Africa

The corruption charges against Jacob Zuma either have legal merit or they do not. If the charges are baseless, they should be dropped. If there is a legal foundation to move forward, the process should play out.

This seeming truism comes to mind in light of the Friday protests by eThekwini ANC members who marched on Durban police stations demanding that the charges against Zuma be dropped and South African Communist Party (SACP) concerns that the trial will do damage to South Africa politically and financially.  There is at least some merit to the idea that a trial could have serious destabilizing effects on South African politics in the short run. But so too would dropping the charges for reasons unrelated to the legal merit of those charges and would merely replace one angry population for another.

An independent judiciary is the hallmark of any liberal democracy. As fraught as a Zuma trial might seem, far worse would be creating the impression that members of the country’s elite are above the law. The charges must go forward unless over the course of the legal process members of the judiciary decide not to pursue them any further because they doubt the legal merits of the case.

Springbok fans can step off the ledge. At least for today. The Tri Nations has been undoubtedly disappointing this year, especially given the promise going in and the win at the House of Pain in July. But today the green and gold crushed the Wallabies 53-8 at Coca Cola Park in Johannesburg. Jongi Nokwe scored four tries, including a first-half hat trick to lead the Springboks in a Man of the Match performance. Both the margin of victory and Nokwe’s four tries were all-time Springbok records against the Australians.

This probably will not stanch the grumbling about Peter de Villiers’ coaching, team selection, or anything else. But give the man time. A post-World Cup hangover coupled with a coaching change probably meant there would be growing pains. De Villiers deserves a chance to put his imprint on the Springbok program. They will be fine, as will he.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has been cleared to release its report, “On the Brink of the Precipice: A Human Rights Account of Kenya’s Post-2007 Election.” In this account a number of members of government and other public officials, including cabinet ministers, are fingered for their role in fomenting violence. Given that there are no provisions for amnesty for politicians involved in the post-election chaos, prepare for some instability within Kenyan politics, and perhaps for even more violence, though nothing that will match that which took place in the wake of the polling.

There is no guarantee that the commission report will be published, as the KNCHR’s does not enjoy the same level of protection as the commission of inquiry, meaning that those named could file defamation suits if they believe they are wrongly accused. Nonetheless the noose is tightening around the necks of some people who once thought themselves invulnerable. The names of those responsible for some of the worst of the violence are known. The actual publication of the report is almost a moot point.

Robert Mugabe does indeed intend to move forward with the formation of a new government over the protests of the Movement for Democratic Change, which wants to see the stalled negotiations resume. Junior information minister Bright Matonga announced “Nothing is going to stop us from forming a new government.”

The MDC believes Mugabe is acting in bad faith, which is, of course, how Mugabe tends to act. The negotiations were likely not to go anywhere because Mugabe had no interest in them going anywhere. Perhaps Thabo Mbeki or other SADC heads of state may bring pressure to bear to get Mugabe to negotiate, but surely once Mugabe has a government in place he will move forward with (mis)governing. One has to imagine that the reception he received when he opened Parliament from MDC MP’s only solidified his obstinacy. If we know anything, we know that Robert Mugabe is not a man who likes to be confronted, particularly by countrymen over whom he believes he has complete domain.

During the 1970s plane hijackings became a somewhat regularly recurrent phenomenon. In a post-9/11 world, however, such instances have become rare to the point of anachronism. Tuesday’s hijacking of a Khartoum-bound plane from the town of Nyala in southern Darfur thus provided a bizarre twist to events in that troubled area. Hijackers attempted to divert the plane to Cairo, but when Egypt refused to allow the plane to land it headed to southern Libya near the Sudanese border. At first the hijackers refused to negotiate with anyone, but finally surrendered after releasing hostages. 

Robert Mugabe’s latest gambit in Zimbabwe is to prepare to form a new government with or without the support of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The wily tyrant continues to insist that he is interested in continuing the power-sharing discussions, but in reality he was never interested in either discussion or sharing power. The stalemate provides him his excuse to be able to say he tried but the country must move forward.

Worth a read is Sean Jacobs’ not-really-a-review look at Heidi Holland’s new book Dinner With Mugabe. I wish he did more with the book by way of assessment, but Jacobs’ article is another otherwise worthwhile perspective on Mugabe’s rule.

When I read that Robert Mugabe had begun to appoint provincial governors and other political appointees I chalked it up as business as usual for Mugabe. With negotiations still ongoing, and at something of an impasse, he simply decided to establish facts on the ground and thus to act as if those facts reflect ongoing political realities. This sort of hubris is familiar to anyone who has watched Zimbabwe for a long time.

Less easy to comprehend, even thinking in terms of the language of pure power, was Mugabe’s decision to open Parliament despite protestation from the leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change. Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party do not categorically control parliament in the way that Mugabe lords over the executive, after all.  And wouldn’t you know it, Mugabe’s overreach turned back on him. MDC MP’s heckled Mugabe as he opened Parliament. And if that did not seem cheeky enough from Mugabe’s vantage point, especially galling had to be the election of the MDC’s Lovemore Moyo as speaker in a secret ballot despite Mugabe’s machinations behind the scenes. The winds of change continue to blow in Zimbabwe. The only question is whether Robert Mugabe will live long enough to see their ultimate impact.

The rather tepid performances of South Africa’s Olympians appears to have sent the country’s sporting fandom and chattering classes into another of its periodic crises of confidence (with finger pointing!). South Africa’s fans and media are the stage parents of the sporting world. They build   excessively high expectations for their teams, and then they crush those teams when they do not achieve those excessive expectations. Yes, the Olympics did not turn out as South Africans had hoped. But the sky is not falling on the country’s athletes. (That said, what a disappointment the Springboks have been after starting their Tri Nations campaign with so much promise.)

Amos Wako, Kenya’s Attorney-General, has told the country’s Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence that politicians who fomented violence should not be let off the hook. He believes that politicians who encouraged violence should not be allowed to serve in office, nor should they be granted amnesty for their deeds.

Wako’s words are encouraging inasmuch as it appears that the country’s legal leadership is serious about holding to account those responsible for the violence that consumed parts of the country after the tightly contested elections in March. One wonders, however, if Wako and the legal infrastructure would be able to follow through on the threats of maintaining accountability. And presuming that many of the guilty politicians still wield power and influence, might they be inclined to respond to state action by remobilizing their supporters? These concerns aside, Kenya seems on the right track by rejecting blanket amnesty for the perpetrators of politically-motivated violence.

South African History Online has a feature on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the United Democratic Front (UDF). With the African National Congress, Pan-Africanist Congress, and other organizations banned the UDF filled an essential void and fueled the anti-Apartheid opposition in the tumultuous 1980s. Largely locally focused, the UDF confronted apartheid as much by confronting local problems as through national campaigns. SAHO thus brings to light a vitally important but often misunderstood aspect of the struggle.