The Mmegi

The Botswana Civil Society Solidarity Coalition for Zimbabwe (BOCISCOZ) is hosting Zimbabwe Week at Boipuso Hall in Gaborone.

The event ends tomorrow, two days before the start of the SADC Summit in South Africa. The discussions at the Boipuso meeting are meant to update the public on the situation in Zimbabwe, the constitutional review process, electoral reform, national healing and reconciliation.  So far, the discussants say everything must be done to stop elections that the ZANU-PF is pushing for this year. Dewa Mavhinga from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CRC) appealed to the region to give priority to finding solutions to the Zimbabwe crisis which has been unfolding for a decade now.  He said SADC should try to do all it can to prevent the elections that President Robert Mugabe's regime is pushing for despite the fact that the SADC troika has stressed the importance of implementing the Global Political Agreement.   The agreement envisages a referendum on a new constitution before elections can be held.

"The troika has to be translated into action, and SADC has to see to it that the agreement is implemented," he said. They asserted that the language that dictators understand is action; hence SADC should do the needful.

Mavhinga was among the four panellists, discussing human rights in Zimbabwe. He spoke at length about the military being partisan and militarisation of the civil service, which he called the root cause of problems in Zimbabwe. "Once Mugabe said the bullet should protect the ballot, which is not democratic at all, now defenceless civilians are being terrorised by the force," he said.  He added that the national healing and reconciliation exercise does not make sense if perpetrators of violence are left to their own designs.  Runyararo Munetsi from the Zimbabwean Election Support Network (ZESN) said there should be a mechanism to ensure that external voting in Zimbabwe is not manipulated.  She said that the country is not ready for elections this year. 

Another member of ZESN, Barbra Nyangairi shared the same sentiments, saying the electoral system is already corrupt and the diaspora voting exercise will make matters worse.  The election observation and monitoring manager.

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