voice on the current political and
economic meltdown in Zimbabwe has been, at best fragmented and muffled, and
at worst, lacking in force and substance," he said.

"The solution to the crisis of governance remains elusive. We allow
political morticians to perfume a corpse in an advanced state of
decomposition with the hope that a miracle shall happen. It is fair to say,
SADC has let the people of Zimbabwe down, given the sacrifices the same
people made to the liberation of the sub-continent.

"We ignore the plight of a desperate nation under siege from a rapacious
clique in the name of non-interference in the internal affairs of a
neighbour and under the guise of protecting a liberation icon, a founding
father of the nation, a national symbol or just a friend."

Tsvangirai said a few years ago Mozambicans were displaced and could be
found in almost all the SADC countries. It took outsiders to bring the
warring parties together while the region watched from a distance.

He said Zimbabwe suffered from a system failure, caused by a ruling clique
that had decided to ignore national and international advice, and failed to
accept adaptive change after years of poor governance practices and an open
dictatorship.

Tsvangirai said efforts to effect corrective measures had attracted brutal
responses, leading to the flight of capital, investment and a national
feeling of despondency.

Elsewhere, he said, regional groupings had put in place monitoring
mechanisms to ensure and extend basic freedoms for their peoples as well as
introducing power to sanction and censure their members in the event of any
infringements.

Such regional block guarded against corruption, political behaviour that
fuelled inflation and economic decay and oppression.

"A regional standard in politics, economics and acceptable behaviour is
necessary to enable our neighbours to sound an early warning system should
the first signs of instability begin to emerge," Tsvangirai said.

"A regional standard offers a single voice, a single position whenever each
one of us faces a serious threat, a natural disaster or a political
miscalculation and misdemeanour."

Tsvangirai said icons of the liberation struggle, the founding fathers of
nations and the national symbols of tradition and heritage, had a coveted
place in the history of the region. They made an invaluable contribution
that no generation could afford to ignore or to forget, he said.

"But, they must let go," he said. "They must give allowances for our
societies to elect governments of their choice; they must give the people
opportunities to take part in their own political and economic activities
and to associate freely among themselves."

"The current effort in SADC shall remain a technical move unless we hit the
nail on the head: politics drives most activity. SADC's vision of attaining
a supra-national union where the respective governments completely
subordinate their sovereignty over policies to a supra-national authority,
and which may ultimately lead to the alignment of the countries involved
into a single community depends on the speed with which we move to protect
our people from incipient backwardness and political retardation.

"You can't live in peace as long as your neighbourhood, rightly or
debatably, is seen to harbour some rough elements. Let us clear our
neighbourhood, more so as we prepare to host the World Cup. International
attention shall be on southern Africa in the next four years. Unless we put
our heads together and sort out the Zimbabwean confusion; we shall be asking
our guests to ignore the dangers of a rough neighbourhood at their own
risk."