UNTIL last week when the European Union (EU) announced what it claimed was a US$5 million ‘donation’ to civil society to strengthen ‘democratic participation and accountable monitoring’ by NGOs in Zimbabwe, the term regime change was a distant memory.
This explains the eagerness by the hashtag movements to participate in the aborted civil servants strike that was supposed to be held on Monday.
Despite the near extinction of that term, ‘regime change’, The Patriot, forever the eye of progressive minds in the country’s politics, will consistently provide the warning to the effect that regime change does not die easily.
And here we are, back to 2000 when we took our land from whites, back to the full wrath of the West and back to shaking off nauseating regime change agenda proponents and pursuers.
In its loaded and revealing statement last week, the EU said:
“The EU in Zimbabwe has strengthened its support to civil society with a fresh call for proposals to promote democratic participation, good governance and accountability as well as dialogue among different stakeholders in the country.
“In total, the EU provides 5 million Euros for proposals that address one of the two specific objectives.”
So where do we begin from, now that we are confronted with this fresh onslaught on our sovereignty?
We start from where it all began.
In February 2002, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who had been elevated from his position as secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), to drive regime change agenda on behalf of the West, acknowledged that his party was financed by European governments and corporations, which poured money through British political consultant, BSMG.
The same Tsvangirai has been in buoyant mood in recent weeks, touring rural areas and trying to convince villagers to buy into his regime change agenda project.
He needs to be watched.
Meanwhile, the US was making no secret of its desire to remove ZANU PF from power.
In 2002 the US admitted that ‘it wants to see President Robert Mugabe removed from power and that it is working with the Zimbabwean opposition… trade unions, pro-democracy groups and human rights organisations… to bring about a change of administration’.
Pressure on Zimbabwe was coming from across European capitals.
For instance, while the International Center for Non-violent Conflict and Freedom House, both then headed by Peter Ackerman, member of the US ruling class Council on Foreign Relations, a New York investment banker and former right hand man to Michael Milken of the junk bond fame, was lavishing money and training on civil society groups in Zimbabwe out of ‘humanitarian concern’, the opposite was true.
It was Noam Chomksy and Edward Herman who told us that Freedom House has ties to the CIA, ‘and has long served as a virtual propaganda arm of the (US) Government and international right wing’. 
But while Zimbabwe survived 2008 and 2013, signs have always been there that the West has not let go of Harare.
On July 2 2015, head of the EU delegation to Zimbabwe, Phillipe Van Damme, British Ambassador to Zimbabwe Catriona Laing and Dutch Ambassador Gera Sneller participated in a supposedly ‘high’ level conference on Europe-Zimbabwe ‘relations’ in Brussels, Belgium.
The conference was meant to put the so-called Mugabe regime under intense pressure to ‘open up space to NGOs’ and at ‘worst’ prop up the fortunes of the opposition, including the confused and confusing ‘People First’ movement.
While it is an open secret that the West are admirers of means outside the ballot box to oust governments they don’t like, their options are fast dwindling by the day as President Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF continues to assert its dominance on the country’s political scene through its sound policies which resonate with the majority.
The Brussels conference was convened by the usual suspects in the regime change agenda which include the Zimbabwe Europe Network (ZEN), the Zimbabwe Institute (ZI) and Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, among others.
The profiles of ZEN and ZI are revealing.
“ZEN is a network of (over 30) European trade unions and civil society organisations, including secular, faith-based and developmental organisations as well as diaspora groups, with programmes of support and/or presence on the ground in Zimbabwe,” reads the profile in part.
“ZEN was launched in October 2008 to ensure that the EU and its member-states stay engaged on Zimbabwe and that the perspectives and recommendations of Zimbabwean civil society help shape its future policy decisions.”
On the other hand, ZI purports to be an independent think-tank wishing to add to Zimbabwe’s ‘development’.
“The Zimbabwe Institute is an independent political think tank working with various stakeholders to facilitate political dialogue, consensus building and policy development in Zimbabwe according to participatory democratic principles,” reads the profile.
In Brussels, the West wanted to perfect modalities to provide funding to NGOs, and to ‘weaken’ the Government of Zimbabwe’s arms and structures through infiltration.
In the same breath, they also sought to find ways to galvanise people to rebel against the Government.
We need to keep our eyes open, the regime change agenda is unfolding.
After all, the vote is already in ZANU PF’s bag given the major strides in agriculture through the Command Agriculture Programme and the many economic development programmes.
Zimbabwe is ours!
Let those with ears listen.