The front page of yesterdays Sunday Times made for interesting reading. The headline was ‘If you go on like this, there will be no country left’. These are said to be the words contained in a letter that the leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition party, the MDC, wrote to President Thabo Mbeki. It is clear that the MDC is not happy at all with what President Mbeki has done to try ‘help’ the Zimbabwe situation and Tsvangirai seems to be placing a lot of blame on Mbeki.

Is Mbeki to blame for what is happening in Zimbabwe? Some circles would say that Mbeki has his own country to run in South Africa and thus he should not be blamed for what is happening in his neighbouring country. These same circles would also say that Zimbabwe should take care of its own mess. But then there is the other side of the coin which is what is incensing the majority of Zimbabweans and has been highlighted in this alleged letter from the MDC to President Mbeki; this side feels that Mbeki has failed dismally as being a mediator between the MDC and ruling ZANU PF party.

President Mbeki was asked to mediate talks between the two parties in Zimbabwe so that some kind of civil agreement can be reached by the two parties and that Zimbabwe can move forward as a country. But according to the report in the Sunday Times, the MDC accuses Mbeki of: lacking neutrality, dividing the MDC, blocking United Nations discussions on Zimbabwe, helping Mugabe’s government acquire weapons, suppressing the Khampepe-Moseneke Report on the 2002 Zimbabwe elections, which means Mbeki has no “moral claim to mediate a state of affairs at which he has, in secret, connived; and breaching the principles of mediation by showing a lack of respect to the MDC. If this is all true, can you still blame Mbeki for what is happening in Zimbabwe? Many would say, “Yes!”

There is so much Mbeki could have done in his position as mediator and as President of South Africa in order to help Zimbabwe, but he has failed to do so. “Crisis? What crisis?” will be words never to be forgotten, when Mbeki came out and said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe. How then can you blame a man who clearly thinks there is no crisis in Zimbabwe? A man who sees no crisis can obviously not help in anyway as to him everything is normal. Maybe if he admitted there was a crisis then he would have done something to help that crisis.

Scores of people are dying in Zimbabwe daily due to the political situation. The runoff election is taking place on 27 June and it is anyone’s guess how many more lives are going to be lost in the next 20 odd days. Tsvangirai is clearly outraged by Mbeki but he should forget about it now and try focus on how best he can win the 27 June vote. What would be interesting to note is what would happen if by some miracle Tsvangirai wins the vote, Mbeki would then feel so small. All his alleged ‘efforts’ of trying to keep Mugabe in power would have gone to waste.

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