AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SOUTH AFRICA

December 30, 2002

The Foreign Affairs Minister
PRETORIA
South Africa

Dear Hon. Minister:

Ref: Chinese Lessons for South African foreign policy chiefs?

If it is a matter of taste, particularly acquired taste, then the menu for the South African foreign policy chiefs has to be decidedly Chinese. But then that should come as no surprise, given the puzzling character of South Africa’s foreign policy: more puzzling than a Chinese puzzle, more foreign than home-grown fundamental African values.

The Chinese Puzzle –– South African Foreign Policy Style:

The Chinese are famous for great food and great puzzles. But does Africa need a Chinese puzzle for a foreign policy, the apparent acquired taste of the bean counters and foreign policy chiefs at your Department of Foreign Affairs notwithstanding? What would be wrong with a foreign policy that is truly founded and set on our time-honored African values of truth, honesty and integrity which would necessarily involve telling the illegitimate Mugabe regime the truth about South Africa’s true obligations in terms of the SADC, the NEPAD and the Commonwealth values and conventions?

South Africa’s International Obligations

You are supposed to know that the illegitimate Mugabe regime is serving time (for a period of one year, which has not expired yet) in terms of a binding Decision of the Commonwealth of Nations of which you are supposed to be a member, of good standing, and good enough to know that you have an ethical and moral duty to uphold Commonwealth decisions.

You are supposed to be a member of the SADC, of good standing, and good enough to be trusted with the upholding of the SADC conventions and values, with respect to democracy and democratic rule (even for Robert Mugabe).

You are supposed to be a founding member of the NEPAD, of good standing, and able to relate to good governance and your word of honor as given in Kananaskis, Canada, during the last G8 Summit, with respect to good governance for the African continent (which is supposed to include the Idi Amins and the Robert Mugabes of the African continent).

The Q and A Public Debate of the SA Chinese Puzzle Foreign Policy

Why then is it that, according to recent African and international news media reports, your ruling party seems to be pursuing a foreign policy imperative which is very much rooted in the past, as opposed to the present and the future embodied in the SADC, the NEPAD, and the Commonwealth (please refer to the statement by your political party’s spokesman, Mr. Smuts Ngonyama, as quoted in the Zimbabwe Daily Newspaper of December 16th 2002 in an article titled: ANC Defends ZANU PF Invitation)?

And from Idi ‘the Idiot’ Amin (he the former self-proclaimed ‘ Conqueror of the British Empire’ whom African foreign policy chiefs not unlike you once shamelessly crowned chairman of the Organization of African Unity – now rebranded the “African Union” and, in such notorious African Chair, Idi ‘the Idiot’ of African politics has, ironically, now been succeeded by President Thabo Mbeki), to Robert ‘the Comrade’ Mugabe (he the notorious elections fraudster, as declared by the largest observer mission to the recent Zimbabwe presidential elections, the Commonwealth Observer Mission), is it not about time African foreign policy chiefs showed some respect to fundamental African values of truth, honesty and integrity by demonstrating that African foreign policies (and, in this case, South Africa’s foreign policy) do not have to be all things to all man?

That it is one thing to sit on the Chair that Idi ‘the idiot’ once sat upon, but quite another thing to take leave of your senses - when it comes to flouting your international obligations under the SADC, NEPAD and Commonwealth conventions and values, with respect to the illegitimate Mugabe regime…
The Q and A Public Debate of the SA Chinese Puzzle Foreign Policy

History demands that South Africa’s chairmanship of the continent-wide body, the former OAU which is now the AU, should be such that it does not set the kind of legacy that the former chairman of such organization, ‘Doctor’ Field Marshal Idi ‘the Idiot’ Amin Dada (CBE), once notoriously established for the ‘good’ name of our continent.

How many Africans, particularly the majority Nguni and Tswana Africans in South Africa would agree with your pro-Mugabe/Zanu PF foreign policy priorities eloquently articulated by your political party’s spokesman, Mr. Smuts Ngonyama?

Given the well-known and well reported monumental atrocities of your preferred allies, ZANU PF, from the Gukurahundi genocide of the 1980s to the contemporary everyday litany of atrocities which have seen more than a million Zimbabweans flee to your country for protection under the 1951 Geneva Convention (which is not always respected by your government), just how many Africans would agree with such “aiding and abetting” irresponsible foreign policy?

Then there is the very undiplomatic attitude of the representatives of your preferred allies to fellow SADC members who dare to voice true African fundamental values of truth and honesty: the undiplomatic threat against Tswanas (as reported in the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper of December 6th 2002 in an article titled: Mangwana threatens Tswanas) refers. Who, in good conscience, can honestly say that they need such notorious serial offenders for allies? Really, does the ANC and its government (and the renaissance man’s Nepad) need such political albatross?

And as if the Zanu PF government sponsored Gukurahundi genocide, murder, rape and mayhem (as partly confirmed on the May 1st 2001 ecumenical report titled: “Breaking the silence”, and published in the ZWNEWS.COM website) were not enough, more of the same crimes against humanity, by your Zanu PF notorious allies, seem to be on the way, in the pipeline from hell - and back to hell, with the hopes and dreams of all the socio-economically affected African people in the African subcontinent; and all this, thanks but no thanks, to the apparent folly of your Chinese puzzle-cum-foreign policy initiatives, for the apparent ‘protection’ of an ANC-favored ‘comrade’ Mugabe, who clearly seems to be in great need of protection against the democratic will of the people…(the recent news media reports refer).

If we, as a new generation of Africans, are to believe that the legacy of the likes of Idi ‘the Idiot’ is truly behind us, how can this apparent contemporary monumental folly rest well with the conscience of the renaissance man for whom you are the chief foreign policy advisor?
The Q and A Public Debate of the SA Chinese Puzzle Foreign Policy

But since these evidently premeditated crimes may very well adversely implicate the ANC and its government, as the “aiding and abetting” accessories before and after the fact, when the victims finally get their day in court at the new International Criminal Court, please Minister, explain: so that we (and history – for posterity) may understand as to how your South African electoral mandate may or may not entitle you –– and your bean counters, who are clearly strangers to the democratic whistle blowing accountability cultures and traditions, and who just happen to be bean counters who know not how to spill them beans! –– to sit comfortably with such high crimes and misdemeanors foreign policy Chinese puzzle.

Please Minister, are you truly able to explain as to what part of such foreign policy is compatible with true fundamental African values of truth, honesty and integrity –– even integrity for the people of Zimbabwe whose only ‘crime’ is asking for a government of the people, by the people for the people, which the Commonwealth Observer Mission, the United States Department of State and the European Union do not see in the present illegitimate Mugabe regime?

And how do you explain the legitimacy of your current attempts to legitimize these notorious allies of yours outside the democratic process - with neither consent nor consultation with the majority of the people of Zimbabwe?

Please Minister, explain (in the name of the democracy which for many years you led the world to believe that you respected and honored, when your own country was under an equally illegitimate regime) as to what part of this unseemly and provocative foreign-to-African-true-fundamental-values Chinese puzzle has to do with us as Africans?

Or is it simply time-out for truth and true African values, and a time for a night-out for the Chinese menu?

Please Minister, hear us out: is it time? Is it time to throw caution to the wind, for the sails of notorious African foreign policies, in what my beloved brothers and sisters at the South African wonderful shebeens would understand to be a tempting of the Fates with “Umtshayina”?

Please Minister, we have no problem with the Chinese menu – outside the political arena.

Given the “Matshonisa” policies of the Mugabe regime, which are being aided and abetted by your policies, to the detriment of the entire African subcontinent,

The Q and A Public Debate of the SA Chinese Puzzle Foreign Policy

we the people might as well try “Umtshayina” – just in case our luck holds…and, thereby, make a better deal than the alternative of the “Matshonisa/ANC alliance” which has proudly produced a new man for the African political landscape, for our hopes and dreams: the renaissance man of African politics who now proudly occupies the infamous Chair that the ‘good’ Idi ‘the Idiot’ once sat upon for the ‘good name of African politics’; a renaissance man who, not unlike the ‘good’ and ‘great’ Conqueror of the British Empire, ‘Doctor’ Field Marshal Idi ‘the Idiot’, is generally understood to have rather unusual and unconventional ‘great ideas’ of ‘great men’: from the causes and management of HIV/AIDS to the apparent need to ‘protect’ the Mugabe regime from the democratic will of the people – which ‘lesser men and women’ simply cannot comprehend without them Chinese puzzle lessons!

Who said there is neither humor nor irony in African politics?

And, on the risk of offending the ‘holy cows’ of African politics, is it asking too much to invite a public debate (for we the people to exercise our democratic rights to hold our leaders accountable) on why the non-Caucasian members of the Commonwealth of Nations (at leadership level) seem to identify with the notorious Idi Amin/Robert Mugabe type policies, whilst the Caucasian members of the Commonwealth (at all levels) seem to have no love lost with the policies of the likes of ‘Doctor’ Field Marshal Idi ‘the Idiot’ and “uMatshonisa”, the ‘Great Leader’ of Zimbabwe and the Third Chimurenga?

And why do these “Matshonisa” style policies make African people poor and jobless, but make African leaders look important and make them rich?

Democratic Accountability

Finally, it is good to know that the Chair that was once occupied by a notorious ‘great leader’ Idi ‘the Idiot’ is now occupied by another great leader, ‘the renaissance man’ from South Africa who, unlike the Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada, is supposed to be committed to democratic accountability and the recognition of a democratic constituency.

Please, therefore, let us have your response to this open letter befitting the great leader and renaissance man that you now represent - the leader of the African Union; in a democratic dialogue process which the long democratically denied and deprived African people, like us, rightly deserve and demand –– if you can relate to that, and if that is not asking too much, given your political
Democratic Accountability party’s stated commitment to the past, as opposed to a commitment to the present and to the future (the ANC Mr.Smuts Ngonyama’s declared antiquated Zanu PF/ANC policies based on the ancient past refer).

Yours truly,

Thabo Siziba & Mthulisi Ndlovu