Statement re Professor Kader Asmal’s statement in Cape Town 4 October 2007

Statement by David Coltart

Professor Asmal’s statement (attached below)is one of the most important to come out of South Africa in the last decade since Zimbabwe began its slide into chaos. It gives the lie once and for all to the notion that there is no crisis or that it is the result of western imperialism.

His concluding remarks are particularly important. Zimbabwe arguably suffers the world’s worst humanitarian crisis today and yet there has been an appalling failure by the international community, particularly by the AU, SADC and the UN, to take action to relieve the suffering of the Zimbabwean people. Whilst the SADC mediation offers the best hope for a political solution, ZANU PF have a long history of indifference to the suffering of the Zimbabwean people and it remains unlikely that it will agree to a settlement that urgently and genuinely addresses the plight of Zimbabweans. Of particular importance in this regard is the need to depoliticise the distribution of food throughout the country, but especially in the south west of the country, a traditional opposition area which faces the most acute food shortages. Food has been used as a political weapon by Zanu PF since 1984 and it is still doing so today. For that reason it has tried to control the supply of food irrespective of catastrophic effect this has had on the population.

Since June the food shortages have dramatically worsened as a result of Zanu PF’s chaotic price control measures. Millions of Zimbabweans today face severe food shortages which Zanu PF has no capacity or political will to rectify.

There is an extremely urgent need for a massive humanitarian relief operation. This will only happen if SADC and the UN vigorously secure agreement from ZANU PF for the international community to intervene in the crisis. The ANC, because of its unique position, is the organisation that must now play the lead role in securing this objective.

Accordingly Professor Asmal’s comments are salient and timeous. I hope that they will result in urgent, decisive action being taken by the ANC and the South African government, under the leadership of President Mbeki, to end this dramatically worsening catastrophe which is unfolding right on South Africa’s doorstep.

David Coltart MP
Secretary for Legal Affairs MDC
Bulawayo
5th October 2007

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The Parliamentary Office of Professor Kader Asmal, M.P.

STATEMENT by Professor Kader Asmal, M.P., a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, at the launch of Through the Darkness – a Life in Zimbabwe by Judith Todd at Wordsworth Books, Cape Town on Thursday, 4th October 2007

‘Who is the Enemy of the People?’

There are two reasons as to why I readily agreed to launch this book by Judith Todd. The first is a simple act of solidarity and appreciation on my part for a great African freedom-fighter whom I first met in 1966 as we were traveling to an international student conference in Japan. We then all followed her as she made her way in the world, including a visit to the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, campaigning against the colonial and racist policies of the Smith regime.

But freedom in 1980 for Zimbabwe, a country with such enormous promise, turned into a nightmare where the preservation of political power in a few hands replaced the exciting advances in reconciliation, the major advances in education, health and welfare and a vibrant economy.

This is one person’s simple, personal and painful story, of love for her fellow human beings and her touching relationship with her parents and anger at the roller-coaster ride to infamy and abuse of power in a country which has maliciously and illegally withdrawn her passport and persecuted her friends

Read it and the act of doing so may prompt the kind of questions that have brought me to this launch. For me, it is a matter of personal necessity to ask some questions.

Question 1: When does a national liberation movement, which continues to use the language of anti-imperialism, lose such a status?

Answer: When it wages war on its people.

Question 2: When does a government, even allowing for its victory in fair and free elections, which can be questioned, lose its legitimacy?

Answer: When it is guilty of gross violation of human rights, which has now been accepted as justifying international concern, ensuring that other states are not interfering in the domestic affairs of that state but pursuing an entitlement under international law.

But I am not here as an international lawyer but as a proud citizen of a free South Africa who should have spoken out about and campaigned against a regime which has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. I am dismally conscious of Ms Todd’s painful reminder that South Africans, including our media, failed, even after a UN report, to draw attention to the Pol Potian devastation wrought by Operation Murambatsvina which began on 17 May 2005 and which may still be continuing. The so-called clean-up campaign, involved the destruction of houses, clinics and businesses leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless, destitute and starving. Pol Pot’s main henchmen are now being tried for crimes against humanity.

Why do I speak now?

I should have done so in the 1980s, when thousands of people were murdered by the infamous Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland. I did not do so. Neither did I do so during Operation Murambatsvina, when those who want to retain power refer to their hapless fellow citizens as ‘shits who have to be removed’.

The catalogue of infamy should now be permanently secreted in our collective memory. But it has not. I have therefore taken to heart Kofi Annan’s appeal when he delivered the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture this year when he said that leaders must be held accountable to the same rules as ordinary citizens. More importantly, speaking in a country which asked for and received solidarity from most parts of the world, Kofi Annan reminded us that Africans must guard against a pernicious, self-destructive form of racism that unites citizens to rise up and expel tyrannical rulers who are white, but to excuse tyrannical rulers who are black.

We are constantly reminded by our betters that only Zimbabweans can decide their future. But you can only be conscious actors for change if there is a level political field, not only for the holding of elections but also in the run-up. There is no normality in Zimbabwe. Instead we have the ‘destruction of the rule of law, the judiciary, the press and economy and the brutalisation of the population’, with a quarter of the country’s population now living in the diaspora and with the army and the civil service, both instruments and controllers of the ruling party.

If freedom of association and the culture of debate are effectively criminalized, how can all Zimbabweans decide their future with a semblance of equality with the Mugabe regime?

A recent statement from the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference aptly summarises the state of Zimbabwean society:

‘The people of Zimbabwe are suffering. Their freedom and fundamental human rights are violated daily with impunity, the shelves of the shops and supermarkets are empty, our currency has become worthless, the public health services has collapsed, the country’s main roads are lined with tens of thousands of citizens waiting for public transport, corruption is rampant and young people are risking their lives daily and in growing numbers to escape the catastrophe that our country has become.’

Judy Todd reminds us that silence can give rise to complicity. I do not have the answers to the question: what is to be done? But I am aware that President Mugabe has manipulated bilateral, regional and international initiatives to his advantage, to the frustration of the friends of the Zimbabwean people.

I am here to add my voice to Judy Todd’s appeal to assist the people of Zimbabwe. But there is also a selfish reason: the majority of our neighbours are now starving, or sick, or brutalized and without hope. Many are now fleeing to South Africa and to surrounding countries in desperation. Therefore remember: Zimbabwe, for various reasons, has now become our crisis also.

We most fervently hope that the present mediation efforts by President Mbeki will succeed in ensuring that a degree of normality may return to a country which has been blighted. If it does not, then the international community, though the United Nations, must be involved as a matter of urgency.

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