Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
The devil is a liar and the USA — and hopefully along with its Western European pro-Zimbabwe sanctions club allies — has at long last seen the light at this country’s other end and made pronouncements through its Zimbabwe envoy which signify a virtual end to the diabolic Western economic embargo which has left our economy bleeding mortally as it were.
Pronouncements this week in Harare by US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Brian Nichols, that “more loose ends need to be tightened” to normalise strained relations between his country and Zimbabwe should be read as diplomatically announcing the end of the road for sanctions by his country as well as by its Western European accomplicies that were roped in to make the sanctions more effective.
As far as Zimbabwe’s general publics are concerned there are no serious loose ends if any at all, that Zimbabwe needs to tighten up.
On the contrary, and ironically, it is the US that must of necessity archive, apologise to Zimbabwe for the economic embargo, better still incinerate, the Zimbabwe Democracy Act (Zidera) under which the previous US government imposed the sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2002 in a failed bid to remove the Zanu-PF government from power for introducing the land reform programme, an elaboration of the armed revolution and an economic anchor to the freedom that sons and daughters of the soil brought to this country through the barrel of the gun in April 1980.
But of course, the good American envoy should not make himself or the Government that he represents appear too clever by half to Zimbabweans, the rest of Africa, as well as to the progressive world at large by scapegoating on the West’s sanctions on Zimbabwe.
The claim by Ambassador Nichols that “corruption and economic policies under the late former president Mr Robert Mugabe, had caused economic devastation whose scars have distorted the economy and still impact day to day business” is not only outrageous but totally unfair as it is made against a former leader who is now late and cannot defend himself or the party that made policies including the land reform programme which the Government implemented.
At any rate, it is not short of being preposterous of the envoy to imply by his remarks that Zimbabweans are ignorant of the fact that corruption and wrong policies, in this case the land reform program by them, and not Western sanctions, are to blame for this country’s economic woes.
Mr Mugabe was not a dictator who single-handedly ruled this country but a leader whose Government implemented policies and decisions made collectively by his ruling party and Government, which remain in power today with the land reform programme as its collective responsibility.
The naked truth is that repossession of pieces of land from white settler farmers occupying vast tracts of land for redistribution to blacks badly in need of that natural asset, was seen in the West as being a form of racism.
The reversed bromide in this case was the entrenchment of white racism in colonial Rhodesia.
Our Government’s preparedness to compensate white farmers for improvements made to the land repossessed is indisputable proof of no racism connected with the land reform programme.
The indisputable truth in America finally reneging on its economic embargo which denied this country direct foreign capital badly needed for economic development appears to be that the US government has come under pressure by American businesses eyeing lucrative business opportunities in this country but with the Western economic embargo standing as a road block to their participation.
That on Monday when opening virtually the inaugural US Department of Commerce Post-Reconciliation Trade Mission to Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Ambassador Nichols promised to advocate officially on behalf of companies pursuing business opportunities with the Government, appears to confirm that calls late last year by the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the rest of the progressive world for the lifting of sanctions have started to bear fruit.
Which will make this year’s celebrations marking Africa [Freedom] Day, as declared by the Organisation of African Unity, now African Union, in Addis Ababa on May 25 in 1963 in the fight against colonialism and apartheid remain more memorable on our liberated continent.
Online Reporter