Chakwera can end Israel-Palestine war
Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera has great capabilities to deliver powerful speeches that are able to move mountains. When he stood before the great United Nations General Assembly (Unga) in New York, United States of America last month, the world was amazed as the Malawi leader demanded that rich countries must cancel the debt.
In his usual magnanimous eloquence, Chakwera represented the voices of the Global South on the pressing challenges facing poor countries. Poverty, inequality, forex shortages and climate change-induced disasters are some of the calamitous misfortunes that affect least developed countries (LDCs) without ceasing.
When he chaired the LDCs, Chakwera demanded an end to economic injustices inflicted on poor nations by an unfair global political economy system that is under western hegemony. By this Chakwera might have referred to the combined political and economic power of the USA and its European Union allies.
Basically, the global political economy is centered around the G7 nations propelled by powerful multinational finance institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. When Chakwera vociferously demanded debt cancellation, he was directing his salvo on these giants of the Global North.
Similarly, the Malawi leader impressed the global audience when he poetically enumerated the catastrophic effects of climate change on poor countries. Chakwera had all the evidence from his very backyard as Malawi had just shaken itself out of the doldrums inflicted by cyclone Freddy in that fateful month of March of this year.
The continued lingering effects of Freddy present Chakwera with fresh fodder for his speeches as he jumps from one country to another in his endless flights abroad to market the plight of Malawi and showcase the impoverished state of the nation with the hope to mobilise international support.
We cannot completely rule out the possibility of Chakwera booking his next flight to Israel, given the sad state of current affairs in the Middle East. In case the Malawi leader embarks on this errand, the nation needs to support the move as there is a great need to show solidarity with the suffering peoples of both Israel and Palestine in this conflict of many years.
After all, Chakwera expressed great interest to extend Malawi’s foreign policy into the Middle East by establishing an embassy in Israel. In fact, the controversial city of Jerusalem appears to have a special place in Chakwera’s heart such that he reminded the nation at a public rally in Chikwawa, how some quarters protested his plans to set up the diplomatic mission in Israel.
Well, Malawi is a sovereign State and she can establish foreign relations with anyone. The main problem, though, is that the western block will be watching Chakwera and possibly deploy surveillance on what kind of leaders Malawi is dining and sleeping with. This is a problem not only for Malawi as it is for numerous other LDCs that are heavily dependent on aid from western donor countries.
Chakwera will find it hard to hammer a speech that appears to side with the suffering people of Palestine for fear of signals that may flash in Washington, and that’s where the IMF headquarters are conveniently located side by side with the World Bank. The conundrum is that Chakwera, as a pastor, will feel bad when Israeli bombs civilian targets in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Malawi leader will surely feel like delivering a speech of condemnation when women and children are killed in hospitals in Gaza. I have a strong feeling that Chakwera may soon fly to Israel and deliver a ‘love thy neighbour’ speech that may end the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
