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Author: Professor Johnson Funso Odesola
Posted to the web: 7/4/2008 8:03:29 AM

Why is it that African leaders are seduced by the sacrosanct monster?

 

Thanks to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, which refused for four days to unload a shipment of Chinese arms destines for landlocked Zimbabwe the other day. It was long enough for a South Africa court to ban the 77 tonnes of weapons being shipped overland to Zimbabwe, despite Pretoria’s reluctance to intervene. Thanks also to former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. After meeting Zimbabwean opposition leaders in Kenya a while ago, he asked bluntly:  “Where are the Africans? Where are their leaders and the countries in the region, what are they doing?” The answer, as Mr Annan knew very well, is next to nothing. But why not?

            President Robert Mugabe has finally stolen the Zimbabwe’s election. One is still wondering what the position of AU, SADC and other similar bigger body, non of these acclaimed bodies are coming out clear enough about the wicked act of this man.

            Meanwhile the militia of Mr Mugabe’s Zanu- PF party, the so- called “war veterans”, are using the former records from the polling booths in rural areas to identify villages that supported the oppositions, and are conducting mass beatings so that the villagers could be conscripted to support his horrific act.

            Then there is the economic disaster of Mr Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, a country where unemployment is 80 per cent and inflation is 160,000 per cent. Almost 70 per cent of working- ages Zimbabweans have fled the country in search of work and those still at home mostly live off their remittances.

            Mr Mugabe’s regime is not only hurting Zimbabweans; it is doing huge damage to the region’s image in the rest of the world. So why does the Southern African Development Community, African Union, not take a stronger stand? Why did South African president Thabo Mbeki insist that there is “no crisis” in Zimbabwe?

            It’s all about perspective. Mr Mugabe may be a monster, but as one of the last surviving leaders of the independence generation, he is a sacrosanct monster. Some African leaders are half seduced by his claim that he is facing a recolonisation attempt by Britain. It’s a comical notion for everybody who knows modern Britain but, in post- colonial Africa, it has a certain resonance.

             The other disturbing thing, from an African point of view, is the disproportionate interest western media takes in the Zimbabwean tragedy. A US- backed occupation of Somalia by Ethiopian troops has plunged the country back to war, killing thousands and turning hundreds of thousands into refugees. But it is barely mentioned in the western press. Nor does the west seem to mind the striking absence of democracy in Angola, from which it buys a lot of oil.

            There is on western plot to “recolonise” Zimbabwe. Southern African countries need to bring pressure on Mugabe to accept the illegality of the so called, one-man, sitting-room run off election of which he declared himself as President on long- term self- interest. But we want the AU, SADC and South Africa to come clear as the UN on their stand on Zimbabwe issue.

 

Johnson Odesola (PhD) is a Regional Coordinator in the Redeemed Christian Church of God and a Professor of Divinity with European Theological Seminary UK and Trinity International Institute of Advance Studies USA. He is presently a missionary in Southern Africa based in Zambia