Maravi

Zimbabweans, unite

Zimbabweans, unite
By Editor
Friday August 17, 2007 [04:00]

THE unity of the Zimbabwean people and the unity of that country's various political forces is the basic guarantee for overcoming its problems. It is only through the unity of the whole Zimbabwean nation that the problems and challenges facing that country can be resolved or addressed. It is imperative to overcome anything that impairs this unity.

And in this regard the people of Zimbabwe and their political leaders should heed the advice of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairman, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, over the need to maintain unity and safeguard their hard-won independence.
Zimbabwe's independence has to be defended by all our people in this region because they have contributed greatly to it.

There is no doubt Zimbabwe's independence and sovereignty are under threat and need to be defended. When one looks at things in this way, it is not difficult to understand why almost all Zimbabweans and others in our region who played an active role in the liberation of that country are refusing or resisting imperialist machinations to have it sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. There is no doubt the people of Zimbabwe are facing enormous economic difficulties and challenges. But this has not cowed them into submission to the dictates of imperialism. Daily, they are creatively, and under very difficult circumstances, trying to defend their independence, sovereignty and indeed dignity.

No one can deny that the political leaders of that country made serious mistakes in their engagement with the Western world and its interests after independence in 1980. They adopted economic policies that in many respects, despite appearing to be good for the country, were actually entrenching imperialists' interests in Zimbabwe. And when these interests became threatened, imperialism reacted with a devastating blow. Here, we are talking about the land issue and other interests.

But we also know that no meaningful national unity could be developed and maintained on the basis or foundation of the neo-liberal economic policies that the Zimbabwean government in its engagement with the International Monetary Fund was pursuing. In no time, these economic policies started to affect the workers and all sorts of social inequalities crept in.

This created a fissure which imperialism manipulated to its own advantage - it got closer to labour and isolated it from the political leadership that helped to liberate that country. We are not trying to analyse anything but to merely acknowledge things as they stand and the need for unity. Now we have in Zimbabwe the effects of policies of social confrontation imposed by imperialism and its international finance mechanisms.

These make the situation of the people in Zimbabwe much harder and more terrible. Those policies of social confrontation are resulting in a crisis for the government and the democratic opening. Zimbabwe is retrogressing. Inexonarably, the process of democratic opening will be led into a crisis. Very clear, eloquent signs of a crisis already exist, resulting from this situation of retrogression.

The heart of the confrontation is the determination by the main political leaders in that country and the Zimbabwean people in general to reiterate their national liberation and to demand respect for their independence and sovereignty. All of this is now under attack by all sorts of opportunists who we have no doubt are bound to fail. We say this with confidence because, above all, it was the Zimbabwean people - patriotic, courageous, revolutionary people who fought hard to throw off Ian Smith's rule, to begin a revolutionary process, to keep struggling in disadvantageous conditions and to recover from setbacks.

No revolution ever comes to an end and all revolutionaries have a duty to keep its idea, principles and goals alive. Even if the current political leaders of Zimbabwe were to try to close off prospects for future progress, they wouldn't be able to do so. Nobody controls the future.

But besides national unity in Zimbabwe, there is the issue of regional unity. The independence and sovereignty of Zimbabwe would be better protected by the region through meaningful integration. After all, the region played a very big role in the liberation of that country. Southern Africa has no worthy, honourable, independent alternative to economic integration - if it doesn't achieve this, it will have no place in the world of the future.

Our politicians and other leaders should become aware of this and see the problem clearly. Once our countries won their political independence, which should have been completed with the unity proposed by Kwame Nkrumah, they fell into the bottomless pit of balkanisation. Their structural weaknesses, political upheavals, continual interference by imperialism, and the lawless, excessive greed combined to enslave us in backwardness and extreme poverty.

In the last few years, attempts have been made at regional cooperation integration in the vague hope of industrialisation. A slow start to integrating our economies - but it is something worth improving upon.

The SADC chairman’s call to safeguard Zimbabwe's independence will be an exercise in futility if this country is not urgently helped to overcome its serious economic and financial situation. It's good that the SADC secretariat has come to a clear conclusion that the economy of Zimbabwe is under sanctions and that without this blockade, the economy of this country is viable. This conclusion is important for two reasons. First, it gives our leaders in the region the opportunity to focus on the main cause of the Zimbabwean crisis.

Second, it gives everyone hope of the high possibility of a quick reversal of fortunes if these sanctions are removed. It is surprising that those who called for the economic blockade of this country are the first ones to deny that it is under sanctions. It is stupid for one to deny that a country which has lost almost all its usual credit lines - as a result of political decisions taken by the United States, Britain and their close allies - is under sanctions.

Not even Smith's Rhodesia was subjected to such sanctions from them. This probably explains why the USA and Britain have had great difficulties convincing the heroes of our region's liberation struggle like Thabo Mbeki to follow their line.

The removal of sanctions against Zimbabwe is the greatest challenge before the leadership of SADC today. They are back to the days of the liberation struggle, days of international mobilisation, now not against Zimbabwe but for Zimbabwe. And no one should accuse us or anyone else of being indifferent to the political practices of the Mugabe government and the violations of human rights. Our region has lived through the worst colonial and imperialist violations of human rights and no one can school us on these issues.

Our region has always been at the forefront of fighting for the things that really define the dignity of any human being when those who are today going around pretending to be the greatest champions of human rights in our region were either on the side of those perpetrating injustices or were violators of human rights themselves.

Here we are talking about things that, in our opinion, constitute true humanitarianism, the policy of promoting the dignity of human beings and their wellbeing. It is no wonder that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe receives the greatest applause wherever he steps on this continent despite being labelled the worst dictator and violator of human rights on our continent.

Why? Probably the masses and the people of our continent are obeying their instincts and are refusing to be swayed by the volume and intensity of that campaign the imperialists are waging against Zimbabwe. How else can one explain this contradiction?

It is clear that the SADC leadership has a good understanding of the problems and challenges before it and we have no doubt that with the support of progressive people all over the world, the difficulties in Zimbabwe will soon be overcome and our region will be marching with very long strides towards regional integration and development.

Labels: EDITORIAL, SADC, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 5:12 AM