THE official programme of the 44th ordinary SADC summit begins in earnest tomorrow – 8 August 2024 – in Harare with the start of the meeting of Senior SADC officials to prepare the paperwork and decision issues for the SADC Council of Ministers; which will in turn meet also in Harare to prepare the agenda of the summit of Heads of State and Government set for Harare on 17 August 2024, during which Zimbabwe will assume SADC’s chairmanship for the first time in 32 years, since SADC became a development community in 1992.
By Prof. Jonathan Moyo
The theme of the 2024 summit is: “Promoting Innovation to Unlock Opportunities for Sustained Economic Growth and Development towards an Industrialised SADC”.
This is huge for Zimbabwe, as a country and as a state; a key and leading founding member of SADC, which was initially formed as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), in Lusaka, Zambia on April 1, 1980; following the adoption of the Lusaka Declaration, dubbed ‘Southern Africa: Towards Economic Liberation’.
At its formation, SADCC was a loose alliance of nine majority-ruled, independent states in Southern Africa; whose objective was to coordinate development projects among themselves to lessen economic dependence on apartheid South Africa. SADCC’s nine founding members in 1980 were Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland [now eSwatini], United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe first hosted an ordinary SADCC summit in Harare 43 years ago on 20 July 1981; and the second and last time was 35 years ago on 25 August 1989.
With the dawn of democracy in South Africa on the horizon; the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) was transformed into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on 17 August 1992 in Windhoek, Namibia; after the regional body’s ‘Declaration and Treaty’— which gave SADC a legal and corporate character – was agreed and signed at the Summit of Heads of State and Government.
The 10 founding members of SADC who signed the ‘Declaration and Treaty’ in Windhoek in 1992 were Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, who became 16 when they were subsequently joined by the Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, and South Africa; which was represented at the 17 August 1992 founding SADC summit by Cyril Ramaphosa on behalf of the ANC as its Secretary General, and Clarence Makwethu on behalf of the PAC as its President.
On 10 and 11 September 2001 – some 23 years ago – Zimbabwe hosted a special SADC Summit Task Force on Developments in Zimbabwe’. This summit was held at the invitation of President Robert Mugabe, and was chaired by President Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, who was the Chairperson of SADC.
ALL SYSTEMS GO FOR THE FIRST EVER ORDINARY SADC SUMMIT IN ZIMBABWE SINCE THE 1980 SADCC BECAME SADC IN 1992
The official programme of the 44th ordinary SADC summit begins in earnest tomorrow – 8 August 2024 – in Harare with the start of the meeting of Senior SADC officials to… pic.twitter.com/5gpnQuFN34— Prof Jonathan Moyo (@ProfJNMoyo) August 7, 2024
The Task Force had been established by the Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government at the regional body’s ordinary summit for that year, held a month earlier in Malawi on August 12 to 14, 2001. The purpose of the Taskforce was to work with the Government of Zimbabwe on the economic and political issues that were affecting Zimbabwe, and to assist the country in finding solutions to the identified issues.
What this means is that after its formation in 1980, Zimbabwe hosted only two ordinary summits of SADCC, on 20 July 1981 and 25 August 1989. And notably, Zimbabwe has not hosted an ordinary summit of SADC since its formation in Windhoek on 17 August 1992.
It against this backdrop and in this context that, given Zimbabwe’s ‘isolation’— largely triggered by the deleterious consequences of the unilateral and coercive Western economic sanctions and their regime change politics – the country’s hosting of the 44th ordinary SADC summit set for 17 August 2024, whose formal process starts tomorrow with the meeting of SADC Senior Officials is of immense historic significance.
This is about Zimbabwe, the country; not about any individual or any political party or about whatever some individual politician or his or her political party might fancy; the summit is about Zimbabwe. Specifically, it is about Zimbabwe taking its place in the comity of nations, thus ending Zimbabwe’s diabolic isolation by merchants of regime change and their running dogs, whose machinations have wreaked havoc and untold suffering of ordinary people in the country since 2001.
Symbolically and indeed substantively, Zimbabwe’s historic hosting of the 44th ordinary SADC summit set for 17 August 2024 – coming as it does on the back of the earlier revocation, on 4 March 2024, of the presidential executive orders under which the US government imposed unilateral and illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe –marks the end of Zimbabwe’s ‘isolation’.
This is a huge milestone for Zimbabwe.
It is no wonder that some usual merchants of regime change have been falling on each to once again raise their ugly heads, targeting the summit with the hope of derailing it or blurring and distorting its historic significance, to deny Zimbabwe its due opportunity to take its place and play its role as a nation-state, as a country, whose dividend stands to benefit Zimbabwe itself, as a country and a state, and all its people.
For the avoidance of doubt, it must be said that ending Zimbabwe’s ‘isolation’ does not, cannot and would not mean ending politics or political contestation in the country between or among Zimbabweans or their political formations. Politics or political contestation is an entirely different, unavoidable everyday matter or affair that has nothing to do with an interstate state summit, that brings together countries; not individuals or political parties from the countries in question.
It is therefore in the national interest that every Zimbabwean must do and play their part to ensure that Zimbabwe’s hosting of the 44th ordinary SADC summit set for 17 August 2024 is a success. Failure is not an option.
Zimbabwe must come first.
Internal or domestic fights can, as they sure will, resume the day after the summit; but between now and the summit, the focus should be on Zimbabwe, whose peace and stability must come first.
In the circumstances, and for the 2024 SADC summit in Harare to succeed as it must; everyone in the state and society, especially the government and political parties or political individuals, must do neither harm nor tell lies!