adminObi Egbuna Jr Simunye, We Are One
AS Daughters and Sons of Africa at home and abroad continue to deal with the political, cultural and economic aftershock caused by Settler Colonialism and Chattel Slavery, the US-EU alliance’s attempts at using the English language, to give the impression they are ready to normalise relations with the Government of Zimbabwe not only wreaks of dishonesty but insults African people’s collective intelligence and passion for justice.
When the EU Head of Mission Mr Phillipe Van Damme, who led a high powered delegation who came to Zimbabwe last week, to give the impression that all forms and manifestations of hostility towards President Mugabe and zanu-pf are indeed a thing of the past and re-engagement is the order of the day.
This recent overture by the EU stems not only from the outcome of the Presidential elections in Zimbabwe, where their political creation — Zimbabwe’s former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai — was humiliated at the polls, but President Mugabe’s chairmanship of sadc and his upcoming chairmanship of the entire African Union.
Another blatantly obvious flaw on the part of Mr Van Damme and his delegation was to state what we need now is to rebuild trust, which implies through diplomatic engagement with President Mugabe and zanu-pf need the validation of the US-EU alliance. We must remind Mr Van Damme that in March of 2013, US Senator James Inhofe introduced the Zimbabwe Sanctions Repeal Act of 2013 (ZSRA), the motivation for this effort was by no means to acknowledge that imposing sanctions in the first place was racist and vindictive but to the contrary, but because according to Senator Inhofe, ZSRA could result in easing the burden on the GPA/Inclusive Government.
The African world must commend Zimbabwe’s Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services for exposing how refusal to take President Mugabe and First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe off the travel ban list, displays the US-EU alliance’s propensity for diplomatic paper shuffling and political grandstanding.
At a moment in history when you have 1 456 billionaires but at the same time there is 1 billion hungry people, the decision to use humanitarian organisations as extensions of your intelligence branch of Government is shameful, this is why the US-EU alliance can never justify using NGOS since the beginning of the new millennium to openly work for regime change in Zimbabwe.
Another reason President Mugabe and zanu-pf view the EU’s recent activity as fool’s gold is because the Cameron administration already knows that as early as 2006, President Mugabe informed Tanzania’s former President Benjamin Mkapa, if the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was ready to sit down and discuss normalised relations it would not be a problem. As it pertains to the Zimbabwe question, the EU is in the exact same predicament the Thatcher administration was in during the Lancaster House Negotiations in 1979-80, during that time negotiations on land redistribution could not be overlooked, today engagement without the complete removal of sanctions is a waste of time and human and material resources.
If the EU is ready to engage Zimbabwe in an open and sincere manner there would have to be a significant amount of water available to eat a healthy amount of crow, they could no longer echo the sentiment of the late US Congressman Donald Payne, who called the land reclamation programme misguided and wrong, they would also have to cease calling Zimbabwe’s indigenisation programme nationalisation in disguise.
The EU must also be challenged to advise the Obama administration to lift sanctions on their end, which means Prime Minister Cameron should tell President Obama that just as Mr Bush came to the dance with Mr Blair, the appropriate thing to do politically speaking is to make a graceful exit with your escort.
Because President Obama has signed extensions on ZDERA like clockwork since 2008, and key members of his cabinet, Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry are original co-sponsors, which automatically reveals Mr Bush’s arrogant and white supremacist disposition was rooted in the fact he had Government officials across the aisle in the Democratic Party who hated President Mugabe as much as he did.
In the standard document, the Obama administration has used to extend ZDERA, what is emphatically stated is that “The threat contributed by the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions has not been resolved”. If the EU is committed to lifting trade sanctions on Zimbabwe two things must happen at once, they must demand the US government stop instructing US executive directors of International financial institutions to oppose and vote against any loan, credit or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe. This isolationist policy by the Obama administration includes voting against cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the US or any other International Financial Institutions.
If the EU is sincerely committed to engagement with Zimbabwe, they must not only instruct Prime Minister Cameron to sit down face to face with President Mugabe, but request President Obama find time in his busy schedule to actively participate in the dialogue. Since Mr Obama’s opinion of President Mugabe is based on assumption at best, perhaps he can speak with Former US President Jimmy Carter and former US Ambassador to the UN and Civil Rights icon Andrew Young on what to expect.
What Ambassador Young could tell President Obama is while Africans were taught during segregation, that in order to succeed in the US we must be twice as good as our counterparts of European Ancestry, this does not mean Mr Obama should be twice as ruthless as his predecessors when it comes to dealing with the African continent.
As if spearheading the US-NATO alliance’s bombing of Libya for seven months straight, the stoic and austere manner that Mr Obama announced the death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was more abominable than the decision to send innocent women, children and elderly people to an early grave.
Whenever President Obama verbally attacks President Mugabe and zanu-pf it is glaringly obvious he has been fooled into believing, being the first US President with African blood grants him a false sense of political entitlement, unfortunately so-called African Americans in the US have responded to Obama’s African policy like parents treat unacceptable behaviour of their spoilt children.
Since many of the Civil Rights pioneers from the 1960’s generation openly fanaticise about President Obama actually being one of their biological children, his back to back victories and their blind obedience to the Democratic Party, are the main reasons President Mugabe and zanu-pf have never depended on them to be at the forefront of the fight to lift US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe.
The main point that 1960s Civil Rights pioneers like Ambassador Young and Reverend Jesse Jackson, who have raised the Zimbabwe question in spots, during the 13 years ZDERA has been in existence should understand is that, it is politically reckless to infer that US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe don’t hurt President Mugabe and zanu-pf, but just the ordinary people.
What that angle suggests is that President Mugabe and zanu-pf are not one with the people of Zimbabwe; at this point this is vital as US-EU Imperialism magnifies the so called factions in zanu-pf.
It can be expected that the lifting on travel bans is to seek out vulnerable entities inside zanu-pf, who will betray their people, party and government for a fistful of dirty US dollars and filthy British pounds.
The revolutionary poet Sterling Brown said our liberation struggle as a marathon and not a race, we are privileged to see President Mugabe and zanu-pf take this lap of victory.
Obi Egbuna is the US Correspondent to the Herald and a US based member of the Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship Association his email is [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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