[R-G] Herald exposes govt’s real reason for refusing Elders

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16695&Itemid=103

Herald exposes govt’s real reason for refusing Elders
Thursday, 27 November 2008
HARARE – The Mugabe regime has been vociferous in its efforts to  
justify refusing permission to the Elders to enter the country and see  
for themselves the total collapse of all services and the extensive  
human suffering over which Robert Mugabe has presided.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, told the  
media that the Elders had not given sufficient notice of their  
intended visit to Zimbabwe and he and his fellow ministers were all  
busy planting crops – as this is the planting season.
But the government’s real thinking has been exposed in the state-owned  
media. Hundreds of column centimetres have been devoted to delusional  
statements such as:  “The group of "Elders" that wanted to visit  
Zimbabwe on a "humanitarian mission" was, in fact, bent on rescuing  
MDC-T after Sadc resolved that the inclusive Government should be  
formed as a matter of urgency, it has emerged. The mission was part of  
a grand plan by Britain and the United States to get the United  
Nations to intervene in Zimbabwe and reverse the Sadc resolution.
“The "Elders" were supposed to produce a damning report on the  
humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe. Such a report would have given the  
UN Security Council basis to invoke the "responsibility to protect"  
clause paving the way for the aggression and intervention in Zimbabwe  
by foreign countries.
“The clause allows for foreign intervention or aggression supposedly  
to save people whose government is deemed to have neglected its  
responsibility to protect them.
"It is a clause for aggression or intervention using the cover of the  
UN. The ‘Elders’ are legitimising instruments of the plot. The  
‘Elders’ are a Trojan horse for the politics of regime change. The  
whole plot was to reverse the setback suffered by the MDC in Sandton  
and sideline the Sadc resolution."
The Herald goes on to quote Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba as  
saying:
"The so-called ‘Elders’ are a creature of pro-Labour British corporate  
interests. There is nothing elderly about them. But what is more, it  
is a very condescending title. If they are ‘Elders’ what do  
Zimbabweans become, infants?"
Charamba then proceeds to use the columns of the state-controlled  
daily to denigrate and insult the elders individually.
In reality, Nelson Mandela, his wife Graça and Nobel peace prize  
winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu convened The Global Elders on 18 July,  
2007 in Johannesburg. It is a group of world leaders who were expected  
to contribute their wisdom, leadership and integrity to tackle some of  
the world’s toughest problems. Mandela announced the formation of the  
group in a speech on his 89th birthday.