Chronicle Editor
Dr Mandla Nyathi
THIS week five significant events dominated international liberal democracy debate on a global scale.
The list, in no particular order, starts with the British Prime Minister’s illegal proposal to disregard international treaties that the UK entered with the European Union. Second, comes the executive order by the United States of America’s President Trump effectively using executive order powers in his attempt to ban TikTok and WeChat from the American market.
Third is the continued detention without charge of the Aljazeera international journalist, Mahmoud Hussein, exactly 1 374 days today.
Fourth on the list is the unpopular if theatrical detention in the British Maximum Prison of WikiLeaks publisher and editor, Julian Assange.
Then last is the embarrassing abduction and arrest of Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan international who inspired the Hollywood film about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis.
The significance of those five events above is that they all expose and confirm the hypocrisy of the Western countries’ sincerity about the rule of law and human rights in the world. The unintended consequence is the exposure of the cheerleading coterie of Western embassies funded defenders of human rights and rule of law across the globe, including Zimbabwe.
It is not rocket science figuring out that had any of those five events involved any other country other than Britain and the United States or any of their poodle countries, the world news and the local so called independent Press would have been awash with headline-grabbing calls for sanctions.
It is ironic that Britain, the chief trooper in the economic sanctions against Zimbabwe, based largely on the unproven claims of failing to uphold rule of law, finds itself cobbling a law that will do a replica of that claim. Effectively, Boris Johnson is moving towards breaking the international law and making any claims for Zimbabwe to uphold rule of law by Britain laughable. Who will call for the sanctions to be imposed on Britain for breaking international law and rule of law? It is unlikely that anyone will do, particularly the Western embassies-funded local Civic Society Organisations (CSOs), many who would rather be willing troupers than bite the hand that feeds them. The credibility of the European Union (EU), who have largely followed the policy of non-interference when it comes to relationships between colonial states and their former colonies, is at stake.
EU should act now and show leadership and spine and hold firm if they are to save any little credibility left on their claims the failure to uphold the rule of law is their basis for continuing with sanctions against Zimbabwe. As for Britain, the moral ground on the rule of law would be irrecoverable for a long time unless the British Parliament can find ways to stop Boris Johnson’s bold manoeuvres seeking to break international law, ostensibly to achieve a Brexit objective in the British interest.
The Trump issue and the TikTok goes to the heart of the values of protection of property rights and choice. Threatening expropriation and wanton cancellation of the Chinese-owned enterprises goes against every grain of the spirit of free markets, long associated with the American dream. That none of those pressure groups has picked on that absurdity move only serves to confirm that rather than conviction and principle, the power of the Western purses drive most of those CSOs, and hence the behaviour we witness in Zimbabwe today.
Trump bases his argument on the subject of expropriating the Chinese enterprises on national interest and State security. An interesting parallel arises with the clipping of wings that the Ministry of Finance in Zimbabwe has effected on some of the “runaway” mobile money agencies. The social noisy on the electronic news on that move is deafening, with some mischievous calls for the international community to tighten screws on the existing Zimbabwe sanctions for “the continued violation of property rights.” Where are those same voices to call the USA to order?
The gullibility amongst some of Zimbabwe’s self-appointed brigades of defenders of democracy and free speech is shocking. Of course there is the element of the long standing philosophy within the Zimbabwe CSOs market that “tell the Whiteman what he wants to hear and get what you want.” It becomes a national problem when it becomes limitless, with no boundary nor parameters of any sort. Significantly, when telling the Whiteman becomes doing what the Whiteman wants. The Western countries have continued to pour billions of American dollars to the Egyptian government despite the covert violation of the rights of the journalists in that country. In fact, today, one of the Aljazeera journalists, Mahmoud Hussein, has been in prison without trial or being brought to any court of any sort for 1 374 days. That is almost four years. None of the Western countries, direct or through their embassies, have made any noise about it, let alone call for the imposition of economic sanctions against the Egyptians.
Similarly, the duplicity of the Western countries is evidenced on the Julian Assange case. Julian, a journalist and editor, has been languishing in Britain’s notorious category A high security prison HM Belmarsh for a year today. He was popularised by his audacious moves to publish embarrassing classified information about some of the dirty dealings involving many countries and individuals including the Americans and virtually everyone without a particular agenda other than to let the public know the truth. What else would qualify as a journalistic duty more than that? Yet the helpless journalist remains in prison awaiting deportation to the USA for possible further lengthy detention.
His crime is of course doing his job. Why is it proper and seem acceptable that Britain can detain a journalist and it is a crime in other parts of the world, in particular Zimbabwe? Mischievously, the EU, has a continuing position on Zimbabwe that sanctions are directly linked to the contrition of journalistic space yet they say nothing about the plight of detained journalists like Julian Assange. He and Mahmoud are not alone in that category. They are the only prominent ones.
Another interesting hypocrisy of the Western countries comes in the way they practice their democratic participation and freedom of expression. While they seem to want to encourage, through their various embassies and NGOs, freedom to gather and preach politics in whatever manner in Harare, in their home capitals to get people to congregate for political demonstrations is not easily obtainable.
Dr Nyathi is a Zimbabwean academic based in the United Kingdom
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