(GLOBALRESEARCH) South-East Asia Geopolitics and Washington’s Creeping Front Against Thailand
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, January 19, 2014
altthainews.blogspot.ca
What began as just biased, slanted reporting is now taking shape as a concerted and focused campaign to back the regime of unelected, exiled dictator Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxy regime run by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. The West, the United States in particular, has been taking an increasingly harder stance against anti-regime protesters seeking to permanently oust Thaksin Shinawatra’s regime from Thai politics.
Biased reporting came from the BBC, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, theNew York Times, and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), just to name a few – but despite the wide variety of sources, there was one concerted message – the protesters were “elitist” and “anti-democratic,” trying to perpetuate a “class divide” by seeking to oust a “democratically elected” government supported by the “rural poor.”
One of the most recent pieces published by the Western media, however, broke the mold and went one step further. An editorial board piece in the Washington Post titled, “Thailand’s anti-democracy protests should provoke a harsh rebuke from the U.S.,” states in no uncertain terms that the US should condemn ongoing protests against unelected dictator Thaksin Shinawatra and his nepotist-appointed proxy regime led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. The Washington Post argues:
Popular demonstrations against democracy are becoming an unfortunate trend in developing countries where elections have challenged long-established elites. The latest case is Thailand, where thousands of people took to the streets Monday to demand that the country’s freely chosen government step down, that an unelected council take its place and that elections scheduled for next month be canceled. The protesters’ strategy appears to be to disrupt Bangkok to the point at which the government will feel compelled to resign or be removed by the military.
Similar tactics have succeeded in bringing down two previous governments led by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his supporters since 2006, while a third was forced out by a dubious court decision. This time, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Mr. Thaksin’s sister, is standing firm, as she should. But she could use more support from the United States in rejecting an undemocratic outcome to the crisis.
Of course, nothing about the Washington Post’s comments is truthful.
Additionally, according to the Bangkok Post article, “Yingluck stands by Feb 2 poll ,” the regime showed reporters a letter from US Republican Congressman Michael Turner to President Barack Obama, citing the Washington Post op-ed, condemning ongoing protests as “undemocratic,” and calling on him to voice support for the regime’s sham elections in which major opposition parties are boycotting, and the ruling party is openly run by a convicted criminal/fugitive, Thaksin Shianwatra.
Worth repeating, until the Western media begins reporting it perhaps, is the fact that while Thailand is technically under the premiership of Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, by his party’s own admission, Thaksin is still literally running the country. The election campaign slogan for the last general election in 2011 was literally, “Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai Does,” Puea Thai being his political party. Forbes would report in their article, “Thaksin in Exile: Advising Sister, Digging for Gold,” that:
Regarding his behind-the-scenes role in the party and policy, he is not shy: “I am the one who thinks. Like our slogan during the campaign, Thaksin thinks, Pheu Thai acts.”
The New York Times admitted in an early 2013 article titled, “In Thailand, Power Comes With Help From Skype,” that:
For the past year and a half, by the party’s own admission, the most important political decisions in this country of 65 million people have been made from abroad, by a former prime minister who has been in self-imposed exile since 2008 to escape corruption charges.
The country’s most famous fugitive,Thaksin Shinawatra, circles the globe in his private jet, chatting with ministers over his dozen cellphones, texting over various social media platforms and reading government documents e-mailed to him from civil servants, party officials say.
The NYT piece would also report:
“He’s the one who formulates the Pheu Thai policies,” said Noppadon Pattama, a senior official in Mr. Thaksin’s party who also serves as his personal lawyer. “Almost all the policies put forward during the last election came from him.”
Image: The New York Times openly admits that Thailand is currently run by unelected convicted criminal/fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra. Clearly any proxy government or elections in which it participates in are illegitimate by both Thai and international standards. Thaksin’s foreign ties are what have afforded him impunity regarding an otherwise cartoonish, 3rd world dictatorship.
….
There is no question that a convicted criminal hiding abroad from a 2 year jail sentence, multiple arrest warrants, and a long list of pending court cases, is illegally running Thailand by proxy. Being unelected, Thaksin Shinawatra is by all accounts a dictator, and his “government” a regime, however cleverly they try to dress it up.
Elections in any other nation on Earth, including the United States, featuring a convicted criminal openly running a contending party would be unacceptable – and in Thailand as well, they are equally unacceptable. Protesters therefore are standing up against overt criminality, not “against democracy.”
As reported many times before, current anti-regime protesters are not trying to end “democracy.” They are simply trying to end the abuse of the democratic process by an overt criminal. Elections must be carried only after Thaksin Shinawatra and his entire political machine have been safely and completely dismantled.
But the criminal and illegitimate nature of the current regime is not the only only grievance protesters have. There is a more dangerous aspect of Thaksin Shinawatra and his political machine that protesters believe warrant his immediate and complete removal from Thailand’s political landscape – his unprecedented human rights abuses, including mass murder and multiple assassinations, both successful and otherwise:
* In 2003, he initiated what he called a “war on drugs.” Nearly 3,000 were extrajudicially murdered in the streets over the course of just 90 days. It would later turn out that more than half of those killed had nothing to even do with the drug trade. In this act alone, Thaksin earned himself the title as worst human rights offender in Thai history, and still he was far from finished.
* In 2004, he oversaw the killing of 85 protesters in a single day during his mishandled, heavy-handed policy in the country’s troubled deep south. The atrocity is now referred to as the “Tak Bai incident.”
* Throughout his administration he was notorious for intimidating the press, and crushing dissent. According to Amnesty International, 18 human rights defenders were either assassinated or disappeared during his first term in office. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed in its report, “Attacks on the Press 2004: Thailand” that the regime was guilty of financial interference, legal intimidation, and coercion of the press.
Image: Anti-Thaksin activist, protest leader, and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul’s van after being shot at by over 100 rounds in a failed assassination attempt carried out in broad daylight in 2009. Sondhi is just one of many of Thaksin Shinawatra’s enemies that have faced assassination.
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* In April of 2009 gunmen would fire over 100 rounds into the vehicle of anti-Thaksin activist, protest leader, and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul in a broad daylight assassination attempt. He was injured but survived.
* On April 10, 2010, heavily armed professional militants deployed by Thaksin Shianwatra and his “red shirt” front targeted and assassinated Colonel Romklao Thuwatham who was at the time commanding crowd control operations near Bangkok’s Democracy Monument.
* In August of 2013, businessman and outspoken Thaksin opponent Ekkayuth Anchanbutr was abducted and murdered.
* Just this week, on January 17, 2013, a grenade was lobbed into a peaceful march through city streetskilling one and injuring nearly 40. Protest leader Suthep Thuangsuban was a mere 30 meters from the blast – clearly intended for him.
Journalists, human rights groups, and activists of all kinds fear a return of the atmosphere of terror and intimidation sown during Thaksin’s time in office and are determined to prevent this from ever coming to pass. One must wonder why these egregious human rights violations, the worst in Thai history, weren’t mentioned, let alone addressed by the Washington Post or US Congressman Michael Turner.
Washington Post, Michael Turner, are Covering for Wall Street’s Proxy of Choice, the Shinawatras
Could both US Congressman Michael Turner and the Washington Post not be aware of any of this? Could they have missed the New York Times and Forbes articles blatantly admitting the overt criminality and illegitimacy of the current proxy regime ruling Thailand? Does Turner or the Washington Post honestly believe a proxy regime openly run by a convicted criminal and human rights violator who was not on the ballot nor even in the country, constitutes a “freely chosen” and/or legitimate government?
Of course not.
In fact, the Washington Post’s own 2011 article titled, “Thaksin’s sister is front-runner to become Thai prime minister,” would openly admit the last general election was, “a referendum on Thaksin.”
Clearly, the Washington Post is intentionally deceiving readers to protect the Thaksin regime in which the corporate-financier interests that steer Washington Post’s editorial board have invested heavily.
To see just how heavily invested Wall Street and Washington are in Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxy regime, one must consider over a decade of Thaksin Shianwatra’s servile obedience to these foreign interests:
* In the late 1990?s, Thaksin was an adviser to notorious private equity firm, the Carlyle Group. He pledged to his foreign contacts that upon taking office, he would still serve as a “matchmaker” between the US equity fund and Thai businesses.
* In 2001 he privatized Thailand’s resources and infrastructure including the nation’s oil conglomerate PTT - much to Wall Street’s delight.
* In 2003, he would commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program.
* Also in 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before the 2011 elections that saw Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksin’s “red shirt” “United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship” (UDD) in Washington DC.
* Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group,PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR, Carlyle Group), and Robert Blackwill (CFR) of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR), Kobre & Kim, Bell Pottinger (and here). Currently,Robert Amsterdam, of the Chatham House corporate member Amsterdam & Partners, serves as both lobbyist for Thaksin Shianwatra as well as his “red shirt” mobs, the UDD.
* During the most recent political crisis, the Western media has lent its full support to defending the Thaksin regime against protesters, as can be seen in reports by the BBC, Reuters, the New York Times, CNN, theWall Street Journal, and now the Washington Post.
The Washington Post’s condemnation of what it outrageously calls “anti-democracy militants,” is in defense of a loyal proxy, not “democracy.” That the Washington Post would also defend the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt alongside Thaksin Shinawatra in its latest editorial, is both telling and troubling.
While the Washington Post claims the US has done little to back the Muslim Brotherhood, sources indicate that a campaign of US-backed covert violence and terrorism is already underway to undermine the military government in Cairo. And while the Washington Post may publicly lament that Washington is not condemning harshly the protesters in Bangkok, we can be sure that covert support has already been ongoing for quite some time – just as rhetorical support from the likes of the Washington Post has.
Already, the only militancy seen, has been a nightly campaign of violence directed at, not by, the anti-regime protesters. That the Washington Post and US Congressman Michael Turner’s letter also omit this suggests silent complicity with the regime who is carrying out these acts of terror.
To ignore the greater geopolitical dimensions in which Thailand’s current political crisis is unfolding, would ultimately be folly.
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, THAILAND
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(LAND DESTROYER REPORT)Color Revolutions: Argentina Next?
Suspicion grows as Western criticism of Argentina's nationalization and rebuffing of "rules of global finance" sharpens in tandem with street protests.
Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
November 9, 2012
Western media agencies have begun enthusiastically covering demonstrations in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires. CNN, AP, and the BBC have all covered the protests in equally vague terms, failing to identify the leaders and opposition groups behind them, while BBC in particular recycled "Arab Spring" rhetoric claiming that, "opposition activists used social networks to mobilise the march, which they said was one of the biggest anti-government protests in a decade."
The Western media claims the protesters are angry over, "rising inflation, high levels of crime and high-profile corruption cases," all the identical, vague grievances brought into the streets by Wall Street-backed opposition groups in Venezuela. Underneath these unsubstantiated claims, lies the International Monetary Fund, and threats of sanctions aimed at Argentina's turning away from the US Dollar and the Wall Street-London dominated international financial order.
And like in Venezuela, a coordinated campaign against the Argentinian government, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchne, has begun in op-eds across the Western media.
The Chicago Tribune in an op-ed titled, "A wrong turn in Buenos Aires: Argentina's populist economic policies court disaster," stated:
What a shame to see a country of such great economic promise swerving off the road to prosperity again.
The latest in a history of unforced errors began in 2007. National elections ushered in populist President Cristina Fernandez, who has led her nation to the brink of disaster by refusing to play by the rules of global finance. She restricted international trade, violated contracts and pumped out phony data to disguise the soaring inflation her policies brought about. All the while she scored cheap political points by blasting the rich countries of the north for their supposed economic imperialism.
Argentina took a grave step in May when it nationalized YPF, its main energy company. The takeover, condemned around the world, forced out Spain's Grupo Repsol, which owned a majority stake in YPF. Repsol was providing the engineering know-how and financial investment to develop Argentina's massive energy reserves—including the huge Vaca Muerta oil-and-gas find.
Negotiations to compensate Repsol for Argentina's asset-grab will end badly for Argentina. The European Union is likely to impose sanctions. Repsol wants $10 billion, and it has sent the message to rival energy companies that it will not permit others to profit from its confiscated assets. Argentina will have a hard time finding partners to help it develop what should be a lucrative resource.
The financial coup against Repsol won strong national support. The approval ratings of Fernandez temporarily shot up. Even opposition parties backed the move. Government officials talked about how they had restored Argentina's dignity by standing up to foreigners exploiting its natural bounty. Meantime, Fernandez kept the once-hot economy going by nationalizing private pension funds, redirecting the money into housing loans, and expanding welfare programs by decree.
Now Argentina has to pay the price.
What is likely to follow will be coordinated attacks including sanctions, isolation, political attacks, currency attacks, and of course US-engineered unrest in the streets, which can range from protesters merely clogging traffic, to escalating violence triggered by the now notorious "mystery gunmen" used in US unconventional warfare to destabilize, divide, and destroy nations.
But also like in Venezuela, if enough awareness can be raised in regards to what the West is doing, and the disingenuous intentions and interests driving opposition groups into the streets, these efforts being used to coerce Argentina back into the Western dominated "world order" articulated by US think-tank policy makers like Robert Kagan as serving "the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it," can ultimately be thwarted.
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If you are in Argentina, or are familiar with the opposition groups now demonstrating against the Argentinian government, with knowledge of their leaders, demands, ideology, and affiliations, please contact the Land Destroyer Report at cartalucci@gmail.com.
Labels: ARGENTINA, COLOUR REVOLUTIONS
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(NEWZIMBABWE, REUTERS) Emergency declared in South Sudan
02/01/2014 00:00:00
by Reuters
COMMENT - Why are all these sellouts wearing cowboy hats? To signify that they have sold out to the United States camp? - MrK
Negotiators prepare for peace talks with rebels ... President Salva Kiir
SOUTH Sudanese President Salva Kiir declared a state of emergency in two states on Wednesday as his negotiators prepared for peace talks with rebels to end more than two weeks of violence that has pushed the country towards civil war.
Kiir called the emergency in Unity and Jonglei states, the two regions whose capitals are now controlled by rebel forces loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, who Kiir has accused of plotting a coup.
Gunshots were heard near the presidential palace on Wednesday evening. A presidential spokesman said security forces most likely fired the shots at residents breaking a curfew.
Both sides are under mounting pressure from regional and Western powers to reach a deal to stop the bloodletting that has killed more than 1,000 people in the world's newest state and displaced nearly 200,000 more.
The White House has said it would deny support - vital in a country the size of France that still has hardly any infrastructure more than two years after secession - to any group that seizes power by force.
The rebel delegation earlier arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa ready for the ceasefire talks. They said government negotiators had not yet arrived.
Both sides have agreed in principle to a ceasefire but neither has indicated when the fighting would stop and mediators are concerned that fighting around the flashpoint town of Bor will scupper the talks even before they begin.
South Sudan's defence minister earlier said government forces were battling rebel fighters 11 miles south of Bor, the capital of Jonglei state, which has untapped oil reserves and was the site of an ethnic massacre in 1991.
"There will have to be a fight because they want to defeat the government forces," Defence Minister Kuol Manyang Juuk told Reuters from the capital Juba, 190 km south of Bor by road.
Rebels loyal to Machar seized control of Bor on Tuesday.
US pressure
The Addis Ababa talks will focus on finding ways to roll out and monitor the ceasefire, the East African IGAD bloc that is mediating the talks said.
The clashes, which have spread to half the country's 10 states have unsettled oil markets and raised fears of the conflict spilling over in an already fragile region.
"We don't want to expose the people of South Sudan to a senseless war," South Sudan's Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said on a government Twitter feed on Wednesday.
Kiir has accused his long-term political rival Machar, who he sacked in July, of starting the fighting in a bid to seize power.
Machar has denied the charge, but he has taken to the bush and has acknowledged leading soldiers battling the government.
Clashes between soldiers erupted on December 15 in Juba. The violence quickly spread, dividing the country along the ethnic lines of Machar's Nuer group and Kiir's Dinkas.
South Sudan's neighbours, Washington and the United Nations played a central role in negotiations that ended decades of war with Sudan to the north and led to the secession of South Sudan in 2011, and have been scrambling to stem the latest violence.
The White House upped the pressure for the talks on Tuesday.
"We will hold leaders responsible for the conduct of their forces and work to ensure accountability for atrocities and war crimes," spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan said ethnic-based atrocities, often carried out against civilians by uniformed men, had taken place across the country.
Fighting across the country has displaced at least 180,000 people, according to the United Nations.
The clashes have revived memories of the factionalism in the 1990s within the SPLM, the now ruling group that fought Sudan's army in the civil war. Machar led a splinter faction at the time and Nuer fighters loyal to him massacred Dinkas in Bor.
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, NEOCOLONIALISM, OIL, SALVA KIIR, SOUTH SUDAN
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(OSISA) The security forces use STA to oppress activists
Submitted by Richard Lee on Tue, 2013-11-19 12:59
By Richard Lee | November 19th, 2013
From George Soros' OSISA or Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. - MrK
In a letter to Swaziland’s Prime Minister, 25 organisations called on the government to amend the reviled and unconstitutional Suppression of Terrorism Act (STA), which has been used to target opposition leaders and activists rather than ‘terrorists’ since its enactment in 2008.
“Instead of being narrowly used to target real terrorist threats, the STA is routinely used to suppress legitimate political speech in violation of fundamental rights that are guaranteed under the Swazi Constitution, including the rights to personal liberty, freedom of expression and freedom of association,” said Musa Hlophe, Chairperson of the Swazi Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations.
The local, regional, and international organisations are calling on the government to amend the STA so as to bring it into line with the Swazi Constitution. In particular, the organisations have urged the authorities to narrow the STA’s overly broad definition of ‘terrorist act’ and ensure that there is fair and adequate opportunity for organisations that are designated as ‘terrorist groups’ to challenge that classification.
In June, the then Minister of Labour and Social Security, Lutfo Dlamini, promised that the government would narrow the definition of ‘terrorist act’. However, the authorities have shown no sign of fulfilling this pledge.
“The Attorney General and the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs are given wide discretion to classify an organisation as a terrorist group,” said Simon Delaney, Media Law consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, which is one of the signatories to the letter. “There is a strong risk of incorrect identification as officials need only have reasonable grounds to believe that the group is engaging in terrorist activity – which is an impermissibly low standard. And groups have little recourse when they are designated.”
In addition to its constitutional obligations, Swaziland is a signatory to a number of international treaties, which place obligations on the country to ensure that its legislation, including the STA, adheres to international norms and standards.
“Although counter-terrorism measures are vitally important in any country, these measures must still adhere to domestic and international human rights law and comply with international standards,” said Sipho Gumedze, of Lawyers for Human Rights (Swaziland). “However, the STA fails this test. It is time that it was thoroughly overhauled.”
The following organisations have signed the letter:
Amnesty International
Coalition of Informal Economic Associations of Swaziland
Constituent Assembly of Civil Society Organizations
Concerned Christian Church Leaders
Council of Swaziland Churches
Foundation for Economic and Social Justice
Human Rights Institute – International Bar Association
Human Rights Watch
Lawyers for Human Rights (Swaziland)
Legal Assistance Centre
Luvatsi Youth Empowerment
Media Institute of Southern Africa (Swaziland Chapter)
Southern Africa Litigation Centre
Swaziland Agricultural and plantations Workers Union
Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organizations (SCCCO)
Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC)
Swaziland National Association of Teachers
Swaziland National Union of Students
Swaziland Positive Living
Swaziland Rural Women's Association
Swaziland United Democratic Front
Swaziland Youth in Action
Swaziland Young Women's Network
Trade Union Congress of Swaziland
Women For Women
Women in Law in Southern Africa (Swaziland Chapter)
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, FREEDOM HOUSE, OSISA, SWAZILAND
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(NEW AFRICAN MAGAZINE) Democracy and legitimacy in Africa
New African reports
The time has come for Africa to stand up together and fight with one voice the attempts by the metropolitan powers to dictate who is a legitimate leader in Africa and who is not. The history of such dictation shows the pursuit of Western self-interest at the cost of African nationalist interests, writes Dr Motsoko Pheko.
Democracy and legitimacy in Africa
Zimbabwe is once again a wake-up call to all Africans who value their national sovereignty and control of their mineral wealth and other natural resources. The sustained attack on Zimbabwe is an economic war by Western countries on Africa.
These countries have a long history of a “planned regime”. If this fails, they resort to “regime change”. To Britain and America, and all their satellites, “democracy” and “legitimacy” is when their interests prevail over those of the African people.
It is reported that the American, British, Canadian and Australian governments do not believe that the recent election results in Zimbabwe represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe.
It is, therefore, important to point out that for all the long years when African states and the United Nations demanded economic sanctions against Ian Smith’s rebel colonial regime in Rhodesia and against apartheid South Africa, the European powers (led by the USA) opposed these sanctions. Britain’s Margaret Thatcher argued that sanctions would hurt “ordinary Rhodesians and black South Africans”.
This was all false. The countries of Western Europe had long had a “planned regime” strategy during the colonial days in Africa. This was put in place immediately they got a signal that Africans were determined to end colonialism and all forms of domination.
In Zimbabwe, the Western countries preferred Bishop Abel Muzorewa. Many attempts were made to assassinate Robert Mugabe even after the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979. In colonial Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Britain and its Western allies preferred Harry Kumbula to Kenneth Kaunda. In Lesotho, they preferred Jonathan Leabua to Ntsu Mokhehle, to the point of staging a coup d’état against him and stopping his being sworn in as the prime minister of Lesotho.
In Ghana, Britain never liked Kwame Nkrumah. It was only when the “Gold Coast” (now Ghana) became ungovernable that Britain conceded to the demands of Nkrumah’s CPP Party. In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta of KANU was never the British colonial preference. They called him a Mau Mau leader, “a leader of darkness’”. In South Africa (Azania), Prof. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was never liked by the West and their agents. He was imprisoned on Robben Island without even a mockery of a trial and later banished until his death – through poisoning, his colleagues said. President Nkrumah was democratically elected in Ghana. But the Western countries (led again by America) used the CIA to overthrow his government.
Patrice Lumumba was legitimately elected the first prime minister of DRCongo. The Belgian and American governments were involved in his assassination and overthrow of his government. There is also a strong suspicion that white supremacists conspired, possibly with the collusion of Western powers, to assassinate Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary-General who was championing the Congo’s independence and defending its sovereignty.
Milton Obote of Uganda was equally overthrown by Britain under Edward Heath’s government. Idi Amin was installed and he murdered thousands of Ugandans. All these African leaders were overthrown or killed because they did not fit the “planned regime” strategy of the West. They were not trusted to look after neo-colonial economic interests at the expense of African economic interests.
This century Western leaders have come up with a “regime change” strategy. The excuse is that some African leaders had stayed too long in power. Well, in Britain, Prime Minister Robert Walpole ruled for 21 years. Elsewhere in Africa, Daniel Arap Moi ruled Kenya for 24 years. Hastings Banda ruled Malawi for 33 years. Mobuto Sese Seko ruled DRCongo for 37 years. Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo was president for 41 years. Omar Bongo Ondima of Gabon equally ruled for 41 years. Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years. Western leaders never pointed fingers at these leaders. They toed the line. They served western interests more than those of their own countries. In fact, Mobutu and Mubarak were very close allies of the USA. None of these leaders were ever asked to give in to democracy until their people drove them out of power.
It is an insult to intelligent Africans who recall that the countries that practised slavery, colonialism and racism and perpetrated atrocities against other humans, killing them and taking their lands and riches, are today posing as “teachers” of “democracy”, “legitimacy”, “good governance” and “rule of law”.
In 1994, the Americans and other Western countries showed up in a big way in apartheid South Africa. They applied their “planned regime” strategy. They picked from the liberation movements who was “extremist” and who was “moderate”. By “moderate” they meant leaders who would protect especially their foreign economic interests at the expense of their own African people.
Western countries, with few exceptions, supported the apartheid regime in South Africa. Relying on this support, Dr Gert Viljoen, the minister of constitutional affairs under President F. W. de Klerk, in 1990 made his government’s position very clear about who the South African regime would negotiate with.
“We want to change our approach,” he said. “But we would be negotiating even the name [of the country]. Many blacks call it Azania. I think there is no likelihood of coming to an agreement with them. They are the extreme Pan Africanist Congress [PAC]. The name Azania sounds a warning note of a break in history. In our thinking, a complete break in history would be unacceptable. We will have to provide some continuation of the past.”
Indeed, that “continuation of the past” is obvious in South Africa today. Whites, who are only 8.9%, according to the recent population census, still control 87% of the land to 13% allocated to the African indigenous majority, who make up a good 79.2% of the population.
This land dispossession is entrenched in section 25(7) of the “New South Africa” constitution, and they tell us this constitution is one of the most progressive in the world!
Explaining the reason why the apartheid regime should quickly negotiate with the “moderates”, The Star newspaper in Johannesburg reported at that time: “To the left of the ANC is the PAC, a bunch too radical for reasonable conversation... Unless the government talks to the ANC soon, and reaches an accommodation, the time will come when it would wish it had the ANC to talk to instead of the more radical organisations. Better by far to talk to the Mandelas, Tambos and Makatinis, conservative men all of them.”
During the 1994 elections, the American government heavily financed Mandela’s ANC to ensure that the De Klerk-Mandela “planned regime” succeeded. Stanley B. Greenberg and Frank Geer directed the ANC election campaign. These two men were President Clinton’s own pollster and image-maker respectively.
In his book, Dispatches from the War Room, Greenberg writes: “The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) launched an anti-pass campaign... Close to 70 demonstrators in Sharpeville were massacred, putting the international limelight on the Pan Africanist Congress...
“The PAC was the only other party with standing in the anti-apartheid struggle, thus a majority of Africans viewed it favourably. The PAC boycotted the negotiations ... and ... advocated the expropriation of white land without compensation.”
The truth however is that the PAC had a long policy of equitable redistribution of land. It was the European colonial settlers who expropriated land from the Africans, and not the other way round.
Now it is nearly 20 years since the “negotiations” with the “moderates” ended in South Africa. But land and its riches are still the property of a European minority.
When the 1994 election results were announced, even The Times (of London) conceded that the election could not have been considered “free and fair’’. The newspaper reported: “There is agreement that there was widespread fraud and cheating.”
Bill Deeds of the Daily Telegraph (also of London) added his voice: “By our own electoral standard,” he wrote, “the conduct of South Africa’s general election and counting of votes has been deplorable.”
A senior official of the South African apartheid regime later corroborated that the 1994 elections had been “embarrassing and flawed”. He indicated that De Klerk and Mandela agreed that the elections had to be declared “free and fair” because the alternative would have been a political disaster. “We simply could not afford this thing to go down the tube. It would serve no purpose to cry foul.”
This makes it clear that if an African leader is not favoured by Western powers, he is a wrong leader for democracy. If he or she wins elections, they are illegitimate. If indeed, the leaders of Western countries are people of high morals and almost “infallible”, as they think they are, why did they not give even as much as a hint about the flawed elections in South Africa in 1994?
President Clinton’s two experts, Greenberg and Freez, were there. They had financed and conducted the elections. They knew what had happened!
The Western countries were aware of the majority African support for the Pan Africanist Congress and its undeniable strength in the run-up to the 1994 elections in South Africa. On 29 April 1990, Deon Delport of the Star newspaper in Johannesburg wrote: “A recent survey found among many Sowetan youngsters [that] the PAC is increasingly preferred to the ANC which is viewed as being promoted by the apartheid government.”
In the same article, Delport reported that wide support for the PAC had been found by the researcher Sue Lerena for McCann, a Johannesburg-based advertising firm. Lerena later said: “My own view was [that] we could end up like in Zimbabwe where whites were stunned and shocked by the defeat of Bishop Abel Muzorewa by Mr Robert Mugabe.”
The media further reported that: “The so-called main players are losing support, but where is it going to? The most important change over the past years has been the rise in support of the Pan Africanist Congress among blacks. The PAC is poised to emerge as the single most powerful electoral force ... even though it is almost exclusively black.” (Work in progress magazine, 17 June 1993.)
After the assassination of Chris Hani, several newspapers reported on Clarence Makwetu, the president of the PAC and Nelson Mandela of the ANC. “Mr. Nelson Mandela, the icon of the black struggle against apartheid, was booed at a meeting in Soweto when he upset many in a crowd of around 30,000 people with a friendly reference to the ruling apartheid party.
One of the biggest cheers of the two-hour event came when Mr Clarence Makwetu, leader of the radical Pan Africanist Congress, strode into the packed stadium in the middle of Mr Mandela’s speech. “Mr Mandela was forced to pause as the crowd cheered and whistled for a beaming Makwetu who told them ‘we have come to a time when leaders run out of words’. The crowd rose to him and set off thunder flashes, while some ANC officials on the platform looked dismayed.”
So how did the PAC voters disappear on Election Day, 27 April 1994? Was there massive rigging in the presence of Clinton’s own men? What did they do about this? They never said a word after that!
Writing about the strength of the political parties in South Africa, Dr Vladamir Tickhomiov, the learned secretary of the Russian Academy of Science’s African Institute, confirmed prior to the 1994 South African elections, that: “The alliance of the ANC is weaker than that of other black organisations and movements. The ideology of Africanism and black awareness prevail among the majority of the politically active blacks.
“This was especially true when black organisations had the opportunity of leaving the underground and becoming legal.”
“It was not surprising when a German magazine, Geheim, stated: “The so-called independent electoral commission as well as the technical personnel handling the elections in South Africa was infiltrated by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) agents in places like Johannesburg, Western Cape, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Durban” (Geheim, 30 April 1994).
Zimbabwe is being attacked because it wants to control its own riches, which have been looted by Western companies for far too long. Africa must defend Zimbabwe. Africa cannot forever have its riches looted by imperialists through puppet leaders. Former slave traders have no credentials to qualify as champions of democracy and legitimacy in Africa.
(Dr Motsoko Pheko is author of several books, among which are ‘The Hidden Side of South African Politics’; and ‘Towards Africa’s Authentic Liberation’)
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, DEMOCRACY, NEOCOLONIALISM, ROBERT MUGABE, ZIMBABWE
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(STICKY) (NEWZIMBABWE) MDC-T blasts Zanu PF as 2m face starvation
16/10/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
COMMENT - This is the MDC at it's treasonous, seditious best. They lie, to give Zimbabwe a negative image abroad, so they may get into power. This puppetry and sabotage is why people think twice about Western dominated 'democracy'. Democracy comes from the people, not foreign funded parties and NGOs. For the real numbers behind the numbers, read Prof. Ian Scoones article: Food crisis in Zimbabwe: 2.2 million at risk. But where do the figures come from, and what do they mean? - prof. Scoones mentions underreporting of: income, productivity in the A1 areas, concentration of on the dry south (where only 20% of the population live), livestock sales, early cropping and remittances. He also mentions the use of pre-land reform sampling frames; also 1/3 of the number may only be food insecure for a short period before the next harvest. Also check out his post "Dodgy data and missing measures: why good numbers matter (part I)". - MrK
AN MDC-T shadow minister this week blamed Zanu PF’s land reform programme and poorly-conceived agricultural policies over a national food crisis that has left up to two million people in need of food aid.
Moving a motion calling for a parliamentary committee to investigate the food crisis, the MDC-T’s shadow agriculture minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo accused Zanu PF of reducing the country from a net exporter to a perennial food beggar.
He dismissed as deplorable plans by the government to import maize from Zambia through an “eat now pay later arrangement” saying this was evidence of failed leadership.
In September, the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) warned that some 2.2 million people were in need of urgent food aid.
From prof. Scoones, who predicted: "The 2.2 million figure is of course a good flag-waving number for the WFP to raise funds, and for the CFU to bash the government for the land reform (and even President Mugabe is now joining the critique of the ‘new farmers’), but the actual implications are more complex. Here are five reasons why we need to be cautious about the figures." - MrK
The United Nations agency said this was the highest number of Zimbabweans requiring food assistance since early 2009, when more than half the population relied on such aid.
Said Nkomo: “The victims of elite capture have been the ordinary villagers of Kezi and Siyachilaba who have to contend with debilitating food shortages following the dysfunctionality of a hitherto well laid out food market chain.”
Zimbabwe has suffered intermittent food shortages since 2000 when agricultural output fell after President Robert Mugabe decided to seize white-owned commercial farms to distribute to blacks.
Nkomo blamed the manner in which Zanu PF carried out the land reforms for the current food shortages.
“Though undoubtedly noble a programme, it has become apparent over the years that the Land Reform Programme was a programme not well thought out,” he said.
“But, it was a sporadic reaction to a political capital in light of the energies of the new political players in a hitherto monopolised political landscape.
“Food handouts by non-governmental organisations have been an annual feature in the country’s calendar of events.”
He said although food shortages follow some of the poorest weather conditions, the crisis was mostly man-made and worsened by the partisan distribution of food during drought and starvation mitigation programmes.
“It is indeed sad and primitive that a government can deliberately starve its own populace for purposes of political expedience,” he said.
“It is the essence of democracy to have divergent political ideologies with government having the capability to rise above party politics and provide food to all deserving and bona fide Zimbabweans.”
The government recently announced a US$1 billion scheme to support farmers with inputs ahead of the new agricultural season.
But Nkomo said the fact that farmers needed help with inputs at the start of each new farming season was evidence the programme was not working.
“It has become a common trend that the government churns out millions of dollars annually in support of farmers who,13 years after the Land Reform Programme, are still being referred to as ‘new farmers’ and are hand-held by government with no indication of self-sustaining operations in the near future,” he said.
“While government has an obligation to support farmers, the current support mechanisms are not sustainable as they are characterised by an endless cycle of one way financial and input injections which are not matched by equivalent returns.
“It does not, therefore, come as a surprise that Zimbabwe is now a basket case from its rightful position as the bread basket of Southern Africa.
“If current practices in the agricultural sector are anything to go by, Zimbabwe is poised to suffer even more food deficits in the future.”
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, MDC, MDC PROPAGANDA, MDC TREASON, NEOLIBERALISM, SAMUEL SIPEPO NKOMO
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(NEWZIMBABWE) MDC-T blasts Zanu PF as 2m face starvation
16/10/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
COMMENT - This is the MDC at it's treasonous, seditious best. They lie, to give Zimbabwe a negative image abroad, so they may get into power. This puppetry and sabotage is why people think twice about Western dominated 'democracy'. Democracy comes from the people, not foreign funded parties and NGOs. For the real numbers behind the numbers, read Prof. Ian Scoones article: Food crisis in Zimbabwe: 2.2 million at risk. But where do the figures come from, and what do they mean? - prof. Scoones mentions underreporting of: income, productivity in the A1 areas, concentration of on the dry south (where only 20% of the population live), livestock sales, early cropping and remittances. He also mentions the use of pre-land reform sampling frames; also 1/3 of the number may only be food insecure for a short period before the next harvest. Also check out his post "Dodgy data and missing measures: why good numbers matter (part I)". - MrK
AN MDC-T shadow minister this week blamed Zanu PF’s land reform programme and poorly-conceived agricultural policies over a national food crisis that has left up to two million people in need of food aid.
Moving a motion calling for a parliamentary committee to investigate the food crisis, the MDC-T’s shadow agriculture minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo accused Zanu PF of reducing the country from a net exporter to a perennial food beggar.
He dismissed as deplorable plans by the government to import maize from Zambia through an “eat now pay later arrangement” saying this was evidence of failed leadership.
In September, the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) warned that some 2.2 million people were in need of urgent food aid.
From prof. Scoones, who predicted: "The 2.2 million figure is of course a good flag-waving number for the WFP to raise funds, and for the CFU to bash the government for the land reform (and even President Mugabe is now joining the critique of the ‘new farmers’), but the actual implications are more complex. Here are five reasons why we need to be cautious about the figures." - MrK
The United Nations agency said this was the highest number of Zimbabweans requiring food assistance since early 2009, when more than half the population relied on such aid.
Said Nkomo: “The victims of elite capture have been the ordinary villagers of Kezi and Siyachilaba who have to contend with debilitating food shortages following the dysfunctionality of a hitherto well laid out food market chain.”
Zimbabwe has suffered intermittent food shortages since 2000 when agricultural output fell after President Robert Mugabe decided to seize white-owned commercial farms to distribute to blacks.
Nkomo blamed the manner in which Zanu PF carried out the land reforms for the current food shortages.
“Though undoubtedly noble a programme, it has become apparent over the years that the Land Reform Programme was a programme not well thought out,” he said.
“But, it was a sporadic reaction to a political capital in light of the energies of the new political players in a hitherto monopolised political landscape.
“Food handouts by non-governmental organisations have been an annual feature in the country’s calendar of events.”
He said although food shortages follow some of the poorest weather conditions, the crisis was mostly man-made and worsened by the partisan distribution of food during drought and starvation mitigation programmes.
“It is indeed sad and primitive that a government can deliberately starve its own populace for purposes of political expedience,” he said.
“It is the essence of democracy to have divergent political ideologies with government having the capability to rise above party politics and provide food to all deserving and bona fide Zimbabweans.”
The government recently announced a US$1 billion scheme to support farmers with inputs ahead of the new agricultural season.
But Nkomo said the fact that farmers needed help with inputs at the start of each new farming season was evidence the programme was not working.
“It has become a common trend that the government churns out millions of dollars annually in support of farmers who,13 years after the Land Reform Programme, are still being referred to as ‘new farmers’ and are hand-held by government with no indication of self-sustaining operations in the near future,” he said.
“While government has an obligation to support farmers, the current support mechanisms are not sustainable as they are characterised by an endless cycle of one way financial and input injections which are not matched by equivalent returns.
“It does not, therefore, come as a surprise that Zimbabwe is now a basket case from its rightful position as the bread basket of Southern Africa.
“If current practices in the agricultural sector are anything to go by, Zimbabwe is poised to suffer even more food deficits in the future.”
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, MDC, MDC PROPAGANDA, MDC TREASON, NEOLIBERALISM
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(LAND DESTROYER REPORT) Old Dog, Old Trick: US, Saudis, Qatar Attempt "Arab Spring" Retread in Sudan
Protests are smokescreen for unfolding US-Saudi-Qatari backed violence seeking regime change in Sudan.
September 28, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - The Associated Press reveals that recent and ongoing "Arab Spring-style" unrest in Sudan's capital of Khartoum is led by Sudan's Western-backed opposition, the National Umma Party, and the various faux-NGO's and "independent media" organizations created by the West to prop it up. This reveals yet another Western-engineered uprising designed for regime change in favor of a new, Western friendly client regime.
The AP article, "Sudanese protesters demand the regime's ouster," first claims:
Activists acknowledge they have no unified leadership or support from political parties but express hope the spontaneous nature of the current round of protests means they're gaining momentum.
However, AP then admits [emphasis added]:
One of Sudan's most prominent opposition leaders, Sadiq al-Mahdi of the National Umma Party, told worshippers at a mosque in the district of Omdurman that al-Bashir has been spending the state's budget on "consolidating power" and failed "to lift the agony off the citizens' shoulders."
After the sermon, protesters marched through the district, a longtime opposition stronghold, chanting "the people want the downfall of the regime," the slogan heard in Arab Spring uprisings that began in late 2010 and have led to the ouster of the leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
Clearly, the "activists" indeed have a leader - Sadiq al-Mahdi of the National Umma Party who was literally leading the protesters out into the streets. And while comparisons to the "Arab Spring" invokes images of peaceful "pro-democracy" protests - AP admits that the protesters are already turning to violence:
Angry protesters torched police and dozens of gas stations and government buildings, and students marched chanting for al-Bashir's ouster.
AP, perhaps hoping readers would not bother researching the matter further, also quotes "local blogger and journalist Reem Shawka" to bolster their narrative. Shawka is a columnist at Sudan's 500 Words Magazine. While 500 Words maintains that it is "a Sudanese independent online magazine," it proudly advertises in the right column of its website an upcoming US Institute of Peace "Sudanese and South Sudanese Youth Leaders Program." Like Thailand's deceitful US-funded propaganda front Prachatai, 500 Words is most likely directly funded by the US government, and is most certainly in tune with the US State Department's agenda and talking points regarding Sudan.
Image: Sudan's "independent online magazine," 500 Words proudly advertises for the US Institute of Peace on its website (right-hand side), exposing the predictable ties between its support for Western-backed opposition inside of Sudan and the US State Department through the National Endowment for Democracy and others, who most likely funds the online propaganda front.
....
Indeed 500 Words' editor-in-chief, Moez Ali, has his own page on "Open Democracy" - funded by convicted criminal George Soros' Open Society Institute, the Oak Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, TIDES, and many others.
It should be mentioned that the US Institute of Peace - advertised for on 500 Words - has played an instrumental role in the Western-engineered "Arab Spring," where it literally crafts the constitutions and structure of proxy regimes the West plans to create once targeted nations have been overthrown.
Who is Opposition Leader Sadiq al-Mahdi?
Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of Sudan's National Umma Party, is a member of the EU-US-Saudi-Qatari run Arab Democracy Foundation and the Club de Madrid which features former US President Bill Clinton as a "full member" amongst many others, and is backed by Wall Street and London's myriad of "international institutions" and foundations including the World Bank, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, Walmart, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Microsoft, and many others.
Al-Mahdi himself was Oxford educated, according to his official Club de Madrid biography, which also states [emphasis added]:
Al-Mahdi was elected president of the Umma party in November 1964, and led a campaign to promote political activity, develop political Islam, and reform the party by expanding its base and promoting democracy behavior. Despite his efforts towards a democratic government, there was another coup d´état in 1969 that led to a dictatorship referred to as the May Regime.
He was soon arrested by the military government, exiled to Egypt, and detained in Sudanese prisons repeatedly until 1974. Later that year, he traveled abroad and toured Arab and African Capitals where he delivered a number of lectures. While in exile, he formed the National Democratic Front (NDF), comprised of Umma, the Democratic Unionist Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Through his efforts, the NDF was able to make an accord of national reconciliation in 1977 with the May Regime that mandated democratic reform.
His direct association with the Muslim Brotherhood is important, as this is the organization that as far back as 2007, under then US President George Bush, began receiving US-Saudi-Israeli support to prepare the violent overthrow of several nations, including in particular, Syria. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article, "The Redireciton: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" would reveal US-Saudi-Israeli support behind funding and arming the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria:
"the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations."
Hersh also reported that a supporter of the Lebanese pro-US-Saudi Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the ruling government:
"[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be “the ones to talk to,” Jumblatt said."
The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007 US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood:
"There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents."
That al-Mahdi, whose coalition included the Muslim Brotherhood that's played an instrumental role executing recent Western designs in Syria and Egypt, and whose uprising and calls for faux-reform is echoed by the likes of Sudanese extremist leader Hassan al-Turabi (who had in fact invited Osama Bin Laden to Sudan), is now leading protesters through the streets of Sudan's capital, torching infrastructure, government buildings, and police stations (just as was done across Egypt and Syria), indicates another attempt by the West to overthrow the Sudanese government via proxy militancy.
That the West has once again "coincidentally" arrayed its vast resources behind al-Mahdi's "revolution," which includes Al Qaeda-linked leaders like al-Turabi, once again illustrates that so-called "Islamic" extremism is a geopolitical tool both created and intentionally perpetuated by the West, both as a pretext for direct military invasion and occupation (Mali, Afghanistan) and as an inexhaustible proxy mercenary force for overthrowing targeted nations (Libya, Egypt, Syria).
What to Watch For
Sudan shares borders with NATO-overthrown Libya, destabilized Egypt, and US military proxy Ethiopia. It is also across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia itself. Both Libya and Egypt have sizable US-Saudi-Israeli-Qatari-backed terrorist organizations and their affiliated political arms - the Muslim Brotherhood being the most prominent. Sudan is a potential tinderbox made more volatile in recent years due to the Muslim Brotherhood's US-Saudi-Qatari-Israeli enabled rise, along with the Western-backed terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, that form it's armed factions.
The West's interest in Sudan is not causal or spontaneous. It was listed as one of several nations the US had intended to violently overthrow and subjugate as a client regime since at least 2001, revealed in a speech given by US Army General Wesley Clark in 2007.
With a recent terrorist attack by US armed and backed Al Qaeda in Nairobi Kenya threatening to justify new joint African Union-US AFRICOM incursions into Somalia, and destabilizations ongoing in both Egypt and to a much greater extent in Syria, the words of General Wesley Clark are both prophetic and indicative of the true nature of both the so-called "Arab Spring" and the attempted violent regime changes being organized behind the smokescreen of "pro-democracy protesters."
While Sudan may not seem to have significance to most across the West, the geopolitical implications of an entire region from Mali to Pakistan under Western destabilization directly impacts oil, logistics, and stability across the globe. Nations like China which relies on African and Middle Eastern trade, are directly impacted by US attempts to destabilize and overthrow Sudan - and is in fact one of the driving motivations of the West's so-called "Arab Spring."
Following the "Arab Spring" playbook, we should expect attempts to justify the increased militarization of the so-called "opposition," who will at first be portrayed as "pro-democracy" moderates forced to "defend themselves," but will be fully revealed as Al Qaeda as full-scale proxy military operations get underway. The only way to avert a destructive military conflict is for the Sudanese government to swiftly and severely crush the opposition and secure the borders where NATO-backed militants and their equipment are most likely to flow.
Sudan's government must also make real attempts at reform, while exposing the foreign-backed nature of opposition leaders trying to divide and destroy the nation. By breaking the predictable "evil dictator" mold Sudan's leadership has been cast in by the Western media, it, and other nations targeted by Western regime change can even the odds leveled against them by the still formidable Western press and their partners in propaganda across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel.
Unprecedented amounts of resources have been committed to the geopolitical reordering of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. It would be a considerable mistake for any nation overtly listed by the US as "pending regime change" to underestimate any beginnings of unrest clearly backed by foreign interests. While some operations may be "testing the waters," the final push can come at any time with fully militarized proxies pre-positioned and prepared to sow the same genocidal destruction US-backed terrorists in Syria are carrying out.
Labels: ARAB SPRING, COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, SOUTH SUDAN, SUDAN
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(NEWZIMBABWE) US college admissions officers visit Zimbabwe
24/09/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
ADMISSIONS officers from five American universities and colleges, which host a multi-million scholarship fund for economically disadvantaged but gifted students, will visit Zimbabwe on Wednesday for a series of presentations in Harare, Rusape, Mutare and Chitungwiza.
The five American universities – Duke, Michigan State, Stanford, UC Berkeley and Wellesley – are host recipient institutions, together with Arizona State University, for the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme introduced in 2012.
The five universities will be represented by their admissions officers who are responsible for recruiting undergraduate international students.
In August this year, twelve Zimbabwe students are awarded MasterCard Foundation Scholarship to pursue further studies in the United States. They are enrolled at Duke (1), Michigan State (4), Arizona State (3) and University of California at Berkeley (4).
An additional six Zimbabweans received scholarships under this programme during its inaugural year in 2012.
The visiting admissions officers will make presentations at Girls High School on Wednesday morning and travel to Rusape on the same day where they will talk to students from high schools in Nyanga, Rusape, Nyazura and Macheke at St Faith High School.
They will proceed to Mutare where they will be at the American Corner at the Turner Memorial Library the next morning before proceeding to St John’s College in Borrowdale in Harare the same afternoon. They conclude their visit at Nyatsime College in Chitungwiza on Friday morning.
Rebecca Zeigler Mano, the Education USA Country Coordinator, said more admissions officers would arrive soon and will visit other parts of the country not covered by the current visit.
“This will be the first time ever that we are bringing admissions officers to Manicaland. We have more admissions officers coming in the next two months – some are visiting Bulawayo, some Gweru and those only coming to Harare for one day will not have time to travel,” she said.
“We have four advising centres in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru and Mutare and try to spread opportunities for presentations and visits among them fairly.”
The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme, launched in September last year, is a 10-year global initiative to educate and develop next-generation leaders who will contribute to social and economic progress.
The programme enables young people from economically-disadvantaged communities to complete quality university education, and make successful transitions to further education or to the workforce in their home countries.
There are over 1,200 Zimbabwean students enrolled at various American universities and colleges.
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, EDUCATION
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(TALKZIMBABWE) SW Radio a ‘hostile institution’ and a ‘danger to media industry’: Supa Mandiwanzira
This article was written by Our reporter on 2 September, at 05 : 02 AM
SW RADIO, a pirate radio station illegally broadcasting in Zimbabwe and domiciled in the United Kingdom, has withdrawn its membership from the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) in protest against the council’s decision to congratulate Zi-FM Stereo Radio on its first anniversary.
Zi-FM Stereo has been broadcasting in Zimbabwe for one year now.
Zi-FM’s chief executive is the newly-elected Zanu-PF Nyanga South MP Supa Mandiwanzira.
Mandiwanzira has said poreviously that Zi-FM is an apolitical business organisation and does not represent his own political views. He also said the news broadcast on the station is neutral and does not favour any political organisation in the country.
In a statement, SW Radio director Gerry Jackson said: “As station manager, I have listened online to many of the discussions hosted by Mandiwanzira on his radio station. Most of them are fit only for broadcast on the State media. His discussion on private radio stations was nothing short of farcical.”
This is despite the fact that Jackson’s broadcasts on SW Radio are one-sided and very critical of President Mugabe and Zanu-PF.
A source that used to work with Jackson on the station told the Zimbabwe Guardian, “Gerry Jackson runs that organisation like a political organisation, so this statement is misguided.”
The source added: “We were not allowed to use the title President in referring to President Mugabe because Gerry Jackson said she didn’t recognise him as such.
“There is a lot of secrecy in that organisation, including the source and amount of funding the organisation gets. When I worked there, we were all paid from Gerry Jackson’s own personal bank account and not the company’s.
“Former broadcaster John Matinde, who was Gerry Jackson’s former boss at ZBC, clashed with her when they worked together at SW Radio over many issues, including the exact source and amount of funding the organisation was receiving.”
Gerr jackson was critical of Mandiwanzira’s recent parliamentary election win and made some unfounded allegations about Mandiwanzira’s links with the state security agency.
“He is now a Zanu PF MP and has shown his support for Zanu PF, which was the reason he was given a licence. There is a belief that Zi-FM is funded by State security,” she said.
Jackson also accused Mandiwanzira of working in cahoots with State security agents in several sting operations involving the Central Intelligence Organisation, but failed to substantiate her claims.
However, VMCZ board chairperson Alec Muchadehama defended the organisation’s decision saying the VMCZ works with all media that subscribe to its code regardless of whether they are State or privately-controlled.
“The VMCZ in its congratulatory statement made no reference to personalities, but the institution that is Zi FM on the basis of its subscription to the VMCZ Media Code of Conduct,” said Muchadehama in a statement on Wednesday.
Contacted for comment, Mandiwanzira said: “The withdrawal is irrelevant. They voluntarily joined the VMCZ and they voluntarily withdrew. If it is true (what we are hearing), we think that they are a danger to the media industry.
“In fact, it’s a pirate radio station that should never exist and those funding them should know they are funding a hostile institution.”
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, PROPAGANDA, SW RADIO
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(TALKZIMBABWE) SW Radio a ‘hostile institution’ and a ‘danger to media industry’: Supa Mandiwanzira
This article was written by Our reporter on 2 September, at 05 : 02 AM
SW RADIO, a pirate radio station illegally broadcasting in Zimbabwe and domiciled in the United Kingdom, has withdrawn its membership from the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) in protest against the council’s decision to congratulate Zi-FM Stereo Radio on its first anniversary.
Zi-FM Stereo has been broadcasting in Zimbabwe for one year now. Zi-FM’s chief executive is the newly-elected Zanu-PF Nyanga South MP Supa Mandiwanzira.
Mandiwanzira has said previously that Zi-FM is an apolitical business organisation and does not represent his own political views. He also said the news broadcast on the station is neutral and does not favour any political organisation in the country.
In a statement, SW Radio director Gerry Jackson said: “As station manager, I have listened online to many of the discussions hosted by Mandiwanzira on his radio station. Most of them are fit only for broadcast on the State media. His discussion on private radio stations was nothing short of farcical.”
This is despite the fact that Jackson’s broadcasts on SW Radio are one-sided and very critical of President Mugabe and Zanu-PF.
A source that used to work with Jackson on the station told the Zimbabwe Guardian, “Gerry Jackson runs that organisation like a political organisation, so this statement is misguided.”
The source added: “We were not allowed to use the title President in referring to President Mugabe because Gerry Jackson said she didn’t recognise him as such.
“There is a lot of secrecy in that organisation, including the source and amount of funding the organisation gets. When I worked there, we were all paid from Gerry Jackson’s own personal bank account and not the company’s.
“Former broadcaster John Matinde, who was Gerry Jackson’s former boss at ZBC, clashed with her when they worked together at SW Radio over many issues, including the exact source and amount of funding the organisation was receiving.”
Gerr jackson was critical of Mandiwanzira’s recent parliamentary election win and made some unfounded allegations about Mandiwanzira’s links with the state security agency.
“He is now a Zanu PF MP and has shown his support for Zanu PF, which was the reason he was given a licence. There is a belief that Zi-FM is funded by State security,” she said.
Jackson also accused Mandiwanzira of working in cahoots with State security agents in several sting operations involving the Central Intelligence Organisation, but failed to substantiate her claims.
However, VMCZ board chairperson Alec Muchadehama defended the organisation’s decision saying the VMCZ works with all media that subscribe to its code regardless of whether they are State or privately-controlled.
“The VMCZ in its congratulatory statement made no reference to personalities, but the institution that is Zi FM on the basis of its subscription to the VMCZ Media Code of Conduct,” said Muchadehama in a statement on Wednesday.
Contacted for comment, Mandiwanzira said: “The withdrawal is irrelevant. They voluntarily joined the VMCZ and they voluntarily withdrew. If it is true (what we are hearing), we think that they are a danger to the media industry.
“In fact, it’s a pirate radio station that should never exist and those funding them should know they are funding a hostile institution.”
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, GERRY JACKSON, PROPAGANDA, SW RADIO
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(HERALD ZW) Charamba dismisses NewsDay story
September 2, 2013 Shingirai Huni Local News
Chief police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity
Peter Matambanadzo Senior Reporter
POLICE have dismissed as false a story published by the NewsDay at the weekend claiming that police officers chanted Zanu-PF slogans at the Harare Agricultural Show, insinuating that the force was partisan.
Chief police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charamba denied the claims by the NewsDay, whose editor was recently suspended for peddling falsehoods, that the members of the force chanted Zanu-PF slogans at the agricultural show that was officially opened by President Mugabe on Friday.
She said the story in the NewsDay’s Saturday edition headlined “Cops chant Zanu-PF slogans, . . . as state aligned organisation steal the show,” was meant to further the interests of the private daily newspaper’s paymasters and to confuse Zimbabweans.
“The ZRP is a patriotic force and will not be perturbed by reporters who bootlick their paymasters and write falsehoods and frame stories to confuse the generality of Zimbabweans. After all is the ZRP not allowed to celebrate when they win gold medals?” Snr Asst Comm Charamba asked.
The report came a day after NewsDay suspended its editor Constantine Chimakure for allegedly writing falsehoods.
This was after the newspaper recently published two false stories in succession concerning former South African president Cde Thabo Mbeki and MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, which stories the group said did not conform to set ethical standards.
NewsDay on Wednesday and Friday last week carried two stories under the headlines “Mbeki speaks on Zim polls, chaotic land reform” and “Mugabe offers Tsvangirai VP Post” which have both been denied by Cde Mbeki and Mr Tsvangirai.
Chimakure was suspended to facilitate investigations into unethical journalistic practice.
Snr Asst Comm Charamba said the story authored by John Nyashanu was misguided and the police never chanted Zanu-PF slogans.
“The Zimbabwe Republic Police sports persons are athletes at heart and in flesh and celebrates victory through a Zimbabwean symbol,” she said.
“A fist is a symbol of black power and it was in line with our winning of three gold medals at the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show exhibition. A fist is an international recognised symbol of black power.”
Snr Asst Comm Charamba said from time immemorial up to the time of the first Olympic Games, the first African to win gold in athletics, Jesse Owens, a black athlete was disqualified after raising a fist in celebration.
“We all talk to God in different ways. We all pray in different ways but for the African sports person, he gets his inspiration and energy from God to compete and celebrates by shooting his right fist to heaven to say ‘God take the Glory’ and the Zimbabwe Republic Police is no exception,” she said.
Snr Asst Comm Charamba also said the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show Society was not a state organisation as inferred by the story.
“This was evidenced by the attendance of countries that imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe who were also exhibiting at the show,” Snr Asst Comm Charamba said.
“The ZRP won on merit contrary to Nyashanu’s wild assumptions. After all, who is he to determine what police should do?”
The police chief spokesperson said there was no need for the police to bootlick President Mugabe as alleged by Nyashanu, but to honour and respect the President who is the Head of State and Government and Commander- in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and guest of honour at the occasion.
“Perhaps there is a better judgment that John Nyashanu should learn from his suspended Editor, Constantine Chimakure, for writing falsehoods,” she said.
“He is certainly following the footsteps of his discredited mentor. What a shame to the media fraternity!”
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, NEWSDAY, PROPAGANDA
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(HERALD ZW) Western countries, ZESN under attack
August 5, 2013
Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
POLITICAL analysts yesterday slammed Britain and its Western allies for ignoring assessments by Sadc, Comesa and the AU and their institutions which upheld the credibility of the harmonised elections in an effort to maintain their regime change agenda. The AU, Comesa and Sadc – which had observer teams on the ground – endorsed the conduct of the elections in their preliminary reports released last week.
Ironically Britain, the US and the EU – which were barred from observing on account of their well documented bias – have raised reservations on the outcome citing unproven claims of rigging.
Political analysts who spoke in separate interviews yesterday slammed the Western countries on reneging on their earlier statements that they would be guided by what the AU and Sadc say in their assessment of the polls.
“The Western countries led by Britain are pursuing a self fulfilling prophecy that has become a nightmare. These western people dream of regime change in Zimbabwe through the MDC-T has not only been shattered but has been defeated by the voice of Zimbabweans that voted overwhelmingly in support of Zanu PF on July 31.
“Just before the elections they were saying they would be guided by what Sadc and the AU said. They were hoping Sadc and the AU would issue a negative assessment of the elections. They were hoping the elections would be close and get a second chance to have another GNU. They did not bargain that Zimbabweans are an independent and sovereign people who have used the experience of the past 14 years to reassert that sovereignty,” said political scientist and Zanu PF Politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo.
He said Zimbabweans had expressed themselves in the same manner they did in the 1980 elections.
“Zimbabweans relived the spirit of 1980. This election was in a profound sense reminiscent of 1980 when every indigenous Zimbabwean aligned him or herself with the liberation of the country.
“This time Zimbabweans used the political independence they gained in 1980 to assert their economic independence not only over their resources but also to use those resources to develop themselves and their country,” he said.
Prof Moyo said the Western countries where choosing to listen to statements by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an organisation that they fund.
“ZESN is their mouthpiece they are not independent voices, they are just their masters’ voice. Before the elections they said they would be guided by what Sadc and the AU said but now they are not listening to that and are refusing to be guided by what the AU and Sadc have said.
“The elections were conducted in a free, fair and non violent manner, you cannot find an election like that on the African continent,” he said.
ZESN received over US$5 million from the European Union, Australian Government Overseas Aid Programme (AUSAID), Norwegian embassy, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Danish International Development Agency (Danida) for the elections meant for sustaining a smear campaign against Zanu-PF and the electoral process.
The organisation produced a negative report before the elections and also produced another damning one after the polls contrary to what Sadc, Comesa and the AU said. The reports have been latched onto by western governments seeking to trash the poll outcome.
ZESN cited unsubstantiated claims of violence and intimidation in its reports.
Prof Moyo said the Western countries had no business interfering in Zimbabwe’s electoral processes.
“National elections are our business and we don’t want the British to poke their colonial nose in our affairs. Our national elections are our business and we exercise that business in terms of the law and what Sadc and the AU said matters to us more than what these former colonisers say,” he said.
Chairperson of the University of Zimbabwe Department of Political Science Dr Charity Manyeruke said the Western countries wanted to impose leaders on Zimbabwe.
“It is unfortunate that the Western nations are taking a position that is uncalled for. They should have listened to the accredited observers like Sadc and AU who are legitimate instead of listening to NGOs that they fund.
“They wanted Morgan Tsvangirai to win but the people of Zimbabwe totally rejected that so their calls for Zimbabwe to have another election are misplaced, it is a done deal, and the people have spoken. It is unfortunate that they supported a candidate who was not supported by the people of Zimbabwe,” she said.
Another analyst Mr Goodwine Mureriwa said the harmonised elections were a clear indication that Zimbabweans were fed up with puppet politicians.
“Zimbabweans spoke loud and clear that they do now want to be dictated to by anyone. The reaction of the Western countries shows that they wanted Zanu PF to lose. Its telling that they chose to listen to an NGO that they fund and ignore assessments from progressive and credible organisations like Sadc and the EU,” he said.
Mr Mureriwa said the manner in which Zimbabweans conducted themselves before and during the elections was a slap in the face of the West who hoped the polls would be chaotic and violent.
“They are now clutching on straws, they wanted the elections to be violent and chaotic so that they maintain the illegal sanctions and pursue their regime change agenda. They are now trying to find an excuse to retain the illegal sanctions through those statements of unsubstantiated irregularities,” he said.
Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, FREEDOM HOUSE, ZESN
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(HERALD ZW) UNDP funds regime change
Monday, 22 April 2013 00:00
[Minister Tendai Biti] Caesar Zvayi Deputy Editor
THE United Nations Development Programme has been implicated in funding regime change NGOs in Zimbabwe to the tune of over US$5 million over the past three years.
The UN agency was in the eye of a storm recently after trying to impose terms of reference on the Government in the wake of the US$132 million poll funding request extended to it but differences soon emerged over the terms of reference of the UN agency’s Needs Assessment Mission.
The agency wanted its Needs Assesment Mission to overstep its mandate by including entities and civil society groups with nothing to do with elections and when Government put its foot down, UNDP resident co-ordinator Mr Alain Noudehou claimed the mandate of a non-existent General Assembly Resolution forgeting it was Government which had extended the funding request.
Government rejected the agency’s conditionalities, that dovetailed with the MDC-T’s plans to make the harmonised elections an issue for the UN agenda and withdrew the funding request opting to mobilise domestic resources to finance the harmonised elections.
Our investigations have since unearthed incontrovertible evidence that the UN agency has; along with some Western nations, think-tanks and donors, been secretly funding regime change activities with the latest tranche being disbursed as late as Tuesday last week.
In terms of the UN charter, the UNDP should channel all funds through the Government.
Information we exclusively obtained from unassailable sources, among them bank statements, shows that the UNDP is among a group of organisations, foreign ministries and purported foreign aid groups that have been secretly funding hostile regime-change NGOs such as the Zimbabwe Election Support Network and the MDC-T election directorate disguised as the Election Resource Centre.
Our investigations revealed that between March 2009 and April 15 this year, ZESN received a total US$5 043 044,69 from the UNDP, Canadian Embassy, Norwegian Embassy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands, the Royal Danish Embassy, The Electoral Reform International, Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa, Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy among a litany of donors who have nefarious electoral interests in Zimbabwe.
What exposes the UN as having a hidden and unacceptable agenda to compromise and subvert the forthcoming elections is that while the UNDP is required to fund programmes in the country transparently and through the Government as stipulated by the UN Charter, the local UNDP office has in fact been secretly making direct payments to ZESN and UNDP funds for regime change.
Our investigations show that the MDC-T’s Election Resource Centre received US$151 456 from the UNDP in two separate transactions on January 26 2012 and June 26 2012, while ZESN received US$42 000 in three separate transactions on December 2 2011, September 6 2012 and November 16 2012.
The Royal Danish Embassy has also made significant payments into ZESN accounts between March 2009 and November 14 2012 amounting to US$1 733 353,17.
Among other embassies secretly funding ZESN is the Norwegian Embassy which availed US$245 398,77 on October 30 2009 while the ministry of foreign affairs of the Netherlands availed US$171 097 to the same organisation on December 3 2010 and November 15 2011.
Between June 25 2012 and April 14 2013, the International Republican Institute availed US$$114 949 to the MDC T’s Election Resource Centre in seven different transactions on June 25 and 26 2012, August 16 and 21 2012, December 28 2012, February 5 2013 and April 15 2013.
On April 16 this year, ZESN received US$368 251 from the EU in two separate transactions of US$168 258 and US$199 993 respectively for purposes of subverting the forthcoming elections.
ZESN is also getting significant financial donations from PACT, a United States donor agency that manages funds from US funding organisations. Investigations have revealed that PACT is managing the ZESN grant from USAID. Between December 1 2010 and December 08 2011, PACT disbursed US$164 550 into two separate ZESN accounts.
Electoral Reform International, a British based NGO specialising in capacitating electoral management bodies and observer groups is also heavily involved in funding ZESN. Between October 27 2009 and October 13 2010, the organisation made payments amounting to US$154 312 into one ZESN account.
The money was used in preparing the draft paper on electoral reforms that the organisation did for the MDC-T during electoral reform negotiations that pre-occupied GPA parties for the greater part of 2010.
The George Soros-funded Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, a traditional financier of regime change programmes, and its partner in crime, Freedom House, also fund various activities within ZESN and the MDC-T’s Election Resource Centre.
OSISA deposited US$40 000 (on December 24 2010) and US$31 970 (in September 2011) into two separate ZESN account numbers while Freedom House also deposited US$9 993, US$1 993 and US$4 463 on November 2, and 23 and December 20 2010 into the same accounts.
The National Endowment for Democracy, a purported “private, non-profit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world” which is directly funded by the US government wired a total US$49 979 into ZESN in separate transactions made on October 09 2009, 23 April 2010 and October 14 2010.
The funding is being used to subvert the electoral process by among other things printing fake voter registration materials, mobilising the youth to register to vote and paying them US$50 to commit to voting for the MDC-T using fake residential addresses, giving teachers cellphones to use to file false election results to feed an illegal parallel voter tabulation centre which the MDC-T has set-up through its Election Resource Centre.
Zimrights boss Okay Machisa and four others are in court facing charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit fraud after they were accused of manufacturing counterfeit copies of certificates of registration similar to the ones issued by the Registrar General’s Office when one registers as a voter. The four are accused of trying to discredit the voter’s roll.
MDC-T secretary general, Tendai Biti has since announced plans to violate the Electoral Act by using false information from his party’s ERC which works closely with ZESN to announce from the Stewart Room at the Meikles Hotel that his boss, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, would have won the presidential poll by “75 percent of the vote if ZEC does not announce the election results within 12 hours of the vote”.
Though bank statements say otherwise, the UNDP country office last night denied involvement saying: "UNDP would like to clarify that it is not involved in a US$5,1 million donor-funded programme in support of the two NGOs mentioned in your question, namely the Election Resource Centre and the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network.
All of UNDP activities in Zimbabwe are implemented in accordance with established procedures and guidelines. UNDP's current programme is guided by the 2012-2015 Zimbabwe United Nations Development Assistance Framework (ZUNDAF), signed between the Government of Zimbabwe and the United Nations Country Team in Zimbabwe. All support is rendered in accordance with the Country Programme Action Plan signed between the Government of Zimbabwe and UNDP."
The phones at ZESN were not being picked up.
Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, FREEDOM HOUSE, UNDP
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(STICKY) (HERALD ZW) Western countries, ZESN under attack
August 5, 2013
Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
POLITICAL analysts yesterday slammed Britain and its Western allies for ignoring assessments by Sadc, Comesa and the AU and their institutions which upheld the credibility of the harmonised elections in an effort to maintain their regime change agenda. The AU, Comesa and Sadc – which had observer teams on the ground – endorsed the conduct of the elections in their preliminary reports released last week.
Ironically Britain, the US and the EU – which were barred from observing on account of their well documented bias – have raised reservations on the outcome citing unproven claims of rigging.
Political analysts who spoke in separate interviews yesterday slammed the Western countries on reneging on their earlier statements that they would be guided by what the AU and Sadc say in their assessment of the polls.
“The Western countries led by Britain are pursuing a self fulfilling prophecy that has become a nightmare. These western people dream of regime change in Zimbabwe through the MDC-T has not only been shattered but has been defeated by the voice of Zimbabweans that voted overwhelmingly in support of Zanu PF on July 31.
“Just before the elections they were saying they would be guided by what Sadc and the AU said. They were hoping Sadc and the AU would issue a negative assessment of the elections. They were hoping the elections would be close and get a second chance to have another GNU. They did not bargain that Zimbabweans are an independent and sovereign people who have used the experience of the past 14 years to reassert that sovereignty,” said political scientist and Zanu PF Politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo.
He said Zimbabweans had expressed themselves in the same manner they did in the 1980 elections.
“Zimbabweans relived the spirit of 1980. This election was in a profound sense reminiscent of 1980 when every indigenous Zimbabwean aligned him or herself with the liberation of the country.
“This time Zimbabweans used the political independence they gained in 1980 to assert their economic independence not only over their resources but also to use those resources to develop themselves and their country,” he said.
Prof Moyo said the Western countries where choosing to listen to statements by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an organisation that they fund.
“ZESN is their mouthpiece they are not independent voices, they are just their masters’ voice. Before the elections they said they would be guided by what Sadc and the AU said but now they are not listening to that and are refusing to be guided by what the AU and Sadc have said.
“The elections were conducted in a free, fair and non violent manner, you cannot find an election like that on the African continent,” he said.
ZESN received over US$5 million from the European Union, Australian Government Overseas Aid Programme (AUSAID), Norwegian embassy, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Danish International Development Agency (Danida) for the elections meant for sustaining a smear campaign against Zanu-PF and the electoral process.
The organisation produced a negative report before the elections and also produced another damning one after the polls contrary to what Sadc, Comesa and the AU said. The reports have been latched onto by western governments seeking to trash the poll outcome.
ZESN cited unsubstantiated claims of violence and intimidation in its reports.
Prof Moyo said the Western countries had no business interfering in Zimbabwe’s electoral processes.
“National elections are our business and we don’t want the British to poke their colonial nose in our affairs. Our national elections are our business and we exercise that business in terms of the law and what Sadc and the AU said matters to us more than what these former colonisers say,” he said.
Chairperson of the University of Zimbabwe Department of Political Science Dr Charity Manyeruke said the Western countries wanted to impose leaders on Zimbabwe.
“It is unfortunate that the Western nations are taking a position that is uncalled for. They should have listened to the accredited observers like Sadc and AU who are legitimate instead of listening to NGOs that they fund.
“They wanted Morgan Tsvangirai to win but the people of Zimbabwe totally rejected that so their calls for Zimbabwe to have another election are misplaced, it is a done deal, and the people have spoken. It is unfortunate that they supported a candidate who was not supported by the people of Zimbabwe,” she said.
Another analyst Mr Goodwine Mureriwa said the harmonised elections were a clear indication that Zimbabweans were fed up with puppet politicians.
“Zimbabweans spoke loud and clear that they do now want to be dictated to by anyone. The reaction of the Western countries shows that they wanted Zanu PF to lose. Its telling that they chose to listen to an NGO that they fund and ignore assessments from progressive and credible organisations like Sadc and the EU,” he said.
Mr Mureriwa said the manner in which Zimbabweans conducted themselves before and during the elections was a slap in the face of the West who hoped the polls would be chaotic and violent.
“They are now clutching on straws, they wanted the elections to be violent and chaotic so that they maintain the illegal sanctions and pursue their regime change agenda. They are now trying to find an excuse to retain the illegal sanctions through those statements of unsubstantiated irregularities,” he said.
Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, FREEDOM HOUSE, ZESN
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