“Finance minister Mthuli Ncube is expected to travel to Washington
next month and engage with US lawmakers to lift the sanctions imposed since
2001. But his trip is likely to be overshadowed by the concerns that the US has
raised over the human rights situation in the country,” reported Zimeye.
“Ncube estimated that
Zimbabwe has lost 80 lines of credit as a result of the Zimbabwe Democracy and
Economic Recovery Amendment Act and the US-imposed sanctions.”
The Americans should ask Minister Ncube whether he believes last
July’s elections were free, fair and credible. Ever since he joined Zanu PF in
September last year Ncube has wanted to cast himself as an academic appointed
to do a job and will do it. He is not a politician and therefore does not want
to concern himself with political matters. This is a very foolish and myopic
position because it is undeniable that Zimbabwe is in a serious economic mess
because of decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption which the
economists and the people at large have failed to stop because the politicians
would not allow change.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging
thugs and investors have shied away from the country because they know it is
impossible to run a successful business operation in such a country. Minister
Ncube said he would attract investors but has so far failed to do so. So the
political environment is important for economic recovery.
The Americans has made their position very clear, they believe Mnangagwa
rigged last year’s elections, it is naïve for Minister Ncube to pretend
otherwise. Frankly Minister Ncube is just wasting taxpayer’s money with all
this globe-trotting when he cannot even admit the obvious – Zimbabwe is a
pariah state!
Come to think of it; the Americans should just add Professor
Ncube on the sanctions list. Why not he is doing more to prop up the Zanu PF dictatorship
than Mnangagwa and ten other Zanu PF big wigs on the sanctions list combine!
Whilst still on the sanctions list, the West must slap other
Zimbabweans like Minister Kirsty Coventry, the 24 individuals on Mnangagwa’s
President Advisory Council, etc. They too know Zanu PF rigged last year’s
elections and yet continue to work with the illegitimate regime as if it did
nothing wrong.
Members of Zimbabwe’s opposition parties must also be included
on the sanctions list. By participating in the flawed and illegal election
process they are giving the process some modicum of credibility.
All pressure must be brought to bear on the Zanu PF regime if it
is going to be forced to step down to allow meaningful reforms to be
implemented. The prospect of Zanu PF remaining in power till 2023 is
unthinkable because there will be nothing to stop the regime rigging those
elections too!
Plan A: Pile the pressure on Zanu PF, by maintaining the
sanctions and economic isolation on party leaders and those propping the
regime, to step down long before 2023 elections so we can appoint an interim
administration to implement the reforms and guarantee free, fair and credible
elections.
Plan B: To compliment
plan A and if it should fail; add opposition members to the sanction list to
stop them participating in flawed and illegal elections for the sake of the few
gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait.
MDC deputy national chairman Tendai Biti has likened the recent brutalisation of civilians by the security forces to the Rwanda genocide of 1994 which claimed 800,000 lives.
ReplyDeleteEven if the nation was save of another Gukurahundi genocide it has not been spared the tragic suffering and deaths we can see all round today. Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown with employment soaring to 90%, basic services such as supply of clean water and health care all but collapse, etc. has taken a heavy toll in human misery and deaths!
Zimbabweans must never ever forget that Zimbabwe’s tragic situation is a man-made one. It all started with Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs denying the people their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a free vote and even the right to life for selfish political gain. The country would have been save further suffering and deaths if Tendai Biti and his MDC friends had implemented the necessary reforms to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship.
How ironic that Biti should now make a career of pontificating about the threat the Zanu PF dictatorship is posing to the nation when he was the one who wasted five years of the last GNU singing the praises of Mugabe and Zanu PF instead of dismantling the dictatorship.
“Mugabe is the unflappable father of the nation. Fountain of wisdom!” said Biti in 2012.
Today he is telling a different story. "We have a country but no nation; and the level of toxicity is equal to Rwanda in January 1994. I say January because in April there was genocide and we are likely moving in that direction.
”As a constitutional lawyer my opinion is that we gave too much power to executive president in Section 5 of the Constitutional amendment.”
The greatest favour people like Biti, Chamisa and the rest of the corrupt and incompetent opposition leaders can do for Zimbabwe is for them to just shut up! They are all fighting to be involved in the new GNU for the gravy train benefits, they will never implement the reforms to get Zimbabwe out of the mess! Never!
"ZUNDE calls on Nelson Chamisa to show his good faith as well as political maturity by ceasing his protests against the legitimacy of the President and accepting that he has to enter into meaningful discussions with Mnangagwa and his government," you say.
ReplyDeleteThis is plan foolish!
We can agree to differ on matters of opinion or any of the many subjective matters but not on matters of historic facts. Zanu PF rigged last July's elections; that is a well established and historic fact. Mnangagwa is therefore illegitimate.
The only reason you want to falsify a historic fact is because you want to appease Mnangagwa. After 38 years of appeasing Zanu PF by reward the regime with absolute power with the tragic economic and human consequences we can all see; you still want to pursue this foolish policy of appeasement.
No wonder Zimbabwe is in a real mess, with people like you for citizens the nation was doom!
@Saruchera
ReplyDelete“The United States of America has the capacity to change the situation prevailing in Zimbabwe for the better - if it just back off and take their illegally imposed sanctions with them," you say.
You should know that the Zimbabwe economy was already in serious trouble by the time the West imposed the sanctions in 2001. Zimbabwe had already gone through two five-years economic reform programmes in 1990 to 1995 and 1995 to 1999 in the hope of reviving the nation's economy but without success. So your suggestion that the Zimbabwe economy will recover if the sanctions are lifted is just nonsense.
The sanctions are the one tool we have to pressure these vote rigging Zanu thugs to accept they have no democratic mandate to govern the country. It will therefore be foolish to give up the sanctions especially in the face of increasing Zanu PF arrogance and brutality.
Mnangagwa is using brute violence to cow the nation into submission and accept the rigged elections. He used the same dirty tactic to force Mugabe to give up power in November 2017 and is at it again. No nation in its right mind would ever give in to blackmail because common sense will tell you Mnangagwa will demand an inch and take a mile and will be back tomorrow to take even more.
For the last 38 years Zimbabwe has tried to appease these Zanu PF thugs and it has not worked and the policy of appeasement is dead!
Every thinking Zimbabwean out there is 100% behind the Western sanctions and we want them extended to include the sell-outs and apologists working with this illegitimate Zanu PF regime!
@Blessing Mugwagwa
ReplyDeleteFor every dollar lost due to sanctions, a thousand dollars, at the very least, were lost due to corruption. Zimbabwe's economy was already in the gutter in 2001 when the sanctions were imposed, you dimwit!
GOVERNMENT's announcement that it is ready to pull the plug on one of the most notorious vestiges of former President Robert Mugabe's regime, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) is cause for celebration, especially for those in the media industry and Zimbabweans generally.
ReplyDeleteThis is just wishful thinking. Why has Mnangagwa waited a year and half to do this?
@ Pedzisai
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe has recently been on an onslaught from the West, who have been using local opposition parties and Non-Governmental Organisations in attempts to destabilise the country. The actions of the opposition, particularly MDC and some notable NGOs have clearly pointed out to Western sponsored and influenced regime change agenda.
As President Mnangagwa mentioned in his interview with France24, regime change attempts are not new as this has been happening in the country for the past 18 years. Western countries involvement has not been peculiar to Zimbabwe but to most African countries, as they thrive to exercise dominance over developing countries.
Nonsense, Mnangagwa rigged last July’s elections and is now using wanton violence to retain power at all cost. It is the people of Zimbabwe themselves who want regime change and they will get it, the present regime is illegitimate and it must go!
There is one thing about some of our politicians, they are arrogant. Minister Mthuli Ncube is travelling half way round the world to tell the Americans they must lift the sanctions imposed on Zanu PF leaders. I agree, the Americans should ask our pompous Professor if HE believes the Zimbabwe elections were free, fair and credible. And hear what he has to say.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest favour the Americans and the Western nations can do for the people of Zimbabwe is to slap people like Ncube and many other apologists and sell-outs with sanctions. The sanctions will be symbolic for many of them but that does not matter, it will help to highlight what they are doing is wrong.
It is tragic that people like Professor Ncube were expected to bring some sanity to the Zanu PF regime have turned out to be a curse instead. Ncube is going after the vendor earning a meagre $30 per month in a country whose breadline is $650 per month but would not touch those looting billions of dollars every month.
Poverty in Zimbabwe is now so bad people are dying and those like Ncube behind the poverty pretend not to even notice!
TOP Al Jazeera correspondent for Africa and Zimbabwean journalist Haru Mutasa has been denied a UK Visa.
ReplyDeleteThis comes just a week after she accused a UK newspaper of publishing fake news about the army crackdown on protesters in Zimbabwe.
Many of us saw the videos on social media and TV of the Police, Soldiers and other State Agents beating and kicking people and shooting at people. We have heard and read first hand accounts of the victims of the brutality. It is therefore upsetting that someone would say the army crackdown was “fake news”.
If Haru Mutasa was talking of a very specific case of a army fake crackdown then that is different. But even then she must have realised that the Zanu PF regime would exploit that report and use it to deny the many, many documented cases of army brutality. If she did not realise that then she is very naive and foolish.
I do not think the Americans will ever ask Minister Mthuli Ncube, Minister Kirsty Coventry or any of all the other men and women sell-outs propping up the Zanu PF dictatorship if the last elections were free, fair and credible. It would be interesting to hear what they would say.
ReplyDeleteThey will all to the last man and woman have to say the elections were free, fair and credible; after all they are working for the regime and accepted the appointment freely. From that blatant lie alone the Americans will have good reason to impose the sanctions.
Of course, individuals like Professor Ncube know that Zanu PF rigged the last elections and that the regime appointed them to help prop up the regime.
Professor Ncube, the self-righteous and pompous man that he is, will maintain he is doing the nation a great favour. What, even he cannot deny, is that Zanu PF's corrupt and tyrannical rule has not been a great favour to the nation. He cannot not deny that Zanu PF has denied the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country in the past, if not now too. He will have to agree that it was not right then.
He would also have to agree that even with his great talent and ability it is still possible that the country would not accomplish the economic recovery he expecting. Surely, the nation should have the right to reject him and Zanu PF. This is not possible given Zanu PF's total control of the public media, for example.
Of course, Professor Ncube took up the post of Minister of Finance to message his ego above all else. It is a great pity that some people have turned a blind eye to the suffering and even deaths of others in pursuit of their selfish interests.