African Union official snubs Zimbabwean rights groups

By Violet Gonda
20 October 2006

The African Union has shown again that the Zimbabwean crisis is not on its list of priorities after a senior AU diplomat snubbed the country’s human rights groups during a visit to Zimbabwe last week.
Alpha Omar Konare, the chairperson of the African Union is reported to have snubbed those who had been lobbying the continental body for a resolution on Zimbabwe. Media reports said he had stopped briefly in Harare to consult with Robert Mugabe on conflicts in Africa.

But the groups say based on the amount of lobbying the human rights bodies had done with the AU some effort should have been made by the chairperson to solicit a meeting with them.

The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) spokesperson Fambai Ngirande said; “We have expressed our disappointment at not having an opportunity to engage with him. And this is really on the basis that civil society in Zimbabwe has been doing a lot of work to lobby the African Union and to advise the AU on specific alternatives to address the situation in Zimbabwe. And our not being able to meet with him has raised the disappointment.”

A lot of work had been done by groups like the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) as well as the AU’s African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) on the human rights abuses by the Mugabe regime. Much of it related to Operation Murambatsvina, the government’s so called clean up exercise that displaced 700 000 people and affected at least 2 million.

In what was widely seen as a step in the right direction the commission adopted a resolution on Zimbabwe last year, condemning human rights violations and calling on the government to immediately stop the forced evictions around the country. But to date the evictions are still continuing. The government’s re-housing project, Operation Garikai/ Hlalani, has been exposed as a sham by churches and human rights groups, in and outside Zimbabwe.

Critics say the African Union has shown that it is toothless. It did nothing when the Mugabe regime refused to recognize the credentials of an AU envoy who had been dispatched in 2005, to investigate the mass evictions exercise.

The human rights groups expected Konare to consult them as well as Mugabe. Refusing to meet them was criticised as a slap in the face.

It is generally understood that as a body the AU could apply a great deal of pressure on the Zimbabwean government, if it wanted to.
Fambai Ngirande said it would have been beneficial for the civic groups to have met with Konare, particularly as this would have presented the AU chairperson with an opportunity to verify some of the reports that had been given to the body.

Konare, a former President of Mali, is reported to have met with Mugabe but only to discuss conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia and Ivory Coast.

The NANGO spokesperson said there has been a lot of work that the ACHPR has done, particularly on Murambatsvina; “recommendations of which have not been followed through by the government of Zimbabwe. This would have been a good opportunity for him to assess which of the recommendations have been followed up or what alternatives can be pursued in order to ensure that these recommendations can be pursued.”

Asked if the refusal to meet civic groups is a reflection of how the AU perceives Zimbabwe - that the crisis is not as serious as in other parts of Africa - Ngirande said; “It could be. African diplomats have consistently been pursuing a quiet diplomacy policy and this quiet diplomacy has not been yielding any benefits for the people of Zimbabwe.”