THE US has been caught in yet another embarrassing plot to grab the limelight from the country’s 44th Independence celebrations by derailing Harare’s ongoing Zimbabwe Structured Dialogue Platform on Debt Clearance by tasking its officials to bring into the fray issues to do with governance and the PVO Amendment Bill among other petty issues, information gathered by this publication reveals.
Despite having pulled out of Zimbabwe’s debt restructuring talks earlier this year, the US holds sway among several multilateral institutions which are owed by the country.
This is captured in the US sanctions law, ZDERA, which was effected by the US Congress on December 21 2001.
ZDERA clearly states its intentions that it is designed to sabotage the Zimbabwe economy, something they have successfully done.
Section 4 (c) of ZDERA clearly spells out Uncle Sam’s intentions on its relentless attack on the country’s economy.
“Multilateral Financial Restriction — Until the President makes the certification described in subsection (d) and except as may be required to meet basic human rights needs or for good governance, the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against:
(1) Any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe;
(2) Any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.”
In January this year, Charge d’Affaires at the US Embassy in Harare, Elaine French (pictured), told its pirate station, VOA, that her country had stopped participating in the process claiming that the August 23 2023 harmonised elections were deemed, in Uncle Sam’s eyes, not free and fair.
The country has a choking external debt of around US$12,7 billion and about US$5 billion in internal debts.
Treasury says that the arrears equated to 52 percent of the country’s GDP in 2022, up from 26 percent in 2018.
The debt precludes Zimbabwe from attracting fresh capital from the IMF and the World Bank.
“In the dialogue the Government of Zimbabwe committed to taking on reforms, but we haven’t seen the statements translating to actions especially when it comes to elections,” said French.
“We did not see those reforms before, during and after elections. Because of the poor conduct around 2023 elections the United States Mission Embassy had decided to press pause on our involvement with AfDB dialogue.”
President Mnangagwa garnered 53 percent of the vote against former opposition CCC leader and the US’s blue-eyed boy, Nelson Chamisa’s 44 percent.
But as Zimbabwe participated in the April 17-19 2024 IMF/World Bank annual spring meetings in Washington this week, US officials were waiting in the wings to bring the opposition’s widely discredited mantra into play.
They were going to ‘take Zimbabwe to task over those issues as they sought to derail talks on the debt restructuring dialogue’, diplomatic officials told this publication this week.
What they say are reforms are, in fact, issues that are contained in the CCC manifesto, issues that their point man, Nevers Mumba (pictured), tried to regurgitate soon after the August 23 2023 harmonised elections when it became clear that the opposition had been walloped in those polls.
The diplomatic sources told this publication this week that Uncle Sam planned to ambush the Zimbabwean delegation by bringing up governance and PVO issues.
This, they said, was part of a broader plan by the US to derail the country’s progress in addressing the debt issue.
Harare has been gradually repaying the debt since 2021, part of which it inherited in 1980 when it was forced to take over Ian Smith’s mammoth US$700 million debt.
“The United States is trying to scuttle any progress made by Zimbabwe with regards to its determined pursuit of clearing the debt and starting on a clean slate and Government officials who are attending the spring meetings are going to be ambushed by US officials,” said an impeccable diplomatic source.
“The US will try to thrust them against the walls on issues to do with governance and the PVO Amendment Act. They will claim that Zimbabwe has fared badly on those issues and, as such, cannot attract fresh capital even when it has not only shown commitment but has also put in place measures to repay the debt.
“The gold-backed currency has also not gone down well with some countries in the West who believe that exploitation of those resources is likely to push them out of the game. The coming into the fore of other players especially the Chinese has ruffled many feathers in the West. So the spring meetings delegation should brace itself for some tough but usual nonsensical questions from the usual suspects.”
This development comes as there have been fresh attempts to label Zimbabwe a ‘pariah’ State by a UK economic ‘research’ institute, the so-called World Economics.
Zimbabwe’s fight with the West has been drawn from both sides of the Atlantic.
The pro-regime change agenda entity claims that Zimbabwe is one of the worst governed countries in Southern Africa, claiming that it was also in the top 10 of poorly governed countries in Africa.
Reading like the usual Western countries’ anti-Zimbabwe script, the report which was released recently, a curious timing given the visit by one of the debt restructuring facilitators, former Mozambique President, Joaquim Chissano’s, visit to the country last week.
Chissano, who met with Zimbabwean President His Excellency Dr Emmerson Mnangagwa is leading the country’s delegation to the spring meetings.
The report says Zimbabwe scored ‘poorly’ in the categories of political rights, civil liberties, rule of law, regulatory quality and economic effectiveness.
These are the issues which form a large chunk of the opposition’s manifesto.
But even when they enjoy those freedoms, they have been coached by Western countries to mislead the masses by claiming otherwise.
But issues to do with land reform, resettlement and economic emancipation are conspicuous by absence from the opposition manifesto.
That has, however, done little to derail the country’s sterling efforts to empower the masses who have immensely benefitted from those programmes.
Zimbabwe continues to rise!
