FORGET the public bluster that the US congressmen who visited Zimbabwe last week were on what they said was a wildlife ‘fact finding tour’.
The reality is that key members of the delegation, Senators Jeff Flake and Benjamin Cardin were instrumental in the imposition of economic sanctions against Harare.
It was a strange period for Zimbabwe when the senators paid them a shock visit last week.
Not often have people of this country been overly impressed by America’s attitude and conduct towards Zimbabwe, especially with the devastating effects of the sanctions.
And not often has the US struggled to hide its intentions to Zimbabweans, but last week proved their lies are finally hitting the wall.
It gets worrisome when people like Senators Flake and Cardin come to Harare, and leave undetected and unmasked when their role in the annihilation of the Zimbabwe economy is documented.
The duo were co-sponsors of the amended Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) in 2009.
A co-sponsor is a member in his or her chamber (i.e., House of Representatives or Senate) to sponsor a bill or amendment.
The first member who ‘signs onto’ a bill is called the ‘sponsor’.
Members who subsequently sign become ‘co-sponsors’.
On May 5 2010 the US Senate amended ZDERA to add more sanctions by crafting a law cynically and suspiciously named the Zimbabwe Transition to Democracy and Economic Act (ZDTERA).
This was in anticipation of what they saw as the beckoning ‘post-Mugabe era’ then.
Senator Flake is the chairman of the sub-committee on Africa and Global Health Policy of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Flake is the junior senator from Arizona.
He represented Arizona 6th Congressional District.
He is also a key member of the Republicans bidding to take over from the Democrats.
Flake is described as an expert on foreign relations.
Senator Cardin is a member of the Democratic Party who serves as the junior US senator from Maryland since 2007.
Before his election to the Senate, Cardin, who has never lost an election, was a member of the US House of Representatives.
It is not difficult to understand why America chose to put senators Flake and Cardin in their ‘wildlife tour’ delegation.
These people fully understand Zimbabwean politics.
They were there when amendments were made to ZDERA.
They were crucial in the amendments made to further perpetuate sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Make no mistake about it, the visit had nothing to do with wildlife issues.
They were on a different hunting trip.
It was about putting more bite to the sanctions, in particular increased efforts to launch a fresh onslaught on the Land Reform Programme, itself a key target of ZDERA.
Here is why.
Section 5 of ZDERA demands a return to the land reform formulae proposed by Western donors that included America itself.
It authorises the US President to:
“Support equitable, legal and transparent mechanisms of land reforms in Zimbabwe, including payment of costs related to the acquisition of land and the resettlement of individuals, constituent with International Donors’ Conference on Land Reform and Resettlement in Zimbabwe, in September 1998, or any subsequent agreements relating thereto.”
In simple terms the US and the West are actually saying any land ownership patterns outside pre-1998 are unacceptable to them and unless revoked, warrant the continued stay of sanctions.
In the same vein, soon after the imposition of sanctions by George Bush on December 21 2001, America adopted what it thought was a sophisticated approach to handling the widely discredited embargo, especially on the media front.
Inside Zimbabwe, US officials had been under instructions to deny that Zimbabwe is under real sanctions, or that the US was meddling.
Instead, their brief was to insist that the problems facing the Zimbabwean people were authored by one man and his Government; Robert Mugabe.
In the words of Christopher Dell, the former American Ambassador to Harare, US sanctions under its cynical ‘democracy’ act was ‘narrowly tailored financial and travel sanctions on the ruling party (ZANU PF) and government leaders and their families’.
But despite this revelation, he had bluntly denied that his country was aiding the MDC-T to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe, but as a stunning historical event would reveal, the truth was the US was indeed playing ball to the politics of regime change in the country.
Sanctions were the tool used to execute this operation and project.
On November 28 2010, the whistle blower website, Wikileaks, began publishing a quarter million classified US documents.
The exposures contained top secret cables sent to Washington by US diplomats from around the world.
One of the documents was communication from the US embassy in Zimbabwe which included the following report that was filed by its outgoing ambassador, Dell, just before the March 29 2008 harmonised elections.
Written on July 13 2007, the document made it abundantly clear that the US was working with Tsvangirai’s MDC to push President Mugabe out of power.
The document produced a fundamental point that has to do with America’s relationship with small, rich states; relationship with small, dark people minding their own little, coveted corner in the world.
Zimbabweans, especially, should forever keep a close eye on the not-so-hidden machinations of Uncle Sam.
It’s still war!
Let those with ears listen.