The SADC is meeting in South Africa on Saturday in order to try and “restore political order” to the ongoing strife in Madagascar. International efforts at mediation have broken down and the Southern African Development Community are hearing report backs from the mediators who took part in the talks.
The SADC suspended Madagascar during March, refusing to recognise the government of Andry Rajoelina, as a result of what they perceived to be a coup in that country.
“The political turmoil has wrought havoc on the Indian Ocean island’s $390-million-a-year tourism sector and unnerved foreign companies investing in its booming oil and mineral sectors. Rajoelina, a 34-year-old former disc jockey, came to power in March when President Marc Ravalomanana stepped aside after intense pressure from the opposition and army chiefs. (Reuters)
Ravalomanana claims to be the legitimate ruler and is disinterested in any power-sharing arrangement. This is playing havoc with suggestions of new elections to sort this out once and for all.
Comesa, the African economic bloc, in turn has not ruled out military intervention.
The SADC meeting is due to be attended by Ravalomanana and, can you Adam and Eve it, President Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe.
Therein lies the rub.
Was it not the stance of South Africa and the SADC that Zimbabwe’s problems could only be solved by Zimbabweans?
Was not every suggestion of international mediation rejected out of hand?
When was Zimbabwe suspended from the SADC?
Madagascar is relatively peaceful while Zimbabweans were fleeing into exile in their millions, starving in their millions, being killed in political violence in their thousands and being displaced in their hundreds of thousands yet any call for SADC action was met with a deafening silence.
Was Mugabe’s stealing of an election he clearly lost not tantamount to a coup?
Of course any suggestion that he be ousted by the SADC to save five million starving Zimbabweans was laughed off as a joke.
Military intervention. Are Comesa shitting us?
Go back and read through the reactions of shock and horror by SADC representatives when this was suggested to save millions of starving Zimbabweans.
For the SADC and South Africa to carry on in the way they are in respect of Madagascar — after their disgusting conduct with respect to Zimbabwe — is breathtakingly hypocritical.
Inviting Mugabe to the SADC meeting to tell Madagascar to accept everything he point-blank refused to do, is nothing short of mind blowing.
The president has gone out of his way to do the right thing since his inauguration — let’s not get foreign affairs back to where it was under the previous government.
Many things recently have blown my mind including the huggy picture in the Sunday Times of Mugabe and Zuma. Zuma’s declaration that dictators be let of the hook had a similar effect. Seems Madagascar just doesn’t have the right struggle credentials, Traps
Two wrongs dont make one right…sadc is moving towards a right direction.
suspend the whole lot, and throw that juvenile dj in jail.
On the other hand, Marc Ravalomanana has himself also screwed the people that lil tiny island. He doesnt deserve to be put back in power nor to be supported by any of our African leaders. more can be read on this document:
http://www.iss.org.za/pubs/papers/89/Paper89.pdf
SADC are a joke!!!!! Look at Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Angola and the list goes on. Madagascar is a small country and it’s “leader” has no struggle credentials. Go figure!
Kind of shines some light on the real reason for things, doesn’t it?
So is the real reason because young Andry is a former DJ and knows not much and allegedly took power by coup? Or is it because he is going to find out some things and/or make some supposedly unpopular (but not unpopulist) decisions? Having representatives from Zimbabwe, Swaziland et al attending discussions regarding military intervention to support democratically elected rulers gives you some indication as to what real democracy is.
And it’s clearly not what you think. There’s only one correct vote for democracy and if you don’t use your vote the right way, for sure you must be shown how, for democracy is clear, like a shining beacon and we’ll show you how it works by hook or by crook.
Interesting times as usual.
The difference is ZANU-PF is a liberation movement and liberation history and solidarity trumps everything else in SADC…(Mugabe knows this and plays the game perfectly).
This is why the only criticism ever levelled at Mugabe/ZANU-PF came from the likes of Khama, Mwanawasa and Odinga.
Can anyone tell me if SADC has done anything about the SADC Tribunal decision that Zim was in contempt, that was refered to the SADC heads for enforcement?
Or whether SADC, under SA leadership, has done anything to “Guarantee” the “Unity” deal after the MDC referred the appointments of Gono and Tomas to them?
Or can you confirm that another bit of the SADC’s hypocrisy (And the ANC SA Govt’s “leadership” of it) is to ignore anything Mugabe and ZANU do in the hope that everyone else wont notice and the problems will magically go away?
The SADC has no muscle to democratise its member states. It may be the best organised of African blocs, but this hasn’t immuned it from the burden of confused regional leaderships.
It cannot do in Madagascar what it did not do in Zimbabwe. Bob’s liberation credentials have never been questioned. But he didn’t win the March 2008 elections (Tsvangirai won)- and SADC helped his fraud stand regardless of the verdict of long-suffering Zimbabweans.
Now here you have SADC posturing over Madagascar- all in the vain belief that military coups are more undemocratic than civilian coups ala Mugabe.
The regional groupings in Africa were founded on noble ideals of freedom, peace and stability. They have been effective for the single reason that leaders themselves are corrupt, stole elections or have comfort in the company of their less popular comrades. Now you have Garaffi as AU chairman at a time when democracy is being rolled back by emerging dictatorships in Africa.
Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and many key states have registered declining political freedoms and democracy- the AU is cheering them up. I think the secretariats of the blocs should gain more policy power so that presidents are not allowed to tinker with sacred continental charters. Dictators flock together. Only that in Madagascar the stakes aren’t high for them.
Emotionally peddling falsehoods on the Zimbabwean situation seems to be the game of the day if you really want to be noticed as an “expert” on Zim affairs. For as long as doing so has a cathartic effect, then it’s alright.
Trapido falsely claims: “[Zimbabwe’s President Robert] Mugabe… [stole] an election he clearly lost,… [and that this is] tantamount to a coup”. Not so fast, Traps. You know very well that:
1) During the contested March elections in Zimbabwe, there was no outright winner, this necessitating a second-round vote,
2) The MDC, under the leadership of the present Prime Minister, withdrew from the second-round, citing political violence
Are you with me so far, Traps? Trusting you still are, then you baseless statement of Mugabe having “clearly lost” the elections borders on your sectarian interests, for which you never came out clean.
Would SADC have threatened with military intervention if:
a) Tsvangirai had usurped power in Zimbabwe (a la that upstart DJ, Rajoelina, in Madagascar)?
b) Mugabe or other ZANU-PF party hack had taken power from a democratically elected president Tsvangirai, in a form of a coup?
The truth is that even you don’t know. I doubt if anybody knows. We probably would have to wait for such eventualities to unfold, to see what SADC would do. Credit must, however, go to SADC for seeing fit that elements of Rajoelina’s ambitious ilk are nipped in the bud within the SADC region.
Siphiwo herein admits to never having seen an atlas of the world? Tiny Madagascar. Deploy the cadre to foreign affairs quick.
@NZS you are obviously a ZANU-PF shrill.
We counted our votes here in SA in a few days and announced the winner. The March election in Zim was clearly scammed. You can’t even pretend that it was OK, because every sane human being with eyes on Zimbabwe at the time knew that it was obvious that MDC had won because ZANU did not want to release the vote count. There is no other logical explanation.
Well noted Traps. Throw a shoe at the next ANC meeting.
Dear NZS,
Tsvangarai won the Zim Presidential Election in the first round with 57% of the vote (even with rigging), that’s why they spent so long delaying the declaration and vote count as they packed out the polling stations in Mashonaland (where there were no observors) with false votes to bring the percentage down.
And acording to an alleged internal ZANU report, they estimate that they would only get 15% of the vote in a free and fair election. (and that was at least a year ago, let alone now.)
I am amazed at some of these comments. It is clear to anyone that an election held with results that should have been available in days, took three months to finalize. ZANU-PF lost and took three months to figure out a way to steal the election. The mindless second run off for President that Mugabe ‘won’ hands down is clearly a fraud. If anyone believes that anything democratic has happend in Zimbabawe for the last 20 years they are hopelessly stupid. Mugabe stole the election, again and the ANC and SADEC helped him do that for their own hidden reasons. When 1 and 1 are added together you get 2, no matter how tou look at it. Mugabe is an election thief and his accomplices know this as do any thinking person. Only Mbeki has the mentality to tell us that there is ‘no crisis in Zimbabwe’. Mygabe will win the next election because there won’t be any voters left in Zim to oppose him.
Just confirms what I have just said:
1) Emotions override reason on Zim affairs,
2) Subjective interpretations (solely based on sectarian interests rather than augmented by factual reality) dictate that MDC won the elections,
3) We are soon going to hear people saying the MDC won a two-thirds majority (But wait a second! ne fella above has alluded to the MDC getting up to 85% of the vote. It can’t get any more interesting than this!)
Nah, I think it’s about cash. I reckon Mr Mugabe made some serious donations to the ruling parties (and maybe some individuals Swiss bank accounts) of a few countries around him to keep them supportive. In particular, SA’s ever supportive ANC. It was Zim govt. loot of course and his people paid in blood. The Chinese he more or lee kept onboard with mineral and agricultural concessions prised from previous owners hands by coercion. To the Zim people he showed the finger. A devilishly cunning man Mr Mugabe, right up there with Pol Pot.
Now Madagascar doesn’t have much loot to spread around although maybe the ousted pres. is offering all sorts for SADC tough talk.
not supporting r.g mugabe but you should know defferent rules apply to def people look at the way
america handled north korea and iraq about the w. of mass distruction or the jews/palastine issues