The proponents of Government of National Unity interpreted the close outcome of votes in the Zimbabwe elections to mean that the voters want both parties. They also say the environment is not conducive to free and fair elections due to violence. But non of the proponents of this GNU have stood up strongly to condemn the rampart murders, violence or the huge propaganda, controlled media, the delays in releasing the results, the arrests, the leaking of re-run scenarios.

They conveniently ignored that the re-counts were orchestrated efforts to give credence to ZEC to reduce suspicion when they cook the final presidential results to force a rerun. The beneficiary of a Government of National Unity are Mugabe himself or Simba Makoni, a blind-curve Zanu, not the people of Zimbabwe. The leaders proposing GNU are President Mbeki and a late entry level of Kenneth Kaunda, both questionable in this matter as they want to keep their idol Mugabe. Unless they condemn it, a government of national unity appear to encourage or authorize violence to prevail the GNU idea.

Violence in Zimbabwe is caused by a dictator, who has closed the electoral process and refuses to listen to the citizens, calling any competition at the polls "regime change" , the same rhetoric applied to ZUM, the Forum Party and Margret Dongo. The meetings organized to discuss the GNU issue undermines and detracts the electoral process and sets a bad precedent, that if a party creates havoc and kill people the answer is a government of national unity. On one hand Zanu is campaigning heavily and blocking MDC with arrests and violence. On the other the facilitator is distracting MDC with meetings of a GNU, as if to say "forget about the elections".

And if the dictator does not find what he wants in the elections the GNU option becomes handy. There are no guarantees or rationale that a GNU will stop violence. If violence can be stopped why not stopping it now. Mugabe wants to maintain power, and hand over power to his anointed successor using constitutional amendment 18. A likely successor is Emmerson Mnangagwa who is spearheading the violence. How do you guarantee that the next election, after the GNU, will be without violence when the successors are leading the violence?

This is a project, promoted by President Mbeki and Mugabe enthusiasts with Makoni as the decoy. Most of the structures in the Diaspora will not accept this chicanery. Hundreds of people have died in Zimbabwe, thousands maimed and millions fled the country. Did these people ask for a government of national unity? Is a Government of National Unity going to answer why these murders happened?

The SADC negotiator has made the position worse. The negotiator has failed and must resign so that the rest of Africa and the world engage Zimbabwe in more direct ways.

It took too long for Africa to realize that there is a dictator in Zimbabwe. Violence has been the tool from 1983. As long as the dictator and his close friends felt threatened violence was the inevitable, before, during and after the liberation. Africa must reign on the dictator to stop violence, allow the people space to choose and accede to the results. If Zimbabwe is fighting Tony Blair why are defenseless Zimbabweans killed, maimed and displaced by other Zimbabweans. The level of African leadership is just too low.

What does Makoni want? Whose skin does he want to save? What new thing can he do? He was part of Zanu machinery for decades. He produced no visible achievements when he was at SADC or as a minister in Zanu government, the committees and chairmanships he presided over, neither did they change an iota of Africa nor improve the economy. He did not start something which could be magnified to success. He was just a good employee. In its effort South Africa may have coerced him to leave ZANU to try these GNU experiments. All these efforts are to please the dictator. It appears the academics support Makoni, but African academics, pure theorists sitting behind oak desks, have not provided leadership to Africa's problems.

An election is a valve. In Zimbabwe the dictator blocked that valve all along, and the country exploded, scattering people all over. What is required is to encourage Zimbabweans choose. The problems which interfere with free and fair elections must be tackled firmly. The winner must be announced whoever it is. If Mugabe wins let be. If MDC won, they must be accorded the leadership and advised to build an inclusive government. You can't then say because the army is killing people and threaten to seize control, we must abandon the election.

If Zimbabwe had been holding free elections it would have solved its problems internally long time ago and what is happening now would be happening. Every effort must be to ensure that the election process works.

We respect the sovereignty of South Africa in its decisions. But listening to ANC and top government officials, the South African President believes that Mugabe is fighting Britain and America for taking their land and doesn't trust the MDC. This belief betrays honest mediation. South Africa fails to condemn torture and killing during their mediation. Yet Mugabe has never admitted to these abuses. Who then is South Africa protecting in failing to raise a moral duty to protect?

Even on the land distribution issue South Africa are deceived by the dictator. They fail to read that the constitutional defeat was announced on 28 January 2000 and the invasions started on 28 February 2000 to prevent a follow up defeat in the upcoming general elections earmarked for April 2000, two months away. The invaders did not occupy land where they find it, if they wanted land. They staged in front of the white farmers' houses to attract the media there, while in the background they are demolishing and chasing away the farm workers. Finally they overran the farmer. Why? From independence the voters were 60%-rural and 40%-urban. As the economy started to decline from 1983 onwards the farms attracted more and more blacks until at the constitutional referendum the voters were 50%-rural, 10%-farms, 40% urban. The farm workers and urban voters were one side, meaning Mugabe would lose the elections. The farm workers had assumed a deciding factor in the elections. So Mugabe demolished this farm workers voting block, and warped it as land distribution. The election date was changed to June 2000.

The other fact is that only 27% of the land was in white hands, thus 73% of the land was already in black hands before the invasions. The parliamentary land commission of 1992 and international land conference of September 1998 produced recommendations which were not followed. The rejected constitutional draft contained land repossession clauses. The government, therefore, had no mandate to engage in this disastrous retribution because the clauses were inclusively rejected in the constitutional draft.

Western interests in Zimbabwe are a drop in the ocean. Zimbabwe's economy is in the hands of South African business, black and white. They do not participate in Zimbabwe national debate, but are feeding the dictator, causing more refugees. So as the people are being hurt, killed(65 dead recently) and forced our of their country, South Africa exercises no moral duty to condemn the acts. We believe South Africa has intelligence to know all this. South Africa may be hiding behind this western accusation to upstage other contenders for economic dominance. The fate of Zimbabwe is sealed in three ways:

• A dictator blocking free elections
• South African government support for Mugabe at SADC, AU, UN etc
• South African companies controlling Zimbabwe economy and feeding the dictatorship to continue his ways.

This is the cause of continued flow of political and economic refugees, whose prevalence has increased visibility of immigrants in South Africa leading to xenophobic attacks

In these GNU suggestion the Diaspora is not consulted as it is summarily categorized as MDC without asking them. There are three civil society structures created to explore the future of Zimbabwe and develop programs linked to a democratic outcome, namely:

• Global Zimbabwe Forum, with head office in Geneva coordinating six regions; Australasia, Americas, UK, Central Europe, South Africa and SADC outside SA.
• Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum, a South African national structure with 43 member organizations based in South Africa.
• Zimbabwe Diaspora Development Chamber, a section 21 company registered in South Africa, being the development arm for Global Zimbabwe. The Chamber board will register and manage a cooperative bank under SA law.

The future of Zimbabwe is no longer limited to the boundaries of Zimbabwe or privy of a few negotiating our future. Those outside will work with those inside to determine that future. If the violence continues the Diaspora will help the defenseless people, the same way they are helping them to cope with the economic disaster. Clearly Zimbabwe is moving closer towards armed conflict. Those who want to see can see.

* Luke Zunga is the Treasurer of the Global Zimbabwe Forum. He is a businessman based in Johannesburg.