Botswana stance on Zimbabwe deadlock threatens diplomatic relations

The deadlock in the Zimbabwe power-sharing deal is threatening to revive the messy diplomatic confrontation between Zimbabwe and its diamond-rich neighbour, Botswana.

After leading the onslaught against the ZANU-PF government of President Robert Mugabe, Botswana has once again become the first southern African country to speak about the current crisis in Zimbabwe caused by the deadlock over sharing cabinet posts. 

Botswana has publicly indicated that it is not happy about the disagreement between ZANU-PF and the two factions of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MDC) on the division of cabinet posts.

Last Friday, Botswana president Ian Khama fired a thinly veiled broadside at ZANU-PF for causing the current impasse in Zimbabwe.

Speaking in the second city of Francistown near the border with Zimbabwe, Khama said that weeks after the parties in the Zimbabwe crisis signed a power sharing deal, the impasse still continues “due to what I consider to be selfish desires by one of the parties” an indirect reference to Mr Mugabe and ZANU-PF.

Instead of former South African president Mr Thabo Mbeki, Khama has called for an immediate deployment of SADC, African Union and United Nations mediators to resolve the Zimbabwe impasse.

Besides, Khama, the spokesman for the Botswana Foreign Affairs Ministry, Mr Clifford Maribe has said that the deadlock is a grave concern to his country.

“Almost three weeks have elapsed since the agreement was signed and the parties are reportedly deadlocked over how cabinet posts should be divided among the three parties,” Mr Maribe said in a statement.

He called on the mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis, Mr Mbeki to assist the parties in the Zimbabwe dispute to reach an agreement.

Before Mbeki brokered a power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe, Botswana tough stance against the regime was becoming a messy diplomatic headache that threatened to suck in other countries in the region.

University of Botswana political science lecturer, Professor Bertha Osei-Hwedie feels that the confrontation between Botswana and Zimbabwe will be revived if Mugabe continues to act unilaterally. “The statement from the Botswana Ministry of Foreign Affairs is just the first rumble,” she says.

However, she feels that any new confrontation will not cause too much protocol problems in the region because after all, it is a quarrel between politicians and diplomats who always find a way of accommodating each other at international forums.

“Remember that Botswana has indicated that it is willing to talk to Zimbabwe about its crisis. Even during the SADC summit in South Africa, Botswana did not completely boycott because Skelemani went there,” Osei-Hwedie says.

Before Mbeki brokered the Zimbabwe deal, signs had emerged that Botswana’s decision not to recognise Mr Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe was causing diplomatic and protocol problems in the region.

While Botswana was shunning Mr Mugabe other countries in the region had accepted him save for Zambia and Tanzania. This means that Botswana was getting isolated diplomatically because it had started boycotting regional forums where Mr Mugabe was invited.