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Nobleman Runyanga Correspondent
United States President Joseph Biden held the much-vaunted Summit for Democracy on December 9 and 10, virtually.
The event was not without its moments of political mirth as it exposed the immaturity of some of the local worshippers of the US.
The question of who was invited or not to the hyped meeting preceded and endured even as the convention was in session.
The US government’s State Department explained that the purpose of the event was to “provide a platform for leaders to announce both individual and collective commitments, reforms, and initiatives to defend democracy and human rights at home and abroad.”
It further indicated that the meeting sought “bold, practicable ideas” on the usual Americans’ concepts of “defending against authoritarianism,” “fighting corruption,” and “promoting respect for human rights.”
Those who are familiar with global geopolitics, however, refused to have wool pulled over their eyes through the usual American euphemisms and rightly pointed out that the meeting was the US’ bid to use some countries to build a coalition against China and Russia.
Waning democracy, rights situation in the US’ backyard
For many decades, the US has been using its superpower status to play the global democracy policeman and bully small nations using concepts such as democracy, human rights and fighting authoritarianism.
It has been using similar tactics to play kingmaker in some countries where it has interests.
For the past 20 years, innocent Zimbabweans have suffered the brutal brunt of illegal and evil sanctions imposed on them by the US for daring to reclaim their land from erstwhile colonisers.
The Western power has even attempted to work with local-willing people in the opposition to unseat Zanu PF in blatant disregard for the hallowed diplomatic principle of non-interference.
When the US government announced the summit, many global watchers thought that after learning lessons of embarrassing defeats in foreign lands such as Vietnam and Somalia, Biden intended to discuss how to improve waning internal democracy.
The state of the US democracy was more pressing than global democracy.
On October 21 2021, the www.dailycaller.com reported that a survey carried out by the Pew Research Centre established that “at least 85 percent of Americans polled indicated that the US political system needs to be completely reformed or needs major changes.”
The poll also found out that 66 percent of Americans saw the need for change or reform in the US economic system and that 76 percent were of the view that the country’s healthcare system needed transformation.
This indicates that while Biden and his administration were rolling up their shirt sleeves to tackle democracy and other governance issues across the globe, their own backyard was burning unattended.
While they were convening a summit to tackle authoritarianism, fighting corruption and promoting respect for human rights, they were scoring very badly at home on the same issues.
One would have thought that since the callous murder of African-American, George Floyd, by a white Minneapolis policeman on May 25 2020, giving rise to the #BlackLivesMatter protests, the world would witness a change in the way that black Americans’ rights are blatantly trampled on.
According to www.aljazeera.com, as at May 25 2021, 1 068 more black Americans had died at the hands of the American police since Floyd’s sad, painful and undeserved death.
The media house also highlighted that black Americans were two-and-a-half times as likely as white Americans to be killed by police officers.
What would one say of the sad case of Julian Assange, the Australian editor, publisher and WikiLeaks founder, who the US has been persecuting using some countries by pushing for his extradition to face charges under the US’ Espionage Act?
WikiLeaks gained global prominence in 2010 when it published a number of leaks provided by US Army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning.
Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled on December 10 2021 that Assange, who had been held at Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison since April 2019, could be extradited to the US to face the charges despite his deteriorating health.
This is the same US government, whose embassy in Harare, loudly claims persecution when local political activists like Hopewell Chin’ono are arrested and duly prosecuted according to the country’s laws.
Assange is being persecuted for exposing the US’ war crimes across the world.
Talking of the US’ war crimes, no American President has not been involved in war and murders across the globe.
These include Jimmy Carter who was involved in El Salvador, Guatemala, Angola and Afghanistan.
Bill Clinton’s administration was involved in Iraq, Sudan and Rwanda.
It was under George H W Bush that the US was at war in the Gulf, Panama and Somalia.
George W Bush’s administration was involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Under Barack Obama’s watch, the US was at war in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Ukraine.
It is, therefore, interesting that a war mongering super power with such a global peace and democracy chequered record calls for a democracy meeting.
Despite the US’ negative record in terms of international relations, it always has local runners that are paid to promote its enterprise and interests.
When the names of the countries which were invited to Biden’s meeting was made public, the US’ local enablers such as those in the opposition and the civil society were very excited that Zimbabwe’s was not part of the list.
To them attending a US meeting is a source of prestige.
Only non-achievers such as the MDC-Alliance factions get childishly excited because they think that a country’s challenges are resolved through invitations to foreigners’ tables.
As to be expected, the faction’s secretary general Chalton Hwende excitedly tweeted on December 11 2021 that: “(President Emmerson) Mnangagwa is the only SADC leader not invited to United States President Joe Biden’s democracy ongoing summit.
“(President) Mnangagwa is illegitimate, steals elections and sends soldiers to kill civilians whenever they want to demonstrate.”
However, when it was put to him that his faction leader, Nelson Chamisa, failed to support his poll theft against President Mnangagwa in the Constitutional Court on August 24 2018 and asked why Biden had not invited Chamisa instead of President Mnangagwa if the latter was illegitimate, he quickly retreated into his shell with tail between his legs.
Zimbabwe is not the only SADC member which was not invited to the US summit.
For the record, six SADC members namely Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe did not attend the meeting.
Some countries such as Pakistan were invited, but saw through the politics behind the invitation and turned it down.
It is only the politically immature who still get excited by invitations to such meetings by Western countries.
Zanu PF made the crucial decision that it would not live to please foreign nations back in 2000 when it crossed the Rubicon and led in reclaiming Zimbabweans’ heritage and the very raison d’être of the liberation struggle — the land.
With the experience of 20 years of sanctions and other forms of unmerited punishment such as isolation, Government has learnt that no one is coming to save our country except ourselves.
That is why Zimbabwe’s foreign policy is that the country will be a friend to all and an enemy to none.
It is for this reason that the country will not be dragged into summits where some nations are being set up for use by the US in its global geopolitical conflict with other super powers.
While those, who are neck-deep in Chinese debt when compared to Zimbabwe, were excited with the invitation, it was lost on them completely that they were invited because they were more usable against the Eastern super power because of their heavy indebtedness thereto.
When other leaders were gleefully glued to screens attending the summit, President Mnangagwa, ever the pragmatic and servant leader, had his shoulder to the wheel and boots firmly on the ground serving his country’s people who gave him the mandate to lead them.
He was working to solve the nation’s challenges and improve the quality of their lives instead of being made an enemy of some countries on behalf of the US.
It is incidents such as Biden’s summit that separates seasoned politicians from their green horn counterparts.
If a whole secretary general of a political party shamelessly lied about the summit invitations, how much more is he and fellow national executive members lying to their faction members every day.
As the 2022 by-elections and 2023 harmonised election draw near, it is important for the electorate to choose on the basis of track record.
Political parties are building their track records even on matters involving meetings convened by foreign powers.
Online Reporter