Mbeki 'must condemn' Mugabe
2004-09-22 12:07
Cape Town - South Africa's veteran liberal politician Helen Suzman says President Thabo Mbeki should condemn the political antics of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Interviewed on the BBC's HardTalk programme presented by Tim Sebastian, Suzman - who referred to "Mad Bob Mugabe" - was asked why she did not like the attitude of Mbeki to Mugabe.
Suzman, who served in the apartheid parliament from 1953 to 1989, for much of that time the sole liberal voice in the Old Assembly, said: "How many more years is he (Mbeki) going to go on talking to him, giving him all the leeway he needs to allow Mugabe to go in a totally undemocratic direction with his elections, with the way he treats the opposition and the way he manages the country."
Asked what Mbeki was supposed to do, she said: "Condemn it. That is what he (Mbeki) is supposed to do." Asked if this should be done privately, she said: "Privately is no good, he is a public figure and he must condemn it publicly."
Pressed on what would happen then, Suzman who ironically opposed sanctions against apartheid South Africa, said: "We could go much further than that. We could cut off the supply of electricity that they (South Africa's power utility Eskom) are giving them at a cheap rate."
Sebastian suggested this would lead to more hardship with more Zimbabweans flooding over the border into South Africa.
Suzman responded: "You might even have people actually getting rid of him ... instead of special bonuses for card-carrying members of his (Zanu-PF) party..."
'Holding hands with him'
Instead Suzman said Mbeki was "holding hands with him (Mugabe) and having pictures taken".
Asked about her view that she believed Mbeki was anti-white, she said where President Mbeki viewed things as going wrong "he says it is whites who did it". This had been reinforced by statements about white mining companies and a deputy minister accusing whites of looting South Africa.
Suzman was referring to the public spat between Mbeki and Anglo American CEO Tony Trahar over remarks by the latter about political risk in South Africa. The deputy minister concerned was Lulu Xingwana, deputy energy minister, who tore into "white capitalists" whom she accused of still "looting" the country's diamond resources.
Arguing that investment would have flowed into the country at a far faster rate if Nelson Mandela had remained president for a second term, she said that there was a profligate attitude to spending on weapons and jets while young policemen earned less than R4 000 a month and unemployment was at 40%.
Mbeki's attitude to the HIV Aids question had also reduced international confidence in governance in South Africa, she argued.