adminUdo W. Froese Afrika: The Other Side
Washington, renewing its illegal and crippling sanctions against a small African country, Zimbabwe, reconfirmed a political as well as an economic war. It is a painful neo-colonial Western dictate.
Zimbabweans suffer having been forced to become economic refugees in the Diaspora. Powerful foreign neo-colonial forces wanted to create a precedent — “Do as we tell you, or we’ll simply starve you to death.” Judeo-Christian dictate seems anything but moral.
One of the most revered leaders of the US’s African-American community, Louis Farrakhan, commented on Washington’s “covert global policy to depopulate the world, using food as a weapon, accusing Henry Kissinger for developing this demonic set-up for tribal and rebel wars, revolution and death.”
“How does that affect Jamaica? How does it affect Africa? Washington is killing us off. Aids and Ebola are biological weapons to depopulate this world. Biological warfare has been patented. You are vaccinating your children and then wonder why they develop autism. But, the pharmaceutical companies claim, ‘there is no connection’. This is the enemy who put smallpox into blankets to kill the Native Americans off. It is the same enemy that was involved in the ‘Tuskegee Experiment’ (syphilis study) to inject African-American men with syphilis and encourage them to cohabit with African-American women.”
It is the same enemy that tries to bully Zimbabwe into submission. Since the original colonial occupation, Zimbabwe has gone through three Chimurengas. The latest one was forced upon Zimbabwe shortly after independence in 1980. It intensified when British Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, deliberately and intentionally breached the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement.
Like the above-mentioned attempt to wipe out millions of people of colour, it is aimed at intimidating African states and their regional structures such as Sadc, Comesa and the AU never to stand up against neo-colonialism and its structured exploits. This writer has been told authoritatively, that Blair, is indeed aware of his blatant lies and manipulations and the fruits thereof.
Foreign democratic neo-colonisers and opportunistic neo-liberals question the legitimacy in the wake of the ”disputed” July 2013 polls, which are queried by (discredited) opposition parties. The far removed racist foreign media claims that Zanu-PF has abandoned its post-electoral charm offensive in favour of using force to crush dissent. Yet, the Sadc, the AU and independent observers declared Zimbabwe’s latest elections free, fair and credible. The international Western Judeo-Christian civilised punitive sanctions have put Zimbabwe under economic siege, where all citizens suffer. Many have become economic refugees, which have put the Sadc region under pressure too.
Another British Prime Minister, the right-wing Gordon Brown, even declared President Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF a “criminal cabal who now make up the Mugabe regime.” Would he do same, criticising the Obama administration?
The most emotive issue the world over is land. On the eve of Zimbabwe’s independence, President Mugabe said, “There are people without land who need land, people without jobs who need jobs, children without schools who need schools and patients without hospitals who need them. We are also fully aware of the need for increased wages in all sectors of employment. My government will certainly do its best to meet the existing needs in these areas.”
And, 20 years later there was simply no land redistribution to the landless majority. The masses took the matter into their own hands, demanding that the president fulfils his inauguration promises.
Dr. Gideon Gono, then head of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe explained that there was no option but to “embark on the Fast Track Land Redistribution Programme. This was the genesis of the illegal Western sanctions imposed on the country from 200 onwards.”
Gono elaborated further, “The economic measures and tactics employed were brutal, vicious and dirty, all aimed at bringing Zimbabwe’s economy to it knees, causing “regime change.”
Meanwhile, the US CFA report titled “Political Instability in Zimbabwe”, seems to suggest that US sanctions resemble the Ukraine scenario — violence and change of power, followed by a new inclusive Government bearing the US American interests at heart. Could it be a new hotbed of tension on the border of South Africa?
“It is quite clear that uninformed and emotive gossip-mongers will debate economic mismanagement, human rights abuse, and absence of rule of law, corruption and all other undermining descriptions as causes of economic problems of Zimbabwe”, retired Reserve Bank governor Dr Gideon Gono told the ‘New African’ magazine. “But, the real reason was the illegal sanctions imposed on small Zimbabwe.”
However, Zimbabwe was able to contain the 2008 cholera outbreak. So, it will also master the collective illegal and amoral sanctions against it. The opposition political party, MDC and its leadership seem morally, ethically and intellectually bankrupt, cash-strapped and on the brink of collapse, no matter how loud they insist calling for punitive sanctions against their own land, Zimbabwe.
Udo W. Froese is a non-institutionalised, independent political analyst and socio-economic analyst and published columnist, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. My twitter handle: @theotherafrika. My Blog: www.theotherafrika.com
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