TANONOKA JOSEPH WHANDE

Africa has so many organizations most of which are useless, ineffective and are a duplication of most others on the continent.
Many as they are, these organisations all have one thing in common and that is their failure to be honest and to remain true to their own reasons for existence.
Most African countries now find themselves caught in a whirlwind because meeting the expectations of one of their own organizations violates or duplicates the efforts of the other ineffective groupings to which they are members.

African organizations, because they are initiatives formed only with the approval of African presidents, have a bias towards themselves and protective of their heads of state.
This is why they cannot criticize any of their own members yet they exist at the expense of the people they are supposed to be serving.

To that extent, therefore, hardly anyone appears able to believe or understand what SADC decreed on Zimbabwe.
And I have certainly seen braver cowards than SADC.
SADC should not exist because it is milking the life out of the very same people it is supposed to invigorate.
It is a useless organization that has still to benefit any country within its membership.

Most repulsive and idiotic to many was SADC’s order that a ministry be shared and simultaneously run by two ministers from two opposing political parties and the additional directive that the protagonists form “an all inclusive government”.
The ridiculous directives were the climax of SADC’s deliberations over the stalemate in Zimbabwe.

True to their lame and useless presence, SADC did not even bother to consider and address how, under such fierce and deadly rivalry, such a feat could be achieved.
Not surprisingly, the MDC announced on Friday that they rejected SADC’s rulings.
But Arthur Mutambara, eager to short change the nation and to reap where he did not sow, quickly responded by calling Tsvangirai “foolish” and “un-strategic” for not accepting the SADC recommendations which even a toddler would sneer at.
Desperate and impatient to be included in any settlement, Mutambara went on to tell those critics who are calling him a spoiler ‘to go hang.’
We won’t go hang but maybe Mutambara himself should.
We are dealing with something much more serious than batteries for his robots.
Let’s not spend too much time on spoilers.

I offer that SADC should disband before it causes more embarrassment to both itself and Africa.
One of these days, their ineptitude and misguided decisions are bound to spark a civil war in a member state.
They have even contaminated one Arthur Mutambara and gave him more worth than he deserves outside a laboratory.
SADC’s lack of direction has made the organisation totally irrelevant to current issues bedeviling the region.
The inept SADC “diplomats” are highly paid. As of 2004, the salary of SADC Executive Secretary stood at US $82,000. He has a massive double story house being built for him behind State House in Gaborone. Yet they do not appear to be serving the interests of SADC citizens but those of some unknown masters elsewhere.

Even SADC member states flout the organisation’s regulations with impunity.
No one listens to SADC, not even SADC itself.
SADC lacks authority. It does not appear as if it was formed to tackle problems in the region but to provide comic relief to dictators as they take a rest from their constant abuse of citizens in the region.
That and SADC’s reluctance to criticize its presidents and heads of state have left the region with an organization that exists quite expensively but one not providing any tangible service to the region that is so much affected by so many ills.

We hardly heard about anything SADC did when Mozambique was devastated by floods.
SADC did absolutely nothing when SADC citizens turned against each other in South Africa in the infamous murderous spree that came to be referred to as ‘xenophobia attacks’.
SADC has stood by and watched the mayhem in Swaziland as a so-called king molested his own people and, by today’s standards, abused school girls in the name of an outdated tradition.
SADC played no role in the DR Congo war which, once again, has just returned to haunt the region and Africa again.
Even in Botswana where the Botswana government was having an argument with some of its minority citizens of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, SADC shut its mouth and pretended not to hear or see.
If SADC cannot interfere and assist in the internal affairs of its member states, what is their mandate and how do they execute it?

Angola, a member of SADC’s own so-called troika responsible for regional Politics, Defense and Security, has just marched into DR Congo again on the side of their fellow head of state and it was not a SADC decision.
Even embattled Mugabe, thrown a ‘lifeline’ by SADC only last week, has also marched back into the DRC without SADC’s mandate.

And last Thursday, Botswana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Phandu Skelemani, told parliament that although decisions are reached by consensus “after which they reflect the collective position of the organization”, Botswana did not go along with decisions that SADC pronounced on Zimbabwe, saying, “It would be remiss of us if we did not express our strong reservations/disagreement, as we did during the Summit, regarding the co-management of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Zimbabwe).”
Botswana publicly differed with SADC on such a cowardly pronouncement.
“The co-management of a ministry by two Ministers from different parties is unrealistic, impracticable and unworkable,” said minister Skelemani.

And also at the Summit, SADC Chairman, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, asked Mugabe to leave the room so that they could deliberate on the Zimbabwean issue. Like everyone else in Africa, Mugabe simply refused to listen to ‘SADC’ and stayed, forcing SADC to debate the issue in Mugabe’s presence.

Even SADC’s own leaders did not find it worth their time to attend the circus. Only five (plus the host president) out of SADC’s 15 Heads of State cared to attend this “summit”.
Blunders, mindless and short-sighted decision making, partiality, fear of criticising member states, appeasement and inability to formulate and adhere to policy, continue to plague SADC.
The organisation is not helping the region and the millions of dollars spent on it are better used were the monies channeled to development projects in the region.
While Zimbabwe is SADC’s most glaring failure, it is still difficult to see any country in which SADC can claim they made a difference.

SADC has failed to justify its own existence.
The heart of the matter, therefore, is that donor organisations, the EU, the US and other funders of SADC should withhold funds from SADC countries that continue to retard good governance and that continue to support the murder, abuse and the starving of innocent people in countries such as Zimbabwe; they should just withhold their money.
Whoever is funding this moribund organisation should hold on to their wallet and put their money to better use in this region that cries out for help and leadership.
SADC should just disband.

It is time to punish the supporters of evil leaders. And withholding of funds is a language that screams louder than the crackling of lightning.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my compatriots, is the way it is today, November 20, 2008.