(HERALD) US obsession with Zim strange
US obsession with Zim strangeFriday, 01 July 2011 01:00
By Tichaona Zindoga
There is something strange, and particularly evil about the United States of America's obsession with Zimbabwe. It is no doubt based on racism and an enduring dislike of the self-determination of black people of this country. Was it not Henry Kissinger who declared that Zimbabwe and South Africa did not belong to black Africa?
The US, a beneficiary of British colonialism here, was one of the countries that helped bust international sanctions against the rogue and racist regime of Ian Smith. The US imported chrome from the then Southern Rhodesia wherein Smith had declared the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965.
Smith is notoriously noted for his statement that black Zimbabweans would never rule themselves in a thousand years. Smith, despite being shown the dignity and the magnanimity of the policy of reconciliation adopted by the black Government in 1980, died the same old, racist in Cape Town, South Africa.
At the Lancaster House talks that preceded Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, the US, under President Jimmy Carter promised to fund the land reform in Zimbabwe, alongside Britain.
As the one important element of the talks and the reason why the liberation war had been fought since 1890, the score of land, and in this instance its resolution by the twin pledge by Britain and America, it carried the day.
Yet, no funds have come to date from America. This contributed to the sticky question that the land question has been, particularly in recent times.
When the situation imploded in 2000 as Zimbabwe reclaimed its land, disrupting white capital, the US came onto the scene again.
In 2001, former President George W Bush promulgated into law the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, after buying into the bilateral land dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain.
The law provides for the barring of trade between Zimbabwe and the US in private and national levels.
The law provides for the barring of Zimbabwe's access to multilateral lending institutions and cancellation of indebtedness.
While seeking to penalise US individuals and companies dealing with the Government of Zimbabwe and other designated persons - who are mainly drawn from business and politics - the US, through its Office of Foreign Assets Control sniffs and chases Zimbabwe's overseas transactions so that it can freeze them.
It has been remarked that sanctions are silent atomic bombs - and ironically, the United States is noted for bombing Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulting in some of the worst disasters the world has seen - and so, the socio-economic effects of sanctions is clear.
It is clear because they are intended and calculated to foment a humanitarian disaster which would see the US getting on with another Marshal Plan.
While the sanctions are still in place, the United States has been trying to block the sale of Zimbabwean diamonds at international markets.
Zimbabwe's gems are said to be able to satisfy a quarter of the global market and more than satisfy the country's fiscal requirements.
Zimbabwe has complied with the minimum requirements of the international diamond watchdog, the Kimberly Process and Certification Scheme.
Zimbabwe is a founding member of this voluntary body set up to fight the proliferation of "blood diamonds".
Blood diamonds are gems used to finance rebel wars.
Zimbabwe has a legitimate Government and if anything its power has been shaken by opposition bought, created and funded by the US.
The US has tried to frustrate Zimbabwe's sales and has used the provision for consensus building among parties to the KP to veto Zimbabwe's certification.
The civic society, which America sponsors, and US' Anglo-Saxon cousins in Canada and Australia as well as the likes of Israel and Belgium have been throwing spanners into the works.
The US even affords to hide behind these forces to disrupt consensus.
It does not matter that these constitute a minority in the KP.
In fact, many stakeholders have been dismayed that the diamond industry has been held to ransom by narrow racist political interests.
African stakeholders have been particularly slighted and have openly pledged to support Zimbabwe.
African countries produce the bulk of diamonds sold in Europe and India.
And as the current KP chair Mr Mathieu Yamba of the Democratic Republic of Congo has stood by the fact that Zimbabwe has in principle met KP requirements and therefore should sell its gems unconditionally, there has been very familiar noises.
After the KP recently gave two Zimbabwean companies Marange Resources and Mbada Diamonds the greenlight to unconditionally sell gems from the Marange area, the US came with its guns blazing.
Zimbabwe should not sell its diamonds, so believes an unrelenting US.
Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the US State Department, was outraged such a decision had been made.
And guess what, she went on to conjure the technical nicety of consensus which the US guarantees will forever frustrate any efforts that do not conform to its whims.
Said Nuland: "The United States is deeply disappointed with the Kinshasa Intersessional as it related to Zimbabwe.
"The United States has been a strong supporter of the Kimberly Process in the past and desires to find a way forward for the Kimberley Process that includes Zimbabwe and preserves the credibility of the process.
"The United States believes that progress with respect to exports from the Marange area of Zimbabwe can occur solely through a mechanism agreed to by consensus among KP participants."
She also pontificated: "The Kimberley Process works best when producers and consumers are collaborating, and when civil society is an active participant.
"The US would like to ensure the Kimberley Process' future and enable diamond exports to contribute positively to the region's people and economy."
Surely, there is nothing new in Nuland's statements and she should have declared her country's interests first and foremost.
The United States is disappointed in the KP's decision for the obvious racist reason that seeks to disempower the black majority of Zimbabwe.
At any rate, selling diamonds will bust US and European Union sanctions.
Nuland knows that her country will never seek positive consensus on Zimbabwe and its support for the many civil sector outfits is predicated on throwing spanners into Zimbabwe's bid to legitimately.
Lies have been spun and false documents circulated in misrepresenting the story of Zimbabwe by the likes of Partnership Africa Canada, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, and "diamond researcher" Farai Maguwu's Center for Research and Research.
The profundity of this desperation was demonstrated by the so-called civil society's rejection of the findings of founding chair of KP and industrialist Mr Abbey Chikane who came to Zimbabwe on several missions to oversee compliance as recommended by the body in Swakopmund, Namibia, in 2009.
Notably, Chikane said that Zimbabwe met KP conditions better than many African producers.
He was impressed with what he saw, including the security in Marange, even granting that state security be maintained until all concerns could provide their own civilian security.
Chikane was here. He is no politician but every inch professional.
There is nothing new the likes of Nuland can tell him.
On the other hand, does it not offend sensibility that as the US continues to stifle Zimbabwe's efforts to revive her economy, one of its papers was celebrating that Zimbabwe is the second poorest country in the world?
A report released recently by the monthly Global Finance magazine put Zimbabwe second bottom ahead of Congo Brazzaville among 182 countries in the wealth classification indexed on the Gross Domestic Product.
It said: "The poorest 10 countries were by order of their poverty Congo, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Liberia, Eritrea, Niger, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Togo and Madagascar."
Surely a country with the diamond capacity to satisfy a quarter of the world market, among other riches should not be in such a position, if the report is anything to go by.
The US is working round the clock to stifle Zimbabwe's growth and development. This obsession can only be motivated by malice that borders on criminality.
After all, US sanctions against Zimbabwe fall outside the ambit of the United Nations making them illegal at international law.
Former US Congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney put it succinctly when she accused proponents of Zidera of being racist.
She noted that land was in the centre of dispute between Zimbabwe and the West.
The United States' imposition of Zidera, she said, would continue to marginalise black people who had just got the land that had been stolen from their ancestors.
She said: "When we get right down to it, this legislation is nothing more than a formal declaration of United States complicity in a programme to maintain white-skin privilege. We can call it an ‘incentives' bill, but that does not change its essential ‘sanctions' nature. It is racist and against the interests of the masses of Zimbabweans."
tichaona.zindoga@zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, USA
posted by MrK @ 4:47 PM
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