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(NEWZIMBABWE BLOG) ‘Human rights’ cover for sanctions wears thin

‘Human rights’ cover for sanctions wears thin
By Psychology Maziwisa
Last updated on: September 21, 2011

THE day any country is permitted to make catastrophic resolutions about another nation and people fail to subject those resolutions to relentless scrutiny is the day humanity will go to hell in a wheelchair. As George Owell noted, “In time of universal deceit, speaking the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

And the truth today, dear reader, is that Zimbabwe’s future hangs in the balance precisely because America and her associates have not sufficiently been exposed for their bigotry and hypocrisy.

The notion that, in 2001, George W. Bush signed the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy Act (ZDERA) into law in order to restore democracy to Zimbabwe allegedly after sustained breaches of human rights by President Mugabe’s government cannot go unchallenged. Nor can the deception that the sanctions that came about pursuant to ZDERA were merely targeted.

With all due deference to America, rights abuses or the breakdown of democracy could not possibly have been used as grounds for the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe, at least not in 2001. And this is so for a number of compelling reasons.

Then, as now, we were a cosmopolitan nation, indeed a multi-party state. In year 2000, Zimbabwe held a referendum, which referendum Zanu PF resoundingly lost. Parliamentary elections held around the same time saw the MDC acquire about half of the seats in the lower House of Assembly. Zimbabwe had an independent press as well as an independent judiciary that delivered judgments inimical to the wishes of Zanu PF.

Of course there is no doubting the fact that Zimbabwe has its problems. But so do America and Britain. In 2003, for instance, Britain and America went to war in flagrant defiance of international law, a war that resulted in hundreds of thousands of premature civilian deaths in Iraq. Yet neither George W. Bush nor Tony Blair was slapped with sanctions.

Almost a decade later, there is not even a distant sign that the two could face the music at the International Criminal Court for their monstrosity. Indeed, all the available evidence indicates that Bush and Blair could die without ever being held to account in a court of law for their atrocities.

Certainly when it comes to Zimbabwe, the West has always acted without rhyme or reason, indeed with spite.

Between 1985 and 1986, for example, Zimbabwe experienced what any honest observer would certainly describe as the darkest moment yet in post independent Zimbabwe. Whichever way one chooses to look at it, Gukurahundi was a terrible episode for human rights. Yet the international community was discernible only by its absence.

Twenty thousand civilians killed and it was not enough to invite censure of sorts? Was it because it was black against black?

Indeed if Gukurahundi has been mentioned hereabouts, it has only been to aggravate international hatred for President Mugabe, an abhorrence that ironically surfaced only when the latter decided to do the right thing, resolving, in year 2000, that a situation where less than 3% of the total population continued to own over 90% of the country’s prime land was untenable.

Let’s be clear, this is not about human rights. This is about America and her European allies wanting to perpetuate white-skin privilege in Zimbabwe. This is about self-interest. And not to sound melodramatic but this is not just unfair, this is bullshit!

When one really gets down to it, it’s clear that the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe were part of a well coordinated, carefully orchestrated scheme to cause considerable strain to the economy and so trigger frustration among the electorate through widespread unemployment and acute food shortages amongst other concerns.

Ultimately, it can be argued, it was hoped that the cumulative effect of that anxiety would help inspire a rebellion against the government of Zimbabwe either at the polls or on the streets. And they missed that object only by a whisker in 2008!

Quite clearly, America and her allies would be most delighted to see the uncompromising President Mugabe replaced by an imbecile more amenable to their orders.

Ignore the nonsense by the European Union envoy a few days ago that the EU would be happy to work with any government as long as that government has been chosen by the people of Zimbabwe.

What else did you expect them to say: that President Mugabe has consistently been the people’s choice since 1980; that, with the dollarisation of our economy and the availability and improvement of crucial services thanks to Zanu PF, MDC’s prospects of ever forming a substantive government in Zimbabwe have become increasingly questionable? Sweet dreams!

They are agents of Judas Iscariot who have clearly been baffled to see Zimbabwe still standing, despite attempts to suffocate it through the issuance of mischievous instructions to the World Bank and the IMF to block any effort that might improve its fiscal position.

Desperate to send Zimbabwe to the gutter, and realizing that the sanctions may not quite have yielded the desired objective, they are now polluting the Kimberly Process with trivial and often unsubstantiated claims. This, in a bid to block Zimbabwe from lucratively selling her gems and in clear contempt of the green light issued to Zimbabwe by the diamonds watchdog. The prejudice is clear for all to see and it stinks.

At day’s end, it’s fair to say that the sanctions on Zimbabwe are illegitimate and that they were motivated by nothing more than a malevolent desire to protect vested interests. Accordingly, they should be removed forthwith. How nice it would be for Zimbabwe to stop relying on America for aid.

Zimbabwe is not a charity case; it is a nation that longs to stand on its own two feet but is, alas, unable to do so because of concerted efforts to stifle her economic independence.

In the circumstances, it’s really quite a tall order for Charles Ray to expect Zimbabwe to start any work on cultivating good relations with his government.

But can we afford to keep mourning about sanctions for the rest of our lives? It is my considered view that Zimbabwe would do well to move on. Indeed, if given the inclusive support it requires, the ongoing indigenisation exercise could help Zimbabwe survive and, possibly even, thrive.

Meanwhile, let’s take comfort in the inescapable reality that our detractors’ day of reckoning will come, if not in this life then certainly in the next.

Labels: DIAMONDS, GUKURAHUNDI, HUMAN RIGHTS, KIMBERLEY PROCESS, NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 2:26 PM