Maravi

(HERALD) The agenda behind travel warnings

The agenda behind travel warnings
By Tichaona Zindoga

THE recent past has seen Zimbabwe pulling off a number of significant, if not morale-boosting, "coups". Last week, the annual trade expo, the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, and the country’s premier arts exhibition, the Harare International Festival of the Arts, ended in Bulawayo and Harare respectively.

The showpieces, along with a football match in the capital pitting reigning local Premiership champions Monomotapa and Ivorian side Asec Mimosas in a continental competition, drew an aggregate attendance of perhaps 200 000 people.

And it turned out to be a celebrity haul as ZITF and the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority brought Nigerian actress and songbird Patience Ozokwor — otherwise known as Mai Azuka — to Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo, while Hifa flew in popular South African music group Malaika and the legendary PJ Powers.

Ozokwor, in the country on a ZTA programme of bringing celebrities to Zimbabwe as one its marketing strategies, which has also brought in American singer Joe Thomas and Jamaican reggae artiste Luciano, also performed at the Rainbow Towers in Harare.

As well as numerous other international arts acts from such countries as France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Spain, Hifa featured renowned Malian jazz musician Habib Koite.

In essence, Hifa, which exhibits music, dance, theatre and visual arts, has been arguably the most racially and culturally diverse phenomenon in Zimbabwe since its inception 10 years ago.

But if the success of these events is a coup de grace of the recent lifting of travel warnings against Zimbabwe, is perhaps irresistible talking points.

Germany, Britain, Japan and the Commonwealth recently lifted travel warnings to Zimbabwe, just ahead of both ZITF and Hifa, which ran concurrently, in a move that was praised as a renewed "vote of confidence" in Zimbabwe. The countries issued the warnings on the premise of alleged human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, which was more an upshot of under-warm relations between Harare and the West following the former’s resolve to embark on a programme of land reform early this decade.

The move has been blamed for Zimbabwe’s diminished tourist receipts.

Tourism is one of the major drivers of the economy, and has been largely expected to boost the economy ravaged by poor performance in the mining and agriculture sectors.

In all fairness, as attendance to Hifa and ZITF and the Harare Agricultural Show, which is larger than both, as well as numerous other sporting events testifies, the idea that Zimbabwe has ever deserved a "security risk" tag is simply puerile, if not frivolous.

In other words, though the move to remove the unfortunate warnings is by and large welcome, on the background of Zimbabwe’s explicit desire to be taken "back into the family of nations", it must be taken in its proper perspective.

Zimbabwe, though in the past decade has not been free of political tensions, has never seen the Hadean anarchy — like we have seen in Kenya, for example — meriting "well-meant and responsible actions" not only of Western governments, but of every other across the world.

In fact, the travel warnings, along with economic sanctions on the Government of Zimbabwe, have been a calculated measure of bullying and isolationist policy by Britain, America and their allies.

In essence, the travel warnings move by the West trains a critical eye on the grander declared and undeclared intentions and strategies of those governments.

For posterity, it was Tony Blair’s British government that spearheaded the isolation of Zimbabwe, using travel warnings in part, following his disapproval of Zimbabwe’s land policies that meant to empower the black majority.

And his recent visit to the war-ravaged West African nation of Sierra Leone, at the time the removal of travel warnings to Zimbabwe might or might not have worked some kind of sympathetic magic to Zimbabwe’s well-known hospitality, points to a phenomenon of the West’s "politics of tourist destinations".

Reports on his two-day visit said he was there to promote its tourism potential with his office saying the country was being recognised as an "emerging destination" for tourists.

Sierra Leone boasts miles of unspoiled beaches along its Atlantic coast, said a report, but many potential tourists may be put off by images of its long, brutal civil war.

"Blair became a hero in the small West African country after sending UK troops here in 2000 and was made a local paramount chief," continued the report.

"The British soldiers played a decisive role in preventing rebels from seizing the capital, Freetown. "The Revolutionary United Front rebels were notorious for chopping off limbs of civilians with machetes.

"But Sierra Leone is now slowly recovering from the conflict and hopes to copy its neighbour Gambia as a tourist destination," it said.

However, the nub of Blair’s "politics of safe destinations’" was the revelation that "prominent on Blair’s agenda was to meet the President Ernest Koroma and review his own Africa Governance Initiative".

Blair has reportedly since established a team of nine experts in Freetown to help improve central government and attract private investment, allegedly at the request of Freetown.

In June last year, the former British Prime Minister — who is said to have "pledged to help Sierra Leone court private investment and to work with its government to help deliver their vision and priorities" — said he would be working as an adviser to Sierra Leone’s government.

Two things are thus clear: that tourism is a tool for building a country, which Sierra Leone, coming from a decade-long civil war, is poised to do; or destroying it, as been the case in Zimbabwe.

And that a country’s pliability to, acceptance of "private investment", by which the West means capitalism that disadvantages local indigenous peoples, is not only a favourable condition for successful tourism but for "acceptance" by the world.

And since Zimbabwe has shown resolve to do neither for the sake of its people, she has also received the rougher end of Western politics.

And that explains why national cricket teams of England, which safely toured Zimbabwe a few years ago despite the mischievous warnings, and New Zealand as well Australia have been used to unfairly cast a shadow on Zimbabwe’s hospitality and safety.

This has been despite other sporting events being hosted successfully without any incidents.

It is little doubt then that in issuing the noxious warnings, which they have thankfully removed, Britain and her allies have been on a systematic blindfolding of their citizens to the reality of Zimbabwe’s situation.

And that this was ably aided by indignant war-mongering media houses bent on fomenting a real crisis that Zimbabwe barred from the country and others who feed off surreptitious lies is a real possibility.

The next logical move is to remove the "travel restrictions" imposed on Government officials to articulate their policies and meet others for business. Travel warnings were never motivated to stop them and "their cronies" from going on "shopping sprees", as the world has been made to believe by the media aforementioned.

And now that the frivolous warnings are off, little New Zealand must fulfil its June cricket tour, or face sanctions — which it should anyway — for trying to mix politics with sport which the International Cricket Council rejects in the first place.

Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS

posted by MrK @ 7:55 PM