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(SUNDAY MAIL ZW) Sanctions and the doctrine of human rights

Sanctions and the doctrine of human rights
Wednesday, 18 July 2012 00:00
Reason Wafawarova

It is very important that we look at how the media have handled the issue of the EU/US illegally imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe in the last decade. By the media it may be necessary to broaden the term to include all commentary, analysis, opinion and the generality of the intellectual fraternity.

For many who have read about the EU sanctions in particular, the impression ones gets is that the sanctions on Zimbabwe are not only limited to the punishment of a few rogue politicians but also justifiably imposed on the basis of alleged human rights abuses. That is the prevailing rhetoric that largely passes for fact in the public domain.

Welshman Ncube agrees that it was him and some of the leadership in the original MDC who advocated and supported for the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe, but he insists that their request was only limited to the punishment and isolation of their individual political opponents within Zanu-PF, whom they accused of alleged human rights abuses. He says he is opposed to the inclusion of companies and other business entities to the sanctions regime, arguing that the position of the MDC has never been to advocate for economic sanctions against the people of Zimbabwe.

This is despite the fact that Morgan Tsvangirai has always openly supported the inclusion of companies and businesses in the sanctions regime, even making public warnings that the people would suffer for real if they did not help him remove Zanu-PF and President Robert Mugabe from power. The utterances are on public record in Zimbabwe and not even one of them has been rescinded once.

We must start by making some factual observations about the issue of these sanctions. The official basis for the illegal economic sanctions by both the US and the EU has been that the embargo is a punitive measure to force an end to systematic human rights abuses. The reality of course is that the sanctions were in a large part a gesture of protest against the forceful reclamation of land from colonially settled white commercial farmers, and in another sense a way of creating political leverage for the puppet MDC over their rivals in Zanu-PF.

The part that includes human rights for ordinary Zimbabweans is nothing more than an impressive truism to that is meant to put a human face to an otherwise racist power game.

Tony Blair, George W. Bush and John Howard made up the aggressive triumvirate whose rhetoric was impressively megaphoned into impressive news bytes by a compliant media as well as into impressive commentary by equally compliant sections of the Western intellectual community.

The foreign policy of these Western powers became a matter of fighting the “egregious human rights abuses” by Robert Mugabe, to quote John Howard of Australia. His Foreign Minister Alexander Downer repeatedly declared Australia’s support “for the people of Zimbabwe,” a euphemism he favoured so much in reference to the puppet MDC leadership.

Downer even went as far as hunting down Zimbabwean students studying in Australian universities, and suspected of being connected to Zanu-PF politicians or officials in President Robert Mugabe’s Government. Those who were suspected of any relations to Zanu-PF elites were summarily expelled from both the Australian universities and also from the country itself in 2007, purely on the basis of being related to politicians whose opinions differed with those of Downer and his political colleagues. That blatant abuse of the rights of these individuals was meant to be a correction of alleged human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. It cannot be more ironic.

This writer was extensively debated in the Senate after Senator Natasha Stott Despoja moved a motion for deportation on the basis of pure fabrications of charges of “rape, murder, and training mass killing militias.” The “reliable” source of information in this case was a slanderous radio report defamatorily created by the imagination of one ABC reporter by the name Wendy Carlisle — a package of total concoctions and sensationalised fabrications, coloured by ludicrous utterances from Job Sikhala.

The rhetoric about correcting human rights abuses in Zimbabwe is quite similar to that on the “war on terror,” once described as the “evil scourge of terrorism” by the late Ronald Reagan, and also described by George Schultz as a plague spread by “depraved opponents of civilisation itself”.

Reagan’s rhetoric made headline news in Western media in 1985 just like the Bush/Blair/Howard rhetoric placed Zimbabwe on the media spotlight at the peak of land reclamation in Zimbabwe in 2000.

There is a striking continuity on the players involved with the illegal sanctions regime in Zimbabwe. Today there is talk about a possible lifting of these illegal sanctions whose imposition was clearly outside the mandated authority of the United Nations. The United Kingdom played a leading role in the imposition of the sanctions after the 2000 and 2002 elections in Zimbabwe, more for punishing Zanu-PF for its performance and far less for the allegation of human rights abuses. Today the UK continues to play a huge role in advocating for the perpetuation of these illegal sanctions, declaring that it would be “unacceptable” for President Robert Mugabe to be allowed to “shake hands with the Queen,” as if that gesture in itself was a feat of global political significance. To Zimbabweans the lady is nothing more than an ordinary old woman enjoying mythical over-glorification from sections of the British population.

The continued role played by the UK does not only confirm that the illegal sanctions regime is all but an internationalised bilateral conflict between London and Harare, but also shows the United Kingdom’s obsession with seeking a domineering role in the affairs of its former colonies.

The power element must not be ignored in this debate about sanctions. The sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe are about trying to get rid of a perceived cancer that could spread dangerously across the Southern African region, especially into South Africa.

As officially stated by the US State Department and as repeated by Barack Obama in his maiden speech, Zimbabwe is seen to be posing “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national interest and foreign policy of the United States”.

Those who have been negotiating for the lifting of the illegal economic sanctions may need to be reminded of the words of George Schultz on April 14 1986. He said, “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.”

The US and the EU will only take negotiations about lifting sanctions on Zimbabwe seriously if and only if such negotiations cast the shadow of Western power across the bargaining table. This is why the UK is putting patronising conditionalities as a prerequisite for the lifting of the sanctions.

Schultz even condemned those “who seek utopian legalistic means like outside mediation, the United Nations, and the world court while ignoring the power element of the equation”.

Equally, those who have made legalistic utterances about the illegality of the economic sanctions against Zimbabwe have been emphatically ignored by the EU and the US. Even the UN’s Navy Pillay has been dismissed for failing to realise the element of power in the sanctions equation on Zimbabwe.

The only Zimbabwean person who seems to openly revere the power element in the sanctions regime is Morgan Tsvangirai, who until recently was in so much denial that his tongue could not even utter the word sanctions — jumping from one silly euphemism to the next, like “restrictive measures,” or “travel bans.” Morgan Tsvangirai is quite clear of the power element in the sanctions regime, and he cherishes this element for its prospect of making him the supreme beneficiary — given the man’s conviction that there is no other puppet in Zimbabwe that impresses Western powers more than he does. Even internal rival Tendai Biti publicly concurs with that. Simply put, Morgan Tsvangirai remains the most hopeful trump card in the West’s power game to dislodge Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

What the West has been doing in Zimbabwe is to exercise the power element by sponsoring mercenary civic forces in the country, under the direction and supervision of Western diplomats and other organisations like the National Endowment for Democracy, DFID or the US Aid.

For as long as Zimbabwe pursues pro-people policies like land reclamation and the current economic empowerment policies, it will remain a preoccupation for Western powers to block any pursuit of such policies, viewed as cancerous and a very bad example to neighbouring countries.

What we have right now is the hawk/dove debate in the West. The hawks are those sharing the position of the UK that the illegal economic sanctions must be maintained and intensified regardless of the harm to the ordinary Zimbabweans because, to them, there are higher Western priorities than Zimbabwean lives. These priorities are, of course, the economic interests of the UK, interests in the minerals of Zimbabwe as well as in other economic sectors like banking and so on.

The doves argue that the illegal sanctions have failed the test as a weapon to remove or weaken Zanu-PF and its leader President Robert Mugabe. They argue that alternative methods need to be adopted, including buying off Zanu-PF officials or bribing them by conditionally lifting the sanctions.

The human rights mantra will have to continue in order to maintain an international appeal to the cause of sanctions, and to provide good politics on the part of the Western-funded Movement for Democratic Change, whose only strength seems to be in vilifying and incriminating their political opponents in Zanu-PF.

Those in Zanu-PF who believe that the economic sanctions will be removed simply on the basis of holding an electoral referendum in a manner deemed to be free and fair by the West must rethink that position because, in essence, that logic is not only patronising but also clearly insincere.

If Zanu-PF misses the power element in the politics of sanctions, then there is a real danger of the party blindly capitulating into Western-engineered oblivion. What Zanu-PF must do, as matter of strategy, is to make sure that they play the power game effectively to their advantage.

It is the West that is after Zimbabwe’s natural resources and not vice versa. Zanu-PF must befriend non-Western investors so as to render Western isolation useless.

Zanu-PF must stop making pleas for the lifting of sanctions, and start pushing hard towards radical positions in economic development without the Western input.

Simply put, Zanu-PF must make the life of the Western investor harder the very way the life of an ordinary Zimbabwean has been made harder by the Western sanctions. Where Zimbabweans are predicted to stone their leadership, let the Western investors attack their politicians back home for lost opportunities.

The hawks in the West must realise the futility of the illegal economic sanctions and they must be forced into seeking concessions with Zimbabwe as opposed to continue with the bullish arm-twisting games we are seeing today.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in Sydney, Australia.

Labels: CAESAR ZVAYI, SANCTIONS, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 2:28 PM