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Blogs geschreven door de columnisten van Zimbabwe Watch.
The last month has been one of the worst Zimbabwe has seen in recent years. Whilst leaders fidgeted and bickered around who gets what and how, ordinary Zimbabweans were at the war front facing death from a serious outbreak of cholera, famine and hopelessness. The cholera scourge is reported to have officially claimed more than 300 people in Zimbabwean hospitals but reports have it that thousands more have perished in rural areas after failing to access medication.
The SADC extraordinary summit on the Zimbabwean crisis has come and gone without an acceptable outcome for the democratic struggle for Zimbabwe. The SADC outcome was indeed a blow to the democracy not only in Zimbabwe but the entire SADC region since the Zimbabwean crisis presented the SADC region with a golden opportunity to reaffirm the region’s commitment to democracy. The matter before SADC was not difficult given that the body’s own observers had denounced the Mugabe only run –off of June as a sham. However, given that the SADC decided to align themselves to the Devil instead of the long suffering Zimbabweans, the question that now emerges is about the way forward for the democratic forces.
The SADC leaders at the 9 November 2008 Summit came out with a disappointing biased outcome, concluding that Tsvangirayi and Mugabe should co- manage the Ministry of Home Affairs .What makes this Ministry of great importance to Mugabe is the fact that he had de-professionalized the police and turned them into ZANU PF militias who violated human rights, they applied the law selectively and helped Mugabe cling to his rule by suppressing all opposition voices. This Ministry is also equally important to the Prime Minister Tsvangirayi, for this will be the most effective way he can ensure the restoration of human rights and limit ZANU PF’s illegitimate powers over the people. With the Ministry under him he can guarantee that justice is done, first by arresting the perpetrators of election violence and stopping police abuse and brutality on civic groups, the opposition and all Zimbabweans and also ushering in rule of law and democracy in Zimbabwe .
The Zimbabwe situation is now a sorry and miserable sight. As suffering and poverty continues at unprecedented levels, inflation astronomical like never before, one is shocked at the level of silence in Zimbabwe! Is it that the Zimbabwean mass is a docile lot or rather that there is all hope in the seemingly unending negotiations and summits. Does anyone really have hope in these talks anymore? More and more, I am persuaded to conclude that people are simply waiting for an official acknowledgement of failure from all parties including SADC and AU. I doubt if the matter will be fit for UN consideration as some have encouraged the MDC to consider. Surely one ministry away from a decent meal, one ministry away from opening of universities, one ministry away from implementing some agricultural sanity, one ministry away from sanity in the financial sector, one ministry away from resuscitation of our health system! I must be unrealistic, insane or we have an unfeeling leadership, power hungry lot...or rather a leadership without full control of their structures as they claim! Worse even, a leadership taking orders from other principals!
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