South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has urged the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to move its 44th Summit from Zimbabwe.
The DA, which is part of South Africa’s coalition government, made this call following the Zimbabwean government’s intensified crackdown on democracy activists.
In a statement issued on Friday, 02 August, the DA’s spokesperson on International Relations and Cooperation, Emma Louise Powell MP, condemned the ZANU-PF government’s repression of civil society.
She argued that hosting the SADC Summit in Zimbabwe would be inappropriate given the country’s deteriorating human rights situation. Said Powell:
The Democratic Alliance calls on the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola, to exercise South Africa’s right as a member of SADC and urgently demand that the 44th Ordinary SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government – scheduled to be held on 17 August 2024 in Harare, Zimbabwe, be moved to a different location.
The DA makes this call following multiple reports of yet another state-sponsored clampdown on pro-democracy activists by a paranoid ZANU-PF regime, fearing public protests in the lead-up to the summit.
The SADC’s founding treaty mandates member states to act in accordance with the principles of “human rights, democracy and the rule of law.”
ZANU-PF illegitimate regime in Harare has yet again violated these principles with impunity in the lead-up to the summit.
Powell cited recent examples of the Zimbabwean government’s crackdown on opposition and civil society.
This includes the detention of CCC faction leader Jameson Timba and 77 other opposition activists since 16 June, who were charged with holding an “unauthorised political meeting”.
Powell also pointed to the arrest of four democracy activists who were removed from a plane at Robert Mugabe International Airport and charged with disorderly conduct. She said:
By abusing state machinery to violate the rights of Zimbabweans, the unrepentant ZANU-PF regime has demonstrated that it is prepared to go to any lengths to violate the law in order to entrench its authoritarian rule. South Africa, and by extension the SADC, have an obligation to hold the Zimbabwean government to account.
Allowing the summit to proceed under the current circumstances will not only endorse ZANU-PF’s flagrant abuse of international law but further undermine the principles upon which SADC was established.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s upcoming SADC Chairmanship is a testament to the continued failure of regional leaders to hold these political thugs to account.
South Africa, as a leading member of SADC, must now take a firm stand to uphold international law and advocate for the summit to be moved to a location that upholds and respects democratic values.
This action would send a clear message that South Africa, as a member of the SADC, will no longer tolerate the suppression of democratic freedoms on our doorstep.
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