Online Reporter
Zimbabwe’s tenure at the helm of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) comes to an end today, with President Mnangagwa passing the baton to his Madagascar’s Andry Rajoelina. Under President Mnangagwa’s leadership, the bloc entered a new dawn, with foundations set on the need for peace in the region to ensure sustained development. Our reporter Wallace Ruzvidzo caught up with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister PROFESSOR Amon Murwira, who gave a reflective blow-by-blow account of Zimbabwe’s chairmanship of the regional bloc.
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Q: Minister, Zimbabwe has come to the end of its chairmanship of SADC. How would you describe it?
A: It was quite a strategic and busy year. As you know, SADC is a foundation. The foundation of SADC is peace and security, which enables the other pillars to stand on this foundation; the first pillar being industrialisation, the second pillar being infrastructure and the third pillar being human capital development or the social sector.
So, come to last year, what happened on the peace and security front? We were faced with the crisis in the eastern part of the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), which needed to be solved. Firstly, SADC had already been deployed to the DRC when we took over. They were already on the ground. But peace is several components.
The biggest and most reliable component is diplomacy in order to achieve peace, because we can have guns, but at the end of the day, we have to be at the table discussing peace and how it is done. So, His Excellency, the President, was faced with this issue.
Q: And how did President Mnangagwa respond to the DRC crisis during his tenure?
A: First of all, we made sure that we take an enhanced approach to this issue. The enhanced approach was to understand that the DRC belongs to both the East African Community (EAC) and SADC, and this was a chance for His Excellency, the President, Dr ED Mnangagwa, to use this to bring a bigger chunk of Africa to this issue before it is brought to the whole of Africa. So, for the first time, His Excellency, the President, approached the EAC to have a joint effort on this matter.
And for the first time, in February of 2025, we had the first joint EAC-SADC Summit in Dar es Salaam. This was a breakthrough, because it now involved more members looking at this issue and the road map led us to join the Luanda Process, which was the peace process between the DRC and Rwanda as sovereign states, and the Nairobi Process where the DRC was talking to the militias, the rebel movement, particularly M23.
So, through the Dar es Salaam process, we were able to bring together these two tracks, the Luanda Process and the Nairobi process. This breakthrough, which was done in February, was actually acknowledged by the United Nations Security Council.
And when you look at the United Nations Security Council resolutions, they quote the SADC-EAC process. So, this was very important that His Excellency the President, as chairperson of SADC, was able to bring an extra dimension, which brings us closer to peace. So, what then happened was, this process led to a summit in March with the Heads of State and Government, where His Excellency, the President, Dr ED Mnangagwa, and his counterpart, President (William) Ruto, had to constitute a panel of facilitators.
Q: How will the panel of facilitators operate?
A: This panel of facilitators was actually consisting of eminent persons on the African continent. In Southern Africa, Dr (Mokgweetsi) Masisi, a former president of the Republic of Botswana, and (former Nigerian) President Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President of the Central African Republic, there is former (Kenyan) President Uhuru Kenyatta, then there is the former president of Ethiopia, sitting together.
But, before they were given their marching orders, we had to convene SADC, EAC and African Union (AU) secretaries to draft the terms of reference for these facilitators. Not only to do that, but also to have a document of merging the Luanda and Nairobi processes.
At the end of the day also, the other part was to make sure that there is a coordinating mechanism, which is a secretariat, to support these facilitators.
Finally, there had to be resources coming from the AU Peace Fund to fund this process. So, on the 1st of August of this year, Their Excellencies, President Ruto and President ED Mnangagwa, had a summit in Nairobi where the facilitators were formally lodged, and the documents that supported them were also formally lodged.
So, you can see that we had to move through this process for the peace and security foundation of SADC, because the pain in SADC has been the DRC and northern Mozambique.
But you can see the movements now. So, now we have an AU-led process, which was then endorsed by Their Excellencies, the Heads of SADC and EAC this last Wednesday. The whole process has now been put in the hands of the AU, which means we achieved a lot.
Q: So, you can say we are out of the woods in terms of the DRC situation?
A: We are still in the woods, but we can see the horizon, because we have moved with documentation. It is very important because sometimes talking without recording doesn’t help much.
Documentation in formal meetings helps to put a firm foundation for everlasting peace in the eastern DRC because the main issue here is what they call root causes of the conflict, which means the facilitators are going to go deeper into the issue, because ceasefire is ceasefire.
When you cease fire, it does not mean you have achieved peace.
Ceasefire means they just stopped firing, but you might fire again because the anger is still there. So, we have moved into that situation whereby we look into the root causes of this conflict, and backed by the AU, the peace and security organ of the AU, and backed by the United Nations, I believe we are moving, and we are moving in the correct direction.
Q: Can you explain to us the inclusion of non-state actors in the peace process?
A: This was the innovation, because if you have got one rebel group, it does not mean that they are the only aggrieved people. There could be many. So, for the first time, besides talking about root causes, besides talking about a state-to-state agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, there is the issue of non-state actors.
We had to be involved. So, the terms of reference include the engagement of non-state actors. This is a breakthrough, because it must be complete peace.
It cannot be partial peace, because a state-to-state agreement between the DRC and the Republic of Rwanda does not stop the non-state actors from continuing doing what they were doing. So, this is now an inclusive process. We are sure that it will not be solved in one day, but we are sure that the direction is now correct and the framework is correct.
And I believe that will bring everlasting peace to the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Besides the fact that there are other processes that were taking place, like the Doha, like the Washington process, but all these would now coalesce around the AU-led process. So, I believe that this work which has been done is quite comprehensive and we are convinced that will bring peace and security to the southern African region.
Q: And what would be the next step for the regional bloc after that has been achieved?
A: After we have done that, we can now talk about robust industrialisation, robust infrastructure development for coordination, and robust human capital development and social services.
So, we believe that we are now at a point where peace can be seen in the horizon. Comprehensive peace, because quietness is not peace.
People can go quiet, but that doesn’t mean they are peaceful. We mean real peace.
Q: Let us look at SADC, the contributions of member states who funded the projects. Are the member states religiously paying their dues?
A: SADC has its member states paying their dues, by and large. Yes, there can be one or two problems, but SADC has procedures of dealing with those issues. So, we see that for Mozambique, we paid, we went through the process of bringing peace in Cabo Delgado and for the DRC, we also contributed.
That is why our troops were there. But, as part of the peace process, SADC chose to withdraw the troops so that we go into the next phase of negotiation and all of this process was funded by the member states of the Southern African Development Community.
We have done a lot (in terms of) our annual subscriptions, and I just want to say Zimbabwe is always paid up, anyway.
Q: Are you aware of countries which are not paying up?
A: Countries which are not paying up are dealt with in terms of Article 33 of the treaty, which imposes sanctions of different levels.
And there are some states at this moment, without mentioning names, which are on those sanctions. So, SADC has quite a robust bureaucratic procedure of how to deal with it.
But, by and large, SADC is a very efficient bureaucracy. It is a very disciplined bureaucracy.
So, in terms of contributions, it is happening. What we are working on, basically, is the next pillar, this pillar of industrialistion and His Excellency the President, one of the issues that he has worked on is to make sure that we do innovation for industrialisation, using our resources and our people in the region.
And in his lecture, which happened, I think, on the 15th of August last year, a public lecture, he outlined a road map for this region on how we can use our human capital and our God-given resources, our natural resources, our minerals, our flora, our fauna, our water, our people and our cultures, to build a SADC which is industrialised so that SADC begins to produce all the needs of these people.
Q: We saw President Mnangagwa during his tenure pushing strongly for an industrialised SADC. Did member states respond to this push?
A: The President, using the experience of Zimbabwe in terms of innovation for industrialisation, spread this approach to the SADC region.
For example, climate-proofed agriculture for food, our Pfumvudza/Intwasa. And I know, for example, Pfumvudza/Intwasa is one of the techniques that has been adopted in this Republic of Madagascar.
So, you see industrialisation and trade has been one of the issues.
But, in order for this to happen, His Excellency had to push the Regional Development Fund, the RDF, and Zimbabwe has actually ratified that. It is in the process of finishing the ratification of that so that we begin to have a fund that this region produces. Our main aim is to reduce dependence on international cooperating partners.
Although it is very welcome, but the agenda is ours and when the agenda is ours, we have to fund our own agenda and His Excellency, with his philosophy and doctrine, this RDF, it dovetails well with that, which means we are moving in that direction.
SADC is not a one-day project; neither is it a century project; it is a multi-century project. It is a permanent project for the dignity and integrity of Africans, driving their own agenda under the process of unity and solidarity among its people.
