Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Africans must help Zimbabwe defeat sanctions

Africans must help Zimbabwe defeat sanctions
Michael Baingana from Uganda — Opinion
Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:30:00 +0000

MANY Africans are blaming President Mugabe and ZANU-PF for stealing elections and visiting violence upon Zimbabweans. But how can we honestly overlook the role and motives of Britain and the US in Zimbabwe? How can we fail to see that they have systematically and concertedly destabilized Zimbabwe and made political violence inevitable?

By a 2001 Act of Congress hypocritically named “Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act”, President Bush was authorized “to provide assistance to support an independent and free press and electronic media” and “to provide for democracy and governance programmes in Zimbabwe.”

On the ground this translated into US funding of anti-ZANU-PF radio stations and newspapers, bankrolling the opposition MDC Party and inciting and cajoling Zimbabweans to vote against Mr. Mugabe. Over the last seven years hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by both the US and Britain to destabilize and Zimbabwe.

This Act of hypocrisy also effectively disabled all lines of credit to Zimbabwe and prevented the “World” Bank and IMF from providing any development assistance or support. Now let’s be clear - and fair too. Any African economy subjected to such treatment would spiral into super-inflation, chaos and human suffering, so it’s not internal mismanagement but external sabotage that’s the problem in Zimbabwe.

But it is the motives behind these sanctions that should interest us most. In a 2005 testimony to a US Senate hearing on Zimbabwe, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker had this to say: “To separate the Zimbabwean people from ZANU-PF, we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you senators have the stomach for what you have to do.”

I rest my case!! Now the idea isn’t to blame the West for the suffering of Zimbabweans – there’s no value in that but let us understand well their motives and not be fooled by them - yet again.

The truth is that Zimbabweans are locked in a vicious economic stranglehold by the West over control of their country’s resources (agricultural land and minerals). This is economic war and the hungry, battered and dying Zimbabweans must be seen as casualties of that war.

The notion that Zimbabweans are the hapless victims of a power hungry African tin despot is a fairy tale sponsored by Washington and London to justify what they are itching to do next – grab the land back! All the talk about “democracy” and “human rights” that is being bandied about by Western governments, “humanitarian” NGO’s and “independent” journalists (all paid by Washington and London) is a ploy designed to lull their African audience into missing the point about what this is all about - resources. If the Whites really cared about the suffering Zimbabweans they would simply lift the sanctions – surely that isn’t hard to figure out – come on.

And let’s also be clear that Mr. Mugabe would not do Zimbabweans any service by giving up the fight for their country’s resources in the name of “democracy” and “human rights”! Black Zimbabweans need economic resources too. We Black Africans badly need and are entitled to Africa’s resources. What is “democracy” and “human rights” without resources? Wake up you Africans and stop being so gullible!

We must applaud Mr. Mugabe for refusing to be intimidated and for managing to maintain a semblance of political and civil liberty in the face of a massive campaign of lies and intrigue. The embattled Zimbabwean brothers must not be left to stand alone – fellow Africans must stand with them and help them to defeat the sanctions. Arise you Africans!

Michael Baingana — Opinion
amategaitu@yahoo.com

Article reproduced courtesy of Uganda’s Monitor Online available here.

Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, NEOCOLONIALISM, UGANDA, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 4:11 AM