adminZanu-PF, as only capable of perpetrating human rights violations is yet to acknowledge that the same government’s indigenisation and economic empowerment policies present a real opportunity to progressively secure and guarantee socio-economic rights.
In a country that has continued to be burdened by the economic deprivation imposed by decades of colonisation the Government’s efforts to restore to indigenous people their socio-economic rights must be encouraged as the only guarantee to development, prosperity and indeed to sustainable peace and security.
The interpretation of international human rights law has in the case of Zimbabwe given little attention, if any, to those human rights provisions calling on a State party’s government to use the countries’ “available resources” to secure its people’s socio-economic rights.
The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights calls upon Zimbabwe to fulfil a human rights mandate to the effect that “all people shall freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources in their exclusive interest”.
The African Charter goes further to call upon member states to undertake to eliminate “all forms of foreign economic exploitation, particularly that practiced by international monopolies so as to enable their peoples to fully benefit from the advantages derived from their national resources.”
Whether it has been done in recognition of the above human rights obligations, the reality is that over the past decade the Government of Zimbabwe has adopted measures, including land redistribution and securing at least 51 percent ownership of the country’s mineral resources, to ensure greater economic benefit to Zimbabwe’s historically deprived indigenous people.
Echoing the Africa Charters’ above obligations, the International Convention on Economic Social and Cultural Rights requires that in fulfiling its socio-economic rights obligations the member state of Zimbabwe must take “steps . . . to the maximum of its available resources” for the progressive achievement of socio economic rights of education, health care, livelihoods, etc. such a progressive achievement of socio-economic rights is said to require the adoption of ” . . . all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.”
Does indigenisation, supported by the authority and pillar of law, not amount to such appropriate measures.
In fact, the Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights is to the effect that a country that has adopted measures to achieve the enjoyment of socio-economic rights is entitled to receive “international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical”, to achieve such rights as education, health care, livelihoods, shelter etc.
Indigenisation laws seek to economically empower ordinary Zimbabweans through such mechanisms as community/employee share ownership schemes guaranteeing beneficiaries at least 10 percent ownership in mining companies extracting Zimbabwe’s mineral resources.
With such schemes in place and effectively administered local communities will no longer need to rely on the “goodwill” or unguaranteed “social responsibilities” of companies to establish schools or hospitals, but will instead use their share in the wealth of mineral resources to determine what sustainable socio-economic developments must be undertaken to benefit the community.
Further, the Government of Zimbabwe is set to establish a Sovereign Wealth Fund, which Fund will hold shares in various entities, including in the mineral extraction sector, to the economic benefit of Zimbabweans at large. Such a Fund can become the vehicle through which the wealth of Zimbabwe’s natural resources benefits the entire country, funding its economic development and ultimately securing such socio-economic rights as education, health care, shelter, clean water and livelihoods.
Can it be denied that, at the very least, the idea and expectation that is indigenisation and economic empowerment is a clear reflection of Article 21 of the Africa Charter on Human and People’s Rights which requires that a people be enabled to dispose of their natural resources to their exclusive interest?
Indeed such policies also amount to progressive steps by a country, using its available natural resources, to secure socio-economic rights as mandated by Article 2 (1) of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights.
Having been associated largely with human rights violations it may well be time that the Government of Zimbabwe, inspired by Zanu-PF, is acknowledged for its indigenisation policies which constitute progressive steps that may well secure and guarantee socio-economic rights for generations to come.
Zimbabwe is the first African country that has undertaken bold measures to address the lingering legacy of colonial deprivation through empowering the still economically prejudiced indigenous majority.
Land reform and majority ownership of natural resources, interpreted within the framework of socio-economic rights, may well prove a contradiction to the human rights language that has been disseminated in a manner that paints only one picture of a Government of Zimbabwe said to be only capable of violating civil and political human rights.
Further, applying a human rights framework to indigenisation will challenge any rhetoric that indigenisation of natural resources is simply a corrupt and partisan exercise of little benefit to the great majority. To the contrary the majority stand to benefit from a successful, transparent and accountable indigenisation process.
It has also been argued that indigenisation will only cause western companies to flee with their investment, leaving desperate Zimbabweans deprived of livelihoods and of any economic growth. That is far from the reality.
Firstly, can there ever be any guaranteed and sustainable livelihoods, economic growth and development where the greater profit from a country’s natural wealth is shipped out to benefit foreign economies? No!
Secondly, should Zimbabweans who stand to benefit most from indigenisation be made to fear that western countries will have their transnational corporations abruptly withdraw from Zimbabwe’s rich mineral deposits? Far from it!
Now more than ever, the recession plagued western economies desperately need to maintain their access to Africa’s rich mineral resources to establish any solid foundation for their recovery. The brief yet threatening spark of the socio-economic revolution that sought to consume London in August 2011, led by an economically deprived youth, is testimony of troubled western economies without the luxury of turning away from Africa’s rich natural resources.
Those who bear more sympathy for transnational companies called upon to cede majority ownership to indigenous Zimbabweans must be aware of the growing international concerns over the impact of business enterprises on human rights. Such concerns are to the effect that business enterprises must respect human rights within their spheres of influence, including ensuring that local communities and host states reap socio-economic (rights) benefits from the extraction of mineral resources within their lands.
Such an expectation has been made clear following the extraction of oil by Shell in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, where the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights emphasised the obligation of a host State to protect its citizens’ socio-economic rights from the business activities of oil companies.
Further, business enterprises are required to engage and consult with local communities on whose lands they intend to extract mineral resources; obtaining their views and most preferably their consent prior to any extraction of mineral resources on their lands.
Already, some transnational companies still operating in Zimbabwe, including Rio-Tinto and Anglo American, have committed themselves to “optimise benefits and reduce negative impacts, both for the local community and for the overall economy” and to ” . . . contribute to the well being and prosperity of host communities”.
The experience of Shell in the Niger Delta must be a reminder to companies that exploiting natural resources within a community which remains deprived of any real economic benefits from their natural resources only causes resentment and indeed violence, creating an environment not conducive to maintain the cheap profits any business enterprises aims at making.
Zimbabwe is boldly asserting and claiming such a greater share in its natural resources. However, such bold measures have only invoked the ire of western countries whose economies have long benefited from monopolisation of Africa’s natural resources. It is such anger and fear arising from being deprived the full extent to economic benefit from natural resources, because of indigenisation, that has led to the manipulation of the human rights language to be applied against Zimbabwe.
International relations, which are today defined by endeavours to further the individual national interests of stronger western countries, have usurped the noble language of human rights. Western countries, with the resources and capacity to interpret, manipulate and disseminate the international human rights language, have consistently raised the dust of violations of civil and political rights violations in Zimbabwe.
Their intended objective has been to focus Zimbabweans on civil and political human rights violations by their Government, thereby blinding them from identifying with their Government’s economic empowerment and indigenisation policies that will guarantee them more critical socio-economic rights. It is indeed the control and ownership of natural resources that will guarantee Zimbabweans the very socio-economic rights which economic sanctions are now violating and depriving.
President Barack Obama has justified American sanctions against Zimbabwe as a response to Zimbabwe’s policies which “pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States.” His honest statement betrays his country’s Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA), whose provisions would have us believe that the United States’ unilateral sanctions are only targeted against the financial interests of the Government of Zimbabwe, apparently to help the people of Zimbabwe achieve democracy and broad-based and equitable economic growth.
Reason must have us ask how sanctions can claim to be “targeted” when the very Government of Zimbabwe’s financial capabilities, which are being frustrated and limited by sanctions, have a direct bearing on the socio-economic fortunes and well-being of the very citizens it represents.
We must then come to the conclusion that sanctions have been imposed against the Zimbabwean citizens who stand to benefit from indigenisation, because their government’s indigenisation policies pose an “unusual and extraordinary threat” against the US’ economy, an economy whose large appetite for natural resources from foreign lands may well be starved by any pro-people economic empowerment and indigenisation policies.
l Rangu Nyamurundira is a lawyer and human rights consultant based in Harare, Zimbabwe
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