Maybe its how journalists and the media are paraphrasing Tsvangirai but I’d like him (or them) to get rid of two words. Threaten and Warn.

How many times have we heard Tsvangirai threaten to boycott an election? Now he’s at it again. Whether he’ll follow through is anyone’s guess.

He’s also hauled out the W word and he’s “warning” South Africa that unless they help sort out Zimbabwe then the World Cup Football due to be held in South Africa in 2010 will suffer.

If pressed (and why don’t journalists do a better job of this) I wonder what Tsvangirai would ask Mbeki to do? Possibly he’s delivered his list of demands to Mbeki in person but somehow I doubt it.

A couple of letters published in this week’s Mail & Guardian give Tsvangirai some pointers.

Christopher Merrett from Pietermartizburg suggests

Financial sanctions played an important part in forcing the apartheid government of South Africa to the negotiating table. Zimbabwe owes South Africa a reputed R2,4-billion for electricity. Now is the moment to call in the debt or switch off the power; and remove other financial lifelines.

And a group of South Africans who were involved in the Apartheid struggle recommend that the South African government

explicitly condemn the violent actions being undertaken in the name of Zanu-PF and the Zimbabwean government

end all defence force, security and intelligence collaboration

cease supplies of all military hardware, spares and servicing

cease to roll over all official loans to Zimbabwe

respond sympathetically to asylum requests from genuine Zimbabwean refugees

use South Africa’s influence in multilateral forums, ranging from SADC to the African Union and the United Nations, to increase the isolation of the Zimbabwean government

freeze the assets in South Africa of Zimbabwean officials and party leaders who have been implicated in repression and violence

These might do well as measurable concrete demands. Tsvangirai then needs to set a deadline for response. In the meantime hopefully he and his team will have worked out how exactly they intend to “blight” the World Cup Football in 2010.

This entry was posted on April 2nd, 2007 at 12:30 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.