More Mbeki-Mugabe handholding
Zvakanaka
Politicsweb
James Myburgh
12 May 2008
And who is the world’s “most disgusting leader”?
One sometimes wonders whether President Thabo Mbeki is driven by demons or
whether he is motivated by a perverse desire to humiliate his most loyal
apologists - or both. Early last week Business Day published a letter by
Essop Pahad's special advisor, Tony Heard in which Heard spoke of his
"unshakeable belief that mediator Thabo Mbeki has, more than anyone else,
pushed Zimbabwe, be it quietly, towards a return from deepening hell." He
suggested that Mbeki was secretly working away to resolve the crisis. "Yes,
events in Zimbabwe are awful and unacceptable, but stay tuned. Diplomacy
takes time."
A couple of days later Mbeki gave an interview to Al Jazeera in which he
said that the Mugabe regime (or rather, the "people of Zimbabwe") needed to
be given "space". He added that there was no need for the United Nations to
observe the run-off of Zimbabwe's presidential poll. The foreign observers
handpicked by the Mugabe regime to monitor the first round, he said, were
perfectly capable of performing this function a second time around. He
implied that anyone who thought differently was a racist.
This statement flies in the face of the request by MDC leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai, for the poll to be supervised by international observers led by
the UN. It also happens to be in almost complete conformity with Zanu-PF's
line on the matter. The government controlled Sunday Mail (Harare) reported
yesterday that indications were that the Zanu-PF government would not
bow to
demands for international supervision of the poll, "and only the AU, SADC,
countries from Asia and a few selected European countries would observe and
monitor the elections." The article quoted the permanent secretary in the
Ministry of Information and Publicity, George Charamba as saying:
"The Zimbabwe case illustrates perfectly that Africa and the Third World
are
capable of delivering a clean poll. The British and Americans cannot accept
the results of the just-ended harmonised polls and at the same time claim
any inadequacies in any African observation and election monitoring. They
cannot accept the result and disparage the agency that made that result
possible."
On Friday Mbeki travelled to Harare for a meeting with Mugabe. Once
again he
was photographed walking hand-in-hand with Mugabe with a rather contented
expression on his face. The Herald (Harare) led its Saturday edition with
the equally pleased headline "President meets Mbeki." The newspaper
described Mbeki's itinerary as follows:
"President Mbeki arrived at the Harare International Airport yesterday
morning where he was met by President Mugabe, senior Government officials,
service chiefs and diplomats before proceeding to State House. The two
leaders held closed-door talks for about three hours before President Mbeki
visited the South African Ambassador's residence in Highlands... President
Mbeki returned to State House for a brief meeting with Cde Mugabe before
departing for the airport, where he was seen off by the President, Defence
Minister Cde Sydney Sekeramayi, Cde Goche, State Security Minister Cde
Didymus Mutasa and service chiefs."
The Mock Turtle said that "No wise fish would go anywhere without a
porpoise." So what was the purpose of that three-and-a-half hour meeting?
Rescuing Zimbabwe "from hell" or strategising how best to turn up the heat
on the opposition?
The world's most disgusting leaders?
Our president's international reputation has certainly descended a long way
over the past decade. On June 4 1999 the New York Times ran a profile of
Mbeki just after his election as South African president. Mbeki, it
claimed,
"is someone who has no military background, is an able administrator and
repeatedly pledges himself to democracy and to fighting corruption even in
his own party...If Nelson Mandela is the George Washington of this new
democracy... then Mr. Mbeki is its John Adams. Like Adams, he is small,
sharply intelligent, visionary, reflective, sometimes tart-tongued, and an
adept back-room fighter."
On Wednesday last week (May 7) that same newspaper published a column by
Thomas L. Friedman which presented a somewhat less flattering view of our
president. Friedman wrote: "I would say there is no more disgusting leader
in the world today than [Robert] Mugabe. The only one who rivals him is his
neighbour and chief enabler and protector, South Africa's president, Thabo
Mbeki.... If South Africa's Mbeki had withdrawn his economic and political
support for Mugabe's government, Mugabe would have had to have resigned a
long time ago. But Mbeki feels no loyalty to suffering Zimbabweans. His
only
loyalty is to his fellow anti-colonial crony, Mugabe."