*Mbeki a Scapegoat for MDC Failures*

http://allafrica.com/stories/200705110672.html?viewall=1

*New Zimbabwe* (London)

NEWS

11 May 2007

Posted to the web 11 May 2007

By Dr. Sehlare Makgetlaneng



MORE and more people are facing the brutal reality that the effective
national response to Zimbabwe's socio-political and economic problems is the
key starting point in the resolution of these problems.

Central to this national task is the reality that Zimbabweans under the
leadership of their political parties and civil society organisations must
organise themselves to have dialogue among themselves to find means to
resolve their country's problems. This is the case despite their different
and antagonistic socio-political and economic interests.

Any political party which is in practice committed to the resolution of the
national problems must struggle to bring together the people of its country
to discuss strategies and tactics essential for the resolution of the
national question. If the people of a particular country through their
political parties have failed to execute this national task, they should not
blame people of other countries. They should blame themselves and their
individual and organisational leaders.

The political parties of Zimbabwe have failed to execute this task. The
leading opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), has failed to execute this task. It has attributed this failure to
the programme of action embarked upon by the ruling party, Zimbabwe African
National Union - Patriotic Front to entrench itself in power. It has reduced
this programme of action to President Robert Mugabe.

The key reason behind this failure is the lack of serious well-organised
opposition to the present political governance in the country. As a result
of this failure, the MDC and its internal and external supporters have
blamed political leaders of Africa for what they regard as their failure to
resolve Zimbabwe's problems as if it is not the task of the people of
Zimbabwe under the leadership of the MDC to resolve the Zimbabwean problems.


This is their means to hide the profound and unique practical and
theoretical weakness of the MDC. The task of African political leaders and
the people of other African countries through their organisations is to
support Zimbabweans in their efforts to resolve their national problems.

While the MDC has sustained the politics of opposition in Zimbabwe, few
people are convinced that it is capable to take care of the political
administration of the society or to govern. There is an emerging popular
position that it has failed to oppose the ruling party. Its practical and
theoretical weakness has been intensified by its division into two organised
factions under the leadership of Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara.
They are referred to as MDC Tsvangirai and MDC Mutambara.

The two MDCs' lack of leadership and ideas appropriate even to challenge the
ruling party, not to mention to mobilise Zimbabweans into action and to
articulate strategies and tactics to convince Zimbabweans that one of them
is capable to govern the country and to lead its reconstruction and
development programme, is unique and frightening. They are disorganised and
divided to pose any serious, well-organised threat to the ruling party.
Despite their unity which is their opposition to Mugabe, they have
individually and collectively failed to formulate appropriate strategy and
tactics to exert pressure upon the ruling party to see the structural and
fundamental need to have a serious dialogue with them.

The failure of Zimbabweans to organise themselves, to have dialogue among
themselves and to find means to resolve their country's problems has led the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) to appoint President Thabo
Mbeki to facilitate dialogue between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the
opposition party.

Far from being the victory of the MDC, this development has further
marginalised the MDC by demonstrating that it has been so far incapable of
impelling the ruling party to see a need for a serious dialogue with it. The
ruling party has not been weakened by this development. Far from
regionalising the Zimbabwean conflict, it has re-affirmed that the
Zimbabwean crisis is the national question to be resolved by Zimbabweans. It
has re-affirmed the position of African leaders that Zimbabweans, not
external actors, must solve their own national problem.

This development has led some of those who maintain that the task of
resolving Zimbabwe's problems is primarily that of African leaders, not of
the people of Zimbabwe, to abandon their position which is obviously
incorrect. This incorrect position has its fundamentalist supporters in the
former frontline state of the settler colonial rule in Southern Africa, the
former settler colonial South Africa. It is articulated in the Southern
African national newspapers.

The Weekender, published in Johannesburg, in its 21-22 April 2007 editorial
maintains that it is the task of president Mbeki to solve Zimbabwe's
problems. Questioning his intentions as the facilitator of dialogue between
the ruling party and the opposition of Zimbabwe, The Weekender maintains
that Mbeki "will not bring back 4-million escapees" or "4-million
Zimbabweans" who represent "a third of the country's population" who have
"fled their country of birth to set up home everywhere, from the obvious
places such as" the United Kingdom and South Africa, to "the less likely
locations of Taiwan, Eastern Europe and the Far East."

It continues, pointing out that Mbeki "cannot reverse Zimbabwe's brain drain
and its inexorable economic slide, nor stem the rot of its institutions of
governance. He can do nothing about the social ills that have resulted from
Zimbabwe's meltdown, such as unemployment and worsening HIV/AIDS burden."

This position of The Weekender is as if Mbeki is the president of Zimbabwe
or as if Zimbabwe is a province of South Africa. The point is that
Zimbabweans' problems which we are told that Mbeki cannot solve are
obviously problems to be solved by Zimbabweans, not by Mbeki.

President Mbeki has become a target of some European South Africans. Some of
these European South Africans are against Africans of South Africa. They
claim to be for Africans of Zimbabwe. This is interesting aspect of the
position of a considerable number of European South Africans. They are
against Africans of South Africa and claim to be for their brothers and
sisters of other African countries.

David Bullard of Sunday Times, another national newspaper published in
Johannesburg, had a published piece, 'Offer Zimbabweans dignity - and
visas", on April 22, 2007. He maintains that various newspapers articles
have "described how highly qualified Zimbabweans are having to eke out a
living as security guards or waiters. Desperately as they are, they run the
risk of being exploited because they are not legal citizens and there's no
chance of them filing an official complaint."

This is the problem faced by Zimbabweans, not only in South Africa but also
in other countries throughout the world. It is the problem faced by Africans
of other African countries and by those who are not Africans throughout the
world. David Bullard argues as if this is the problem faced only by
Zimbabweans only in South Africa. Bullard's position is the same position of
regarding South Africa as one block which is unjust and the rest of Africa
as another block which is just. It is the same position which isolates South
Africa from the rest of the continent in terms of contributing towards the
solution to problems faced by the continent or some African countries such
as Zimbabwe. This can best be understood if we take into account Bullard's
position that the South African "government's stand on Zimbabwe is an
international disgrace, particularly for a party that fought for racial
equality and justice."

Which political party in Africa which is either now or was in the past the
ruling party which fought for racial inequality and injustice? The ruling
parties of the colonial Africa, not of post-colonial Africa, fought for
racial inequality and injustice.

Bullard maintains the position that it is the responsibility of South Africa
to solve Zimbabwe's problems. If South Africa does not make serious efforts
to solve Zimbabwe's problems, these problems "are bound to get worse." He
argues that it is because the South African government has refused to solve
Zimbabwe's problems that these problems are going to increase. Maintaining
that quiet diplomacy "loosely translated," means "we can't be bothered to do
anything and, besides, we're hoping the problem just goes away," he
concludes that the problem "hasn't and, thanks to the ANC government's
spinelessness, things are bound to get worse."

Bullard concludes his article by appealing to President Mbeki to "offer
Zimbabweans dignity - and visas." In his words: "So please Mr Mbeki, stop
being a pipe-smoking intellectual for once and set up a fast-tracking system
to legalise these unfortunate [Zimbabwean] people. Having betrayed them for
so long it's the least we can do."

President Mbeki of South Africa has betrayed the masses of the people of
Zimbabwe by not solving their national problems? Really?

This is the same problem of not critically viewing the Movement for
Democratic Change. Mbeki has been used as a means to avoid the issue of
confronting the internal dynamics of the MDC particularly its weaknesses and
failure to constitute itself as a viable opposition political party
practically threatening to assume state political power.

It is a tragedy of Zimbabwean politics of opposition that as the leading
opposition party, the MDC continues regarding such individuals as its
supporters - individuals who support the interests of their fellow Europeans
in Zimbabwe and throughout the world. It should not oppose in theory what it
supports in practice that the resolution to Zimbabwe's socio-political and
economic problems is not within itself, the MDC Tsvangirai or the MDC
Mutambara, but within the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union
- Patriotic Front.

*Dr Sehlare Makgetlaneng is the Head of Southern Africa and SADC programme
at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria, South Africa*

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Copyright (c) 2007 New Zimbabwe. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica
Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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