DEBORAH BRONNERT, BRUCE DIXON, AMBASSADORS, SANCTIONS,
An open letter to Bruce and Deborah
October 7, 2013
by Mai Jukwa
My Government alleges that sanctions imposed by your governments have destroyed the Zimbabwean economy. You reject this argument, insisting that you have simply put in place “restrictive measures” on Mugabe and his rowdies. Your view is that these actions have no bearing on the generality of the people. Zanu-PF in turn accuses you of dishonesty.
In response, you issue predictably synthetic statements clarifying your position. It has become a tedious squabble spanning over a decade and with no seeming end in sight. In all this back-and-forth one essential point of principle escapes our conversation.
We have not examined the legitimacy of your actions against Zimbabwe or, as you claim, its oppressive leaders. For the purposes of this conversation, let us assume that Robert Mugabe is indeed guilty of all the democratic transgressions for which he stands accused in your eyes.
The question is whether such culpability gives Britain and the United States the moral (ignore legal) right to impose sanctions?
Examined in isolation, one would answer a speedy yes. However, when one considers the contradictory actions of your governments in relation to other regimes of proven doubtful democratic credentials the answer is perhaps a bit more hesitant.
Naturally, this leads the observer to conclude that your stated reasons (democratic passion) for imposing sanctions against Robert Mugabe are not entirely sincere. It cannot be the case that you sanction Mugabe on grounds of democratic impurity but at the same time enjoy tea and biscuits with the hand-chopping-women-can’t-drive Saudi despot, King Abdulla.
Such a position is an assault on reason itself.
I will not exhaust you by exploring your surprisingly cordial relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Turkmenistan and a host of other nations condemned by Human Rights Watch and other democratic barometers.
It would be equally tedious to list nations like Nigeria, Afghanistan and the many others that have held disputed elections but suffer no sanctions, targeted or otherwise.
There is a worrying duplicity to your actions.
By failing to act (sometimes actually congratulating offenders) in other cases of democratic transgression, much doubt is cast on your sincerity when you claim your interference in Zimbabwe’s affairs is motivated by benevolent democratic purism.
It is significant to note that the African Union has called for the lifting of the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
You have ignored these calls.
Sadc has also made similar calls. You have equally ignored Sadc’s concerns.
Thabo Mbeki recently described your attitude as “contempt” for Africa and its institutions.
Unsurprisingly, you do not care what he thinks either.
One wonders whose opinion matters to you.
Belgium?
Of course you are mindful of Belgian economic interests.
This is why you very quickly lifted sanctions on ZMDC at the insistence of Belgium in the hope of protecting Antwerp.
But you refuse to heed the calls of the African Union.
Your greed and brazen hypocrisy is breathtaking.
In all this you continue to claim that you are doing all these things because you care for Zimbabwe’s blacks.
It has nothing to do with white anger over Mugabe’s humiliation of the white farmers, your kith and kin.
The observer wonders why you have this special love for Zimbabwe’s blacks but not for the people of Saudi Arabia? What lucky niggers we are.
Another peculiarity is the whiteness of the sanctions against Zimbabwe. You will note that no South American nation has imposed sanctions on us.
The Arabs have not interfered in our domestic affairs.
The same is true of the peaceful people of Asia and the wider African continent.
The only sanctions against Mugabe are from white nations. This is indeed quite peculiar.
It raises uncomfortable questions about your motives as white nations especially against the background of Mugabe’s humiliation of your white farmer kith and kin. One could be forgiven for entertaining the thought of racial retaliation clothed in the regal apparel of democracy and human rights.
There is a clear racial motive for wishing to teach him a lesson. Perhaps even more damning are the obvious contradictions of your sanctions policy.
A few examples are worth noting.
Jonathan Moyo has been removed from the sanctions list, this without explanation.
He remains part of the beating heart of Zanu-PF strategy and is widely credited with crafting the manifesto whose prescribed policies are of grave concern to your governments.
He certainly has not repented of his past ‘misdeeds’ and, if his rhetoric is anything to go by, he seems very much determined to carry on as he did in past times.
So why has he been removed from the sanctions list?
What good has he done or what evil has he forsaken?
One gets the feeling that your sanctions policy is whimsical and there was never a justifiable reason for him being included on that list in the first place.
Caesar Zvayi’s case makes for equally interesting analysis.
At one time he was also slapped with sanctions, charged with undermining democracy.
I suspect it had something to do with his unabashed and perhaps overly enthusiastic role in delivering state propaganda.
One can find Caesar Zvayi’s editorial methods objectionable but at worst he should be the victim of a damning academic paper not sanctions.
It is not a crime to support Mugabe in the same way it is not a crime to cheer on the bombing of Libya.
I am informed that the said gentleman is now of cheerful persuasion after also finding his name suddenly removed from the sanctions list.
But why should he enjoy such generosity?
He has not repented.
He has not forsaken his past misdeeds if one can call them that.
If anything he is all the more eager and can be found on social networks taunting opposition supporters. He makes no pretense of political impartiality.
There is no objective reason that can be given to explain his removal from the sanctions list.
Again, it becomes clear that he should never have been sanctioned in the first place.
Placing him on the sanctions list was as outrageous as sanctioning the obnoxious Rush Limbaugh for cheering on the invasion of Iraq. It is not as though Zvayi has been calling for and cheering on genocide.
He simply supports an ideology, a political party.
Perhaps the most obscene example of your duplicity as white nations is regarding the Marange diamonds and ZMDC.
In past times, when you foolishly thought you could economically strangle Mugabe from power, you imposed sanctions on ZMDC in the hope of negating the economic benefits of the Marange find.
You condemned the Marange diamonds.
They do not benefit the ordinary people, you bellowed in righteous anger.
The military, which supports Mugabe, is using those diamonds to undermine democracy, you cried.
These are actually blood diamonds, your NGO’s screamed. Blood diamonds? Oh please.
It was just a matter of time before that insatiable white greed overtook your democratic pretensions.
The question is what has changed?
Is the military no longer involved?
Are those diamonds somehow less bloody now?
Not at all, they were never bloody in the first place.
You justified your sanctions using flimsy arguments to give cover to your real objectives.
Now that Sadc and the AU have endorsed Mugabe’s re-election it is becoming increasingly clear that Zanu PF is here to stay. Being the greedy whites that you are, you now want a share of those same ‘bloody’ diamonds you previously condemned.
elgium has thrown away all restraint and made it clear they want to enjoy the benefits that flow from Marange. All this betrays your nature as a dishonest people. I could speak of the now-suspended sanctions against Agribank and IDBZ.
Why were those banks sanctioned in the first place?
We were told they were rotten to the core and were being used to finance Zanu-PF’s subversion of democratic will. Well what has changed?
Again it is yet another example of an incoherent sanctions policy justified based on flimsy arguments.
But even if those arguments are flimsy and without merit, who cares?
You are accountable to nobody.
Such is the nauseous arrogance of white supremacy.
In all this one thing is clear.
Your motives are self-serving and largely racial.
The cheap rhetoric about how much you love our blacks and are trying to protect them from a beastly Mugabe just does not sell anymore.
What we want is to be left alone.
We mean your nations no harm and have no ambition to interfere in your domestic affairs.
We just want to be left alone. Leave Mugabe to us.
If we decide to overthrow his government we will do so of our own initiative. We are quite experienced in that regard, as the Rhodesians will tell you.
Your white club masquerading as benevolent guardians of democracy in Zimbabwe has been discredited.
Our African brothers, as expressed through Sadc and the African Union, do not share your views.
Ndatenda
Ndini muchembere wenyu, Amai Jukwa
posted by MrK @ 5:01 PM
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