Open letter to Thabo Mbeki on Zimbabwe

My name is Vincent Musewe, I am an African.

At one stage I thoroughly esteemed you as a propitious leader of Africa. Your eloquence and apparent grasp of matters affecting Africa as a whole made me also aspire to be a leader like you. I thanked God and prayed for you, assuming that your intentions were upright and that at last, we had a man of truth and reputation to help us dislodge Africa's dictators and free us from tyranny. I was wrong.

I am now melancholic and highly disillusioned at the revelations of your role in hiding the truth in Zimbabwe's quest for a free society in 2002.

It seems to me that your political interests were more important than the probable freedom of 13 million Zimbabweans, some of whom today must toil in your country, not because they want to, but because of Mugabe's tyranny at home.

If it is indeed true that you personally had a role in hiding the truth about our 2002 elections, whose free and fair implementation could have seen my country go onto a new path of democracy and economic growth, then my approbation for you must cease on this day.

Funny enough, whatever you sort to avoid then with regard to your political strategy and fears against labour movements gaining political power, is beginning to happen anyway in your country as we have recently heard.

Your clandestine backing of Mugabe during your term of office is well known to most of us and your role in prolonging his stay in power must go down in history as the great betrayal of Africans by another African who claims to represent the best amongst us.

The implications and adverse impact of your actions in hiding this truth are so grim and cannot be brushed off as a mere historical blunder as some would have us believe. It in fact means that Mugabe should never have been recognised by your regime as the legitimate President of Zimbabwe after 2002 elections. It would mean therefore, that despite your purported verbal commitment to democratic rights, your administration knowingly and willingly supported an illegitimate leader for political expediency at an unimaginable expense to us. That is a travesty.

I must say that your ideas on the African Renaissance were once attractive and exciting and yet, I suspect that they were not authentic after all. For goodness sake, how can we as Africans shape the future we desire when those we give the responsibility to lead us deliberately abrogate our democratic rights? How can we become the masters of our destiny when other men, Africans in fact, seek to incapacitate the peoples' will as has happened in my country since 2002?

Today Zimbabwe is at the tipping point because the man you chose to stand by has all but ruined our economy. Since 2002, our economic and social conditions have deteriorated drastically that most ordinary Zimbabweans wish for the old times; our "liberators" have, by devious intent, become our oppressors.

I am not a proud African today as you claimed to be in your speech in parliament during your times. I am not confident at all that we Africans can ever claim that we are indeed our brothers' keepers nor can we expect Africa to rise.

To this day, Zimbabweans continue to bear the deleterious consequences of your selfish political choices. Some have died in the process, while others have given up on their hopes and dreams. Others have had to leave their motherland, while most have lost their wealth and livelihoods.

Make no mistake; I am not putting all the blame on you. It is easy to blame others and not take responsibility for changing our circumstances. I am not cut from the same cloth as Mugabe who has refused to take responsibility for the circumstances he has created. He continues to blame the West for our woes and yet, he has and continues to play a decisive role in creating the very circumstances which he now blames everyone else for. That is despicable.

Mr Mbeki, you inadvertently supported Mugabe's rule by deliberately postponing the publication of this report and this means that, in my books, you are complicit as some here are, in prolonging this tyranny and delaying the fruition of our aspirations for a better Zimbabwe.

If the truth be told, we now have a failed state in Zimbabwe and you cannot deny playing a part in its creation by your acts of omission and commission during your times. That is hardly something to be gratified of.

I hear that others are demanding an apology from your country, but I do not think that an apology will suffice. The poverty, hopelessness, corruption and greed that I see today in Zimbabwe can never be healed or soothed by words alone but by the removal of the dictator you so admire.

The economic and social regression that has been created by Mugabe's policies, including his arrogance and selfishness, will continue to be hard for us to reverse but we must fight on. We shall continue to fight on the principle and expectation that good can never be enduringly eclipsed by evil.

The wounds that your political schemes have caused us run deep and yet I truly believe that, notwithstanding, Zimbabwe shall rise again and one day we shall stand proud in our own country and look South as South Africa implodes. How ironic.

I pray that God through his boundless grace forgives you and those who have deferred our freedom from oppression of man by man.

We shall never forget.

My name is Vincent Musewe, I am an African.

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Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You may contact him on vtmusewe@gmail.com