Mugabe, the NEPAD Africans, and they the whys and wherefores of rehab NEPAD-style (Nov 1 2002)

A political essay on the goings-on inside the NEPAD caravan of despots

So, not so long ago, the NEPAD African leaders led the G-8 nations, and everyone else who would take them seriously, to believe that the NEPAD Africans (and that, of course, refers to the privileged few; rather than the long suffering majority of Africans who, as usual, were never consulted about such dubious re-branded begging-bowl pseudo socio-economic moral high ground) were – at long last – ready, willing and able to abandon the unseemly seemingly perennial African tin-pot despotic bad governance notoriety; that, as providence would have it, these serial bad governance offenders could, somehow, become afflicted by a benevolent bout of ‘good conscience’; that, perhaps, the leopards might just learn to change their spots…

But, of course, the latest South African media reports about the NEPAD Africans U-turn on the good governance related peer review process should come as no surprise (October 31, 2002 Business Day report refers) – them leopards and them spots are not about to change, after all; even for the diplomatic niceties of the art décor of the NEPAD begging bowl which these serial bad governance offenders tout as the alchemy of the NEPAD-linked African renaissance dream.

But then – as in the el burladores of the grand opera (in Don Giovanni) – these bad governance delinquents are, all considered, totally bereft of conscience.

And, perhaps, time will be – after a good night at the opera! – when the G-8 nations come to accept the inevitable: that just as the NEPAD Africans are, in fact and in deed, seemingly afflicted with the el burladores-type absence of conscience (even when it comes to the need to consult the majority of the African people), it is only the people-oriented community development programs which the G-8 nations could, in good conscience, support.

But, of course, the NEPAD Africans are evidently busy concerned with the rehabilitation of one of their own – the much loved and revered icon of the NEPAD philosophy, Comrade Gabriel Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose ignominious NEPAD-style record of electoral fraud and notoriety precedes him.

What then are the whys and wherefores for the recognition and support of the NEPAD agenda – the apparent NEPAD el burladores notwithstanding?

By: Thabo Siziba

N.B: The above opinion statement was refused publication by all independent Zimbabwe newspapers –– even after paying for such publication, because, as the editor of one popular Zimbabwe independent newspaper said “we are afraid of being sued. And besides the article is too inflammatory and unsuitable for the people of Zimbabwe”.