The Sunday News
Dumisani Sibanda
HATE him, love him but you cannot deny that President Mugabe who hands over the chairmanship of the African Union to the President of Chad, Idriss Deby, today, has proven to be the “Voice of Africa”.
Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo who was recently in Zimbabwe to exchange notes on international relations with President Mugabe aptly put it when he described the Son of The Soil, as “wise” ostensibly for his no nonsense approach when dealing with the world’s bullies, mainly the Anglo-Saxon alliance of Britain and the United States.
Unlike political midgets President Mugabe has not quaked in his boots when confronted by these powers that are generally arrogant and condescending towards the developing world.
After all with his wealth of experience having been there at the formation of the Organisation of African Union — the predecessor to the African Union — in 1963 as a representative of Zanu during the struggle to overthrow colonialism in Southern Rhodesia — now Zimbabwe — President Mugabe is a walking encyclopaedia of Africa’s never ending struggles against Western imperialism.
Guided by one of the Pan-African leaders, Nkwame Nkrumah’s philosophy encapsulated in the statement, “Seek Ye First the Political Kingdom then the Rest will follow”, President Mugabe has tried to use political independence to economically empower the black majority through the land reform and democratisation of the control of an economy that was a “dual enclave” in which the blacks got the scraps under the table while the whites sat and ate on the table.
In this regard the speech he made at the World Summit in Durban which made international headlines as the self proclaimed Goliath — Britain — which was represented by its leader, Tony Blair was felled by the Biblical David proved his seriousness to Pan-African ideals.
“We are not Europeans. We have not asked for an inch of Europe or any square inch of the territory. So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe,” President Mugabe thundered as Blair figuratively tried to hide under the table at the summit.
The truth hurts. President Mugabe has courted a large following from Africa and the rest of the developing world for his challenge of the Western imperialists as they try to tread on the downtrodden peoples of the World.
This is why as the curtain comes down on his reign of the Chairman of the African Union, a look at his term of office in the Pan-African body will clearly show that there was no back trekking on the issue of reforms at the United Nations Security Council to reflect the new political realities since the formation of the international body in 1945 with 51 members.
There are now 193 members of the United Nations.
“While the world has drastically changed since 1945 (the year when the UN was established), the United Nations has been stuck, driven along by the archaic systems which threaten to alienate (a) majority of its membership,” President Mugabe said at the UN Assembly in both his capacities as President of Zimbabwe and African Union Chairman.
He added the continental body of 54 countries wanted reforms to get a seat on the Security Council and rallied other progressive forces to support Africa’s quest.
President Mugabe also categorically stated that AU members want the selection of the UN Secretary-General to be conducted by the General Assembly and not as a rubber stamp of the Security Council.
“Nowhere does the UN charter say that the members who sit on the Security Council must sit in judgment of others,” President Mugabe said.
The context of President Mugabe’s and other Pan-Africanists’ clarion call for the reform of the international body is the structure of the United Nations and in particular the World’s self-appointed policemen, the UN Security Council.
Fifteen members form the Security Council with five permanent ones who have veto power: United States, Britain, China, France and Russia and other 10 chosen on a rotational basis.
There is a general feeling the United Nations Security Council membership and institutional structures reflect antiquated geopolitical realities and political thinking shaped by the world of 1945.
AU’s position is informed by the Ezulwini Consensus. Under the Ezulwini Consensus, the AU member states agreed to ask for an increase of UNSC seats from 15 to 26, with six of the 11 new members being permanent ones with veto rights and the rest five non-permanent ones. Two of the six new veto-wielding permanent seats should go to African countries while another two to Asia, one to Latin America and Caribbean and one to Western Europe. It is argued the history of the UN makes it important to review its current structure.
The UN was born after the First and Second World Wars which had horrendous casualties and devastated the World. It was felt having such an international body would help prevent future conflicts.
In 1945, representatives from 50 countries met in San Francisco to draw up the United Nations Charter. Those delegates deliberated on the proposals worked out by the representatives of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States at Dumbarton Oaks, United States in August and October of 1944.
The Charter was signed on 26 June, 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries and later Poland, which was not represented at the Conference, inked it.
Earlier an attempt to form a similar body — the League of Nations — was a disaster and failed to prevent World War Two. The Security Council of the United Nations has the primary responsibility under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security. Under the Charter, all Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. While other parts of the United Nations make recommendations to various States, the Council has the power to make decisions that Member States are obliged to obey. This gives the Security Council a very important and powerful position in the United Nations and in the world.
But Pan-Africanists of valour like President Mugabe are challenging this inequality and make no apologies for challenging the status quo.
“The UN cannot pretend that the world has not changed since 1945. We are no longer colonies. We are free, independent and sovereign states,” said Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly.
He questioned the rationale of Europe having three countries as permanent members of the Security Council yet Africa had none. The three are Russia, the United Kingdom and France. Germany is also pushing for a slot, dangling its economic strength.
“It is unacceptable, unjustifiable that more than one billion people in Africa are still excluded as permanent members,” said Museveni making the same demand by President Mugabe that the UN secretary-general be elected by the General Assembly of Heads of States and Governments.
During his tenure as AU Chairman, President Mugabe took advantage of being Co-Chairman of the Asia-Africa summit-held in Jakarta- to push the agenda of UN reforms.
“In the UN, the voice of the five prominent members of the Security Council carries more weight than that of the rest of us, the majority,” President Mugabe said. “Our calls for reform of the Security Council have yielded nothing so far. We must remobilise for success. One of the essential ingredients in doing so will be the strengthening of our unity in continuing to fight for a UN that recognises all its members as equal partners, not only in terms of the charter, but more crucially in practice.”
His co-chairperson at the summit, Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo also harped a similar tune expressing concern over global inequality.
“When a group of rich countries think that they can change the world by the use of force, then global inequality clearly brings about misery, in which the UN looks helpless,” he said.
But when all is said and done President Mugabe has stood shoulders above the rest of African leaders in taking the cudgels on behalf of the downtrodden and championing their fight for emancipation. Small wonder that a Zimbabwean Member of Parliament who was in Ethiopia, the African Union headquarters on a fact finding mission — Cde Kindness Paradza — told the August House here in Zimbabwe that “the majority of African ambassadors in Addis Ababa (Ethiopian capital) and AU commissioners had a consensus that if it was possible, President Mugabe would be given a second term as chairman or assume any other supreme role to fulfill, the pan-African vision of the continental body.”
