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A common cause for Trump, Clinton

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THE US presidential race is nearing the finishing line and it remains to be seen who, among the presidential aspirants, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will come out tops.
For Zimbabwe, however, the question of who is the better devil among the two is of no consequence.
Clinton and Trump are cut from the same cloth.
Their interests, regardless of any degree of sanitation, are the same.
They stand for white America.
The US has an unsavoury track record of trying to effect regime change in Zimbabwe since the country adopted black majority rule.
However, in recent times, the Americans have since upped their offensive in their endeavour to depose President Robert Mugabe — both Republicans and Democrats.
It is not pub talk that America recently funded a spate of violent demonstrations headed by Evan Mawarire under the banner #thisflag and #tajamuka which was agitating for the unconstitutional removal from office of President Mugabe.
Mawarire was reportedly working with American authorities who later facilitated his evacuation to the US.
This was just but a recent episode in a consistent thread of the regime change agenda by the two US major political parties.
According to an article published in this paper ‘US splashes regime change cash’ (July 29 – August 4), it was established the US was sponsoring local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its four core institutions, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Solidarity Centre and the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).
The NED funds a network of local NGOs founded and funded by the US Embassy and USAID office in Harare and get handed over to the NED family for operational control and management.
Local NGOs that have benefitted from these US funds include the American Centre for International Labour Solidarity, Centre for International Private Enterprise, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, Mass Public Opinion Institute, Youth Forum, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and Zimbabwe Peace Project, among others.
NGOs traditionally serve the interests of their funders and their main role is to destabilise democratically elected governments that do not dance to the tune of Americans.
The US has carved a history for itself as consistent in its foreign policy.
It is ruthless to any ‘stubborn’ country.
While some are eagerly waiting for the outcome of the Clinton and Trump elections, there is need to remind Zimbabweans that both hail from a country which, in 2001, crafted the Zimbabwe Democracy Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) after ruling that Zimbabwe posed ‘an unusual and extra-ordinary threat to the US foreign policy’.
In fact, Clinton was a chief architect of ZDERA.
Thus as far as sanctions on Zimbabwe are concerned, Democrat Clinton and Republican Trump are one.
A few days ago, US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Harry Thomas Junior, drew the ire of Zimbabweans when he came short of openly admitting his government’s interference in internal affairs during a public lecture at Zimbabwe Institute of Diplomacy.
Ambassador Thomas Junior divulged his country was dolling out cash to civic society organisations supporting democracy initiatives, while maintaining his country’s rhetoric that ZDERA was not a sanctions programme even though it was endorsed by the US Congress.
Even Ambassador Thomas Junior’s predecessors, such as Bruce Wharton, Charles Ray and Christopher Dell, were all given the same brief, to deny that the problems facing Zimbabwe were a result of the illegal sanctions regime, but were a result of President Mugabe’s ‘misrule’.
Interestingly, there are instances the US envoys would be caught off-guard and unwittingly let the cat out of the bag.
A typical example is in August 2010 when Ray, the then US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, was responding to intensifying pressure from SADC leaders for the US to remove the ruinous sanctions.
Ray’s response was succinct: “They are sanctions that are designed to try and influence behaviour that creates a better Zimbabwe for the people.”
Given Ray’s admission that the sanctions would not be ‘targeted’ as the US Government would want us to believe, they were designed to induce suffering on ordinary Zimbabweans by choking the economy and capitalising on ‘stomach politics’.
A recap of a quotation by Chester Crocker in September 2001 would be in order.
The former Secretary of State for African Affairs, who, while calling for the annihilation of the Zimbabwean economy, implored the US Senate to endorse the sanctions regime said:
“To separate the Zimbabwe people from that man Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you Senators have the stomach for what you have to do.”
Former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, on November 2 2005, tried to hide behind the finger while making a presentation at Africa University when he gave away the objective of ZDERA:
“The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 is the cornerstone of US Policy toward Zimbabwe (Cornerstone because it would make the economy scream while pushing President Mugabe from power). Under the Act the US conditions aid and financing of Zimbabwe…
It was more than dismaying to read a paper published in July (2005) by the Centre of Global Development in Washington on the Costs and Causes of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis…
The paper calculated that the purchasing power of the average Zimbabwean in 2005 had fallen back to the same level as in 1953… that an astonishing reversal of 52 years of progress in only half a dozen years.”
After Dell’s presentation, during the slot for question-and-answer, the university raised concern that they were finding it difficult to secure accessories for their US-sourced IT network.
The University hinted that their traditional supplier had received instructions from US authorities not to continue transacting with Zimbabwean firms.
What was most ironic was that Africa University enjoys close links with the Americans, having been founded by American Methodists and funded by American money, yet they witnessed firsthand how the ‘targeted’ sanctions were punishment on Zimbabweans for exercising their democratic right.
What hypocrisy!
One can also refer back to 2006, where an EU study on the implementation of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement conceded that sanctions were indeed a political tool tailored to influence the outcome of the 2002 presidential polls and punish Zimbabweans for redistributing land two years prior.
Zimbabwe had embarked on a Land Reform Programme that addressed a century-old land distribution travesty where a handful 4 000 white farmers had their land repossessed by more than
400 000 black households.
This action irked the British and their kith-and-kin, Americans topping the list, and invited a barrage of illegal ruinous economic sanctions that sent Zimbabwe’s economy into a spiral, which reached its zenith in 2008 ahead of the presidential election, laying the foundation for the economic and political problems besetting the country to this day.
As long as Zimbabweans continue exercising their democratic right by choosing a Government which puts the interests of the indigenes first, then America will not be relenting on its sanctions regime until they impose a puppet amenable to their interests.
It will be the duty and ambition of every American President, Democratic or Republican, to topple the legitimate rulers of Zimbabwe and impose quislings.

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