Betrayed by silence: How Southern Africa failed Mozambique – Justice Malala

As Mozambique teeters on the brink of civil unrest, over 260 lives have been lost in post-election violence, and thousands flee the chaos. Justice Malala exposes the failure of Southern Africa's leaders and SADC to act decisively against electoral fraud and escalating violence. With trade, democracy, and stability at stake, will the region's inaction drag Mozambique back into the shadows of its bloody past?.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..The seventh BizNews Conference, BNC#7, is to be held in Hermanus from March 11 to 13, 2025. The 2025 BizNews Conference is designed to provide an excellent opportunity for members of the BizNews community to interact directly with the keynote speakers, old (and new) friends from previous BNC events – and to interact with members of the BizNews team. Register for BNC#7 here..By Justice Malala___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Christmas season in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is usually marked by the sound of Feliz Navidad bellowing from boom boxes in the city's bustling streets while shoppers jostle in heaving markets and shops. Not this year, though. The country has descended into chaos, with more than 261 people killed in clashes between police and supporters of opposition leader Venancio Mondlane and his party Podemos. Thousands of Mozambicans are fleeing into neighboring Malawi, Swaziland and South Africa as violence linked to disputed Oct. 9 elections intensifies..Mozambique now faces the possibility of a damaging period of civil unrest that may drag it back into the chaos of the bloody 16-year civil war that ended in 1992. If this happens, blame should be laid squarely at the door of the country's neighbors and the regional body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC)..Despite strong evidence of electoral fraud, the leaders of former liberation movements in the region rushed to congratulate Mozambique's ruling party Frelimo, an ally from the anti-colonial struggle period. When the protests escalated and the death toll mounted throughout October and November, African leaders failed to raise their voices. Instead, they sent in the highly compromised president of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to resolve the conflict. Mnangagwa is not only accused of electoral fraud in his own country but also of interfering in elections in neighboring Botswana, South Africa and Namibia..Worst of all, when regional giant South Africa — which relies on trade routes through Mozambique for food and energy security — decided to intervene in mid-December, it met with Mozambican government leaders only and excluded the opposition from talks. It boggles the mind: Did South Africa expect Frelimo to make peace all by itself?.Mozambique has experienced violent protests, border and road blockages, business stoppages and other disruptions since Oct. 20 when the electoral authority declared Daniel Chapo of the ruling Frelimo party the winner of the presidential elections with 71% of the vote. Podemos and Mondlane only received 20%, the authority said..The opposition rejected the outcome, claiming the vote had been rigged. On Dec. 23 the country's top electoral court upheld the results of the elections, but reduced Chapo's percentage to 65%. Mondlane, who is in hiding outside Mozambique after one of his closest aides and his lawyer were murdered, has called for protests and vowed to install himself as president on Jan. 15 when Chapo is set to be inaugurated..Read more: Mozambique braces for more violence and logistics disruption.Mozambique has the world's largest untapped coal deposits and is rich in mineral resources such as graphite, ilmenite, beryllium and numerous others. The economy has posted an average annual growth rate of more than 5.4% over the past 20 years. Poverty, however, has remained stubbornly high, with the country rated among the 10 poorest nations in the world since the 1990s..Until the unrest, Mozambique's economy was forecast to grow by 5%. A senior International Monetary Fund official said last week that this is likely to be revised down. Standard Bank Mozambique cut its 2024 growth forecast to 3.6%..All of this could have been avoided if the regional powers had acted ethically and swiftly at the beginning of the crisis. For example, when election observers from SADC declared no problems with the polls, in sharp contrast to other observers who reported ballot-stuffing and numerous other transgressions, red flags should have gone up. The European Union Election Observation Mission said it noted the "tainted credibility of the electoral process" — but no action was taken..South Africa's governing African National Congress, a fellow liberation party that was accommodated by Frelimo in its exile years while fighting against apartheid, rushed out a statement congratulating the ruling party on its "victory" even before the official results announcement. Other former liberation movements in Angola, Tanzania, Namibia and Zimbabwe followed suit, choosing to buttress a kindred organization's stay in power at the expense of democracy..Over and above being accused of influence-peddling in elections in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique this year, Zimbabwe was denounced by SADC observers in 2023 as its own elections "did not satisfy SADC's requirements and guidelines for democratic elections." Yet it was Zimbabwe that SADC sent in to resolve the Mozambique conflict..The crisis is deepening as the death toll mounts and commerce grinds to a halt. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called for restraint and dialogue. A start would be to dump discredited, partisan regional players such as South Africa and Zimbabwe as mediators. Instead, a new, credible mission of independent African and global players needs to be dispatched to the region swiftly to drive an inclusive, sustainable and open dialogue aimed at fulfilling the will of the people..The alternative is further descent into the sort of anarchy that one of the world's poorest countries can ill afford..Read also.Matthew Winkler: Rand strength shows SA's GNU means businessJonathan Levin: Stock bears are disappearing – should investors be concerned?RW Johnson: Pretoria's support for global monsters exposed in Syrian "Belsen redux".2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Betrayed by silence: How Southern Africa failed Mozambique – Justice Malala

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