31 July Movement writes to SA President Cyril Ramaphosa

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Dear President, Your Excellency

On behalf of the people of Zimbabwe who have expressed themselves loudly on social media, and have expressed themselves on issues they want addressed legally, we are grateful that you have found it necessary to appoint Mrs Baleka Mbete and Mr Sydney Mufamadi as your envoys to the Zimbabwe crisis.

We hope they will do a thorough and genuine deliberative engagement with the people and fully understand what the people want, before engaging in what might turn out to be another failed ‘elite’ negotiation or whitewashing of issues.

We say so because we have noted your appointment of Mr Mfamadi who was previously an Envoy with for former President Thabo Mbeki in 2007. Yet their mission left the situation unresolved, leading to the current mission; the issues remain the same:

• economic mismanagement, leading to corruption and poverty,

• refusal to reform electoral practices, leading to rigged results,

• infringement of media freedoms,

• persecution of opposition activists and use of fear as an instrument of power arbitrage,

• use of violence and impunity to suppress dissent by citizens.

We also noted that you referred to assisting Zimbabwe in the unfolding crisis. Yet, Zanu PF has already issued a belligerent statement, denying there is a crisis and almost personally attacking Your Excellency. There is also an attempt by Zanu PF to cast the crisis as that of an internal party crisis.

Off course, Mr Mnangagwa claims friendship to Mrs Mbete and Mr Mafumadi has been accused of being impartial, based on past experience with fears that the envoys may fail to take a different approach to Mr Mbeki, who focused on power-sharing between the two main political parties and ask the people what they want. Zimbabweans have therefore expressed their eagerness to have you, Your Excellency playing a more central role.

In the alternative, we request that the International Relations Committee of the South African parliament be given the mandate to engage with the Zimbabwean crisis on your behalf. As an interparty Committee, we trust it would be more partial and achieve a more genuine deliberative engagement process.

We, therefore, urge the envoys to depoliticise the dialogue and concentrate on the broad wishes of the citizens. These wishes of the people have nothing to do with internal Zanu PF issues, except that Zanu PF supporters are also citizens who may also want a better Zimbabwe.

The wishes of the people are coming out there in their hashtags on the social media and in their messages as they called for legally provided for protests. They are saying: address corruption, allow free expression, stop the economic mismanagement and corruption, pay citizens in the same currency and live within the government’s means, release the detained journalists and activists and stop the abductions

Remove the threat on activists who have been forced to go underground because police say they want to interview them in connection with the planned demonstrations which are their constitutional right. Create opportunities for Zimbabweans to have better lives and stop violence and the use of fear.

But Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s police and soldiers launched a crackdown before, during and after the planned nationwide protests on 31 July which was meant to highlight the above issues. Indeed we have called for more action, including a week long shutdown from the 10th to the 15th of August with more to follow if these issues are not addressed.

The list of detained, abducted and spuriously charged activists is long. We would hope that they are freed before you even engage with President Mnangagwa, so that they may speak for themselves and the people they represent, in the consultations.

We want the consultations to start with the people, and find out for themselves whether they are “detractors trying to create a non-existent crisis” as Mr Mnangagwa’s spokesman was quoted saying yesterday.

We want to point out once again that this process needs to be depoliticised and to be inclusive to capture the aspirations of ordinary citizens.

Much has been said about the deafening silence from South Africa and SADC on Zimbabwe.

The people will not be satisfied without a transparent and sustainable way to eradicating violence, impunity and corruption.

As the outcry that you have responded to, Sir, arose from social media and ordinary citizens, so must this engagement not be mired in quiet diplomacy involving the ‘elites’ and ignores the citizens.

Yours Faithfully

Job Sikhala

Spokesman for the 31st July Movement