By Moyiga Nduru
MASERU, Aug 17 2006 (IPS)

As the annual summit of the Southern African Development Community got underway Thursday, Zimbabwean activist Bishop Shumba was on hand in Lesotho’s capital – Maseru – to remind regional leaders about the political and economic difficulties in his country.

“We want to show the world that all is not well in Zimbabwe, and that (President Robert) Mugabe is not wanted in Zimbabwe,” he said, a huge banner in hand that read ‘Advocating Good Governance in Zimbabwe’.

Shumba, a member of the Johannesburg-based Zimbabwe Exile Forum, a pressure group, joined 24 other exiles traveling to Maseru to highlight conditions in South Africa’s northern neighbour.

Since 2000, the economic situation in Zimbabwe has worsened dramatically, something attributed in part to controversial farm seizures and a costly involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) civil war.

Foreign currency is in short supply and fuel scarcer still, while inflation has soared to over 1,000 percent. About a million of the country’s 11.7 million citizens are receiving assistance from the United Nations World Food Programme. Along with drought and AIDS, the farm occupations have dealt a serious blow to agriculture – and Zimbabwe’s ability to feed itself.

Various elections held since 2000 have also been marred by irregularities and human rights abuse. Like Tapera and Shumba, millions of Zimbabweans have left their country to make a living elsewhere, or to escape political persecution – many for surrounding nations, and the United Kingdom.

“The situation in Zimbabwe is bad. Mugabe is imposing himself on the people of Zimbabwe by rigging elections in order to cling to power,” Shumba noted, as the Zimbabwean exiles and other activists shouted slogans in front of the complex where the summit is being held. They were prevented from entering the conference centre by police.

Zimbabwe is one of the 14 member countries of SADC.

Timothy Thahane, Lesotho’s finance minister and the chairman of SADC’s Council of Ministers, refused to be drawn Wednesday on whether Zimbabwe’s problems would come up for discussion during the two-day summit of heads of state and government.

“I can tell you that the heads of states will be frank to each other during their closed sessions,” he said to journalists during a media briefing – although later reports indicated that the situation in Zimbabwe was amongst the issues to be dealt with during a summit session on Friday.

Noted another Zimbabwean demonstrator, Sam Tapera, “We knew that Mugabe would be protected by his colleagues. This is why we have come here to highlight the crises in Zimbabwe.”

“People in Zimbabwe don’t have voice. They are not allowed to organise demonstrations like were doing here. They live under dictatorship,” he told IPS.

Zimbabwe did not feature in talks at a three-day parallel conference organised by civil society groups.

“It was not on our agenda. We believe there are internal processes of dialogue going on in Zimbabwe,” said Ted Nandolo, chairman of the Malawi Non-Governmental Organisation Council.

“We see no reason to demonise Zimbabwe,” he told IPS.

To restore stability to the country, South African President Thabo Mbeki has engaged in quiet diplomacy towards Harare, a policy that has been widely questioned.

Mugabe frequently blames Zimbabwe’s problems on former colonial power Britain, accused of undermining Zimbabwe in response to the occupations of white-owned farms that got underway in 2000.

But, says Shumba, “Mugabe is just using (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair as a scapegoat. It’s Mugabe who is the problem, not Blair.”

While Zimbabwe’s government initially described the farm seizures as a spontaneous bid by veterans of the 1970s independence war to correct racial imbalances in land ownership that date back to the colonial era, the occupations were viewed by others as a ploy to win parliamentary elections held in 2000.

Mugabe, in office since independence from Britain in 1980, arrived in Lesotho Wednesday.

The only SADC leaders not in attendance at the Maseru summit are Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos; Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who is waiting for the results of landmark elections held last month in his country; and Swazi King Mswati the Third. They are being represented by senior government officials.

Swaziland will reportedly also receive attention during the Friday summit session during which Zimbabwe is to be tackled.

Political parties are banned in Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Mswati has further roused the ire of rights campaigners by living extravagantly at a time when about two thirds of his citizens exist on less than a dollar a day – and while the country is wracked by AIDS (Swaziland currently has the world’s highest HIV prevalence, on average 33.4 percent).

Other issues under discussion at the summit include economic integration of SADC states, food security, and infrastructure development.

The community is made up of Angola, Botswana, the DRC, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Excerpt: