Why SADC leaders keep backing Mugabe?
IOL February 18 2008 at 02:07PM Ten years ago, South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki attracted the world’s attention when he announced the arrival of the African Renaissance. But when the much heralded renaissance actually arrived in Zimbabwe two years later, in February 2000, and threatened the power of Zanu-PF, South Africa’s leaders took fright and became paralysed as President Robert Mugabe set out to extinguish by force the nascent Renaissance. This paralysis eventually acquired a name: it became known as South Africa’s “quiet diplomacy”. Meanwhile, Mugabe went about systematically terrorising the supporters of the opposition the agents of the African Renaissance and wrecked his country’s economy, with predictable results. A quarter of Zimbabwe’s people fled to neighbouring countries, that is, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana, but especially to its bigger and richer neighbour, South Africa. The South African government estimates that between two and three-million Zimbabweans no
