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were issued?
If its one communiqué, how come some in a highly literate society like ours can fail to decipher what is in clear black and white?
Whose interest is served by trying to put words into the mouths of the Sadc leadership over the farce that was the Livingstone Troika Communiqué that the Summit refused to endorse in Sandton apart from merely NOTING its existence?
Why does the private media insist on reading from the Livingstone communiqué that was issued by a mere organ of a Summit that reports to the Summit anyway, and not from the Sandton communiqué that was issued by the full Summit?
And, why ask Lindiwe Zulu to comment on Summit when she is a mere member of the SA facilitation team, and not even its spokesperson for that matter?
Where in the world has a facilitator ever had a spokesperson when his/her role is just to facilitate talks between rival parties?
Ask any diplomat worth his/her salt, even Jacquiline Zwambila, and they will attest to the fact that diplomacy has its own conventions and when a report of a sub-committee of an organ is merely noted but not endorsed after its presentation, it means the report is as dead as a dodo.
Therefore, if the Livingstone document was still a living document of Sadc, it would have been formally adopted by the Summit, which it wasn’t.
So, the fact of non-adoption, of silence, marked the death of that document.
In any case, all the party principals from Zanu-PF, MDC-T and the MDC acknowledged that the situation in Zimbabwe was now radically different from what it was during the time of the Livingstone Troika Summit; hence Livingstone was overtaken by events.
So to all intents and purposes Troika Livingstone is as dead as the man the venue was named after, and no amount of posturing or pontificating can equate NOTED to ENDORSED.
Any one with a modicum of understanding would know that the Troika is an Organ of Summit and its resolutions only become binding if they are endorsed or adopted by full Summit, otherwise they remain recommendations to be noted for historical purposes but not acted on in practical terms.
But what is it about Livingstone that has turned the MDC-T and its coteries of NGOs into Livingstonites?
Believe me it’s not about the content of the Troika communiqué which among other things called for:
l the implementation of the GPA and noted with disappointment insufficient progress thereof and expressed its impatience in the delay of the implementation of the GPA.
l noted with grave concern the polarisation of the political environment as characterised by, inter alia, resurgence of violence, arrests and intimidation in Zimbabwe.
l an immediate end of violence, intimidation, hate speech, harassment, and any other form of action that contradicts the letter and spirit of GPA;
l all stakeholders to the GPA to implement all the provisions of the GPA and create a conducive environment for peace, security, and free political activity;
l the inclusive Government in Zimbabwe to complete all the steps necessary for the holding of the election including the finalisation of the constitutional amendment and the referendum;
l Sadc should assist Zimbabwe to formulate guidelines that will assist in holding an election that will be peaceful, free and fair, in accordance with the Sadc Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections;
Surely, it is not these recommendations that drive the MDC-T’s obsession with Livingstone because the party itself is implicated in all of them.
MDC-T and private media’s obsession with Livingstone stems from the fact that they believed Livingstone had put a wedge between Sadc and President Mugabe.
They believed that in Livingstone, Tsvangirai transformed from the politically ugly duckling that he is to a beautiful swan that the region had embraced.
This is why the forces of regime change always harp about Livingstone and not Sandton which reflects the latest Sadc position.
The obsession with Livingstone stems from the regime change lobbyists’ mistaken belief that Sadc had ditched President Mugabe, the way the Arab League ditched Colonel Muammar Gaddafi prior to the scandalous UN Security Council Resolution 1973 that paved way for the bombardment of Libya.
But, Tsvangirai committed one fatal mistake in Livingstone that is now coming back to haunt him.
He lied about the situation in Zimbabwe and the region has since called his bluff, which is why in Sandton he spoke for no more than two minutes.
While lies can work on gullible MDC-T supporters, they do not work in a region like Sadc with its rich history of dealing askaris like Moise Tshombe, Jonas Savimbi and Afonso Dhlakama, to mention just a few.
So, to the MDC-T leaders and their coterie of NGOs, its better to expend energy on finding solutions to the multi-faceted challenges confronting the nation stemming from the ruinous economic sanctions you grovelled for, the meddlesome western hands that handle you and the politics of destructive engagement you stand for.
Livingstone is as dead as a dodo, the sooner you realise it, the better.
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