Beloveds I present to you the Face of Cognitive Dissonance in the form of Thabo Mbeki.

A Thread:

DescriptionThabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served as the second president of South Africa from 16 June 1999 to 24 September 2008.

As I look back at the pedestal western media and SADC placed him and some academics, I’m left in shock and horror. To some great extent he is to blame for the place SADC and South Africa find themselves in.

From his bizzare theories on AIDS, his hatred of Mam Winnie to enabling of the Zimbabwean crisis this man was the face of cognitive dissonance.

Let’s look at his handling of the HIV pandemic as president. Mbeki criticized the scientific consensus that HIV does cause AIDS beginning shortly after his election to the presidency.

So what did Mbeki do? In 2000, he organized a Presidential Advisory Panel regarding HIV/AIDS including several scientists who denied that HIV caused AIDS.

Obviously the panel would have resolutions that are from a denialist perspective. This was retrogressive.

Subsequently during his tenure as president he expressed denialism of the fact that HIV caused AIDS and his policies for eight years denied ARVs to AIDS patients.

The government even withdrew its support to clinics in providing facilities to curb mother to child transmissions at birth. And ARVs, which he referred to as poisons were denied to people that needed them.

Guess how many people died? Between 343,000 and 365,000 died people from AIDS during his tenure.

These lives mattered. But the death toll will continue as the thread progresses.

Let’s look at his had in the 2008 Zimbabwean crisis. Yoh Satan was at play here.

South Africa and Zimbabwe like many other SADC countries have a have key trade relationships and a similar historical background. South Africa being the country with an upper hand economically is there fore in the best place to lobby diplomatically.

The expectation would be for Mbeki as president to lobby for political & economical reform in Zimbabwe during a time when the late Robert Mugabe (he is not missed) had orcahstrated provable political violence & murders, hyperinflation, & an influx of political refugees into SA.

Mbekinin stead of being proactive chose what he called ‘quiet diplomacy,’ colleagues just say you don’t care man.

In 2002 after pressure from the Commonwealth conference Mbeki had to send a delegation to obeserve the 2002 Zimbabwean election. They only reveled that the election was ‘legitimate,’ but the report was kept secret.

The report was only revealed in 2014 only after the SAn constitutional court ordered for it to be revealed. The report was a can of worms opened and contradicted with what the observer mission claimed to be legitimate.

Again, Mbeki lied, and guess how many people suffered post the 2002 Zim election? Thousands...

Th same reapeted itself with the 2005 and 2008 elections. However the 2008 election is one where we all knew in Zimbabwe that SADC had lost its essence and relevance.

At the height of the most horrific and yet undocumented genocide in Zimbabwe, in the lead up to the 2008 June re-run presidential election, Thabo Mbeki didn’t encourage Mugabe to relinquish power. That same year due to poor sanitation Zimbabwe had its worst cholera pandemic.

Mbeki was sent (through global diplomatic pressure, he honestly didn’t want) to go and obeserve the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Uncle Thabo just went to state house for coffee and cake with Grace and Bob. He didn’t not meet with activists, doctors on the ground, or opposition politicians.

He had a press conference after their mini tea party. Mr. Mbeki declared that there was “no crisis,” even as Zimbabwe’s electoral count was being hijacked...

He denined the crisis while opposition supporters terrorized and thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing over the border to South Africa where they still had not found safety.

In that week of his press conference a xenophobic outbreak broke out in SA and Zimbabweans were killed , beaten, stabbed, hacked or burned to death —leaving 25,000 shelterless.

Mbeki still mainted his role as mediator, and at the height of the cholera pandemic in 2008, the Mugabe administration would not request for humanitarian aid to save image, Mbeki played along and continued to affirm there was no crisis & there was no need for the world to donate

Beloveds at that time 50 people were dying in a day. Eventually 4.300 people died from the cholera outbreak. In the 21st century people should not die from cholera. Mbeki could have used his voice to echo the cry for help from the doctor’s and political activists.

The death toll is now 365,000 plus 4,300 = 369,300. But there is a figure we need to factor in. The people who died in the 2008 Zimbabwean political mass killings.

The Human Rights Watch believes that at least 5000 people duel from extrajudicial executions and political violence but they believe these are only a few of the ones that could be documented. So now the death toll is at 369,300 plus 5,000 = 374, 300