WHILE the SADC Extraordinary Summit held in Luanda, Angola, recently put paid to frenetic attempts by raucous characters in Zimbabwe, Zambia and their Western handlers to put the country under the spotlight, there remains worrying signs that the bloc is still a target of infiltration by the West.

Western countries, led by the belligerent US, have been on a mission to infiltrate SADC as part of their plan, drawn by the CIA in the late 1990s, before being joined by several other intelligence services from the West, to weaken and ultimately remove liberation movements from power.

The endgame is to reclaim ownership and control of land and natural resources in Southern Africa through installing governments pliant to Western needs.

They have since upped the tempo in their relentless pursuit of that project which they call ‘improving democracy’ and have increased funding for pro-West opposition parties in the region.

Recently, Nelson Chamisa, the ‘leader’ of CCC who is battling to contain internal rebellion in his structureless and stuttering party, became the latest beneficiary of the funding which he sought to supposedly quell ZANU PF ‘infiltrating’  his ‘movement’.

The funding was secured from South Africa, with the help of the likes of Musi Maimane (pictured), former opposition leader in that country who has been assigned by Western countries to recruit youthful and ‘democratic’ leaders across the African continent who will do the bidding of the West.

And it is this continued brazen interference in the internal affairs of sovereign States by the West, in particular their covert infiltration of SADC that should have liberation movements in the region and across the globe adopting, as a matter of urgency, measures to counter this brazen offensive.

The evil moves were clearly visible in the run-up to the August 23 harmonised general elections and reached full cycle when the chairperson of the SADC Election Observer Mission, Nevers Mumba (pictured), working with the EU and the US, published a widely discredited preliminary report that sought to tarnish those polls.

“As I have said to all the observer missions, please do not come to observe us with foregone conclusions from your homes or your countries. Come with an open mind. We are a peaceful people,” 

said President Emmerson Mnangagwa in his speech during his final rally at Tongogara High School in Shurugwi on August 19.

This was after the country’s security services had unearthed unusual activities by Mumba, whose midnight meetings with members of the EU and the US had attracted the attention of the country’s authorities.  

The opposition CCC had, prior to the meeting, claimed that the regional bloc would reverse the results of the August 23 polls and push for a government of national unity (GNU) which they have been clamouring for since their drubbing in those polls. 

Since then, there have been feverish attempts by Mumba, CCC and Western countries to cajole SADC to adopt and endorse the malicious report.

All that came to naught in Luanda in an incident-packed week where CCC once again vainly sought to cast the country in bad light through their now irritating ‘abduction’ narrative ahead of the Summit while elsewhere behind the scenes a President of a neighbouring country was vigorously urged to push for the endorsement of the discredited report.

The lobbying was being initiated by a prominent academic whose National Transitional Authority (NTA) project has suffered a stillbirth.

Several calls were made on Thursday and Friday between EU and US officials, together with opposition people and the aforesaid President, to map ways on how to put Zimbabwe on the Summit’s agenda.

The efforts culminated in that Head of State shamelessly trying to put Zimbabwe up for discussion during the Summit, a move that was swiftly rejected by leaders attending the Luanda meeting.

“Summit received an update on the elections in the SADC member-States and noted the report of the SADC Election Observer Mission to the harmonised Eeections in the Republic of Zimbabwe held in August 20223, and the general elections in the Kingdom of Eswatini in September 2023,” said the SADC statement soon after its meeting in Luanda which was held to discuss the security situation in the DRC.

“Summit wished the Republic of Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo peaceful and successful elections as the two SADC member-States hold their elections in November and December 2023, respectively, and reiterated SADC’s support through the deployment of the SADC Election Observer Mission.”

That did not, however, stop the country’s perennial naysayers from peddling the now tired narrative that the country had been put on the spot during the Summit.

They, as usual, took instructions from their Western handlers to parrot that narrative in order to galvanise their supporters for what they believe will be the mother of demonstrations throughout the country.

President Mnangagwa would later confirm that there had been a plot to smuggle Zimbabwe into the Summit’s agenda.

“These things happen in society; not everybody is a priest, so you find these things happening. But we are so alert that we were going to deal with the things that are relevant to the Summit which was called for. This was an Extraordinary Summit, which means there was a particular subject we were going to discuss,” said President Mnangagwa soon after the meeting.

As the dust finally settles on the elections in Zimbabwe and the dashing of attempts to unnecessarily put the country on the SADC agenda, it is high time the regional bloc be fully aware of the evil Western machinations.

So far the bloc has shown the stamina to nudge these frivolous attempts but it must remain alert.