Before the summit the MDC-T made its expectations clear. We expected the summit to embrace the spirit and recommendations from the Sadc Troika summit of March 31 held at Livingstone, Zambia. MDC-T also expected the summit to embrace the concept of a time-bound and task-based roadmap to free, fair and credible elections where violence plays no part.
Zanu-PF on the other hand sought the setting aside of the Livingstone resolutions and a declaration that the lifespan of the inclusive government had expired and as such the country should go for elections this year. They also sought the abandonment of the process of coming up with a roadmap claiming that the GPA was a sufficient document to act as the roadmap.
The above two positions became the lobbying platforms of the two political parties in the region. The results of the endevours of the two parties are out there in record time for all to see.
Sadc refused to dance to the Zanu PF tune; it refused to commit political infanticide by killing its own baby called Livingstone.
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The summit — guided by the report from President Jacob Zuma, which included his Livingstone summit submission and its resolutions as annexures and the report of the Sadc committee on re-engagement with the West — embraced the letter and spirit of Livingstone by noting the two reports and proceeded to implement the recommendations of these reports.
The script of the summit reads as follows:
Zuma in his report to the summit stated that “the report takes off from where the last one, at the Summit of the Organ Troika on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, held at Livingstone in Zambia left off on March 31. That report is attached as Annexure F and also carries the Troika Summit Communiqué.”
President Zuma went further to say, “While Jomic has done its work well under the circumstances, the Organ Troika resolution is still relevant that; there must be an immediate end of violence, intimidation, hate speech, harassment and any other form of action that contradicts the letter and spirit of the GPA.”
Taking into account that Zuma said his report was supplementary to the Livingstone one and was made up of his Livingstone report and the communiqué as annexures, he went further to say, “The extraordinary summit should remember and accept that all the annexures hereto are building blocks of the overall report that we are presenting and, therefore, should be read at all times as a single entity.”
Finally President Zuma made the following recommendations to the summit verbatim quoted below:
“Sadc, through the Organ Troika, continues to assist Zimbabwe in the full implementation of the GPA;
“The Organ Troika countries appoint their representatives as soon as possible to participate in the Jomic;
“Sadc helps the Zimbabwe parties to mobilise resources for Jomic for the committee to better discharge its functions;
“The extraordinary summit encourages the GPA parties to move faster in the implementation of the GPA and the creation of an atmosphere conducive to the holding of an election that will be free and fair, under conditions of a level playing field; and “The inter-party dialogue negotiators should complete, as a matter of urgency, the drawing up of timelines for the implementation of the roadmap as part of the programme of action going forward.”
The second report submitted to the summit was the Sadc senior officials mission to the UK, EU and US. This report was presented by Ambassador Tuliameni Kalomoh, senior advisor to the Namibian president who led the team.
Kalomoh concluded that, “The mission was somehow encouraged that all those they met indicated that their countries and organisations were not inflexible in considering the lifting of sanctions. However, they have linked such decisions to progress by Zimbabwe parties to implement all provisions of the Global Political Agreement.”
Both reports of the facilitator and the reengagement mission were noted by the summit. But most importantly, the resolutions of the summit were based on the recommendations of these two reports.
