Chronicle Editor
Nobleman Runyanga
ON Monday, December 4, the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken announced a visa restriction policy targeted at Zimbabweans that it believes are undermining democracy in Zimbabwe.
The development came after the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change leader, Mr Nelson Chamisa failed again to unseat President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF from power using the August 23 harmonised elections despite Western support and underhand machinations.
According to the statement given by Blinken, “anyone who undermines the democratic process in Zimbabwe — ncluding in the lead-up to, during, and following Zimbabwe’s August 2023 elections —may be found ineligible for US visas under this policy.”
Blinken claimed that the restrictions were not targeted at all Zimbabweans.
He stressed that the visa restriction policy would apply only to specific individuals involved in acts that the Western country thought undermined democratic processes in the country during the elections held last August.
It is interesting to note that the US’ vindictive and malice-driven measures came after Mr Chamisa realised that the claims by attention-seekers and wannabe kingmakers like Ibbotson Mandaza and Pardon Gambakwe that Sadc would descend on Zimbabwe and order President Mnangagwa into a National Transitional Authority (NTA) or Government of National Unity (GNU) with him, were all falsehoods.
The recent visit by ambassadors from nine Sadc countries to State House recently to congratulate President Mnangagwa on his electoral victory, indicates that the regional bloc was not coming to Zimbabwe to interfere in the country’s internal democratic processes.
The opposition realised that the Mandazas and the Gambakwes of this country were leading him up a garden path and giving members false hope based on desperate wishes and baseless speculation.
Mr Chamisa realised that he had to admit to his supporters that claims of rigging and Sadc reversing President Mnangagwa’s win were all bottled smoke.
“Sadc is we the people! We fix our issues. We are the ones to help ourselves. We are the answers to our own question.” He realised that the continued false hope was bound to backfire badly against him.
This was an admission that he should have exhausted internal remedies like the electoral court before rushing to the regional body.
Mr Chamisa’s post marked a turning point in the US and the rest of the West’s attempts to abuse the Sadc bloc against President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF during the August elections to deliver an undeserved opposition victory.
The US and other like-minded countries and blocs like the European Union (EU) have never learnt a thing from history. Since 2000 when Zimbabwe repossessed her land to the chagrin of the self-righteous West, they have used all tricks in the book to replace Zanu-PF with a pliant opposition government but they have failed dismally.
The US and its partners thought that they could influence a favourable result in Zimbabwe the way they did in Malawi in 2020, Zambia in 2021 and Lesotho in 2022.
Zimbabweans and other stakeholders should understand the US’ latest tantrum in the context of the foregoing background. It is shocking that the US is targeting people that it thinks aided and abetted the “rigging” of the last polls despite a NewsDay front page report of July 24 headlined “ED has no room for rigging: Chamisa” in which the opposition leader told a campaign rally in Beitbridge that he had closed all the loopholes that President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF allegedly used to rig elections.
If Mr Chamisa cornered Zanu-PF against alleged rigging, what rigging is Blinken talking about?
If Mr Chamisa thought that rigging happened, why did he avoid the courts that are in place to deal with election petitions?
This is because he did not have any evidence to support his claim. In 2018, the Constitutional Court gave him the opportunity to prove his charge of rigging against President Mnangagwa but failed dismally like the late opposition leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai before him.
Blinken was conspicuously silent about Mr Chamisa’s utterances during a campaign rally that he addressed at the White City Stadium in Bulawayo on August 20, where he said that he would not accept the election results if they were not in his favour.
In his statement, Blinken said that the latest US measures targeted individuals who the US government “believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy in Zimbabwe.”
The world now awaits to see what action the US is going to take against Mr Chamisa for working against democracy by threatening to reject results and proceeding to deliver on the threat.
After imposing sanctions against Zimbabweans in 2001 and funding the opposition for more than two decades in a bid to oust Zanu-PF from power, the US and other imperialistic powers have failed.
In fact, they are frustrated by their own failure to unseat Zanu-PF despite possessing limitless resources. They are desperate for a victory which will never come.
This is because Zimbabweans know their leaders who led and partnered them in the 1960s and the 1970s to fight colonialism.
Zimbabweans know that a foreign country which imposed sanctions against them can never become a friend overnight.
The US is frustrated and worried that if President Mnangagwa assents to the Private and Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Bill, the Western country will no longer be able to use local civil society organisations (CSOs) as conduits to fund its various regime change initiatives in the country.
Blinken’s statement highlighted that the new US visa regime targeted some Zimbabweans who the Western country viewed as “restricting the ability of CSOs to operate and engage in democratic, governance, or human rights-related activities.”
It is clear that the US is now past 23 August 2023 and is now preparing for 2028. It is worried that it may not be able to use CSOs in its preparations for the next polls if the PVO Amendment Bill becomes law.
The US is, therefore, trying to arm-twist Government officials by threatening to extend the restrictive visa regulations to their family members so that they will prevail on President Mnangagwa to abandon the Bill.
This demonstrates how much of a headache and a thorn in the flesh Zimbabwe has become to the US.
Regionally, there are some countries where opposition activity is outlawed but the US does not obsess with them.
In some African countries, some interested parties flee with ballot boxes in broad daylight in flagrant disregard for the democratic processes, but the US conveniently turns a blind eye.
This is why its obsession with Zimbabwe is both vindictive and malicious.
The US, a foreign government, should be ashamed of itself for brazenly meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign country just because an unelectable opposition candidate lost when he was deservingly rejected by the electorate.
Zimbabwe has decades of experience of fighting colonial powers and imperialists which dates back to the 1960s. No amount of sanctions and skewed visa regimes will force Zanu-PF and Zimbabweans to hand over the leadership of this great country to imperialists’ local running dogs, hatchet men and henchmen.
Online Reporter