Going where others fear to tread

Hon Simbarashe Mumbengegwi

For 18 months, President Mugabe chaired Sadc and the African Union. And for a good portion of that period, he chaired these two organisations concurrently.

It is unprecedented for a leader to lead both regional and continental organisations (simultaneously) – absolutely unprecedented.
There is an erroneous view, though, that this happened as a result of a rotational coincidence; in other words it only happened because it was Zimbabwe’s turn at both levels.
This, of course, is incorrect.
It was not Zimbabwe’s turn to chair Sadc or the AU. No.
This happened not by coincidence, but by a conscious decision first by Sadc and then subsequently by the AU, knowing very well that President Mugabe was already Sadc Chair.
This was a conscious desire by both the region and continent that these two organisations could benefit tremendously from the leadership, guidance and inspiration of a leader of such stature. President Mugabe is the most senior leader in Africa.
He is accepted and recognised as the voice of Africa even when he is not holding a formal continental position. He is a man of unshakable principles who says it as it is. He fears none; never intimidated by any leader of any country. He speaks and does what he believes, honestly and sincerely, is in the best interest of Zimbabwe, Sadc and Africa.
Whenever he speaks, all leaders – continental or regional – applaud, accepting that they themselves would have wanted to say the kind of things that the President would have said if only they were not intimidated and afraid of the consequences.
What he says is virtually what all the leaders secretly believe in but dare not say in public for fear of possible consequences. I have already mentioned that President Mugabe fears no country, no leader. He has been elected by the people of Zimbabwe and will stand by them through thick and thin.
Having been elected by Sadc and the AU, he continues to do the same.
That’s President Mugabe.
And it is this adherence to principle that drove Sadc and Africa to give him this rare opportunity to serve, and I want to assure you that both Sadc and Africa were not disappointed.
The President has served both region and continent very efficiently, effectively and has inspired landmark decisions by the two organisations, decisions which are going to guide the work of Sadc and the AU for the next half century.
Guiding principles
President Mugabe is an avowed pan-African, anti-colonialist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist. He believes every country, every people must be masters of their own destiny. And in his position as AU Chair, he has worked very hard to promote the interests of countries that are still under colonial occupation. President Mugabe has revived interest in the question of Western Sahara, for instance.
It is under his Chairmanship that a decision was taken that Western Sahara should permanently be on the AU Summit agenda – permanently!
And yet, before him, it was more or less forgotten – almost forgotten.
The President has also made it an issue that every summit have a resolution on Palestine.
Sovereignty is absolutely fundamental. Non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries must be upheld. Peace and stability is one of the guiding principles, and he has not left any stone unturned to try and resolve conflicts around Africa.
From Mali, Burkina Faso, Libya, the DRC, Madagascar, Lesotho to Central Africa Republic, President Mugabe has played a role. He has been constantly consulted; delegations have come to Harare while leaders group around him at international summits and fora to consult him as they know he is a man of tremendous insight and wisdom.
These are some of the principles that have guided and driven him, principles he has always held dear from his days as a nationalist, freedom fighter.
Milestones
A number of landmark decisions have been taken by Sadc and the AU during President Mugabe’s chairmanship.
Our President has always talked about issues surrounding control, beneficiation and value addition of our natural resources.
In a word, this is industrialisation. He has been very strong on that.
He has inspired the entire continent to accept what used to be almost a lone voice when it was him alone (talking about these issues). Now, Africa and all its leaders talk of resource control, industrialisation, value addition, beneficiation. All leaders now speak that language. President Mugabe has gone further to make an indelible imprint on Africa’s development agenda by inspiring and steering adoption of the AU’s development blueprint – Agenda 2063.
That was adopted under his Chairmanship, through his guidance and inspiration.
Not only has Agenda 2063 been adopted; it will be implemented in five 10-year plans. The first 10-year plan was adopted by the AU Summit in June 2015, again under President Mugabe’s chairmanship, guidance and inspiration.
So, for the next 50 years, Africa’s industrialisation and development will be guided by this very important document, which was inspired and piloted through by the President.
For the next 50 years, Africa will not talk about development without the name RG Mugabe. That will be one of his many, many footprints in the annals of history.
Further, the President has always said, “Dependence on donors to finance the African Union is dangerous.”
It is undesirable as it deprives Africa of ownership.
You can’t say it’s yours when someone else is funding it, and he has been saying this for years and years. He says if we don’t have money, let’s do fewer things that we will own.
He has been able to inspire the continent to accept that we have to tax ourselves a bit more.
Member States must contribute more so that we will be able to pay for our programmes and projects. Member states are contributing under 40 percent (to its budget).
However, under President Mugabe, Summit adopted a resolution, with the AU committing itself to financing 100 percent of its operational budget – at least 75 percent of its programmes budget and 25 percent of its peace-keeping budget within the next five years.
That’s a very big step from the under-40 percent that Member States are contributing.
In fact, Members States are contributing zero when it comes to programmes. All their contributions go towards operational costs, running costs. All programmes are donor-funded, which, therefore, means only those programmes that donors want are implemented.
They will not fund programmes that we want, but those they want.
So, this was a very important decision for the continent, spearheaded by the President.
He pushed it through Summit.
In fact, the current subscriptions for member states have gone up considerably because benchmarks have been determined to achieve the percentages I have just referred to.
The figures have gone up; in our case we are paying almost double what we used to pay in order to be able to pay more.
The scales of assessment are determined by the economy of a particular country.
The figures are available, it’s just that I cannot reel them off the cuff.
The point here is that we have agreed that our contributions must go up every year for the next five years so that we pay 100 percent of our operational costs, at least 75 percent of our programmes and 25 percent of our peace-keeping budget.
So, we are committed to that.
And, of course, there was an outcry, but it was then decided that a working group of finance ministers be set up to come up with recommendations on how additional funding can be generated.
This group subsequently came up with a number of proposals that Member States could look at.
ICT is an area where they can put up a little bit here and there.
In tourism, one can charge a dollar or two extra . . .things like that, which can help each country raise the amount.
These are very important landmark decisions that were inspired by our President, ensuring they were adopted by Summit.
In August 2014, the Sadc Summit was held in Zimbabwe, with the theme of industrialisation, value addition and beneficiation. President Mugabe’s address inspired his fellow Heads of State so much that they decided that an Extraordinary Summit be held in Harare in April 2015, with only one item on the agenda – industrialisation, value addition and beneficiation.
That Extraordinary Summit was held, and an Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap were adopted.
These were synchronised with Agenda 2063 so that they run in tandem for the next 50 years.
Again, as in the AU’s case, for the next 50 years, President RG Mugabe’s name will feature prominently every time we discuss industrialisation, value addition and beneficiation in the Sadc region. These are tremendous contributions in areas that really matter: regional and continental development, and the capacity to pay for our programmes and projects.
All these can be traced to President RG Mugabe; his vision and persuasiveness. You should have seen him chairing meetings.
It was a pleasure.
If there were a second term, Sadc and the AU would have said “please continue” because it really rejuvenated the two organisations in inspiration, institutional memory.
Don’t forget; he is the only leader in office who was present in 1963 when the Organisation of African Unity was created. He was a delegate to Summit. Although he was leading a liberation movement, liberation movements were part of the Summit, representing their countries that were still under colonial rule.
He is the only one who can tell us the debate of 1963.
What did Mwalimu say? What did Kwame Nkrumah say? What did Modibo Keita say? What did Nasa say?
He rubbed shoulders with these giants of African history. He was one of them, and is the only one standing.
That distinguishes him from all the other leaders.
Both Sadc and Africa have recognised that; that it is uncommon to have a leader who is constantly there and can tell you what happened 50 years ago.
He is so inspiring, especially to young people.
(People) were open-mouthed (at AU and Sadc meetings) when President Mugabe gave some of his anecdotes.
Some of them would come to us and say, “You actually sit with this man in Cabinet? You actually sit and talk to him? Oh, aren’t you lucky? Aren’t you lucky?!”
The richness with which he chaired the meetings of both Sadc and the AU was absolutely amazing.
The humour . . .
Usually, these meetings are half empty, with people outside, talking, conversing. But during his chairmanship, the meetings were always packed in case one would miss something.
And indeed, (the meetings) were so rich.
As Zimbabweans, we are extremely proud of our leader and how he has been able to project our country, and also to get Africa, Sadc to know him more intimately, not just Africa, but outside Africa.
The G20 are the 20 richest countries in the world – the big boys and big girls.
In the past, some of them would not want to listen to him. But they were all there: the Obamas, Camerons of this world.
Of course, Presidents Xi Jinping (China) and Vladmir Putin (Russia) are our friends. They know each other well.
The Western leaders were there, listening to his wisdom and even getting inspired by what he said.
It has been a great, wonderful year in which our President has been very much on top of the world as leader of our continent.
Challenges
The AU’s challenges are always the question of maintaining peace, security and stability.
That is a big challenge.
I have already referred to how hard the President worked to try and resolve conflicts in countries like Mali where he went and the rebels there – the Tuaregs – had refused to sign the peace agreement. He made an impassioned plea to them to come and sign.
And guess what?
As soon as President Mugabe landed back home, the Tuaregs were in Bamako to sign the agreement.
Why are you signing now?
“We heard President Mugabe’s appeal. He is a man of integrity. If he says it is good enough for us to sign, then it must be good enough for us to sign.”
He had appealed to them, saying they could make the agreement work, and that Mali was a great country.
It was so much the history of Mali from his time in Ghana when Ghana, Mali and Guinea created a kind of federation.
It was when the French destroyed everything after Sekou Toure had refused to be their vassal.
They destroyed everything and left.
Conflict resolution and management; these are some of the challenges.
Beyond that, there was Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The President was the voice of Africa on the issue at the Summit in New York and the Summit in Equatorial Guinea.
Then the question of financing our operations was a serious challenge, but fortunately, the President came up with a formula that we are now implementing.
As I mentioned before, when your programmes are funded by someone else, it means they are not yours.
You fund what they want; do what they want and that’s how you operate in the end.
You can’t plan to do something you do not have money for.
Therefore, it is those with money who then plan for you. We want to be in a situation where we plan our own programmes, not simply react as is happening now. Climate change is also a very serious challenge. Why?
Because we are not responsible for climate change; industrialised countries are.
Now, we are suffering under the effects of climate change. We don’t have the resources for mitigation and adaptation. They have them, but will not give us.
So, we suffer under climate change, but do not have the resources.
To make it worse, they then come to us and say, “Yes, we destroyed the environment in our own countries, stop destroying yours.” But they destroyed the environment and developed!
They are now rich at the expense of the environment.
They then come to us, saying we should not destroy the environment. In other words, they are saying do not develop.
And we are saying: “We will stop destroying the environment if you help us not to destroy it because you are the people who destroyed the environment. You must pay so that we do not destroy what is left of the environment.”
This is the challenge; we don’t want to destroy the environment, but we also want to develop. They won’t help us to develop without destroying the environment.
COP21 was concluded in Paris.
The President went and spoke on behalf of Africa.
Some agreement was reached, but we are not sure it will really help developing countries as much as we would have wanted. Though the deal was passed by consensus, we are not entirely happy.
What do we do?
We have to make the best of a bad situation as it is in our interest not to destroy the environment.
It is also in our interest to develop.
We are now left with this delicate balance.
Greatly admired
(Colleagues on the continent) view the President with such admiration. They say Zimbabweans are a lucky people to have a leader of such stature, principles and iconic qualities.
The 18 months during which President Mugabe has led Sadc and the AU have really exposed him in his true grandeur. Many people knew about him via the distorted Western media, but the whole of Africa has seen him in action as its leader, and the admiration has increased.
The whole of Africa loves him as they say he is the only man who can resist Western interference.
They now know that he is a greatleader in terms of the developmental thrust, thus, he has a wealth of ideas on how we can develop our countries.
If only one could attend some of these summits and see the problems we have with other leaders, ministers and so on, rushing to shake his hand, and some simply to be photographed near him.
No other leader enjoyed that kind of attention from delegates, ministers. None, except our own dear President RG Mugabe. Wherever we go, he gets the most thunderous reception when leaders are introduced – absolutely thunderous.
And when he gets onto the stage, he gets the most thunderous applause, even more than the host.
It’s amazing.
It’s beautiful to be there, saying: “Yes, that’s our President all right.”
One feels proud, very proud.
This has been a great year for Zimbabwe, Sadc, Africa and, above all, our President.
The world has seen him in all his grandeur, not through the eyes of a disapproving Western media. They have been able to see him directly for what he is – a truly great leader.
Sadc and Africa shall forever be grateful that they elected our leader to be their leader for the past 18 months. Yes, come end of January 2016, he will hand over the chairmanship to someone else. However, I’m sure there will be a sense of disappointment on the entire African continent.
If there were a second term, I’m sure he would get it unanimously. He has elevated the position of AU Chair to a very high level.
Previously, it was simply regarded a nominal position, but the President has made it meaningful; to be the voice of Africa.
Africa has been heard at every forum he has addressed.
We have the good fortune that our President’s voice can never be ignored as he always tells the truth. Even our detractors know this.
While other leaders may be afraid, he tells the truth as it is, to the appreciation of the entire continent, even his detractors, although they may not say so.

◆ Honourable Simbarashe Mumbengegwi is Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs Minister, and also chairs the African Union’s Council of Ministers. He was speaking to our News Editor Morris Mkwate in Harare.