This comes ahead of the Heads of State and Government Summit that starts this weekend.

The summit will take stock of progress made in implementing the Angola resolutions. The other important issues on the agenda will be peace and security in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa says the meeting will be a success.

“Let us all completely make our visitors feel at home away from home, that we are one with them, that they should always be free to visit, whether on business or private affairs. That is the Zimbabwe that our department whom we have gathered here to commemorate would have loved to live in harmony and has always committed to the betterment of our kind.”

There are concerns that Harare is clamping down on opposition parties and Human Rights activists who have called for the SADC Observation Mission’s report on the Zimbabwe elections to be discussed.

“ It is very important for the SADC leadership to ensure that the Zimbabwean matter is ventilated and discussed. You can’t meet in a country which is in a huge crisis, which has a security breakdown where people are being arrested on a daily basis and try to bestow whatever they are talking about. I hope and trust that the SADC leaders will start to interrogate the situation. It has been on their books for a long time, it is a matter of not handling it properly, “says former Zimbabwean Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere.

Another former Zimbabwean Minister, Dr. Walter Mzembi says the government of Zimbabwe wants to portray a wrong picture about the status of affairs in that country.

“They have not been able to manage the atmospherics around the conference itself, to the extent that they have exercised this impression that is in the public domain for everyone to see. It has not helped to create conditions conducive for the holding of the summit without the raising of eyebrows from colleagues, heads of states in the region and other governments internationally. I just think that they invited a lot of negativity to the summit itself.”

ZANU PF’ s Kennedy Mandaza says the government of Zimbabwe will ensure that all the visitors and the citizens of the country are protected during and after the SADC meeting.

“We have been worried though, with the insinuations and some of the threats that have been made by individuals that are outside the organisation of SADC and these are the issues that the government has been trying to make sure that, they ensure that there is security for the visitors and security for the citizens. At times it is when the government, through its security operators, is trying to make sure that security is available in the country, that people have said that the government uses a heavy hand. We are of the view that the government is supposed to make sure that there is peace in the country during and even after the summit.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa will also join heads of state in government at the SADC meeting.  Reporting by Bonolo Maribe

--SABC--