We are however very disappointed by the behaviour of the in-coming Chairperson of SADC, Angola’s President Jose Dos Santos who refused entry into Angola for about 17 civil society activists and leaders from the region, as well as two Mozambican journalists, whilst also seizing publications belonging to Zimbabwean activists. This is unacceptable, particularly coming from someone assigned with the responsibility of providing leadership to the whole region at a time when the challenge of democracy, human rights and economic justice are daunting throughout the region. This also brings into question Angola’s own record of freedom of political activity, free flow of information and right to expression.

Reports indicate that Joana Maria Macie, a journalist for the Mozambican newspaper Jornal Noticias, and Lourenço Cossa, from the Mozambican newspaper Independente, were traveling with visas issued by the Angolan consulate in Maputo with an official invitation from the state-owned Angolan journalist education center, Cefojor. It is said that immigration officials threatened to “use force” if they refused to return to South Africa immediately, obliging them to leave their personal baggage behind. They said that the officials invalidated their visas with a red pen and withdrew their passports, which were only handed back upon arrival in Johannesburg. In their own words they said, “they treated us as if we were criminals,”.

It is also unfortunate that such a crucial meeting does not have on its agenda crucial matters like the crisis we see in most of our countries, specifically; Swaziland and Lesotho. While we note that the current Chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, Zambian President Rupiah Banda will present a progress report on the situations in Madagascar, Malawi, the DRC and Zimbabwe, but reports indicate that there shall be no substantive discussions on these areas also. This reduces the hopes of the people of the region on this body and underscores questions about the relevance of this body to the conditions and suffering of our people.

Leaders of the Southern Africa Trade Union Coordination Council (SATUCC), the Fellowship of Christian Councils of Southern Africa (FOCCISA), and the Southern Africa Development Community - Council of Non-Governmental Organizations (SADC-CNGO) said that they had been given official guarantees that the authorities would issue a visa to their delegations when they arrived, but were refused entry on arrival in Luanda.

In another incident, Angolan immigration officials on August 15 detained a group of Zimbabwean civil society activists at Luanda’s international airport for five hours and seized 300 translated copies of a report on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe. Dewa Mavhinga from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition is amongst them.

In this regard, COSATU wish to call on all SADC leaders to stop avoiding the critical question of demanding democracy and economic justice for all their people if stability is to be guaranteed in the region.

The spreading popular mobilisations and struggles by the people of the region confirm that the region is in crisis and that most of the leaders are out of touch with their own people and their national realities, hence the urgency of intensified civil society mobilisations to remove all those who represent their own interests and not those of their people. We have noted the intensified mobilisations in Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho, as examples and fully support them.

Therefore, we wish to call on civil society leaders in the region to take the initiative and provide leadership in the battle to deal with despots that lead our countries into an undemocratic future built on the foundation of poverty, inequalities and suffering. There can be no change without struggle. Dictators know only one language, militant struggle and popular action on the streets. They are too comfortable to care about anybody else, but themselves.

We wish to propose the following activities;

 SADC Day of Action for democracy and economic justice in all the countries throughout the whole region, targeting SADC offices or Angolan embassies (in its capacity as SADC chair and for denying activists access into their country) in all our countries

 The creation and resourcing of a SADC Solidarity Committee to organise and lead solidarity activities in support of all suffering from oppression, state brutality, poverty and other such crisis

 Targeting and isolating heads of states who do not comply with SADC protocols in the way they run their own countries for deliberate harassment and consistent action whenever they appear in any of our countries. This means they would have earned themselves the dishonour of being in the hall of shame.

Coordination and support for on-going national actions in various countries for mutual support, such as those already announced by Malawi civil society to follow up on the recent mass protests, the Global week of action for democracy in Swaziland and the plan to intensify workers protests in Lesotho.