“YOU cannot keep Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe down for long” is the message drawn from revelations that the United States has made in a tacit admission that it is working with some senior Government officials to effect regime change by ousting the country’s leader.
Speaking at the George Washington University in the United States on Tuesday last week, US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said her country was already planning for what she said was a ‘post-Mugabe’ dispensation.
The US plan involves blocking First Lady Amai Dr Grace Mugabe’s ascendancy in ZANU PF.
“I am hopeful the people of Zimbabwe will not see that the legacy of Mugabe will be to leave his wife in a position of power,” the Telescope News website quoted her as saying.
“There will be a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe and we need to start engaging with some Government officials … press them to bring about changes in their Government so that we can be prepared for that period.”
Through this revelation, the US is making it clear that its policy and measures go beyond stopping official assistance and mobilising the Western world against Zimbabwe, and envisage the removal of President Mugabe from both the leadership of his ruling ZANU PF party and Government through processes well outside of the ballot.
It is also abundantly clear from the foregoing that Zimbabwe’s Land Reform and Resettlement Programme, the central and solitary cause of US’s hostility against the country, is not, in the view of Washington, legitimate or part of ‘the rebuilding’ of Zimbabwe.
This is because when they dismissively talk about President Mugabe and ZANU PF’s perceived failed policies, they talk of what they call tired nationalism which they claim has not embraced the traits of ‘good governance’ which are premised on the goals of ‘human rights, rule of law and democracy’.
So to them, nationalism is as old fashioned and not relevant with modern day politics in which ‘good governance’ is the ‘in-thing’.
Second, the assumption that President Mugabe’s policies have ‘failed’ and thus he must go does not hold water and as such begs the following questions.
Why was it necessary to pass the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) in the US in order to fight, discredit and stop already failed policies in Zimbabwe?
Why was it necessary for the people of Zimbabwe to vote for President Mugabe in the July 31 2013 harmonised elections when his policies do not resonate with the majority?
Why does Uncle Sam find it necessary to use ZANU PF and Government officials to undermine President Mugabe’s leadership?
Why do those officials find it necessary to be used to topple a leader who is just a year into his five-year term?
Why the impatience?
This begs another question:
What is President Mugabe trying to do for the people of Zimbabwe, and why does it threaten Euro-American interests?
President Mugabe is trying to give his people meaning, significance and relevance in both local and global politics and economics through empowering them.
He is trying to give Zimbabweans a determined resolution of the outstanding colonial question of land and economic ownership in a manner not quite appealing to Western interest.
The idea of specifically, deposing President Mugabe whose ‘time has come and gone’ as former US Secretary of State, Collin Powell said in his July 4 2004 presentation, and replacing him by a pliant ZANU PF/ MDC transitional authority which could be relied upon to reverse land reforms and safeguard Western interests in Zimbabwe, is gathering momentum through the infiltration of ZANU PF.
Equally revealing were the comments made by Powell that:
“And we (Bush administration) will continue to assist directly, in many different ways, the brave men and women of Zimbabwe who are resisting tyranny.”
The brave men and women who were allegedly resisting tyranny were the MDC formations and now ZANU PF officials who are warming up to the Americans and their anti-Mugabe shenanigans.
Powell was even more persistent in his stunning revelations when he said:
“If that happens (regime change), the United States would be quick to pledge generous funding to the restoration of Zimbabwe’s political and economic institutions (which have been destroyed by the sanctions).
“Other donors (those Western countries that have imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe), I am sure, would be close behind (in restoring a Zimbabwe devastated by sanctions).
“Reading this, Robert Mugabe and his cohorts may cry, ‘Blackmail’.
“We should ignore them.
“Their time has come and gone.”
This staggering revelation was obviously premised on the punishment they had imposed on President Mugabe as a way of driving him out of power.
The plan was and still is to crush President Mugabe’s legacy and nationalist programmes.
It should have also expanded the nationalist programmes and policies by pushing for ownership of companies than occupying executive positions in foreign-owned companies.
Instead those agitating for President Mugabe’s ouster chose to take sides with whites and the West who had carefully cultivated these divisions.
This is doomed.
Let those with ears listen.