By Tony Reeler The Southern African Development Community’s perpetual silence on Zimbabwe speaks louder than the words it occasionally utters about human rights and the rule of law. Its acquiescence in the face of serial violations of the SADC Treaty makes a mockery of all its members and leaves the citizens of Zimbabwe at the mercy of a predatory political and economic elite. One of the implicit reasons for setting up the Southern African Development Community (SADC) must have been the understanding that the carve-up of the region fractured cultures and communities in a wholly arbitrary fashion, and the countries formed out of this carve-up had so much in common that this needed to be recognised. The deep links between the countries of the SADC region were fostered even more by the bitter struggle against colonial and settler domination, only ending in 1994 with the final independence of South Africa.