MDC’s Case to the SADC Troika meeting

Posted by ZDN on November 4, 2009

ON Thursday 5th November, a day historically associated with political fireworks, the two MDC signatories to the GPA will be presenting a pretty watertight case to the SADC Troika on Security, Defence and Politics.

Their full list of complaints would take a week to present, if fully aired, but in fact all they can demand of SADC at this point is that the organisation upholds its obligations as guarantor of the GPA and in particular, of the agreements made at the Extraordinary Summit of the SADC Heads of State and Government, on 27 January this year.

According to the Summit communiqué, the formation of the inclusive government has not even been concluded.
The MDCs seem to have a simple task; the Troika a simple decision: to abide by and enforce the Agreement.

(See full text of the SADC Communiqué on our Resources page, here)

The actions that the Extraordinary Summit decided – and agreed – upon, but have not yet been fulfilled, are:

- the Ministers and Deputy Ministers shall be sworn in on February 13, 2009, which will conclude the process of the formation of the inclusive government;

- the Joint-Monitoring Implementation Committee (JOMIC), provided for in the Global Political Agreement shall be activated immediately. The first meeting of JOMIC shall be convened by the Facilitator on January 30, 2009, and shall, among other things, elect the chairpersons;

- the allocation of ministerial portfolios endorsed by the SADC Extraordinary Summit held on November 9, 2008, shall be reviewed six (6) months after the inauguration of the inclusive government;

- the appointments of the Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney General will be dealt with by the inclusive government after its formation; and

- the negotiators of the parties shall meet immediately to consider the National Security Bill submitted by the MDC-T as well as the formula for the distribution of the Provincial Governors

Any reader will notice that nothing in this communiqué is said about the lifting of international targeted sanctions against those individuals accused of criminal behaviour in the Zimbabwean government, nor about the western nations’ ban on arms trading with Zimbabwe. But somehow these issues have crept onto the agenda at the SADC Troika meeting.

We, along with the democratic and peaceful masses of Zimbabweans, sincerely hope that the three leaders appointed to help resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe will show a little more spine than has been the case since SADC’s important-sounding communiqué was grandly released to the world.

May the majority of Zimbabwean citizens at last have reason to put their faith (as well as their tax money) in SADC.