Now even the doubters can doff hats to peacemakers

Business Day
6 February 2009
By Tony Heard

A CACOPHONY of sceptics. That collective noun aptly describes the underlying disbelief over the South African-led peace effort in Zimbabwe. And it will persist.

This correspondent has some personal experience of it, because last year in Business Day he ventured a test swim against this particular tide. (Swimming without a wet suit in frozen Lake Zurich may be preferable.) He wrote that, after the elections for Zimbabwe’s parliament, won by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), it was time to “doff our hats to the person who helped lead an undramatic initiative with such a dramatic outcome” (Thabo Mbeki).

The floodgates of criticism opened on his head with a vengeance. But this cold spa bath was bracing and diverting.

A relaunched Tony Leon — years ago picturesquely described by Kader Asmal as a “new leader in short pants” — led the charge, followed by the usual jaundiced journalists, even an inconsequential wag once in a racism row, some of the inveterate (I almost said invertebrate) letter writers, many close friends and left-liberal associates, indeed Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. They just climbed in, the attacks overflowing into other newspapers’ columns. There was imperious reference to “Heard’s premature announcement of vindication for Mbeki”; and, below the belt, a suggestion of “premature ejaculation”; on another plane, the discovery of a new phenomenon in the heavens: Planet Tony.

Well: En kyk hoe lyk hulle nou! (“See how they look now!”, the phrase, incidentally, from an expressive language without peer, which can conjure words such as eina-rok for miniskirt and brom-brom for reluctance.)

The fact is that the painstaking diplomacy led by Mbeki, in the tradition of the gruelling years of talks that finally wrapped up a defeated South Vietnam (and which honourable diplomatic tradition of dogged “jaw not war” may one day yet help the Middle East to follow Ulster and SA to relative sanity), has pulled off all-party agreement in Zimbabwe. The MDC-Tsvangirai has, yes, rather brom-brom, finally clicked in, as all-round pressure has mounted.

The MDC-T’s belated recruitment happened on that awkward media day, Friday, when the weekend newspaper brains trusts had already delivered their profound thoughts for print. That meant that the inconvenient, ineluctable task of giving Mbeki his due could be largely ducked over the weekend — while we all admittedly wait with bated breath to see if the old fox will try to play silly-buggers , like last time. There are already suggestions of Zanu (PF) “backtracking” and “spoiling”. We’ll see.
The difference now is the real prospect not only of an MDC-majority parliament but of a constitutionally appointed Prime Minister Tsvangirai on February 11. Next week, in the flesh! So the fox has limited options but to go along with it. And the looming United Nations (UN) Chapter Seven rottang (whip) or the International Criminal Court, plus no more spousal shopping, are hardly palatable alternatives.

Zimbabwe has always been a good example of limitations on power. It has seen the once-colonial force studiously averting the eyes while expecting, at times, a trifle too much of us South Africans, to pull chestnuts from the fire. The Zimbabwe hell has, till now, seen much talk but little progress from regional and continental bodies, and the UN (where it could rightly be said ultimately to belong). It has seen crushing challenges facing our own leaders as they just plod on. But we now see that their efforts have finally helped, together with Zimbabweans, to forge peace.

We can now, surely, change the tone of debate on Zimbabwe. Even if one is tempted to say “I told you so”, it is simply not helpful in public life, and can boomerang dangerously. Other empty phrases to avoid are “Something must be done!” (Yes, but what?) and the supremely sterile: “You too!” which once led an apartheid foreign minister, Eric Louw, to allege you-too-like that other countries indulged in discrimination; even announcing that obscure Laplanders suffered this fate. Really?

No, the important thing is to get on with the reconstruction and development of that land benighted for too long, and to generate the widest consensus within SA and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) — all led to greater heights by world exemplars such as Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter — to ensure that the valuable ground won does not just fritter away again.

As this correspondent wrote last year ( it still applies): “The path ahead for Zimbabwe is horrendously complicated.” Please take note! It qualifies one’s optimism. But the formal breakthrough, denied so long to southern Africa, is now surely confirmed.

Let us all appropriate it, and seek to make it work. Let us argue for lifting of sanctions as soon as possible. Let us reward those who really seek peace there. Let us help the currency to recover, and the economy to restart. Let us help the starving, the grievously ill and the pathetic victims of turpitude and abuse to rediscover their life, health and dignity.

Let us buy Zimbabwean goods, such as those snow-white, painstakingly made tablecloths brought to suburban doors by bowed old women, who stand to eat for a month if we purchase just one. Let us appeal to the international community, despite the economic meltdown created by the rich nations, to dig into their pockets and grab the chance to rebuild a broken land. It will be good for all our souls.
And let us not indulge in recriminations, but rather doff the hat to all who have pushed and shoved in the cause of getting a settlement; yes, even the critics of our own government’s efforts. Let us praise those ministers, and others, who have of late put more lead in the pencil in the push for peace. Let us help that potentially lovely land discover the lyrical “spirit of 1994” that made us a generous giant of Africa almost overnight under Nelson Mandela and Mbeki — though that status could, ironically, fade here just as the spirit takes root across the Limpopo.

Finally, let us give the new South African president and also the bloodied but unbowed SADC facilitator his due. Kgalema Motlanthe has proved to be a deft new thrust on this diplomatic quest for peace, speaking not only for us but for SADC and the African Union; and common sense.

Mbeki will pre-eminently be remembered as a negotiator and a problem-solver, whatever mistakes he may have made and enemies incurred. He and his team, most notably the moral and modest public servant, Frank Chikane, and low-profile adviser and successful peacemaker Mojanku Gumbi at his side, seem to have finally pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat, we all hope.

May we all be blessed, here in southern Africa, with success, for a change, in this most wretched matter. And if it goes the other way, we shall simply have, as US President Barack Obama said recently in a different context, to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and begin picking up the pieces again; and plod on, and on, and on. There is no other way. As Zimbabwean senator David Coltart said in September: “But work this must.” Period.

• Heard, an adviser to the government since 1994, is a former editor of the Cape Times.