Sunday, November 01, 2009

Timid SADC can learn from ECOWAS

from Nehanda Radio\\.

Even as he headed for South Africa for the first in a series of meetings he hopes to hold with regional leaders, Tsvangirai would have known that there was no hope of the Southern African Development Community adopting a stance against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as tough as the one taken by Ecowas on Saturday against the leaders of Guinea and Niger.

In case you have missed your continental news, here is an update: Following the massacre of, reportedly, more than 150 people at an opposition rally in Guinea last month, Ecowas convened an emergency summit in Abuja on Friday.... the Ecowas meeting was no talking-shop.

West African leaders, headed by Nigeria’s Umaru Yar’adua, reacted by slapping Captain Moussa Dadis Camara’s regime with an arms embargo.

They also mandated Yar’Adua to lobby the African Union, the European Union and other international bodies to do the same.

In a statement issued after the summit, Ecowas described the state-sponsored violence in Guinea as a “real threat to the peace, security and stability” of the entire West African region...

Despite calls for help from a desperate MDC, the SADC has done very little to ensure that Mugabe meets his end of the bargain.

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