JUSTICE MALALA: Played like a fiddle as Zimbabwe burns

The despots and human rights abusers of Harare must be laughing like hyenas every time they look across the Limpopo at SA.

The murderous Zanu-PF has played SA’s leaders like a fiddle since 1999 when the ethical Nelson Mandela left office. They are still doing it now, a full 21 years later. Not only are Zimbabwe’s kleptocrats manipulating SA, they have got the ANC’s naive leaders breaking their own laws to please them. It is a crying shame, but the ANC brought it all on itself. Once you throw principle to the winds and start cutting corners for despots and kleptocrats you are lost. They will always play you.

Thabo Mbeki was so taken with Robert Mugabe in the early 2000s that he could not bring himself to see the man was a liar and a cheat. Mugabe tortured and murdered his subjects during the 1980s in some of the worst massacres on the continent, but the Mbeki administration conveniently forgot about that. In 2002 Mugabe stole the election.

Mbeki’s own administration had sent judges Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke to have a look-see. They came back and gave Mbeki a report saying those elections were neither free nor fair. They said in the run-up to the elections there had been widespread intimidation, more than 107 people, mainly opposition members, had been killed and laws had been changed to favour Zanu-PF. Mbeki refused to release their report and fought for years to keep it secret.

The shame is his to carry. A great president in so many respects, his legacy will forever be sullied by his role in Zimbabwe and his shoddy handling of HIV/Aids.

Then along came Jacob Zuma. Mugabe and Zanu-PF played him like a fiddle, too.

They must have howled with laughter listening to ANC ignoramuses such as Magashule

When Zuma and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) wanted to force Mugabe to sign on to a package of political and economic reforms, Mugabe told them to jump in the lake. He threatened to withdraw from Sadc. Instead of staring him down, Zuma panicked because he wanted to be seen as part of the "African solidarity movement" that Mugabe exploited. Mugabe even went to the extent of calling Zuma’s envoy to Zimbabwe, Lindiwe Zulu, a street woman and telling Zuma to shut her up.

Zuma, instead of standing on principle, tucked his tail between his legs and let Mugabe continue to plunder and steal from the corpse that is Zimbabwe. Every time he saw Mugabe he said "yessir".

Now you have President Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC comrade Ace Magashule. Mugabe may have vacated the stage, but the despotic and undemocratic thugs that surrounded him — including President Emmerson Mnangagwa and all of his cabinet — still know how to play the South Africans like a fiddle.

A few weeks ago Ramaphosa sent Mbeki’s old envoys, Baleka Mbete and Sydney Mufamadi, back to Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa and his friends read them the riot act and told them not to even try to speak to the opposition or civil society groupings. Tails between their legs, Mbete and Mufamadi beat an embarrassed path back home.

The ANC then essentially stole from the SA taxpayer — by commandeering a state plane to fly to Harare — to visit their Zanu-PF friends. On the jaunt were Magashule, Nomvula Mokonyane, Zulu and others.

You have to laugh. Say what you will about the Zimbabweans, they actually do like to attend school and read books. They are also politically experienced. They must have howled with laughter listening to ANC ignoramuses such as Magashule and Mokonyane. Worse, what are Magashule — mired in Gupta scandals — and the Bosasa-tainted Mokonyane actually going to say to Zanu-PF? Stop stealing? Please, man.

It was always going to end in tears. The ANC went to Zim, was thoroughly embarrassed — and should now be criminally liable for the misuse of state resources. Or, at the very least, defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula should be.

Ramaphosa would do well to take some advice — real advice — on Zimbabwe before he proceeds. His interventions so far have been an absolute disaster.