(NEWZIMBABWE) Sanctions - the real deal has begun

Sanctions: the real deal has begun
By Jonathan Moyo

AS THE historic Zanu PF-led anti-sanctions petition launched by President Robert Mugabe on March 2 gathered further momentum last weekend, with its localisation at major centres in all the country’s 10 provinces to signal its rolling national character, sanctions denialists among regime change donors and their puppets in the MDC and some media circles are becoming jittery, desperate and reckless because their assured doom is now written on the wall.

For the first time since the enactment of the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Recovery Act (Zidera) in 2001, which was followed by the adoption of similar draconian policy actions in 2002 by the EU, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, Zanu PF has come up with a dynamic, comprehensive and actionable response to the evil sanctions whose decisive policy framework includes the following six-point matrix that is key to the new initiative:

* Indigenising the economy to empower the born-free generation whose “Gushungo Connection” with the past and the future ensures that it shall be Forever Free;

* Giving ordinary Zimbabweans a voice against the evil sanctions by enabling their participation in the anti-sanctions petition to address their now undeniable suffering;

* Nationalising companies owned by interests in the countries that have imposed the evil sanctions of which the first target are companies that themselves have been enforcing the evil sanctions of their mother countries;

* Instituting litigation by the State and its various relevant organs and private companies or communities prejudiced by the sanctions — including class actions — in various jurisdictions starting in Zimbabwe and in the countries that have imposed the evil sanctions as well as at the European Court of Justice which must now be called upon to adjudicate over the EU’s violation of the Cotonou Agreement and the Permanent Court of International Justice, the World Court, which is the primary judicial organ of the UN given that the evil sanctions have not been sanctioned by the UN;

* Prosecuting individuals, companies or organisations that in any way call for or support the imposition of the evil sanctions; and

* Enacting new laws to close any gaps in the current legislation to enable litigation and the prosecution on sanctions-related issues in and outside Zimbabwe.

The combined revolutionary implication of these six instruments of the new anti-sanctions initiative whose framework was articulated by President Mugabe at the last National People’s Conference held by Zanu PF in Mutare in December 2010 is causing regime change donors to have policy nightmares while sending the shivers down the treacherous spines of the embattled MDC-T forerunners who are trying hard but failing to find relevance in the emerging indigenised Zimbabwean economy, dominated by the born-free generation through their “Gushungo Connection” as part of the Last Chimurenga.

A case in point of a beleaguered MDC forerunner who is seeing red everywhere as a result of the infectious anti-sanctions onslaught now fully under way is Tendai Biti, the mercurial MDC-T secretary-general who also doubles as the treacherous secretary of the US and EU imperialists who decide who to add to or subtract from the evil sanctions list.

Because he is intellectually deranged and politically bankrupt and is thus unable to mount a convincing argument to rebut Zanu PF’s unassailable ideology behind the party’s unstoppable new anti-sanctions initiative, Biti resorted to his legendary kiya-kiya tactics last week by getting two paid sanctions denialists in the media who are unrepentant regime change mouthpieces masquerading as newspapers to illegally and unprofessionally reproduce an article by this writer published on August 4, 2006, in the Zimbabwe Independent under the title, “Leaving all to Gono won’t bring sunrise”. If Biti thought his role in this matter was unknown, now he knows better.

Imagining themselves to be clever and a half, when they are well known O-level dropouts with dubious diplomas in journalism which they use to justify the brown envelopes they routinely get to publish rubbish as news, the purported media practitioners that Biti used changed this writer’s 2006 title “Leaving all to Gono won’t bring sunrise”, which captured the essence of the piece, to a new and bastardised title “Sanctions: Empty propaganda”.

The fact is that the supposedly two different newspapers reproduced the same article by this writer and changed the original title and deleted some paragraphs while giving the piece a similar new title, “Sanctions: Empty propaganda”, proves that there was one dirty hand behind the reproduction and that hand happens to be the same hand that recommends which names of Zimbabweans or their companies to include or exclude in the evil sanctions list.

The debacle of having an article from the archives which dealt with particular issues of particular circumstances at a particular time involving particular players reproduced in the same way and on the same day and presented as if it applies today by two different newspapers that supposedly have nothing in common from an editorial and ownership point of view raises eyebrows and demonstrates that the papers in question are edited by some pretty desperate mouthpieces that have nothing to show that they ever went to school and who are ever ready to do anything stupid to get a brown envelope with dirty money.

Ask any professional journalist or ordinary person with a sound mind and they will tell you it is unethical and unprofessional for any newspaper to take an article published some five years ago under the title “Leaving all to Gono won’t bring sunrise” to reproduce it today under a false title, “Sanctions: Empty propaganda”, and pretend that what was in the article five years ago logically and factually applies to what is going on today. If doing that is not the height of idiocy, then nothing is.

But there is another very important issue to highlight here. The two newspapers that manipulatively reproduced this writer’s article in question at the instigation of Tendai Biti, who now routinely allows dirty politics to take precedence over his legal background, did so without this writer’s permission or agreement on the terms of publication and are thus in flagrant violation of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act (26:05) under which the legal copyright and ownership of the article vests with this writer.

It is as amazing as it is revealing that the likes of Trevor Ncube, who say a lot of nonsense about alleged violations of the rule of law by the State, are among the worst violators themselves through the illegal commercial practices of their businesses which not only underpay their reporters but also steal articles and illegally publish them without the permission of or remuneration to their authors.

The time has come for the law to take its course against newspapers, especially those that claim to champion the rule of law, which dig the archives of their perceived opponents for commercial purposes of making a quick buck by reproducing archival material under the foolish presumption that yesterday’s newspaper issues apply to today’s newspaper issues regardless of context and import.

There is something else revealing about the illegal reproduction of this writer’s archives by these newspapers none of which will survive beyond the regime change agenda of the US and EU. You can bet your last dollar or rand that they will not reproduce any of this writer’s archives attacking them or exposing Iden Wetherell’s media racism at the Zimbabwe Independent or dealing with Biti’s or Morgan Tsvangirai’s unprecedented treachery or addressing the current imperial and neo-colonial machinations of the US and the EU regime change donors. All these and more articles are in this writer’s archives along with those that are critical of some aspects of Zanu PF’s policies or lack thereof.

The right, fair and lawful thing to do would be to publish the whole works and to do so with the permission of the writer in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act (26:05).

But, to be honest, the delinquency of the brown envelope journalism of the two hopeless newspapers in question is rooted in Tsvangirai’s politics of treachery which has not only cascaded down and into some newsrooms owned by some Uncle Toms like Trevor Ncube who masquerade as media barons but has also come to define anti-nationalist and counter-revolutionary politics in Zimbabwe over the last decade or so.

The major deficiency of this politics is irresponsibility, the hallmark of which is Tsvangirai’s conduct which his minions in the MDC and its media mouthpieces emulate with reckless abandon. Tsvangirai is unfit to lead this country because he never takes responsibility for anything.

For example, last week when he invited his inevitable prosecution on charges of contempt of court after he used the judicial nullification of Lovemore Moyo’s illegal election as Speaker to recklessly attack and criminally defame the same judges who have over the years ruled in his favour in numerous serious cases that included treason, Tsvangirai ran away from the country under the pretext of mounting a “diplomatic offensive” in SADC.

Yet even a cursory review of his ill-fated mission shows that there was nothing diplomatic about it while there was everything offensive. It is no wonder that on his return, Tsvangirai, fully aware that his attack on the judiciary was offensive and that he should without question be arrested to have his day in court, recklessly dared the authorities to arrest him and collapse what he said was the GNU government.

Tsvangirai’s shocking and unacceptable message is very clear and speaks volumes about his now legendary irresponsibility: while his handlers will not miss an opportunity to make him read something criticising the so-called culture of impunity, he is in fact the epitome of impunity when it comes to the rule of law.

Tsvangirai blatantly violates the law and goes on to dare law enforcement agents to arrest him and risk having him pull out of the so-called GNU. Only heaven knows why he thinks that anybody would lose sleep should the GNU collapse. Does Tsvangirai not know that the GNU has already collapsed and that what remains are just cosmetics for the purpose of keeping up appearances with the Joneses? If he does not know this, the authorities with the legal power to arrest him on contempt of court charges know.

Fair-minded observers thought that Tsvangirai would have by now taken responsibility for his contempt of court and found a way to make a public apology. Instead of doing that as would any mature, intelligent and serious national leader, Tsvangirai has continued to act like a hooligan, thereby making his prosecution necessary.

All this is lost to Tsvangirai’s unthinking media hacks, like that daily which is playing hide and seek with the public, who think they can campaign for Tsvangirai by raising foolish questions about President Mugabe’s health purely on account of his age. One silly newspaper whose name does not deserve any mention purported to be re-launching itself with a would-be souvenir edition whose lead story headlined “Is this Zim’s future” used rumours to claim that there are alleged fears over President Mugabe’s health ahead of the forthcoming harmonised general election allegedly because his age is associated with “dementia and amnesia”.

Apart from being criminal, this alleged rumour is laughable because there is concrete evidence that leading and very important MDC-T Cabinet ministers genuinely believe from their first hand and direct experience working under President Mugabe that he is not only fit but that none of those who seek his office, including Tsvangirai himself, have even a fraction of his leadership qualities.

But if rumours are enough to raise fatal questions about the contest for Zimbabwe’s leadership, then regime change donors and their media mouthpieces must prepare to deal with growing rumours that their horse is said to have very serious HIV challenges and is under heavy medication while he is so irresponsible as to have no qualms about indulging in unprotected sex with impressionable and yet vulnerable born-free females who are subsequently blackmailed into risky abortions. Is that Zimbabwe’s future? Does our country deserve that kind of irresponsible leadership? Is that not an unacceptable affront to the born-free generation that has taken up the baton of the Last Chimurenga?

Well, if these puppets that are having crazy talk about President Mugabe’s health purely on account of his age want to have a fight over that issue, then they must rest assured that they’ll get more than they have bargained for. That is a promise, not a threat.

Meanwhile, and with respect to last week’s illegal reproduction of this writer’s article by the two regime change mouthpieces that are ipso facto sanctions denialists, which was changed from “Leaving all to Gono won’t bring sunrise” to “Sanctions: Empty propaganda”, let it be known that this writer fully stands by the contents of the 2006 article without any equivocation whatsoever and is happy to have it, and in that vein any other of his archives any day anywhere, reproduced as long as he gives his permission and agrees on the terms of publication in accordance with the law.

It is that simple. There is no serious writer out there who writes anything that he or she does not want to be reproduced if the compensation terms are either right or lawful.

More to the point, this writer is very clear that not only in 2006 when he published the article which the two useless newspapers illegally reproduced and bastardised at Biti’s instigation but generally between December 2001 and December 2010, everyone in or associated with Zanu PF objected to the evil US, EU, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand economic sanctions by labelling them illegal, but the manner and content of the objection left a lot to be desired.

In fact, after the 2005 Parliamentary election in which Zanu PF recorded a resounding two-thirds majority largely due to the success of the Third Chimurenga, the Zanu PF sanctions discourse in public debate did not quite resonate with the masses and that also partially explains some of the setbacks we suffered in the 2008 harmonised general election.

Anti-sanctions lessons from countries like Cuba and Iran show beyond debate that simply mourning the diabolic and evil machinations of the US and EU as illegal is neither enough nor strategic. Those machinations require not only propaganda, which is of course always necessary, but also actionable policy responses. Bombastic words are important but they only become meaningful when they are translated into actions such that what is said is also done. That is the essence of speech: it is about doing what is said and not talking about what could be done!

Against this backdrop, it is common cause that the countries that have imposed evil economic sanctions against Zimbabwe are sovereign states with the right to make their own laws in pursuit of their own interests. We in Zimbabwe recognise that in order to draw national and international attention to the fact we, too, are a sovereign state with equal rights to other nations to freely make our polices and laws in response to threats to our national security and in pursuit of our national interests.

Zanu PF understands that we cannot assert Zimbabwe’s rights by denying the rights of those countries that are against our country. We expect our detractors to understand this and show reciprocity, failure of which we are entitled to take measures within our national law and in terms of international law to force our detractors to respect our sovereignty and our national interests as we do theirs.

As to whether the evil US and EU evil economic sanctions are illegal or not depends less on what we proclaim as Zanu PF and more on what the courts say in various legal jurisdictions starting with our own courts. In terms of the doctrine of the rule of law, the determination of legality and illegality depends on the interpretation of the court. In other words, an act or thing is legal or illegal when the court says so. It is in this connection that the six-point policy matrix of Zanu PF’s new anti-sanctions response formulated and adopted by the party at its December 2010 National People’s Conference in Mutare is new, paradigmatic and historic in a revolutionary way.

To recapitulate, the thrust involves indigenising the economy in favour of the born-free generation as a distinct population group that is connected to the past and future of our country; the implementation of the anti-sanctions petition as a way of giving the generality of the people a concrete voice against the impact of the evil sanctions on them in their everyday life; immediately nationalising those companies that are benefiting from the evil US and EU sanctions while also enforcing sanctions against our economy in evil solidarity with their mother countries that have imposed evil sanctions on Zimbabwe; instituting litigation against any individual, company, country or countries that is or are in any way assisting the evil economic sanctions against our country; prosecuting any person, company or organisation involved in supporting or calling for evil economic sanctions against Zimbabwe and formulating and promulgating new legislation to fill any gap in the current legislation to enable the litigation or prosecution of culprits.

There’s a new game in town consistent with the GPA and this time it is for real. It is the Last Chimurenga all the way and that means “Chimurenga Chekupedzisira” or “Umvukela Wokugcina”.