Zimbabwe@35: President Mugabe a champion of peace

For the past thirty five (35) years Zimbabweans have celebrated flourishing peaceful and a serene environment because H.E. President Robert Gabriel Mugabe has mastered the skill of bringing peace in the country. Everyone is quite aware that there is peace in the country which is not synonymous with other countries in Africa and the world over which have been under incessant armed conflicts for time immemorial.
As we celebrate the 35th anniversary of independence, which did not come easy, Zimbabweans should also take stalk and get to know why our country has been peaceful as it has not experienced any armed conflict for more than three decades unlike in other countries. It is a fact that President Mugabe who, since day one as the Zimbabwean leader in 1980, has chosen to preach peace and unity as the foundation to building a better, if not a best nation ever in the world.

His call for unity and peace, in his maiden speech on the eve of independence on 17 April 1980, has for decades remained at the centre of his independence addresses.

President Mugabe, then Prime Minister, on 17 April 1980, had this to say "If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself. If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you……….. I, therefore, wish to appeal to all of you to respect each other and act in promotion of national unity rather than negation of that unity."

As such, that speech which President Mugabe made on the eve of Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 became the centre of unity and peace in the country. President Mugabe proved to the world, in general and to Africa in particular, that he did not make that speech in vain as he put his words in action. For that reason, Zimbabwe has been having peace and tranquility because of him.

In the early days of  Zimbabwe's independence, some political disturbances happened in the Matabeleland and Midlands regions culminating in the armed forces of Zimbabwe being called in to quell out some armed conflicts there. That era, which became known as Gukurahundi, was amicably solved by the intervention of President Robert G. Mugabe and the late Vice President, Dr Joshua Nkomo when they signed the Unity Accord on 22 December 1987.

The signing of that Unity Accord between President Mugabe and the late Vice President Dr Joshua Nkomo made it possible that peace in the country prevails. Even today the country is peaceful although some opposition political activists think otherwise. The country boosts of the peaceful environment because President Mugabe has been managing to make sure that despite differences in opinion, people should respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Zimbabwe. He has also cultivated into people the spirit of patriotism in order for them to be proud of being Zimbabweans, thereby creating the spirit of unity among themselves.

Regionally, President Mugabe has managed to bring peace through either negotiations or sending troops in troubled countries as a way of bringing peace in such countries. In the mid 1980s, the Zimbabwean forces were involved in the peacemaking processes in Mozambique when that country was in a civil war.  The civil war, which started soon after the independence of Mozambique in 1975, was destabilizing peace in the region and a lot of people in countries bordering Mozambique were affected by that war.

The Mozambique government was under attack from the Afonso Dhlakama-led rebels under the banner of Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO). So the swift intervention of the Zimbabwean forces there brought Renamo to the negotiating table with the Mozambican government and on October4, 1992, a General Peace Agreement was signed in Rome between the then President, Joaquim Chissano of Frelimo and Afonso Dhlakama of Renamo, ending a seventeen year armed and long protracted civil war in that country.

Zimbabwean forces went on to excel the world over in bringing peace in various countries when called upon by the United Nations to do so. In the 1990s, the Zimbabwe's armed forces combined with forces from other countries were in joint attempt operation to bring peace to Somalia. The ZNA forces who were operating under United Nations Operation in Somalia Two (UNOSOM II), from March 1993 to March 1995, were among a strong force of 28,000 personnel, including 22,000 troops and 8,000 logistic and civilian staff from other countries. Other forces which the Zimbabweans were rubbing shoulders with were from Australia, France, Germany, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the USA and other African and European countries.

In a move that showed that President Mugabe is for peace and unity in Africa, between 1997 and 1999, Zimbabwean forces, under the SADC's  Operation Sovereign Legitimacy was undertaken together with the Angolan, Namibian and Chadian forces in the DRC  to repel the menacing rebel forces that were sponsored by Rwandese and Ugandan governments. The Operation Sovereign Legitimacy wanted to prop-up the late Laurent Kabila, then President of DRC from being overthrown by those rebels. President Mugabe's objectives of restoring peace were fulfilled by that operation.

As such, Zimbabwe under President Mugabe has been involved in quite a number of African and United Nations operations meant to bring peace in the world. Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officers were also deployed in different countries under the United Nations operations meant to bring peace and tranquility in troubled countries. In 2009, the ZRP was involved in the United Nations peacekeeping operations in Kosovo as the world body showed confidence in the Zimbabwean forces for such operations. ZRP officers were also involved in peacekeeping missions in countries like South Sudan, Liberia and East Timor where they were reinforcing the European Union forces.

President Mugabe has been making sure that peace in Zimbabwe is pointless when other countries in Africa and the world over are at war. Even in the UN General Assembly Summits he has always denounced countries sponsoring opposition political parties in developing countries as a way of creating divisions and spearheading regime change projects in such countries. His principled stance against machinations of illegal regime change, by the so called developed countries against developing countries, is second to none.

So, President Mugabe's stance on seeing that peace and tranquility need to be experienced by everyone in the world in general and Africa in particular saw him being made to lead both the SADC and the AU simultaneously. African leaders have faith in him and they are quite aware that in President Mugabe they have a principled and charismatic leader.