• Cartoon Story
• Commonwealth extends Zimbabwe suspension indefinitely
• Abuja is a bunfight for kleptomaniacs
• Mbeki raps African dictators
• Secretary-General denies C'wealth targeting Zimbabwe
• Commonwealth to fix goals for Zimbabwe
• Zimbabwe exile set to continue
• No Zim compromise - Commonwealth
• Zanu-PF wants out of Commonwealth
• Memo to Commonwealth Leaders
• Mugabe foes urge all world bodies to expel him
• UK agrees Commonwealth deal on Zimbabwe
• Of buses, dogs and presidents

ABUJA, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Commonwealth heads of state agreed on Sunday to
extend indefinitely Zimbabwe's suspension from the group and appointed a
seven-nation panel to monitor political dialogue and human rights in the
country, a Zambian source said.

The 54-strong group of mainly former British colonies suspended Zimbabwe
early last year on the grounds that President Robert Mugabe had rigged his
re-election and persecuted his opponents.

"The key issues are political dialogue between (ruling party) Zanu-PF and
the opposition and human rights," the source told Reuters.

The heads of state agreed to appoint a seven-nation committee headed by
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to monitor developments in Zimbabwe and
report back at any time, the source said.

A Commonwealth spokesman said he could not confirm the agreement and said
the heads of state were still in the closed-door meeting.

The Zambian source said the special committee would not have to wait until
the next Commonwealth heads of state meeting in two years to report progress
in Zimbabwe.

"The chairman in consultation with the six wise men can recommend Zimbabwe's
return before that," he said.

Abuja is a bunfight for kleptomaniacs

By Kevin Myers
(Filed: 07/12/2003)
IT could be worse. I could be in Abuja, solemnly reporting on a meeting of
criminals as if it were a consistory of saints, rather than being at home in
Kildare in Ireland. My country is not part of the Commonwealth, though it
was in a sense the founder member of the British Empire. So in what way is
it worse off because it is now outside the Commonwealth?

It is certainly better off for not having to engage in the hypocritical
folderol of Abuja, with everyone exchanging bright smiles, while keeping one
hand on the fob-watch and the other on their credit cards. Nigeria, after
all, is the Vatican of the international church of theft and fraud. And
Uganda leads a rival church, one dedicated to robbery with violence, as the
prostrate and bleeding body of the Congo can testify.

That is before we even get to the star delinquent of the Commonwealth,
Zimbabwe, which triumphantly proves the adage, the gaudier the flag, the
bloodier the government. Still, Robert Mugabwe must take some comfort from
being the only politician alive who has fully lived up to manifesto
promises. Alas, the promises were those made by the UDI regime of Ian Smith,
who said that if Rhodesia got majority rule, the certain outcome would
poverty and murderous anarchy. Well done, Smithy: top of the class.

Zimbabwe, to be sure, is not actually present at Abuja, having been
suspended (though not expelled) - presumably because it has exceeded its
quota of government-inspired domestic murders (mass murders abroad, as in
the Congo, apparently don't count).

Neighbouring Mozambique's President Chissano is demanding that Zimbabwe be
re-admitted to full membership of the Commonwealth. Good on Mozambique,
whose historic right to be in the Commonwealth is precisely zero. Unlike
Ireland, the US, Burma or Sudan, who aren't present in Abuja, Mozambique was
never part of the British Empire. But one of the more absurd fictions of the
Commonwealth is its denial of its origins: that it is a club of the former
ruled and the former ruler. But in an age of post-imperial egalitarianism,
the idea of one country governing another makes everyone uncomfortable: so a
cosy fiction has been agreed on that the Commonwealth is simply a free
association of countries, with nothing more uniting them than a desire to be
nice to one another.

That being the case, anyone theoretically - can join. Which doesn't mean the
Commonwealth actually expected just anyone would. After all, you don't
really expect the nice couple you met in Skegness to take up your invitation
to come and stay whenever they liked: and bring all the kids, we're very
free and easy.

Years later, the door-bell sounds, and there on the step is the grinning
figure of Mozambique. Its many children scamper into the house, sticking
their fingers in electric sockets and monopolising the television. Soon Tony
Blair finds himself cornered in the kitchen getting a little finger-wagging
lecture on white racism from President Chissano; how long before he succumbs
to the temptation to take that Mozambican finger and shoves it where only a
body-cavity search would find it?

It is not just a matter of the fine gentlemen from Africa, with their hordes
of gleaming Mercedes outside the hotels like seals in a zoo waiting to be
fed. Malaysia is in the forefront of the international campaign to arm
Muslims against "the Jews". Moreover, Malaysia has led the campaign to
ensure that a fellow Commonwealth member, Australia, is only accepted as an
Asian country when a majority of its population are racially "Asian". Try
using the concept of "Europe" and "European" at a Commonwealth conference
and see how far you get.

Of course, the Commonwealth is not bound by common values, but by
expediency, bad history and an agreed set of political fictions.
Accordingly, the Queen is head of the Commonwealth because, well, she just
is: that Britain ran an empire which conquered and governed all those places
is - goes the lie - a pure coincidence. In Britain itself, the empire has
become a sort of Arthurian myth, something that might or might not have
happened, and anyway it was all long ago and is irrelevant today.

So all these jovial kleptomaniacs and chuckling killers jostle at the
Commonwealth buffet, one hand slipping the silver fish-knives into their
waistcoat pockets. Meanwhile they tut-tut about little Robert's exclusion
from the bash - heart-broken, the poor lad - just occasionally popping out
to make anxious telephone calls home and see whether or not there has been
another coup. After all, that's how they came to power, during the last
Commonwealth conference.

Are British-Irish or British-American relations made better or worse by
their lacking a Commonwealth dimension? Neither. It makes no difference. The
only real function of the Commonwealth is to validate the larcenous habits
of a bunch of third world crooks, meanwhile giving them the right to
buttonhole the Prime Minister as an equal in a union that is utterly
valueless without Britain. Your choice, of course; and frankly, I think
you're all mad.

By Foreign Desk
07/12/03
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has attacked Africa's "doctrine of
absolute national sovereignty" and urged its leaders to accept " that we
have made a mockery of the gift of independence".

He was addressing the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs ahead of
the weekend's Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Abuja.

Mbeki's speech, seen by many observers as a pointed reference to Zimbabwe,
came as a war of words erupted between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Despite his absence from the summit, Mugabe and Zimbabwe continued to
overshadow events in Abuja.

Mbeki said it was true that each African government derived its legitimacy
from its electorate and that this "would seem to suggest that everybody else
should therefore stay out of the business of each of our states".

But, he added, if Africans were to defy predictions that "we will turn into
the festering disaster of our age, we will have to proceed from the position
that we are each our brother's and sister's keeper".

It was necessary to respond to critical remarks, and "accept that in good
measure we have made a mockery of the gift of independence", he said.

"We should first of all make a determination that we shall be our own
liberators from poverty and underdevelopment, from dictatorship and tyranny,
from war and instability. We must together take the decision that we shall
determine our future. Secondly, we must reaffirm the fundamental truth that
as Africans we share a common destiny. This means that we cannot but be
concerned about one another."

Mbeki stressed: "It means that we must recognise the reality that none of us
can prosper in peace if our African neighbour is weighed down by misery. It
also means that we must understand that what each one of us does has an
impact on the other.

"It is clear that we have to order our political and constitutional systems
so that, as [South Africa's Freedom Charter] puts it, the people shall
govern. We have to act together to ensure that our continent becomes a
continent of democracy and human rights.

"We have to ensure that we end the scourge of war. In this regard, because
of our interdependence and indeed because we share a common destiny, we have
to agree that we cannot be ruled by a doctrine of absolute national
sovereignty.

"We should not allow the fact of the independence of each one of our
countries to turn us into spectators when crimes against the people are
being committed."

Although Mbeki made no mention of Mugabe in his address, it is likely that
Downing Street would have welcomed his remarks in its campaign to isolate
Harare.

Earlier this week, Blair told the Daily Telegraph that he would resist
attempts to end Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth, and accused
African leaders seeking to rehabilitate Mugabe of "defending the
indefensible".

Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa has signalled that his country would seek
to have the suspension overturned.

Meanwhile, opening his Zanu-PF party's annual conference, Mugabe lashed out
at the Commonwealth and repeated his threats to pull Zimbabwe out of the
organisation.

"Zimbabwe is a free and independent country that cannot brook interference
with its sovereignty," he told about 3 000 delegates in Masvingo.

"If the choice was made for us . . . to remain with our sovereignty and lose
membership of the Commonwealth, then I would say let the Commonwealth go,"
he said - Sunday Times (SA)

By Andrew Cawthorne and Randall Palmer

ABUJA (Reuters) - A Commonwealth committee debating the exclusion of
Zimbabwe was expected to deliver a verdict requiring President Robert
Mugabe's government to meet democratic benchmarks as a way to earn
readmission.

But its recommendations on Sunday will be purely academic if Mugabe carries
out a threat to pull Zimbabwe out of a group he says has been hijacked by
"racist" Westerners, especially Britain.

The group of 54 mainly former British colonies suspended Zimbabwe early last
year on the grounds that Mugabe had rigged elections and was harassing its
opponents.

The racially charged Zimbabwe row has so far dominated the four-day biennial
Commonwealth summit in the Nigerian capital of Abuja -- to the frustration
of many delegates eager to discuss other topics like fair trade, AIDS and
terrorism.

To try to bridge the rift, heads of state on the summit's first day, Friday,
named a "wise men" committee of six leaders to make recommendations over the
suspension.

The six were under pressure to report on Sunday, and sources said they would
set out moderate political steps for Harare to take as a path to re-entry.

That would save face on both sides, diplomats said. Western nations would be
pleased by Zimbabwe's extended suspension, but African states sympathetic to
the country would be encouraged by the offer of a clear, quick route back
into the Commonwealth.

"We're working on the problem at this time and tomorrow there will be a
debate on that and there will be a conclusion," one of the six, Canadian
Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said at a news conference late on Saturday.

One important step the committee would recommend would be dialogue between
Mugabe and his political foes, diplomats and Commonwealth sources said.

One diplomatic source said the six-nation group's challenge overnight was to
fix the precise benchmarks for Zimbabwe and the mechanism for monitoring
progress -- "What we will be looking at, who will do it, and who will they
be reporting to."

"A MERE CLUB"

But Mugabe will steal their thunder if he walks out of the Commonwealth
altogether. He made his clearest threat yet on Saturday, saying in Zimbabwe
after his ruling party passed a resolution to quit: "If we say we are doing
this, we will do it. We will never retreat."

Mugabe disparaged the Commonwealth as "a mere club" and likened it to George
Orwell's classic political satire "'Animal Farm', where some members are
more equal than others".

At the summit in Nigeria, Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon urged
Mugabe to reconsider.

"I would hope that President Mugabe would take a breath on this one and
realise the Commonwealth meeting here in Abuja does want to engage with
Zimbabwe," McKinnon said.

Western nations are leading a majority faction that insists Zimbabwe must
return to democracy before ending the suspension, while some African states
backed by other non-Western countries accuse Britain and others of imposing
a new imperialism.

"Why must we be told to do certain things by the white members of the
Commonwealth?" Malaysia's New Straits Times quoted its foreign minister,
Syed Hamid Albar, as saying.

Some African leaders suspect the anti-Mugabe stance is motivated more by his
confiscation of white-owned farms for landless blacks than the rights of the
majority population.

Zimbabwe expressed such a view in an attack on McKinnon.

"He lied...when he said there was an overwhelming majority consensus in the
Commonwealth to continue with the suspension of Zimbabwe. That can only be
done by a man who acts dishonourably," Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said.

"The reason he does that is because he is upset that we took land from white
Zimbabweans and that is racist."

COMMONWEALTH leaders last night looked within sight of finally settling the
row over Zimbabwe’s suspension after days of wrangling over the controversy.

A compromise expected to keep the ban on Robert Mugabe’s regime in place was
being drafted at the summit in Nigeria which the Queen as head of the
Commonwealth was hosting before her return home yesterday.

The move could save Tony Blair’s blushes by paving the way for a formal
agreement before he was expected to leave today, a day early.

A majority of the six-strong committee charged with hammering out a solution
were in favour of keeping Mugabe out, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark
revealed. "They have a form of words which they are still negotiating and
they will continue to negotiate over this evening," she said.

"I understand a clear view of a majority of the group is that the suspension
should continue and it should be made clear what benchmarks Mr Mugabe should
have to make to be let back in."

Mugabe’s brutal Zanu-PF regime was suspended over human rights abuses
carried out during the widely criticised elections that returned him to
power last year. However, a group of around 10 African nations is thought to
want him back in the fold.

A six-strong committee of ‘wise men’ - from Australia, Canada, Jamaica,
Mozambique, India and South Africa - was set up on Friday to broker a
compromise.

Mugabe earlier tried to pre-empt the outcome of the committee’s decision
with dramatic new threats to pull out of the organisation. Zanu-PF yesterday
voted to quit in protest at the suspension imposed following the elections
that returned him to power last year.

Tony Blair has taken a hardline stance arguing nothing should be done to
lessen the pressure on Mugabe.

But with the Prime Minister due to leave this afternoon for personal
reasons, there was a risk he might not be present when the final decision
was made. Leaving before the issue is settled would play into the hands of
Conservative critics who already say the PM has been "half-hearted" in his
approach.

Staying on could also mean Blair would miss the England Rugby World
Champions’ victory tour through London.

Now the group of six, chaired by Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson, is
expected to present its recommendations before Blair departs.

They were meeting late last night to review Patterson’s draft and again this
morning.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said: "It is a difficult issue because
there are some strongly divergent views.

We have made some progress but I don’t want to get people too elevated in
their expectations."

British officials at the summit played down threats from Mugabe to withdraw,
saying they had heard similar threats before.

AFP

Weekly Trust (Kaduna)

OPINION
December 6, 2003
Posted to the web December 7, 2003

Wada Nas

Your Excellencies, I join millions of my countrymen and women in welcoming
you whole-heartedly to Nigeria. I believe that your meeting here or in any
of your member countries has two broad based purposes, viz: to advance the
common interest of your peoples and at the same time feel their pulse,
aspirations and worries.

Within this preamble, I tend to draw your attention to a few areas, which I
believe will interest you. The first is about democracy. Do please recall
that you suspended Pakistan from membership of your prestigious organisation
on account of the seizure of power by the military junta there. You then
went on to equally suspend Zimbabwe for reasons of a sham election which
returned Mugabe to power for another term of five years.

Undoubtedly, you took these decisions to institutionalise democratic ideals
in your member countries. There is no doubt that your citizens share these
ideals and are with you in this great endeavour.

However, Your Excellencies, you are all aware that what took place in
April/May in Nigeria was an election which voting was largely done by
security agencies, led by the police and what we here called assassins of
democracy, who are recruited thugs from the our saturated market of the
unemployed, ready to kill for peanuts. In several places, they were the only
Nigerians that voted in the last elections. What the government did, Your
Excellencies, was to deploy its agencies and hired political thugs to ensure
that greater votes where allocated to its candidates. This was exactly what
happened in several places.

You will note believe it, Your Excellencies, that in a state where about
60,000 voters were registered, 1.3 million voted and about 90 percent for
government party! You may not also believe that 100 percent turn out was
recorded in several places indicating that none of those who registered died
within six months or so between the registration of voters and election, an
impossibility which has never been recorded even in countries with highly
advanced health system. If it surprises you that all the 100 percent voters
voted for the government party, you need to contact the Nigerian electoral
authorities, INEC, to find out for yourselves.

You may also wish to find out from several local and international observers
that results were announced for places where voting never took place at all
and such other places where government agents, acting for its party, denied
polling representatives of other political parties.

In some places "voting took place, behind police counters. One of our highly
principled presidential aspirants went to a police station to complain about
voting taking place in the palaces of our local traditional rulers only to
discover, at the police station, that the police were busy stuffing ballot
boxes behind their counter in favour of the ruling party. This was how the
police and other security agencies were largely those who voted for General
Olusegun Obasanjo and his party. Several ballot boxes where elections took
place were later replaced with those stuffed by the police.

Your Excellencies, these are statements of fact as widely reported in the
media and observed by Nigerians. Observers came from some of your countries
to record this sordid happenings. In spite of the fact that they were
invited by the government, recently Obasanjo tactically condemned them, in a
speech to an INEC seminar for no reason other than telling the truth about
the ballot looting conducted by his government, the worst ever seen in this
country and I believe in any part of the world including Zimbabwe. Indeed,
what happened in Zimbabwe was child's play to what happened in Nigeria.

Yet, Your Excellencies, you all lost your voices over the Nigerian case,
giving the impression that you acted against Zimbabwe not on account of
rigged election but for other reasons.

During the period of Abacha, you suspended Nigeria on account of what
happened to Ken Saro-Wiwa and others.

Your Excellencies, it has been reported that 200 were either killed or
wounded by security agencies who resisted the looting of ballot boxes by
them and PDP thugs. Of the member still in detention for their patriotic
services to democracy, you need to go to our crowded prisons to find out,
where incidentally you will see the cruelty of man to man as 70 percent of
inmates have been there, some over 10 years, without trial. Our prisons are
symbols of our complete disregard for human rights, where people live in
sub-human standards. I hope you will devote time to this issue.

I am not asking you to go to the police, because they will hide the truth
from you being that they are in the thick of the problem of our democracy.
These killings and brutality were officially carried out by them. I hope you
have learnt how they abducted a governor, along with some civilians whom
they are now giving protection to. While they withdrew the police details
from top officials, including judges, some of these crooks of democracy are
still enjoying their own.

Meanwhile, I cannot give you the accurate figures of politically motivated
assassinations that have taken place so far. All I can say, to be on the
safe side of truth, is that never in our history has such taken place before
May 29, 1999, when Nigeria returned to democracy after 15 years of military
rule, could be said to be the greatest age of political assassination in the
land. When some few people in Odi, a small town in the Niger Delta part of
our country allegedly abducted and killed some 10-security men, which was
terribly bad enough. Obasanjo ordered troops and razed the town to the
ground. Some speak about 2000 killed or injured. Please, find time to visit
the area to see the scars of official brutality to the people.

Zaki Biam, in Benue State was not left out. Soldiers moved into the village,
ordered thousands to lay face down and the next thing they were all dead and
the town destroyed. You must have seen it on BBCTV, CNN and other
international media organisations.

Again, the period under review has been the age of visiting brutality on
innocent people by those who are supposed to protect them. The civil war
apart, never has such things happened in our country. I should however
mention that it has been also a period of genocide where thousands were
killed in certain parts of the country without positive official action
against those involved. Nigeria has been a theatre of official massacres of
innocent citizens since May 1999.

Again, Your Excellencies, you all lost your voices, once more, as if
approving of this official genocide by a government against its own people.
Some of you have been killing Iraqis on account that you want to save them
from Saddam Hussein. It is therefore an irony that you could sanction the
human rights abuses that have been going on here without a voice of protest
from all of you. Nigerians feel very sad.

Next is the issue of corruption. If the entire world has been told that
Abacha's government was corrupt, the present one in several times, in the
figure of ten, more corrupt. The more we have been crying the more we have
been having no money such that you can hardly see what the government has
done in four years of unprecedented revenue earnings. While Nigeria was the
27th most corrupt country under Abacha, we moved to occupy the number one
position in 1999 and second position for each year since then. Then came a
London-based NGO to rate us as the most corrupt in Africa for 2003. These
assessments are not without foundations. Once you are in the favoured book
of the government, you can get away with a lot of corruption. Former Defence
Minister and for sure, one of our highly respected citizens, General T.Y
Danjuma, publicly announced that government has never been serious about its
propagated war on corruption and he knows why he was saying so. He caught a
top official who cornered N480 million of public money, got him to court and
no sooner they applied nolle proseque and the man is now enjoying himself.
He is said to be a relation of a highly placed official in government.

I don't want to bore you with N350m missing from the NNPC each year since
2000, where Obasanjo presides as the minister, nor how he has been violating
money bills to suit his desire. The National Assembly is there for you to
find out or in the alternative, invite former Speaker, Ghali Umar Na'Abba.

Your Excellencies, corruption is the breakfast of top Nigerian officials;
looting of public funds their lunch and squandering shamelessly without
accountability their dinner. It has been that bad but especially since 1999
when our supposed anti-corruption crusade took over.

Your Excellencies, I don't want to bore you with other issues like official
disrespect for the rule of law, poor performance, nepotism, complete
disrespect for public opinion, wastage of public funds through useless
appointments and frivolous foreign travels by our constantly flying
president, disrespect for court rulings, crushing public services, including
educational institutions, divide and rule tactics which has been leading to
senseless communal violence, insecurity, poor economy, unemployment and
others. I believe you do not have time to read detailed accounts of these
and many more.

Having said this, I wish you fruitful deliberations and safe journey back
home later.. May Allah grant you all the wisdom to digest some of the issues
raised here. Amen.

The difference between the two stories reflects a gap in reality between the
story tellers. The problem was succinctly summarized by a senior MDC
spokesperson last weekend. In answer to questions about removing either the
driver or the dog, there are some clear conditions laid out by Zanu PF.
Amnesty for all, the land process in all its aspects will be left untouched,
and the government shall be recognized as legitimate: meet these conditions
and substantive talks can begin. The dog has some very clear views on what
will stop it biting. It is evident that issues related to accountability
have very high priority for Zanu PF, which, on its own, is validation that
many abuses have taken place. Why worry about accountability if you have
nothing to fear? The position of the MDC is rather different. Their call is
for open and unconditional dialogue. The mandate for this dialogue is
relatively straight forward: firstly, a return to a democratic order, an
"open space", which will allow the holding of free and fair elections. This
will require the repeal or non-application of draconian laws [POSA, AIPPA,
etc], and the setting up of a wholly independent electoral commission.
Secondly, negotiations should focus on the holding of elections as possible
after the creation of the "open space". The focus is not on pre-conditions
nor on prescribing the future, but merely on process. The MDC is clearly
less interested in feeding the dog than in stopping the crash.

It seems however that the big dog theory leads African leaders into all
sorts of illogicalities, and may even have attenuated and exacerbated the
Zimbabwe crisis. Look at several of their decisions, best exemplified by a
number of South African decisions. The South African Parliamentary Observer
Mission to the 2002 Presidential Election noted a large number of
irregularities and unacceptable practices, but still came to the conclusion
that the election was "legitimate". Making the same observations, the
so-called "minority parties" - actually all the other parties - came to
exactly the opposite conclusion. The decision of the ANC members was not
illogical if they were worried about the dog biting, and, thus, later on, it
is not "illogical" to call for the MDC to drop their petition. There are
further "illogicalities" that derive from the dog metaphor. The positions of
South Africa and Nigeria on the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth
illustrate this well. Firstly, these two countries support the views in the
Commonwealth Observer Group report on the Presidential Election, which is
rather illogical given the views of their own observer groups. Nonetheless,
on the 19th March 2002, Nigeria and South Africa joined with Australia in
suspending Zimbabwe from the Councils of the Commonwealth. The suspension
was to remain in force for one year, and required the Zimbabwe Government to
do a large number of things. By the time of the six month review, the
Zimbabwe Government had done none of them, even denying the validity of the
suspension.

The South African and Nigerian Governments refused to deepen the pressure,
and instead gave the Zimbabwe Government another six months grace. At the
end of the twelve months, they then asked for the suspension to be dropped
as the period had run out, and were somewhat disgruntled when the
Commonwealth decided to keep the suspension in place until CHOGM. More
"illogically", the South African Government then asked for Zimbabwe to
attend CHOGM. How could Zimbabwe attend a Council from which it was
suspended without the suspension being lifted? Start looking for the big dog
and you find the answer. So who fears the dog? Not Zimbabweans, who are much
more concerned with the bus driver and stopping a crash. It is the SADC
Governments that fear the dog, and perhaps with good cause, for it will not
only be Zimbabweans that get bitten. It might be that the dog is mad and
will go around biting everyone it sees, and, if this is the reasoning of the
SADC Governments, perhaps they have more in common with Zimbabweans and
their problems with the mad, drunk bus driver. How does this all relate to
reality? If we give up on the dog theory, and accept the bus driver problem,
then we can give up on all the "illogicalities". We can see all the evidence
for the driver not being in control, and we can accept that a good test of
this would come from the election petition being mounted by the MDC. We can
then accept that Zimbabwe has done nothing to warrant its return to the
Councils of the Commonwealth. We can accept the position of the MDC that
process must happen: open and unconditional dialogue is the only way
forward. Actually, if we have the right authority, we can tell the dog to
sit, heel, and then go outside