The Sunday Mail
Ambassador Mawampanga Mwana Nanga
During President Mugabe’s tenure as African Union Chair, we have had our fair share of problems as a continent, as usual, from Somalia to Burundi to the Boko Harams of this world.
However, the President really steered this ship with all the wisdom you expect from a wise man of his stature.
That gives us a lot of confidence that we can still move as a people.
Last weekend the DRC was commemorating the loss of two of its major national heroes — (Patrice) Lumumba who was killed on January 17, 1961 and Laurent Kabila , father to our current President, who was killed on January 16, 2001 — exactly 40 years later.
And those are some of the heroes and wise people from where we could seek benefit but they are no longer with us.
But as a continent we are lucky because we still have a person like President Mugabe whom we can still look up to and get that wisdom.
We really have to be grateful to God for keeping this wisdom around us.
Because if not for his wisdom and direction we have no idea what could have happened to the continent.
These imperialists are capable of doing anything, so we need people like him around to keep on going and we are grateful for that.
During his one year tenure we have witnessed stability on the continent, you can imagine all the crises that went around which could have gone out of hand, but because of his wisdom and leadership, the continent was steered in the right direction.
As a person, I have realised that people don’t value something as long as they have it in their hands, that is why I have given the example of the DRC heroes.
In our country, whenever we have a leader of the calibre of President Mugabe they gun him down and after they gun him down the DRC goes into turmoil.
Look at Angola after they gunned down Neto the country had to go through 27 years of war.
Look at Sudan after they gunned down John Garang what is South Sudan going through up to today?
Look at Libya after Gaddafi was gunned down, where is Libya now – total chaos; and the imperialists continue pumping Libyan oil out of the country while the Libyans are busy fighting one another.
This is all because the strong leader who was there was gunned down.
When you have a theme like “Year of Women’s Empowerment and Development Towards Agenda 2063” it is very difficult to quantify how much of that would have been achieved within a year.
A theme is launched to kick start a process and to bring awareness to a particular issue which in this case was women’s empowerment and the continent’s development agenda.
You then should not expect that process to be like what happens at the stock exchange where things change after every second or overnight.
That is not how we evaluate success in such processes.
What we did is that within that year we brought awareness to the continent that we need to empower our women because they constitute more than half the total population.
Once they are empowered we also understand that nothing else can come from that empowerment except more good for all of us.
And I think from schools enrolment, boards of big companies and the political arena everybody is being made aware that we need to empower our women.
The process has been kicked off and is ongoing.
All this was achieved during the President’s tenure.
The African delegation that was sent to Paris for the COP 21 was very strong and our message as a continent went through.
Africa for the first time spoke with conviction and with one voice leading to the Paris agreement.
After Kyoto and a lot of other conferences on climate change, this year at Paris we did achieve something tangible acceptable by everybody.
Most importantly, Africa was heard.
You heard when we met the Chinese President (Xi Jinping) in SA, he promised over US$60 billion worth of financial aid to help Africa build its infrastructure.
We also have the Japanese coming on board as well as the Indians are coming on board.
The Chinese have also helped build a huge bank for infrastructure.
Now even our old colonial enemies and the US even are coming in board.
They all know that Africa is the last frontier .
If you look at the economy of the world most regions are growing at less than two to three percent while Africa is growing at above five percent, so everybody knows what the future holds for Africa as a continent.
As I have said before these are processes, you do not make an evaluation like how many roads have we built in year and so forth.
You don’t look at individual projects but the whole picture of how Africa is linking its regions and so forth.
You can take the example of tobacco which you have in abundance here.
If you sell tobacco in its raw form you are selling it at US$3 a kilogramme at most but if you are selling it as cigarettes you can get as much as ten times that price per kg.
This is the awareness that President Mugabe was trying to bring to all of us throughout last year.
The message was all the products that we have we have to process them and add value and to reach more people so we can have access to various markets but also ensure that we get maximum value for them.
This way more money will come to us for each kg of products we export.
By virtue of being our Chairperson, President Mugabe became the spokesperson of the continent so you have to look at how well the continent’s message was carried by president Mugabe .
On that score I will tell you that we have made a lot of progress .
For one thing the ICC was forced to drop charges against President Kenyatta of Kenya.
Despite all the pressure to take President Omar al Bashir to the ICC when he came to South Africa for the AU Summit, Africa spoke with one voice and refused outright.
Even ourselves in the DRC, because of our problems we had sent some of our people to be tried at the ICC, but lately the ICC has released those Congolese to come and serve the rest of their sentences in Congolese jails, which was unheard of before.
By speaking loudly against the ICC towards the African continent, things are moving in the right direction and they are starting to listen to the African voice, a voice which was carried by President Mugabe
I am sure before the end of the year they will also drop charges against the Vice President of Kenya, William Ruto.
All that because we have been speaking with one voice.
As we said in all these issues this is a process and when you get a wise spokesperson like President Mugabe our voice carries the day.
We know that sooner or later the powers that be will have no choice but to listen to our voice and I think the President did a sterling job to keep that pressure.
He did not back down, he insisted that Africa needs a seat on the security council like any other continent.
Sooner or later we will get it and we will not give up.
President Mugabe was there when the OAU was formed and that speaks a lot. The legacy of President Mugabe is very huge and is there for everybody to see
Look, he has kept this country very safe.
Despite Zimbabwe being a very small country it has done a lot for other countries on the continent.
Look at South Africa for instance, the ANC would have taken longer to achieve its freedom without the help of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe also helped Mozambique when the Renamo tried to destabilise.
Zimbabwe also went to help the DRC and Angola.
Because the plot of the Western power is to break down bigger African countries into smaller ones, like they have succeeded in breaking down Sudan.
They are also trying to do the same with Nigeria, breaking her between the north and the South.
President Mugabe has always been there to keep the peace not only in Zimbabwe but the continent.
His legacy is that he is a peaceful man and he has always been there to defend the interests of the common man all over the continent.
His Pan Africanist credentials cannot be put in doubt.
Ambassador Mawampanga Mwana Nanga is the DRC’s chief diplomat to Zimbabwe and Dean of African Diplomats in Harare. He was speaking to our Senior Reporter Lincoln Towindo
