The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa is of the view that threatening to drag President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his government to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over human rights violations will not work.
In a position paper that the church officials Braam Hanekom and Llewellyn MacMaster released, there should be a win-win approach rather than the traditional opposition politics. The paper reads in part:
Amnesty and assurance that the International Criminal Court will not strike out at senior government officials are important. Otherwise, a ‘fight-to-the-end’ scenario is definitely on the table. Traditional opposition politics will not function now.
Pressure alone, however, won’t work because you are dealing with a military situation that only knows one form of action. What is required is influenced by people who do not necessarily want to overthrow a government, but are level-headed and creating a win-win situation.
At this stage, we are pleading for intervention from institutions like the office of the Archbishop in Cape Town, the South African Council of Churches, the National Church Leaders Consultation, the South African and international governments.
South African opposition party, the Democratic Alliance recently threatened to take the Zimbabwe issue to the United Nations and the ICC.
Why should different rules apply because the party in question is in Zimbabwe? This church is talking rubbish when the becomes subjective regardless of outcomes. Do we as an international community have legal systems dealing with human right abuses or Not? If they do exist then let them be effective. Diplomatic immunity and the laws of statehood should be subject to laws protecting majority human rights. Lest we forget the genocide that this incumbent has primary responsibility for? South African interests are always about concerns that there will an influx of refugees in the event that the Zimbabwean situation receives the proper attention it deserves from the international community. Should the international community fear one despot hiding behind crocodile smiles and crocodile tears? People are dying and other human right abuses being perpetrated. How much more?
Churches are there to pray for their sins. We need no help from them as they don’t know where they stand. Mnangagwa deserves a firing squard. This devil has really abused us for more than thirty years.