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Ranga Mataire Writing Back
For the first time since the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe by the United States and her allies, we had an objective voice from an internationally recognised body condemning the economic embargoes.
United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights to Zimbabwe, Professor Alena Douhan, whom I doubt has ever visited Zimbabwe before called on the West and the United States to remove sanctions as their continued stay were worsening the country’s economy.
“Over the last 20 years, sanctions and various forms of over-compliance with sanctions have had an insidious ripple effect on the economy of Zimbabwe and on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, including access to health, food, safe drinking water and sanitation, education and employment,” reads Douhan’s report.
Predictably, the MDC Alliance whose leadership has campaigned and continue to vouch for sanctions stay, condemned the UN rapporteur casting all manner of aspersions on her report.
If there were any people who doubted that the MDC Alliance is a Western stooge, then the party’s response to the UN Special Rapporteur put to rest all such doubts.
It was not only shameful, but the highest form of treachery for a party that claims to be championing the rights of Zimbabweans to be seen vouching for the continued stay of sanctions that have caused untold suffering of the generality of the populace.
It surely is a case of one crying more than the bereaved as the MDC through one of their vice presidents, Tendai Biti held a media briefing to attack Prof Douhan.
It is surely hard to be a Western front as one is given to throwing away rationality for the sake of being in good stead with the benefactors.
What is saddening the most is that the majority of those who support this opposition party do so out of mere protest against certain unfulfilled obligations and not out of any enduring ideological grievances.
It is also disheartening to note that the majority of those who support the MDC Alliance have zero clue of what the party really stands for including its relations with some imperial powers that have continued to economically strangle Zimbabwe because it dared to embark on a revolutionary land redistribution exercise meant to correct historical iniquities.
In other words, the majority of those who support the MDC Alliance have no idea that the party’s leadership is more concerned with lining their pockets than genuinely representing their interests.
For how can a home-grown party with interest of Zimbabweans at heart be so much piqued by the prospects of the lifting of economic sanctions? How can a party, whose roots must be in Zimbabwe behave in such an unpatriotic manner of siding with imperial powers?
The time has come for Zimbabweans to resist the blurring of national memory and ensure that the laws of the country protect and safeguard our national interests by outlawing political organisations that have proven beyond doubt they exist solely as appendages of foreign interests.
While we were aware of the late Morgan Tsvangirai’s duplicitous antics, we were somehow relieved that he seemed to have revised his stance at the tail-end of his life.
The coming into the fold of Nelson Chamisa as the leader of the MDC Alliance has somewhat disfigured the political culture and discourse that Zimbabwe has always been admired for.
I can’t fathom for a moment that a country born from the idea of freedom can at any time be governed by an unstable individual who exhibits traits of an authoritarian demagogue ready to sell his soul for a case of whiskey.
Before the coming into the country of Prof Douhan, the MDC Alliance had already gone into an overdrive of creating all sorts of hullabaloo including making balderdash claims of an assassination attempt on Chamisa.
Surely, the time has come to resist the slightest extension of what is right and wrong by calling to order political leaders prone to making wild allegations that are meant to tarnish our very existence as a nation.
Sadly, there is a large constituency of people who actually believe Chamisa’s antics because for long the arms of law have either been hesitant or unwilling to unearth some of the unfounded claims of violence.
The time has come to confront and deal with the MDC Alliance’s addiction to faking abductions and faking assassination attempts in the vein hope rising their stunted and tattered political stock.
We must say it as it is and speak out the truth about the chicanery that afflicts some opposition figures for silence may sound more like some form of appeasement.
For long, Zimbabwe has been denigrated and humiliated because of opposition antics that are normally heightened during major international events. The plot has become so predictable.
Zimbabweans need to demand justice for the suffering they have endured under the yoke of sanctions. Those that have campaigned for sanctions must surely be held accountable for the suffering of the people.
An international tribunal needs to be set up and those who have campaigned for sanctions must be put on trial.
In the words of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie; “Now is the time to burn false equivalences.”
We cannot act as if both sides of an issue are equal when it is clear that the MDC Alliance does not act in the national interest of Zimbabwe. Devoid of alternative life changing policies, the MDC Alliance is resorting to dark populism that manipulates impressionable minds.
We surely need to call a spade a spade and counter lies with facts unflaggingly. We are a decent nation born out of a protracted struggle. We cannot allow an ugly infamy to take root in our body politic. An ugly idea left to fester will eventually turn the colour of normalcy.
Online Reporter