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(TALKZIMBABWE) Zimbabwe, Managing the rotten apple via the Fifth Freedom

Zimbabwe, Managing the rotten apple via the Fifth Freedom
Reason Wafawarova: Zimbabwe, Managing the rotten apple via the Fifth Freedom
Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:26:00 +0000

ZIMBABWE might be a small Southern African country run by an openly impecunious Government and struggling to wriggle out of the ruinous effect of illegal sanctions, but the country still remains centrally important to Western foreign policy.

The natural resources of Zimbabwe may be many enough to potentially make Zimbabwe a relatively rich country but it is an exaggeration that these resources are too valuable to lose for Western capitalist elites. There may be about 2,500 Western sponsored NGOs resident in Zimbabwe on the pretext of humanitarian aid and a quest for democracy and human rights, but the argument that the West is after the freedom and happiness of the poor masses of Zimbabwe is less than meritorious, if not plainly ludicrous.

The concern about Zimbabwe is what we are seeing with mass demands in South Africa today, demands by the masses for a share of the country’s wealth. The concern is about the domino effect, coming in line with the rotten apple theory.

Personalities with nationalist and people-based policies like President RobertMugabe cannot be allowed any measure of success under the rotten apple theory.

Liberation movements that pursue independent nationalism ahead of neo-liberal subordination to capitalist power cannot be allowed any room for success. This is why Zanu PF is a defiled party.

A small African country redistributing about 15.5 million hectares of its arable land cannot constitute “an extraordinary threat to the interests of the United States” as President Barack Obama explained about Zimbabwe in justifying his one year extension of the illegal sanctions regime on the country.

But under the rotten apple theory, the political logic follows the line that the tinier and weaker the country is, the more dangerous it is. If a marginal and impoverished country can begin to utilise its own resources and can undertake programs of development geared to the needs of the domestic population, then others may ask; why not us?

The contagion of Zimbabwe’s “unsound policies” may spread and before long President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s January 6, 1941 “Fifth Freedom” may be threatened in places that really matter like South Africa.

This is why Zimbabwe’s land reform programme is an unforgivable sin and the Great Satan that allowed it has to be punished under the provisions of the Fifth Freedom.

For the benefit of the reader the Fifth Freedom was an idea propagated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a speech titled “The Four Freedoms” on January 6, 1941.

Roosevelt suggested that there were four fundamental freedoms that man needed to observe. These he outlined as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

He then gave the Fifth Freedom as the freedom to defend (by any means necessary) the four fundamental freedoms.

Over the years the Fifth Freedom has become central in US foreign policy and is strongly adhered to by those in the Western Alliance. It is a licence to kill in defence of the four freedoms; it is the legitimate excuse to eliminate threats to pro-Western values under the guise of defending fundamental freedoms.

The methods adopted in eliminating this threat or individuals associated with this threat include neutralising, disposing, executing, or killing enemy targets.

The regime change agenda pursued against President Mugabe by the West since the year 2000 was pursuing the goal of disposing, but as history will record, this did not work.

Some members of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party have openly said that they view the Global Political Agreement on whose strength an inclusive Government is in place in Zimbabwe; as a tool to neutralise Zanu PF and President Robert Mugabe “from within”.

Some daring characters like the sexually adventurous, but now disgraced Bishop Pius Ncube actually suggested the killing of President Mugabe under the auspices of the Fifth Freedom.

The West is not exactly comfortable with the MDC-T’s idea of neutralising Robert Mugabe. This will give President Mugabe a measure of success that is not befitting for someone that is such a “rotten apple”.

The fact that the GPA explicitly declares that the land reform programme is irreversible (not that it would be ever reversible anyway) means that a neutralised Mugabe, if such a thing will ever exist; will go down in history un-humiliated and undefeated and that is a dangerous precedent for the West. A triumphant Robert Mugabe is a very bad example for countries that may consider developing towards the needs of their domestic population, ahead of the needs of Western investors.

The West is not too impressed with the MDC-T in the inclusive Government and the only time they show a semblance of respect for the GPA is when they are using the agreement to campaign for more powers for Prime Minister Tsvangirai or to advocate for the placement of their favoured candidates in strategic senior public offices in the inclusive Government.

The same GPA is totally discarded when the West is advocating the cause of ousted white commercial farmers who had to make way for landless indigenous people.

The crimes of Zanu PF can best be explained the same way the crimes of Nicaragua’s Sandinistas could be explained in the mid eighties. Then, Congressman William Alexander explained that “the lust members (of Congress) feel to strike out against Communism”.

It was quite notable that even congressional or media critics of the war against Nicaragua felt obliged, with only the rarest of exceptions, to make it very clear that they had nothing good to say about the Sandinistas. Their position was rather that the United States interests did not require such an attack, or that the means of the attack were inappropriate.

Mary McGrory wrote of this trend, “Only the bravest will say a word for the Sandinistas or question the president’s premise that he has a perfect right to practice unlimited “behaviour modification” in a small, peasant nation.”

Today, most of the leftists, anti-imperialists and media critics that dare criticise the West on the economic aggression on Zimbabwe will try to make it very clear that they have nothing good to say about Zanu PF and President Mugabe. Their position is that the sanctions are unwarranted or that the execution of the sanctions is too brazen.

Only the bravest like the United States Senator Cynthia MacKinney and British veteran labour MP, Tony Benn have stood openly to say there are a lot of good things to be said about Zanu PF. The British MP is on record saying it was “total hypocrisy” for Britain to try and lecture Zimbabwe on democracy.

The official claims against Zimbabwe are similar to those that were levelled against the Sandinistas in the eighties and they can hardly be taken seriously. If the minimally credible charges against Zanu PF and President Mugabe are accepted, Zanu PF’s record will at the worst, compare favourably with that of Western clients in the African region; some of whom are lauded openly as exemplary democracies.

The conclusions that follow from comparisons between Zimbabwe and Kenya, Nigeria or Madagascar are too obvious for discussion among sane people.

If we decide today to level the charges against Zimbabwe on the state that is by far the major recipient of US aid, asking ourselves honestly how this state would fare under these charges, surely we will no doubt see the profound hypocrisy in the West.

Western propaganda regularly denounces Zanu PF’s alleged failure to meet their obligations under the GPA, and President Mugabe for failing to live up to the obligations under various international treaties. Largely, these claims are without foundation and often part of a deliberate disinformation campaign.

These charges have no merit as they are often reported in the West, but they do apply to Israel. Israel does have obligations of a far more serious nature than those often spuriously levelled against Zanu PF, which Israel habitually rejects.

The admission of Israel to the United Nations was on the express condition that it would observe UN resolutions on return or compensation of refugees. Not only has Israel violated this condition, but it has habitually ignored a series of other UN resolutions with the tacit and committed support of Washington.

One of the major charges against Zanu PF has been the censorship of foreign press and the media laws that are often described as “draconian”. This is in violation of Roosevelt’s freedom number one; freedom of speech and expression.

Naturally if the United States were being attacked and sanctioned by a state of unimaginable power, Washington would not impose censorship on the media that offered that powerful country support, and would not mind US local media receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the aggressor.

That is in fact very correct, since the editors and anyone remotely connected to these media houses would be in concentration camps or at Guantanamo Bay, as happened to Japanese US citizens during the Second World War.

Censorship in Israel is so severe that an Arab woman lecturing at the Hebrew University was denied permission even to publish an Arab language social and political journal.

The Arab press in East Jerusalem has repeatedly been seized by the Israeli authorities for reporting settler attacks against Palestinians. An Arab bimonthly was permanently banned in 1983, and by 1985, at least 350 books were officially banned in the occupied territories, according Noam Chomsky in the book “Turning the Tide”.

A Palestinian artist was jailed for six months on the charge that the colours of the Palestinian flag appeared on the corner of one of his paintings.

Yet we have never heard the US or anyone from the West advocating to arm and direct Palestinian attacks on Israel, like they did with the Contras after accusing the Sandinistas of censoring La Prensa.

Or do we hear of “giving humanitarian aid” to civic groups fighting for the independence of the Palestinian people, the way the so-called pro-democracy civic organisation are funded in Zimbabwe by Washington.

Just like the US shamelessly defended apartheid South Africa when they were attacking neighbouring countries without provocation, Israel stands supported to the hilt by Washington today.

That does not stop the US from lecturing us on democracy. We all have to respect this Anglophone democracy that says the terrorism of others is bad terrorism while that of the West is self-defence or a fight for freedom and democracy.

And by the dictates of the theory of rotten apples, Zanu PF must be discarded so that others may not be tempted to copy its pro-people model of governance.

This writer hopes Zanu PF is aware of the challenges that lie ahead and that the party has a plan for the future. The Sandinistas lost a battle, but they are back with the revolution in full force in Nicaragua. Does Zanu PF have the character to withstand Washington’s machinations?

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

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*Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafawarova.com or visit www.rwafawarova.com

Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, NGOs

posted by MrK @ 11:57 PM