Press Release
July 7, 2003.
This week provides a window of opportunity for Africa's progressive leaders
The arrival of US President George Bush on his first official visit to Africa and the hosting of the second African Union summit represents a critical week for Africa in terms of its own image, development and progress.
This week Africa has an opportunity to make real progress on the key issues of debt relief, a level playing field in the area of international trade, tackling the HIV/AIDS pandemic and giving substance to the mechanisms and institutions for conflict resolution, such as the proposed African peacekeeping force and the establishment of the AU's Peace and Security Council.
With the world's attention focused on Africa this week, we have an opportunity to challenge the perception that Africa is a continent stuck in a vicious cycle of perpetual violence, bad governance, instability and endemic corruption.
Mr. Bush will see with his own eyes the progress that is being made. He will see in Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria and Uganda, fledgling democracies whose governments are committed to entrenching democratic values that act as a catalyst for sustainable development. These countries, in addition to Mozambique, Malawi, Ghana and Kenya, send a strong message to the world that Africa is not a hopeless case. It is a continent that is making significant progress and, through the creation of the AU and its adoption of NEPAD, we, as Africans, are putting in place a framework through which the dream of African renaissance can be achieved.
In his speech last year, marking the formal launch of the AU President Mbeki said: "In the spirit of the Constitutive Act of Union we must work for a continent characterised by democratic principles and institutions which guarantee popular participation and provide for good governance."
For President Mbeki's dream to come true, he and other progressive African leaders need to adopt a robust stand against tyranny and commit themselves to constructively resolving crisis of governance beyond their own borders, and that includes Zimbabwe. If they ignore the crisis of governance in Zimbabwe they will be betraying the noble democratic principles that have defined them as politicians and statesmen.
The latest developments in Zimbabwe are ominous and threaten the burgeoning hope promised by NEPAD. In Zimbabwe people face the following:
- All peaceful marches and strikes have been banned.
- Newspaper editors and executives are being arrested and charged under the infamous Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).
- 80% of the population lives below the poverty datum line.
- Over 7million Zimbabweans face starvation and will require food aid.
- One in every three Zimbabweans has an HIV/Aids virus and the government has no budgetary capacity to response positively to this scourge.
- With inflation over 300%, Zimbabweans go to bed hungry, as they cannot afford basic food items which are becoming increasingly unavailable.
To compound the problems that Zimbabweans face, the government is in a state of paralysis denying the existence of these problems and blaming all difficulties on everyone else but itself. This attitude makes it difficult for the government to realise that principled dialogue with the MDC is the only way out of this crisis.
This week therefore marks a window of opportunity for Africa's progressive leaders. All of them will be attending the AU summit, whilst a significant proportion will have bi-lateral meetings with President Bush. Such occasions provide compelling opportunities to demonstrate solidarity with the suffering people of Zimbabwe by condemning the brutality of the Mugabe regime and bringing pressure to bear on the regime to discharge its basic duties of ending all state sponsored violence and rescinding draconian legislation that violates basic civil liberties.
The regime must be told in unequivocal terms that discharging its basic duties is critical if political dialogue is to take place. Only through meaningful political dialogue can the crisis of governance be peacefully resolved in Zimbabwe. The dialogue process will ensure that a political environment is created conducive to the holding of free and fair elections.
Paul Themba Nyathi
MDC Secretary for Information and Publicity.
Zimbabwe Information Centre Inc, PO Box K824, Haymarket NSW 1240. www.zic.com.au
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