There is a growing international consensus that the West, starting with the UK, has lost patience with the Zanu PF’s contemptuous arrogance and disregard for human rights and common decency and is turning on the screw on the regime to force change.
In a majority foreign policy statement, flexing its muscle to mark the country’s break away from the EU, the British govern imposed sanctions on four Zanu PF leaders.
“These sanctions are coming as a signal that Zimbabwe no longer has friends in the West because when Mnangagwa came to power they [British] wanted to see if they could re-engage Zimbabwe,” said Daglous Makumbe, in New Zimbabwe. He is a lecturer in the department of political studies at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.
“These sanctions are a manifestation of what has happened since 2017 – that Mnangagwa has not fulfilled his promises.”
For the record, the British did bend over backward to help Zimbabwe re-engage with the West following the November 2017 military coup and even after Mnangagwa had failed to keep his promise to hold free and fair elections in July 2018. It was Professor Stephen Chan who advised the British to attend his inauguration; the only Western nation to send a Minister to grace the occasion.
Thank God the penny has finally dropped and the British have woken up to the reality that Zanu PF thugs are determined to continue to ride roughshod over the ordinary people denying them their freedoms and rights just to hang on to power! Mnangagwa’s promises of free, fair and credible elections, a new democratic dispensation, etc. were just hot air to string the naive and gullible and gain himself a bit of political slack.
What the British have done by imposing the sanction on the Zanu PF leaders is remind Mnangagwa that they hate being taken for fools.
The American sanctions on Zanu PF leaders will be due for their annual renewal in the next few weeks. West must do now is fine tune the sanctions and make them bite. There is no doubt that President Biden will not only renew the sanction but also review them, to make them bite!
The West must also think of addition new faces on the sanctions list. Professor Mthuli Ncube, Minister of Finance, must be added to the list for working for the regime knowing fully well Zanu PF rigged the elections and the regime is, per se, illegitimate.
MDC leaders must also be added to the sanctions list for selling out on implementing the democratic reforms and participating in elections they knew are flawed and illegal and thus giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.
“It is indeed a bad sign that the Zimbabwe administration is fast losing not only the goodwill which it had following the November 2017 military action, but also the very few friends which it had made since then,” said Tawanda Zinyama, a University of Zimbabwe academic.
Zanu PF has been under these targeted Western sanctions for over 20 years now and they have clearly failed to force the regime to implement democratic reforms and change its ways. They renewed sanctions must be smarter and focus to achieve the desired results!
@ Jamwanda
ReplyDeleteDuring my schooling days when I chewed works of Karl Marx, Frederich Engels and Vladimir Lenin, one term one repeatedly met in one's study of the three sources and three origins of Marxist thought was UTOPIAN SOCIALISM largely developed by English thinkers like Owen.
This Owenite Utopia was based on a searing, even accurate attack on capitalism, but without a proper grasp of SOCIAL FORCES and PROCESSES which would get the world out of the imbroglio of ravaging capitalism.
Political science and the science of organization get suspended in a mad rush for belief and faith.
Prophets and prophecies mill around and abound respectively. Social processes are suspended for faith in "dues ex machina", gods-from-machine!!!
Today, the opposition pins its hopes in PATHOGENS, to sire a BRAVE NEW WORLD in which it is preponderant, and which it GOVERNS!!!!
Your sermon on the mount started on marxism and meandered like the Zambezi River to joined by others rivers and streams like utopian socialism and leading to the brave new world.
“Today, the opposition pins its hopes in PATHOGENS, to sire a BRAVE NEW WORLD in which it is preponderant, and which it GOVERNS!!!!”
“Zimbabwe continues to shame doomsayers, as opposition pins its hopes in PATHOGENS.”
For the last 40 years Zimbabwe has sunk deeper and deeper into the abyss. The country’s economy is in total ruins, unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90% and over 50% of our people now live in extreme poverty. And we are shaming the doomsayers!!!!
“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit,” said W C Fields.
It is obvious why Mnangagwa kept George Charamba after the November 2017 spring cleaning of Zanu PF afforded by the military coup - there was no one else to equal Charamba at baffling with bullshit!
The primary reason Zimbabwe is stuck in this economic and political hell-on-earth is because for 40 years and counting the country has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. 40 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness have left the country in economic ruins and earned the nation the pariah state, a Banana Republic, label.
ReplyDeleteZanu PF has managed to stay in power all these years because the party rigged the elections.
What Zimbabwe must do, if the country is ever to get out of this man-made hell-hole, is to implement the democratic reforms, the pre-requisite for free, fair and credible elections. The nearest the country ever got to getting this job done was during the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
SADC leaders managed to get Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement committing to the implementation of the raft of democratic reforms. The task of implementing the reforms was left to the GNU and to the two MDC parties in particular.
Sadly the MDC leaders took their eyes off the ball and not even the constant nagging by SADC leaders would get Morgan Tsvangirai and company to implement even one token reform. And ever since the GNU, MDC leaders have all but given up on reforms and free and fair elections; they are now contend fight other opposition politicians over the few gravy train Zanu PF gives away to entice the opposition to participate.
Zanu PF will ignore all pressure; including that from imposed sanctions, smart or plain; as long as the party is assured of the enthusiastic participation of the opposition in the flawed and illegal elections. It is very frustrating that MDC leaders not only sold out on implementing the reforms but worse still they are the ones undermining the efforts of others, including the British and Americans’ sanctions drive to pressure Zanu PF to reform, by participation in flawed elections.
Indeed, Mwonzora has even been calling for the lifting of the sanction!
Imposing sanctions of MDC leaders will be a smart move. The MDC sell-outs will know their deceitful move of running with povo hare by day and hunt with Zanu PF hounds by night will now be punished!
The still highly-regarded Moyo, who now leads the opposition United Movement for Devolution(UMD) party, told the Daily News yesterday that dialogue would end the current political tensions in the country.
ReplyDeleteThe former MDC chairperson during its heydays, when its much-loved and now late founding father Morgan Tsvangirai was in charge, also warned that it would be wrong to have another government of national unity (GNU) in the country.
"I fully support dialogue on the promotion of good governance, political and constitutional reforms.
"However, I don't see the value of consummating another GNU which, in my view, will dismally fail like the previous one that failed to change the Zanu-PF governing culture and … to enact laws that promote democracy during its lifetime," he said.
At least “the still highly regarded” Lovemore Moyo had the wit to notice and acknowledge that the 2008 to 2013 GNU failed in its core task of delivering democratic changes in Zimbabwe. The overwhelming majority of MDC leaders, the navel gazing lot, still believe the last GNU was a great success.
What Moyo did not say is why the last GNU failed but one can infer from his reluctance to have a new GNU “consummated” is that the partners in the last GNU were not up to the task and it is pointless having the same leaders form another GNU.
However, Moyo observed that the calls for a national dialogue lacked "clarity, substance, purpose and ownership”.
The number one purpose would be to implement the reforms which should have been implemented during the last GNU.
Zanu PF has shown that it will never reform itself out of office. And MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform during the last GNU because they are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. There really is no point in another Zanu PF and MDC GNU. None!
It also comes as political analysts such as professor of World Politics at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (OAS), Stephen Chan, have said dialogue remains the best way to end Zimbabwe's decades-long crises.
"The situation in Zimbabwe is dire, so that posturing is simply futile. I think everyone is slowly coming to the realisation that dialogue is unavoidable.
"Certainly, the view in the international community is that talks that are unconditional - on all sides - open and transparent, should take place.
There were times when the international community sort Professor Stephen Chan’s advice on Zimbabwe, at least the British did, but very much doubt if any one still do. I would take with the shovelful of salt his claim the world wants another Zanu PF and MDC GNU especially the West since it condemned Zanu PF for rigging the last elections.
The Daily News has been campaigning for a new Zanu PF and MDC GNU and none of the reasons the paper has give so far made any sense!
The British played a leading role in the attempt to sanitize Zimbabwe's 2018 rigged elections, especially Britain's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Catriona Laing. She did try to get other nations to down play the blatant vote rigging. To silence Chamisa, who was clamouring for his reward in playing along to give the election process legitimacy, it is said Ambassador Laing advised Mnangagwa to create the position of Leader of the Opposition complete with the shadow cabinet position entitled to the cabinet salary and perks. Mnangagwa thought he knew better and ignored the advice.
ReplyDeleteThe British have since learned their lesson, Mnangagwa is a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thug and must be seen and treated accordingly.
The West will continue to call for meaningful democratic reforms but they know the calls will fall on deaf ears, especially as long as Zanu PF remains confident that the opposition will participate in the flawed elections and thus give the regime legitimacy.
The credibility of the MDC as a competent opposition has taken a crashing blow following the party's failure to deal with the crisis cause by Chamisa's unconstitutional seizure of the leadership of the party after Tsvangirai's death. To make matters worse, the truth of the party's blundering incompetence during the 2009 GNU are coming out and the party is at a loss as what to do.
A politically discredited opposition will not give Zanu PF legitimacy!
@ Mbatatisis
ReplyDeleteSanctions a biting ordinary citizen but its nothing compared to the suffering and deaths brought on by the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. Whilst the country remains a de facto one-party dictatorship we will never stamp out corruption because the Godfathers of corruption and the ruling elite.
The fact that the sanction target the ruling elite and thus put them under pressure to hold free, fair and credible elections makes the suffering they bring a price worth paying for the gain of regime change and good governance.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” said one of America’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin.
Only a fool who has no clue what harm the public is having to endure as a result of sanctions compared to that brought on by corruption would even flinch at the imposing of sanctions to end corruption. The discomfort of an operation to removing shrapnel is nothing compare to suffering and even risk to life of leaving it there!
In January 1775 Benjamin Franklin (1796-1790) was part of an American delegation sent to Britain in an attempt to resolve the outstanding disagreements between the Crown and the colonies. Seventeen points were up for discussion of which several were rejected outright by the Crown while others were rejected by the colonies. Franklin’s comments regarding the last two points produced one of his most famous sayings from the period:
As to the other two acts, (i.e. 16. The American admiralty courts reduced to the same powers they have in England, and the acts establishing them to be reënacted in America; and 17. All powers of internal legislation in the colonies to be disclaimed by Parliament) the Massachusetts (sic) must suffer all the hazards and mischiefs of war rather than admit the alteration of their charters and laws by Parliament. ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.