The problems in Zimbabwe begin in 2000.
They basically revolve around land contestations between white Zimbabweans and a black government ZANU-PF government,
which a part of which sought to redress land imbalance.
But at the same time, this campaign for land redistribution to a campaign trying to turn to defeat the new opposition MDC party.
But I want to jump ahead straight the events of last year, 2008 poster.
The March election, I'm sure we're all stunned by the amount of violence that went on.
Now, I want to begin there because I think that the key thing was that inhibited the need Sadek and other organisations
outside for finding a resolution that prompted about for a long time was the nature of the violence.
I mean I mean, the answer of violence with fists, sticks, boots, stones, bicycle chains and metal poles.
I mean, this is what they beat people up with, sort of like soft violence.
That doesn't risk external intervention. Nobody was being killed as such.
So this kind of we're watching on TV, it is people beaten up or bruised up as horrible, as horrible.
What can we do about that? But without it, we die to just beat up. We can't send in troops in there.
You tried diplomacy. Robert Mugabe simply on. So in a sense, Saddiq was right.
So I think it is important to understand the nature of that violence. And in that way, if so, it's a wild Nalgae.
Maybe it's not. I think this that strategy.
And does it seem more formal gown, incremental brutality goes back most famously to the Yugoslavian government of Slobodan Milosevic.
Back in 1999, Milosevich implemented a programme of ethnic cleansing that sought to expel ethnic Albanian Kosovars from Kosovo.
We should make the territory Serb dominated. Now, Milosevic's ethnic cleansing programme was premised on incremental brutality.
The NSW government Coverley that if it kept violence in Kosovo below a tolerable threshold, NATO was unlikely to intervene.
The dictum A Village a day keeps NATO awake became the Milosevich government's guiding principle in this ethnic cleansing programme.
Mugabe, a box of degrees and violence. Quote unquote.
And we could say the same strategy went on in Zimbabwe, for example, in regards to the land seizures, which began in 2000.
The Mugabe government sought to present black farm invaders as genuine war veterans and landless peasants,
denied access to their heritage and their rights to higher standards of living by a racist white minority.
In this way, Mugabe claimed the mantle of victim. The Mugabe government claimed the mantle of victim for itself and the wider
black population invading war veterans looted and burned white owned property,
intimidated white farmers, slaughtered their pits. But there was no wholesale slaughter of white farmers and their families.
This restraint promulgated this perception of black victims.
This is one of the things that was quite striking about the land invasions when when when the seizures went on.
And I don't mean to play in numbers. Gania, but only two of white farmers were killed when invaders took over farms.
They day. They did not. Well, not the occasions. Besides beating up farmers, they killed the pets.
Why? Why they killed the pets. Pets were. It was symbol of white racism in Zimbabwe.
It is common folklore. You know, it's raining. It's called the black farm workers.
And open but open or back of the open truck. And the white farmers dog is in front.
So they kill dogs instead. Don't kill the farms. Kill the farmers. Someone's going to send troops in here and no one move the regime.
So I just want to begin by the nature of the violence.
It's been it's it's been conducted in such a way that it has been hard to defer to use any kind of forceful measures, so to speak, to prevent it.
But I wanted you to, Saddiq. I don't have much time. I'll say four things about down the queue.
I think it's in spite of the fact that a deal was reached in September, September 2008.
I don't see that as a success. In 2000, you had one of the most functional states who ever find in Africa.
It could do anything. It worked for a crisis to run on for that long.
Eight years and it degenerates on the verge of state.
Failure is a huge failure in my in my in my book.
Now, why did this happen before? Why wasn't the deal struck? And we can talk about whether the unity government deal is such a great idea.
Question and answer session. I think, first of all,
the thing that underline one key observation comes out of this is the mantra about African solutions to African problems is vacuous.
There is no real commitment to this. Admit many times key summits were way they would bring Mugabe together and the opposition.
On one occasion, for example, only five leaders of the 15 nation bloc actually bothered to show up.
The other 10 just wasn't there. This is SADC.
Second thing, I think for as long as the political calculus of African leaders remains unchanged, they will pay lip service to peacebuilding.
African politicians respond to factors that can win or lose elections.
If there is no domestic electoral price to pay, they can easily ignore or be indecisive about policy foreign problems.
This was the case with Zimbabwe. No African leader lost an election because they didn't resolve the problems in Zimbabwe right after.
In opposition parties and civil society need to make the resolution of African crises election issues in their respective domestic constituencies.
Only then will incumbent African politicians, and we belong to bodies such as SADC feel compelled to act decisively.
The other thing.
Third aid to get it is just in the nature of Zimbabwean political culture, kind of ties into what gentlemen you were saying about, you know,
when you go to two parties, agonistic towards each other, if you're not willing to come together, accessors just sit down and work things out.
You're never going to get a deal.
This Zimbabwe has a highly intolerant particular form of nationalism that has been promoted by the ruling party, ZANU-PF, highly intolerant.
There is no room for any other party besides the ruling party,
which sees itself as the guardian of Zimbabwean independence because it delivered independence.
So no one else can be allowed to rule this country in our absence or by our side because we fought for this country since.
Is this strong? And Corrine's and it was it was it was for a long time, was a key stumbling block.
And even now, with the unity government deal, some appear still behaves as if it is the only party in government.
One other thing I want to mention is the lack of a majority of bonafied Democrats
amongst African leaders cripples the march of democracy on the continent.
I mean, Angola states less than free and fair elections in September.
Zambia in recent most recent Zambian election was present. Election was disputed.
Swaziland is is governed by an absolute monarch. And these are the member states of SADC.
Are they really going to promote democracy in Mugabe's country?
No. Lasting often.
The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai,
accused Saddiq of lacking the courage and the decency to look Robert Mugabe in the eyes and instruct him to to share power fairly with his party.
I think it's more accurate to say that SADC lacks the institutional capacity to deal effectively with regional political crises.
Zimbabwe being one of them. SADC was originally created. This is a regional economic development body, not a political community.
While SADC has declared democratic norms and standards in recent years, there are no punitive measures in place to guarantee that they are respected.
So they all go. They going to do peace. We've got to do key and fair elections.
But if somebody doesn't want what do what do you do about that? No.