THERE are two distressing pointers towards the recent decision by the European Union (EU) to lift trade sanctions on Zimbabwe while maintaining what they say are ‘travel bans’ on President Robert Mugabe and his wife, the First Lady Dr Grace Mugabe.
In the first instance the move by the EU to maintain sanctions on the First Family is an extension of the regional bloc’s divide and rule tactic especially in the context of the impending ZANU PF Congress.
ZANU PF is set to hold what has been described as a watershed elective congress early next month and the maintenance of the so-called travel ‘bans’ is an attempt by the EU to have some leverage on the goings on in the ruling party.
Announcing the sanctions decision last Thursday, newly accredited EU Head of Mission Philippe Van Damme laid bare the bloc’s strategy on Zimbabwe when he claimed that ‘what we (EU) needs now is to rebuild trust’. The travel bans on President Mugabe and the Dr Grace Mugabe will be reviewed next February.
“I think we have reached an important stage of normalisation of relations with Zimbabwe”, said Van Damme.
“The step we have taken is not the final step, but a very important one. What we need now is to rebuild trust.”
The only plausible explanation to the trust issue is that there is no doubt that the EU does not trust President Mugabe hence their decision to maintain the travel bans with their eyes firmly on the ZANU PF Congress. The EU has never hidden its resentment of President Mugabe’s rule.
Since the ill-fated imposition of the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe on February 18, 2002, in violation of Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement, the EU has been on an offensive to dislodge President Mugabe under the flimsy excuse that there were widespread human rights violations in Harare.
But a 2006 EU study on the implementation of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement admitted sanctions were a political tool to manipulate the outcome of the 2002 Presidential election and punish Zimbabwe for embarking on the revolutionary land reform two years earlier.
The study admitted the body precluded dialogue with Zimbabwe in a rush to impose sanctions.
Article 96 of the Agreement, which brings together the EU and the Africa- Caribbean- Pacific bloc, outlines procedures to be followed should a country be deemed in violation of certain governance, rule of law and human rights requirements as defined in Article 8.
However, the EU flouted its own procedures so that they could sanction Zimbabwe and the study also accepts that the so-called targeted sanctions had adversely affected the Zimbabwe economy.
Secondly, the United States government and the EU expected and still expect the replacement of the ZANU PF Government, in particular President Mugabe, through collaborative legislative programme combining a reconstituted leadership of ZANU PF and the Western- sponsored MDC.
In short, US policy envisaged “regime change” with elections only coming in as an aftermath if not afterthought.
We warned about this scenario a few months ago and the latest stunt by the EU to maintain the travel bans all but confirms it.
In any case, to the EU, a programme for the ‘rebuilding’ of Zimbabwe was incompatible with President Mugabe’s presidency.
This is why until last week, inside Zimbabwe, Western officials had been under instructions to deny that Zimbabwe is under real sanctions, or that the West is meddling.
Instead, their brief was to insist that the problems facing the Zimbabwean people come solely from one man and his government: Robert Mugabe.
That there was a desperate bid to include a few of ZANU PF elements into the MDC was an admission by Washington and its British-led EU allies that their protégé lacked both the legitimacy and capacity to govern a country whose politics and collective psyche rest on the bedrock of anti- colonial war of liberation.
The role of the sanctions was to restrain Government policies and programmes.
The ZANU PF Government was restrained ideologically by the growing ‘good governance’ and ‘human rights’ industry by the mainly aid agencies as a means to create alibis for the economic disasters caused by the IMF- World Bank- inspired structural adjustment programmes.
The human rights and good governance ticket has since been replaced by the Mugabe ‘is now old’ and should leave office.
Such is the real political identity of what the West say is democracy that they stigmatise President Mugabe and his wife in order to maintain some control over the goings on in both ZANU PF and Zimbabwe.
What other possible explanation could there be to the refusal by the EU to lift sanctions on the First Family at a time the West says it is ‘re-engaging’ with Zimbabwe?
The refusal is a series of Western activities quite militant in tone and often complemented by threats of physical attacks on the country.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a hint of both his frustrations and expectations towards the implementation of this strategy. On July 2, 2009, Blair would again implore the world to topple President Mugabe.
In an interview with German news magazine Stern, he said:
“If you can do it, then you should do it. I think whoever has the possibility should topple Mugabe- the man has destroyed his country.”
The same mantra contained in his memoir, A Journey, in which he admitted that he wanted to invade Zimbabwe but was prevented from doing so by the military strength of the country and the ‘enormous support he (President Mugabe) receives from other African governments’.
So it just remained a wish, the envisaged military invasion.
The removal from power of President Mugabe has also just remained a wish.
The maintenance of the travel bans on the Zimbabwean leader and his wife sums the frustrations of the West.