Swapo must assume moral leadership

Herma Prinsloo
Speaking to Namibian Sun in August, former Botswana president Ian Khama accused liberation movements in Southern Africa of ‘oppressive brotherhood’, taking aim at their deafening silence on gross human rights violations in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

This sheer denialism, in the name of the tired narrative of solidarity, makes the likes of Swapo silent accomplices in the suffering of Zimbabweans.

In all life’s manifestations, we must be bold and morally inclined to walk away from toxic relationships that have morphed into contradictions of the original principles upon which such relations were originally formed.

Swapo and Zanu-PF, which has become a shadow of the movement that fought for the wellbeing of all Zimbabweans, were united by the common denominator of hunger to free their nations from the yoke of racist white minority domination.

When Zanu-PF drifts away from those ideals, like it has, Swapo and other liberation movements in the region that are still worth their salt, would be well within their moral rights and obligation to call out their Zimbabwean friends or completely disassociate from them.

Swapo last week blocked a PDM motion in parliament to discuss the Zimbabwean situation – an act of sheer cowardice because the local comrades are so spineless they can’t differ with their killer friends in the neighbouring country.

The lives of Zimbabweans have been sacrificed at the altar of political expediency, with none of the region’s movements, with a slight exception of ANC, prepared to provide moral leadership by speaking truth to Emmerson Mnangangwa and his gang of violence perpetrators.

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Namibian Sun 2024-04-20

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