THERE are many critical national security issues that arise from the US’ decision to extend its illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe last week, such as the role that some rogue elements within the opposition continue to play in the maintenance of the widely discredited embargo.
While the most critical lesson from Uncle Sam’s decision is that they are not likely to remove the sanctions anytime soon, it is their continued collusion with their acolytes to suffocate the country’s economy that is fast-descending into a serious national security threat.
That should be nipped in the bud as a matter of urgency.
We have been down this road before, where we have called on the authorities to decisively deal with any person who either speaks ill of his/her country or calls for the destruction of the economy.
They claim ZANU PF is the cause of the imposition of the sanctions when they overtly and covertly connive with their Western handlers to harm innocent citizens through their naïve calls for the sanctions.
And the growing belief that the State has been too lenient with those malcontents is not, from their rogue actions, far-fetched.
The time to deal with them is certainly now.
On Thursday last week, US President Joseph Biden announced that he was extending the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, accusing Harare of ‘mismanaging’ the economy as well as ‘undermining’ what he said were democratic processes or institutions.
Let us unpack this hokum in depth.
When Uncle Sam talks about economic mismanagement, he is, in essence, raising the racial card and telling Zimbabweans and the rest of developing world that they are incapable of properly running their economies.
A sound economy is, therefore, in their warped logic, one that is in the hands of a few whites such as the one that was heavily skewed in favour of their kith and kin prior to the revolutionary land reform of 2000.
Through ZDERA, Uncle Sam’s sanctions law, the Americans make it explicitly clear that in order for the embargo to be removed, land tenure ownership patterns must revert to the pre-1998 structure where land was in the hands of the minority.
What this means is Uncle Sam, together with his Western cousins and warmongers, are very clear on their position with regards to ownership and control of land and natural resources.
Any economy that is owned and controlled by its real owners is somehow ‘mismanaged’.
And that ‘anomaly’ can only be remedied if, and when, Uncle Sam intervenes and takes charge of that economy.
But one needs to look no further than Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and even Zimbabwe where they have left a trail of destruction.
These are the victims of the interference into their internal affairs by the marauding Uncle Sam.
Ironically, the same economy that Zimbabwean leaders are being accused of mismanaging is firmly in the hands of the majority who are doing exceptionally well under the choking wave of Uncle Sam’s sanctions.
In the same vein, when Uncle Sam talks about undermining of democratic processes or institutions, he is, in fact, yearning to export his reckless foreign policy to a Zimbabwe that is enjoying unfettered access to freedom and democracy.
We will repeat that democracy was brought to the country by the gun on April 18 1980 after years of a protracted struggle against colonialism.
Curiously, seemingly lost to the US is the fact that those Zimbabweans who are lobbying for the imposition of more sanctions as well their maintenance are doing so in a Zimbabwe that is said to be undemocratic.
Therefore, the fallacy by the US that this country can only become democratic in the highly unlikely event that their opposition party assumes power is exactly what Zimbabweans in their totality have rejected in the past and will soundly reject on March 26 as well as during the 2023 harmonised elections.
To these progressive Zimbabweans, the true heroes of the struggle for real and true democracy, ownership and control of their land and natural resources is the hallmark of democracy, which democracy they ably and duly defend through the ballot.
And it will deliver a thunderous blow to their shameless faces as has been the norm.
Let us hear Biden speak on Zimbabwe sanctions extension.
“The actions and policies of certain members of the Zimbabwe Government and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the US,” Biden said in a statement on Thursday last week.
“For this reason, the national emergency declared on March 6 2003 and the measures adopted on that date, on November 22 2005 and on July 25 2008 to deal with that emergency must continue in effect beyond March 6 2022.
Therefore, in accordance with Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for one year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13288.”
The statement goes on:
“This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress,” Biden said, claiming that Zimbabwe had pursued “…actions and policies that have contributed to the deliberate breakdown in the rule of law in Zimbabwe, to politically motivated violence and intimidation, and to political and economic instability in the Southern African region.”
It is not difficult to unravel CCC and other opposition activists’ supposed concealed contribution into this preposterous statement.
They have been coming out in the open in recent times, as they have done in the past, claiming that sanctions are aiding their bid to assume power in the country.
At the launch of his party’s by-elections campaign at the Zimbabwe Grounds, Highfield, on February 20 2022, CCC leader Nelson Chamisa brazenly called for the total collapse of the education sector through his inflammable call for teachers to go on strike.
“Teachers — don’t be intimidated,” said Chamisa.
“Fight for your rights, for the meantime, but when we are in power, we will restore the dignity you had during Mugabe’s era.”
Ironically, Chamisa conveniently ignores that his handlers’ sanctions are the cause of the problems that teachers are encountering.
In 2009, Chamisa called for the US to send its Special Forces to invade Zimbabwe.
This is contained in a January 14 2009 WikiLeaks cable where he said the only way to remove ZANU PF from power was through a military invasion.
“Turning to US policy, Chamisa said rhetoric that ‘Mugabe must go’ was empty and counterproductive,” reads the cable in part.
“Regime opponents initially hoped that the rhetoric would be complemented by action.
Inaction on the part of the US was causing people to lose heart.
Further, ZANU PF was using US statements as a pretext to crack down on the MDC and civil society, both of which it was accusing of collaborating with the US to bring about regime change.
We asked Chamisa what concrete actions the US and the international community could take.
He responded: ‘military intervention to remove the regime, indictments of Mugabe and other ZANU PF in international courts and sanctioning of the Reserve Bank’.”
Tendai Biti, Uncle Sam’s trusted lieutenant, would buttress Chamisa’s nonsense when he bizarrely claimed that he was the West’s right hand-man in the country, adding that he was their goblin.
“Ndadya mustard… Now hama yangu ndisunge futi because kumashure uko kwakasenga futi, kunezvikwambo nditorichidhoma chezvimwe zvinhu so usadenhe hondo dzausingakwanise kupedza (Arrest me again my friend, behind me are ‘bigger’ things, I am other things/ people’s [the West] goblin. Don’t start a war which you can’t finish),” said Biti.
“Isu tine kumwe kwatinofamba kwatinongonzi ‘Mr Bhiti, Mr Bhiti’ (There is somewhere I go where they call me Mr Bhiti [mimicking white people’s accent when pronouncing his name]).”
That is not all.
While Biden was inanely parroting his sanctions blather, an opposition activist, former MDC Alliance’s Godfrey Kuraone, was calling on Uncle Sam to slap alleged ZANU PF activist Passion Java with sanctions through a petition to US’ Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Java is accused of allegedly using State resources to prop up President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
He is seen as a major obstacle to CCC’s bid to win the forthcoming elections.
Titled ‘Deport Panganai Java from the US, he is an enabler of Human Rights violations in Zimbabwe’, the petition has a target of 10 000 signatures.
“Panganai Passion Java, a self-proclaimed prophet, enjoys permanent resident status in the USA while he goes back to Zimbabwe to actively support a regime that is killing citizens, violating fundamental rights and stealing national resources,” reads the petition.
“He uses State resources to move around the country buying votes for Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The State Department of the United States has through its Secretary of State has the power to begin the process of revoking Mr. Passion Java’s permanent resident status.
The USA policy is to support freedom, democracy and prosperity for the people of Zimbabwe and to this end has imposed restrictive measures on individuals who aide human rights violations and undermine democracy in Zimbabwe.
Mr. Java is one such culprit and should be sanctioned and barred from coming to the USA and his accounts frozen.”
It’s high time the State responded in kind to this madness.
And again, we call for the speedy processing of the Patriotic Act.
It’s long overdue.