Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Non-existent crisis, No Audience, MDC-T's frustration

  • Recently, under pressure to sell the misguided and mischievous idea that Zimbabwe was in a constitutional crisis, prime Minister Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party took to Sadc and hoped to use a Defence and Security Troika meeting to legitimate the same. The meeting did not take place and, naturally the MDC-T party was disappointed and frustrated...


By Tichaona Zindoga
SADC is a toothless bulldog.
This, the guess is right, can only be the gospel according to an 11-year-old western-created and funded political outfit (or misfit) called the Movement for Democratic Change led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
This is the same group that once described Sadc, the revolutionary grouping that derived from the liberation movement of the Frontine States, as a “bunch of dictators” when it acted the obvious of rejecting to kowtow to Western imperialist designs in and of the MDC.
One can remember the one time that former South African president Thabo Mbeki, tried to knock some sense into the party particularly through the head of Tsvangirai.
 Mbeki suffered MDC insults in the course of his duties as Sadc-appointed mediator in Zimbabwe’s inter-party talks pitting the two MDC formations and Zanu-PF that gave birth to the current inclusive Government.
He had to remind Tsvangirai in a strongly worded letter that the party’s future and prospects better reposed on the continent and on its neighbours rather than far away in the West.
The latest misgiving about the regional body comes against the backdrop of MDC-T not having had a chance to sell its idea of a "constitutional crisis" it makes-believe exists in Zimbabwe and one which analysts have identified is crucial to this a party that feeds on confusion.
Much to the chagrin of MDC-T, the recent Sadc summit in Gaborone, Botswana, failed to discuss Zimbabwe on its organ on Politics, Defence and Security as two of its members, chair Zambian President Rupiah Banda and his Mozambican counterpart Armando Guebuza were not present.
That is if they believed that a crisis exists in Zimbabwe warranting expenditure of their energies.
(Banda, we hear, had just come all the way from Brazil and perhaps rightly needed a deserved rest.)
But the authors of a pseudo-crisis in Zimbabwe, plus the letters purporting the same that of course bore no more than embarrassment for those behind them, were understandably upset.
The forum would be a chance to redeem the lost pride and cause.
(The "toothless dog" insinuation, one has to own, was a gratuitous offer by a paper sympathetic to the cause of MDC-T.)
So Nelson Chamisa, MDC-T spokesperson, told the local daily that "they were disappointed by the way Sadc was handling the Zimbabwean crisis, adding that the regional body’s capacity was being tested."
Chamisa said: “The credibility and legitimacy of Sadc is certainly put in jeopardy with such developments…This matter deserves urgency and seriousness because there is a risk of a political slide which is not good for the people of Zimbabwe."
Trying to perpetuate the myth of a constitutional crisis espoused in the "notorious" October 7 letters, as some would put it, Chamisa added: “Rome is burning and we don’t want to be consumed in the fires of violence and acrimony.”
The party's secretary general Tendai Biti weighed in saying he was "extremely disappointed with Sadc’s capacity or lack thereof because the confusion that was there is unparalleled.”
He wondered: “The critical question is whether people are able to stand up to the truth. Is Sadc able to stand up to bullies? ls Sadc able to stand up to errant members?”
No matter how hard the two MDC-T officials - the one the motor-mouth spokesman and the other the supposed think-tank - tried to be diplomatic about it, the subtext of their speeches reeked of contempt of Sadc.
One temptation would be to sympathise with their cause for the simple reason that, as they say, they had been invited to the meeting only to be told that it could not take place and this understandably could not have gone done well with a desperate party trying to gain a modicum of legitimacy.
But as the quoted text above would reveal, they betrayed more than the setback would warrant.
The assonance of the general sentiment contained therein with the stated and well-known contempt for Sadc makes the MDC-T's  grief with the Troika issue something not beyond reproach.
For, MDC-T, as represented by Chamisa, wants to call into question virtues of "credibility" and "legitimacy" when in fact the agenda they are driving in particular the "constitutional crisis" lack both credibility and legitimacy.
It is well known that had Sadc entertained the issue it would be the one that would have brought value to the idea of "constitutional crisis" which the United Nations, Sadc and even the European Union rejected by disregarding Tsvangirai's purported nullification of constitutional appointments by President Mugabe.
In effect, Chamisa tried to get the Sadc that his party villifies, whether in secret or public, to give credence to that which everybody else had found bereft of such.
Namely, that somewhere in Zimbabwe is a Rome burning.
And as expected, when he couldn't get his way he only fell short of stating that his party's long-held Western inspired view that Sadc lacked credibility and legitimacy - all for obvious reasons.
As for Biti it was "the club of dictators" all over again.
 "Bullies" and "errant members" in his words are no more than euphemisms for "dictators" made softer in light of the suit for the support for the cause.
Yet the usual cynical MDC-T echoed in the insinuation that Sadc might lack capacity to deal with these "errant members" and "bullies", after all.
However, Biti might need reminding that after all is said and done, the "errant members" and "bullies" in the region are none other than his party as backed by the western powers who seek to drag the region back to the days of colonialism and sow the seeds of destruction.
Biti should know that seeking to get Rupiah Banda to legitimate MDC-T's myth of "constitutional-crisis" in Zimbabwe, when Zimbabwe has rejected the notion and would have its own apparatus to deal with the same if the matter arose, would be nothing short of playing Banda against Zimbabwe's sovereignty.
The MDC-T is a champion of blackmail.
This is largely seen in the party trying to play moral high ground in matters of the region, to the extent of trying to bully Sadc members into taking hook line and sinker whatever the party believes in.
It is known that the party assumes its fine airs from its western creators and benefactors whom they trust to "fix" Sadc members for refusing to submit the fifth column in the MDC-T.
To demonstrate this, it is on record that the western powers have increasingly sought to pressure South Africa into "pressuring Mugabe", failure of which African biggest economy has been threatened with "going the Zimbabwe way".
That South Africa has in parenthesis with its role on Zimbabwe, as prescribed by the West, been touted as a "democracy" and suchlike exhortations is also meant to influence the country in fearing loss of these ideals.
This very much seems the MDC-T strategy.
Chamisa's calling into question aspects like Sadc's "credibility" and "legitimacy" are very much in the mould of the democracy that South Africa is said to have and risk losing in its leaders do not "get tough with Mugabe."
It will be noted though that for all its pretences and attempts at appearing a serious party deserving of respect or even support abroad, at home the party does not warrant that much.
Ever wondered why in this day of the inclusive Government, even the learned amongst us continue to call the party "opposisition" when it technically ceased to be so upon accessing Government?
This can only be explained in light of the party's lack of seriousness in matters of State and national importance.
 Just recently, the party caused two disruptions of Senate business, which resulted in the adjournment of the House to next year.
MDC senators heckled in the Upper House in protest over the reappointment of provincial governors who were constitutionally appointed by President Mugabe.
Then came the strip incident involving which MDC-T appointee, Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Australia Jacqueline Zwambila.
She pulled off the stunt as she confronted embassy staff that she accused of leaking information on a website on which she had denied the existence of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union.
She had said that these sanctions, which have drawn worldwide condemnation, did not affect the country even though her party, which invited the sanctions from its Western friends, acknowledged their presence in the inclusive Government-making Global Political Agreement.
The region, Sadc, the African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, among other world bodies have all been seized with the matter and calls have been made for their immediate lifting.
Rightly, she has earned herself recall from the posting while the hosts have also called her to explain the reports.
Now that should provide one pointer or the other on who should teach anybody anything on legitimacy and credibility.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Imperialist terror, sanctions, HIV/Aids.

The attempts at gross misinformation and disinformation in the Aids and sanctions campaigns are linked to the imperialist need to use illegal sanctions and HIV and Aids as opportunities for thorough regime change, which means overturning the social and political order.
The Sunday Mail 
AFRICAN FOCUS 

By Tafataona Mahoso.
From a national strategic thinking and planning point of view, there are striking parallels between the HIV and Aids scourge and the illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the Anglo-Saxon powers. The first parallel is that HIV and Aids and illegal sanctions target and devastate mostly young people. Illegal sanctions at their worst impact brought formal industrial production down to 10 percent of capacity.

And according to research used by former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell, at Africa University in 2005, the livelihoods of the majority of Zimbabweans were brought down and back to 1953 levels.
The graphic realities behind these figures can be seen and felt by taking a walk through the former industrial districts of cities in Zimbabwe or visiting any of the provincial towns and growth points in the country.
In any economic crisis such as what Zimbabwe went through between 2000 and 2010, it is the youth population which is least capable of adjusting its means of making a living, adjusting incomes.
So HIV and Aids and illegal sanctions affecting Zimbabwe at the same time meant that youths were over-represented among the jobless, among the economic refugees going to South Africa and Britain, and among those dying of Aids-induced diseases.
The result is that where most societies experience a baby boom immediately after a prolonged war, in the period after the Second Chimurenga Zimbabwe has experienced a baby bust which has been worsened by panic emigration caused by sanctions.
The second parallel between HIV and Aids and sanctions is obvious from the first: mass impoverishment. The older generation loses salaries, pensions, medical aid schemes and investments which hyperinflation reduces to zero, while the younger generation loses jobs, spouses and time, that is if they are not dead.
The more than 13 000 economic refugees in the UK who are being deported back to Zimbabwe will find that they have lost a lot of the prime time of their lives compared to those who stayed put in Zimbabwe.
The third parallel is that both HIV and Aids and illegal sanctions have been exploited by the Anglo-Saxon powers, their donor agencies and donor-funded NGOs as presenting a great opportunity to overthrow the African liberation culture of the Second Chimurenga in order to replace it with a Western-inspired, Western-driven, donor-funded neo-liberal fake.
As a result, both the illegal Anglo-Saxon sanctions and the HIV and Aids scourge have been accompanied by massive campaigns to blame the effects on the victims.
The result is that it is documented that 12 years of sanctions against Iraq, from 1991 to 2003, killed more than 600 000 children; but no Western donor, Western-funded NGO or Western-sponsored journalist will ever admit that even a single child has died in Zimbabwe due to illegal sanctions.
What we get are elaborate exercises in denial, such as the following:
“13 000 (Zimbabweans) face deportation (from the UK)”, NewsDay, October 28 2010; “Addressing industry’s recovery needs”, Zimbabwe Independent, October 29 2010; “Sanctions not to blame — EU”, Zimbabwe Independent October 29 2010; “Dire consequences of rural poverty”, Zimbabwe Independent, October 18 2010; “Zim’s economic upsurge falters”, Zimbabwe Independent, August 6 2010; “Zim (trade) shipments fall 90 percent”, The Sunday Mail Business, January 3 2010; “How did business survive?” Zimbabwe Independent, April 30 2009; “Jaggers closes 11 branches”, Herald Business, April 19 2010; and “Economy sick — Biti”, Zimbabwe Independent, July 9 2010.
The same sort of avoidance and denial accompanies the HIV and Aids story.
As I started to show in the November 14 2010 instalment for this column, the 2004 UNFPA-UZ booklet called The Zimbabwe Male Psyche With Respect to Reproductive Health, HIV, Aids and Gender Issues, was a clear attempt to send the whole nation on a wild goose chase in the quest to deal with the HIV and Aids pandemic.
In that 2004 UNFPA booklet, the authors, P. Chiroro, A. Mashu and W. Muhwava, wrote as follows:
“It was hypothesised that the Zimbabwean male psyche is characterised by an internalised, insatiable and self-centred desire for sex with multiple partners, coupled with an intolerant attitude towards women who are perceived to be, primarily, objects of sexual gratification and child bearing.”
Without any reference to control studies based on other societies elsewhere in the world, the authors concluded thus:
“The results of the study provide strong support for the research hypothesis in that the Zimbabwean male psyche appears to be characterised by an internalised, insatiable, self-centred desire for sex with multiple partners, coupled with an intolerant attitude towards women who are perceived to be, primarily, objects for sexual gratification and child bearing.”
In addition, the results of this study showed the following:
l Most Zimbabwean men and male youths hold very poor sexuality standards which are characterised by a strong reluctance to engage in safe sex practices during high-risk sexual encounters.
l The study reveals that the majority of Zimbabwean men and male youths view women as inferior to men. Adversarial sexual beliefs and gender role stereotypes are used to justify violence against women and to deny their sexual and reproductive health rights.
l The culture and legal system in Zimbabwe provide a fertile ground for the propagation and perpetuation of adversarial sexual behaviour among men and male youths. This exposes them and their partners to the risk of contracting the HIV virus as well as compromising women’s human and reproductive health rights.”
In simple language, what was this UN agency and the three university researchers trying to say? The English dictionary meaning of psyche is the human soul, mind or spirit.
So, in what way could the UNFPA claim to have pin-pointed and isolated a definite factor called the soul of the Zimbabwean male or the spirit of the Zimbabwean male, which could then be made responsible for the spread of HIV and Aids in this country?
Indeed the UNFPA and its consultants attempted to tell the whole world not only that there was definite, separable power called the Zimbabwean male psyche; but also that they had demonstrated that this definite force or power was responsible for promiscuous sexual behaviour, lust, discrimination against women, abuse of women and girls and the spread of HIV and Aids.
They also meant that the Zimbabwean male psyche was so different from the psyches of other societies that it could be identified as typically Zimbabwean.
What the authors also implied was that we could select indigenous African foods such as dovi, muboora, nyemba, madora and grains such as mhunga, mapfunde and rukweza for use in fighting HIV and Aids; but the culture which created the ingredients forming this healthy diet was no good, especially in its male form. That culture had to be suppressed together with the virus itself.
Since that time, the defamation of the African in HIV and Aids campaigns and adverts here has followed that highly questionable theory of African tradition and the presumed inherent nature of the African male psyche and male sexuality as responsible for the spread of HIV and Aids.
The attempts at gross misinformation and disinformation in the Aids and sanctions campaigns are linked to the imperialist need to use illegal sanctions and HIV and Aids as opportunities for thorough regime change, which means overturning the social and political order.
In the case of illegal sanctions, for instance, the MDC formations in 1999-2000 went on a sanctions-mongering campaign all over the world. Later, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai even told BBC the specific sanctions demanded: cutting off oil supplies, cutting off all lines of credit, cutting off all power imports from South Africa, Mozambique and the DRC.
However, when it became clear that the voters of Zimbabwe might blame their impoverishment and the hyperinflation on the sanctions, the MDC formations backed off a bit, trying to claim that the illegal sanctions affected only top Zanu-PF officials and would not affect ordinary Zimbabweans.
At the time of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and (later) the Interparty agreement between Zanu-PF and the MDC formations, the latter were convinced that the illegal Anglo-Saxon sanctions were real economic and financial sanctions and that all three parties would need to work together to have them lifted in order to protect the people.
Yet as late as October 7 2010, the very same Prime Minister went back to his party’s abandoned claim that there were no sanctions and that the massive economic crisis experienced by all Zimbabweans since 2000 was due only to mismanagement.
This would then suggest that the Prime Minister’s own party was also mismanaging the economy in such a way that the economy was not recovering. The Prime Minister said on October 7 2010:
“All Zimbabweans know that Mr Mugabe and his colleagues brought the restrictive measures on themselves through flagrant abuses of human rights and the economic disaster which they inflicted on this country. All Zimbabweans know that these restrictive measures are the result not the cause of that economic disaster.”
The cultivation of ignorance, lies and disinformation is an integral part of terror aimed at illegal regime change.
Peter McPherson and John Agresto were, respectively, George W. Bush’s officials responsible for the economy and for the re-making of Iraq’s higher education from scratch.
According to The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism:
“In that context, the stripping of the universities and the education ministry was . . . ‘the opportunity for a clean start . . .’ If the mission was ‘nation creating’, as so many clearly believed it to be, then everything that remained of the old country was going to get in the way.”
Paradoxically, John Agresto was actually the head of an institution of higher learning in the US which supposedly specialised in Great Books!
“He explained that although he knew nothing of Iraq, he had refrained from reading books about the country before making the trip so that he would arrive in Iraq ‘with as open a mind as I could have . . .’ If Agresto had read a book or two, he might have thought twice about the need to erase everything and start over.”
This is where Zimbabweans need to pause. We boast that we are the best-educated in Africa, with the highest literacy rate.
Agresto could have also learned that “before sanctions strangled that country, Iraq had the best education in the Middle East region, with the highest literacy rates in the Arab world . . . By contrast, in Agresto’s home state (in the US), New Mexico, 46 percent of the population is functionally illiterate, and 20 percent are unable to do basic arithmetic to determine the total on a sales receipt.
Yet Agresto was so convinced of the superiority of (US) systems that he seemed unable to entertain the possibility that Iraqis might want to protect their own culture and they might feel its destruction as a wrenching loss.”
In the October 31 instalment for this column, I mentioned that most of the representatives of so-called human rights NGOs objecting to my presentation during “The Debate” at the Book CafĂ© in Harare were upset about the sources of evidence I referred to outside my own opinion. They wanted all relevant references suppressed.
In my debate with Sydney Chisi of Crisis Coalition Zimbabwe on July 6 2010, Chisi openly said that the information I deployed against his arguments should not be heard on TV. He said I should have reserved it to some remote corner of The Sunday Mail.
Chisi had argued on ZTV that Zimbabwe’s diamonds should not be sold because of violations of human rights, which was another way of deepening illegal sanctions against the people. He also suggested excluding from ZTV any information which exposed him and his Crisis Coalition Zimbabwe!
The last HIV and Aids workshop I attended in Kariba in the mid 1990s was also told by NGOs and their donors that Zimbabweans should not ask where HIV and Aids came from or why its patterns and severity differed so much here from other countries. We were simply supposed to focus on prevention.
I need not mention that the most devastating ignorance we suffer to this day is that we do not yet know the cure for HIV and Aids! That is typical of a situation of mass terror!
Ignorance and lies are promoted as part and parcel of the mass terror of sanctions and HIV and Aids against the people.



Friday, November 26, 2010

West: manufacturing democracy

Western atrocities and other murderous acts of terror are sanitised and formalised into the framework of manufactured democracy, while the shortcomings of the West’s official enemy states, real ones or imagined; are condemned loudly and even thwarted by the use of excessive force.
Wafawarova Writes
Roy Bennet...Son of evil colonialists who enslaved Zimbabwe for ninety years and enjoyed unrepentantly the fruit of the sweat of our slavery

By Reason Wafawarova
THE sentiments and doctrines tacitly held in the Western intellectual culture are so deeply rooted that the otherwise glaring illustrations of the elite hatred for democracy is somewhat covered gloriously in the soaring propaganda that says Western powers genuinely stand for democratic rule.

The assertion is inherently heretical.

The democracy that is wanted by Western powers in Gaza is not the rule of Palestine by the Palestinians and for the people of Palestine.

It is the rule of the Palestinians by the US-Israeli pact and for the people of Palestine.

This is why only the rule of the Western-backed Fatah is recognised as legitimate democracy, while the rule of the people-driven but Western-hated Hamas is defined as terrorism, notwithstanding the popular view of the Palestinians.

Cam Simpson wrote in the Wall Street Journal that despite the harsh US-Israeli punishment for Gaza, and the "flooding (of) the West Bank’s Western-backed Fatah-led government with diplomatic and economic support (to) persuade Palestinians in both territories to embrace Fatah and isolate Hamas," the exact opposite is happening.

Hamas popularity is increasing despite efforts by the US-Israeli alliance to severely punish and isolate the Palestinian authority.

The goal is to punish the miscreants who fail to grasp the essential principle of democracy: "Do as we say from the West, or else."

Zimbabweans have severely been punished by Western powers for voting Zanu-PF in the 2000, 2002 and 2005 elections in Zimbabwe, and there is no doubt that a win for Zanu-PF in 2011 will result in yet another round of severe illegal sanctions against the people of Zimbabwe.

In fact, some Westerners innocently believe that no sane Zimbabwean can ever vote Zanu-PF, and this is a direct product of the powerful Western propaganda.

Democracy in Zimbabwe cannot exist without the rule of an MDC-T led government and that is by definition, and not necessarily by the will of the Zimbabwean people.

When Hamas won the January 2006 elections in the unfortunate free elections in Gaza, the response from the US-Israeli alliance was a sharp increase for the punishment of the people of Gaza, peaking with many killings in June, and then escalating sharply after the capture of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25.

The Shalit capture was bitterly denounced in the West, and Israel’s disproportionately vicious response was widely regarded as understandable, with little murmurs of it being a little too excessive.

The hypocrisy surrounding the whole matter stunk to the high heavens, but there was neither concern nor regard for this reality.

Just a day before the capture of Corporal Shalit on the front lines of the army that was murderously attacking Gaza, Israeli forces had entered Gaza City and kidnapped two civilians, the Muamar brothers, taking them to wallow in the torturous Israeli prison system, where hundreds of Palestinians are held without charge in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The kidnapping of the Muamar brothers was obviously a more serious crime than the capturing of a soldier on attacking duty, but nevertheless not much of this kidnapping was ever reported in the Western media, and the scattered lines of commentary on this had no noticeable criticism at all.

It is like Morgan Tsvangirai’s call for the violent, undemocratic and unconstitutional removal of President Robert Mugabe.

There was hardly any comment from the Western media when Tsvangirai declared, "What we want to tell Mugabe today is to please go peacefully - if you don't want to go, we will remove you violently."

The Western media’s silence on the criminality of the MDC-T is just like the silence of the same media on the criminality of Israel.

This is understandably hardly any news from the view point of Western powers. These are simple matters to be ignored.

There was hardly any Western reporting on the near-murderous attacks by a gang of MDC-T youths on the party’s then Director General, Toendepi Shonhe on the 12th and 14th of April, 2010 — attacks reportedly done on behalf of Tsvangirai’s cause in the power struggles affecting the party.

If a gang of Zanu-PF youths had attacked Dydimus Mutasa and grabbed his car, leaving the party leader assaulted for dead — there is no doubt that such an act would make headline news across the Western world — the criminal youths heavily decorated with accolades.

Any client party or state that worships at the shrine of the US Empire inherits the right of criminality from its master. One can look at Guatemala and El-Salvador in the early to mid eighties, Israel and its perpetual crimes against the people of Gaza, and Hamid Karzai’s US-endorsed fraud in Afghanistan.

Western hypocrisy on matters to do with democracy is stunning. This is why Thomas Friedman had the audacity to instruct us all on how the lesser people must be "educated" by Western terrorist violence.

He wrote that Israel’s July 2006 invasion of Lebanon was just an act of self defence in response to Hezbollah’s crime of "launching an unprovoked war across the UN–recognised Israel-Lebanon border, after Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from Lebanon."

The shocking crime was the capture of two Israeli soldiers on the border, with the clearly declared goal of a prisoner exchange programme.

This was the first recorded significant border violation by Hezbollah in six years despite Israel’s almost daily border violations since the Hezbollah-led resistance forced it to withdraw its occupation forces from Southern Lebanon in violation UN Security Council orders.

Friedman as the Middle East specialist of the New York Times must know for sure about the criminal practices of Israel in Lebanon and on the high seas.

These vastly dwarf Hezbollah’s crime of capturing two soldiers at the border. These are daily atrocities where Palestinians are held for years as hostages.

Such crimes continue unabated, and they barely elicit a yawn from Western powers. It is like the September 2009 Israeli invasion of the North Gaza district, where the Israelis kidnapped five Palestinian children on their way home after grazing sheep.

There was virtually no English coverage of this story in the Western Press, though we are periodically reminded of the terrorist capture of Shalit, a soldier of an attacking army. We are told this act stands as a prime obstacle to peace.

When one looks at the "unacceptable" authentic free and fair election in Gaza in 2006, the resultant response from the US was the escalation of Washington-backed atrocities in Gaza.

The victory of Hamas in a civil war has always been described as a military coup — demonstrating once again the evil nature of this people-supported terrorist group — as defined by the West.

We are never told that the Gaza civil war was incited by the US and Israel, and that they did this to try and execute a crude military coup to overturn the elections that had brought Hamas to power.

In April 2008, David Rose published a detailed and well documented account of how George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams "backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, torching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever."

In corroboration to this account was Norman Olsen, a US Foreign Service veteran of 26 years, including 4 years working in the Gaza Strip and another 4 years at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, before moving on to become an associate coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State.

Olsen and his son put in detail a report showing the State Department’s shenanigans intended to ensure that their candidate, Abbas, would win in the January 2006 elections.

Abbas’ victory would most certainly be hailed as a triumph for democracy, and this would warm up the hearts of loyalists to Western hegemony.

The West is good at manufacturing its own democracy where only its backed candidates win the elections.

So the US failed to manufacture democracy in Gaza, and the only other way to pursue a correction of the situation was to punish the Palestinians for voting the wrong way, and the US and Israel began arming Dahlan’s militias, albeit in vain, as Hamas launched an effective pre-emptive strike to thwart the coup attempt.

Since the Oslo peace process of 1993, the criminal pair of the US and Israel has engaged in grand savagery that has resulted in the systematic isolation of the West Bank from Gaza.

Nonviolent reactions by Palestinians and solidarity groups are always viciously crushed and there is intentional ignorance by the West on this one.

There is just no notice at all. When Nobel Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire was shot and gassed by Israeli troops while participating in a vigil protesting the annexation wall — there was very loud silence from the West — not a word at all from the English-language print media, except for the Irish media.

Israel was advised in 1967 on the illegality of its settlement projects in Gaza by an Israeli top legal authority in international law, Theodor Meron; who said, "civilian settlement in the administered (occupied) territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention," and as such Israel is fully aware that it is engaging in illegalities with the full backing of the United States.

This is why Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dyan was so frank about the criminality of the enterprise he recommended when he suggested the "digesting" of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and merging them with Israel.

He said, "Settling Israelis in occupied territory contravenes, as is known, international conventions, but there is nothing especially new in that".

Evidently, Dayan expected the paymaster in Washington to make formal objections, albeit with a cheeky wink, as has been the regular practice, notwithstanding that the criminality has been underscored by numerous UN Security Council resolutions, and more recently by the International Court of Justice.

It is sad to note that the near universal agreement in the West, with the unfortunate inclusion of human rights groups; is that Israeli actions to "deter rockets" are legitimate self-defence, disproportionate or not, and even when these are clearly criminal.

This is the framework that was adopted with virtual unanimity when Israel carried out merciless attacks on Gaza in December to January 2008-9, a time defined by the Israeli Defence Minister as "a time for fighting".

This untenable position is a reflection of the power of the formidable Western propaganda system with its deep roots in imperial mentality.

Western atrocities and other murderous acts of terror are sanitised and formalised into the framework of manufactured democracy, while the shortcomings of the West’s official enemy states, real ones or imagined; are condemned loudly and even thwarted by the use of excessive force.

This is why Roy Bennet can go to France to rhapsodise about the evil of Zanla, the liberation military wing that fought to bring independence for Zimbabweans, alongside their Zipra comrades. Bennet had the temerity to claim that Zanla "brought the fear of God — or is it of Satan" to the masses of Zimbabwe.

This is the son of evil colonialists who enslaved Zimbabweans for ninety years, and enjoyed unrepentantly the sweet fruit of the sweat of our slavery.

He dares to name as forces of Satan the very people that fought his devilish racist colleagues that exploited and oppressed us with absolutely no sign of remorse.

Bennet has no democratic right to insult the people of Zimbabwe, and this must be made very clear to him and his audience.

By condemning Zanla as a force of Satan, Roy Bennet hopes to rebrand his own brutal and evil past as a ruthless police officer in Ian Smith’s thuggish BSAP.

He hopes to help manufacture a democracy that serves Western interests in Zimbabwe — a democracy that nullifies the liberation legacy, propping up the absolutely hopeless puppet MDC-T party as the face of this manufactured democracy, a facade that will be glorified as a success story for Africa — all for its friendly acceptance of Western hegemony.

There is no better democracy that can ever happen in Zimbabwe than the democracy that took away the farmland that Roy Bennet used to occupy in Eastern Zimbabwe.

That was people power at work, and Bennet’s loud cries about the fate of a handful of slave workers he used to have are frankly laughable.

Bennet thinks he was an employer and not a slave master, and that arrogance is quite revealing.

If white commercial farmers had a million workers as Bennet claimed, then the Zimbabwe land reform programme needs to be all the more applauded for freeing a million slave workers whose sole purpose for existing was to enrich white commercial farmers in exchange for their compound slavery.

These so-called farm workers were largely enslaved immigrant workers earning slave wages and bottle necked to basic primary education so as to ensure their docility and compliance.

This is what Zanla fought to end, and Bennet cannot invite black anger the way he did in France without expecting to pay for his mischief.

After Roy Bennet’s unmeasured utterances his MDC-T party must absolutely forget about him ever serving in a Zimbabwean Government in whatever capacity.

If they chose not to forget about the appointment of Bennet as a deputy minister, then they can safely forget about them being taken as a party that has any semblance of respect for Zimbabwe’s liberation legacy.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafa warova. com or visit www.rwafawarova.com

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

MDC-T: habitual liars and pranksters

Either MDC-T leaders think they are very clever or that everybody else in Sadc is very stupid. For how else can one explain their decision to go to Sadc, the guarantor of the GPA, claiming to have fulfilled their part of the GPA when their hands are so soiled with western excesses? 
The Herald/ Terra Firma

By Caesar Zvayi
The man who cried wolf
IN one of his famous fables, Aesop — the slave and storyteller — who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC; relates the story of a shepherd-boy who tended a flock of sheep near his village.

The boy was such a prankster that on three or four occasions he brought out the villagers running by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbours ran to his rescue, there was no wolf to be seen and the boy had a good laugh at his neighbours’ expense for falling for his prank.

Then one day, a big hungry wolf did come, and as per habit the boy, now really terrified cried ‘‘Wolf, Wolf,’’ but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance as the wolf destroyed the whole flock. The villagers naturally believed the boy was up to his usual tricks again.

The moral of this fable is simple: People are always hard pressed to believe a habitual liar, even if he was to speak the truth for once.


MDC-T pranksters
This truism appears lost to MDC-T leaders who have been crying wolf even over their own shadows in the inclusive Government. Given MDC-T’s comical approach to the GPA, surely President Jacob Zuma and his colleagues in the Troika can’t distinguish MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai from the prankster in Aesop’s fable. This may explain why the other members of the Troika — Presidents Rupiah Banda of Zambia and Armando Guebuza of Mozambique — did not even bother pitching up in Gaborone to discuss Zimbabwe on the sidelines of the official opening of the new Sadc headquarters in the Botswana capital over the weekend.

The reason, I believe, is simple. Tsvangirai’s alleged ‘‘constitutional crisis’’ was nothing more than a little boy’s prank, they have seen it all before. There is no doubt that President Mugabe acted within the powers vested in him in appointing provincial governors, re-assigning ambassadors and appointing judges as per the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission. In short, the President was not the big, bad wolf Tsvangirai tried to pass him for to Sadc.

Aesop does not say how the embattled boy related to the villagers upon his return home or whether he did not also end up in the wolf’s gut, but our shepherd-boy here left little to the imagination. He went straight to foul the communal well by insulting Sadc leaders whom he likened to ‘‘toothless bulldogs.’’

An ironic comparison if you ask me given that the bulldog is a British running dog. Need I say more? Tongai Moyo, advises in the song, "Ndiro yababa" off his latest album, Toita Basa, that ‘‘ngwariraiwo kuzvituka chinyararire.’’

But what is disturbing about the MDC-T’s attacks on Sadc is not only that they are baseless and unwarranted, but that it’s misdirected energy.


Reneging on GPA
The people the two MDC factions or formations should be attacking are the Westerners who are clearly the stumbling blocks to the full implementation of the GPA with their continued refusal to lift the illegal economic sanctions. Let them keep the travel bans if they wish, but the economic sanctions have to go.

If the truth be told, Zanu-PF has done more to meet its part of the bargain under the GPA than both MDC formations combined. The GPA is quite clear that there are economic and other forms of sanctions on Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans. It’s quite clear that western-funded pirate radio stations should stop beaming their divisive hate messages into Zimbabwe. It’s quite clear that there should be no foreign meddling in our internal affairs.

What does the MDC-T leadership do? They continue denying the existence of sanctions claiming "bad governance and corruption" were responsible for the economic decline of the past decade. They feature daily on the pirate radio stations denigrating their partners in government.

They approach westerners seeking assistance to take on Zanu-PF in the next election to the extent of accepting intelligence agents seconded to them by the same hostile western countries. And after all that they turn around and cry wolf claiming Zanu-PF is violating the GPA.

Either MDC-T leaders think they are very clever or that everybody else in Sadc is very stupid. For how else can one explain their decision to go to Sadc, the guarantor of the GPA, claiming to have fulfilled their part of the GPA when their hands are so soiled with western excesses?

They deny the existence of sanctions and then go to the same Sadc that, at its last Summit in Windhoek, Namibia, tasked its own chairman — President Hifekepunye Pohamba and the Troika — which coincidentally the MDC expected would toe their line, to lobby for the lifting of sanctions that MDC-T leaders claim do not exist.

So is Tsvangirai saying Sadc, made up of all of 14 states, is schizophrenic and sees non-existent things? And such a man expects to be taken seriously? The mind boggles.

I have no doubt Tsvangirai is a stranger to history because if he knew his history he would not have accepted to be used as a cat’s paw by self-serving westerners.

History should have told him that such adventures never endure beyond the interests of the sponsor. He would have known that Sadc was built from the foundation of the Front Line States that ranged against the same forces driving the MDC today, and as such would never be willingly used to advance reactionary politics.

Instead of continuing to cry wolf in the wilderness, Tsvangirai should join others to confront the real wolves ranged against this our community.
caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw


Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Zwambila: When activism politics turn nasty

Rather, it is the extent of her (Zwambila's) activism in MDCT hat that denotes the alarming levels to which the party can take in its pursuit of its agenda.
Those who have followed the activities of the party will see a pattern of behaviour that does not befit a political force that can be trusted with running a country.
"Stripper"...Jacqueline Zwambila


By Tichaona Zindoga
Does the "strip incident" in Australia in which Zimbabwe's Ambassador bared to her smalls (which rightly earned her Government recall from the posting) cause one to laugh or to cry or both, possibly?
 Could anybody be mortified that today's politics of "inclusion" turned out that way with this once obscure individual  who is said to have lost a chance to represent some constituency in Chegutu  spiting that setback, ending up representing the whole country and with embarrassment to show for it?
It is true that the party that brought forth the same individual has also brought a whole new culture and dimension to Zimbabwe's politics.
With a multiplicity of embarrassing episodes thus far, can one not rightly feel some sense of vindication of any earlier misgivings of the party?
I recall vividly one September afternoon in 1999 when some excitement that greeted the formation of an outfit called the Movement of Democratic Change reached the part of country that I lived.
Admittedly, being in high school I had not taken time to follow what was developing outside of my small horizons, although having known about the strikes in the previous years, the culmination of the heady years in a new political force (or farce) was not so outlandish.
 Thus my first contact with the new creation called MDC came through my peers who excitedly chanted the "Chinja Maitiro" slogans, which to me sounded more like what the guys did at their volleyball games.
By the way, my school had a proud volleyball culture  that I think runs to this day  which was made all the sweeter by a myriad of chants and slogans.
I soon gathered the import of the slogans, what with the fact that one of the old boys at the school would soon become the youngest Member of Parliament on the ticket of this newlyhatched outfit.
   Admittedly, I felt a little disappointed I could not share the excitement of my peers and others of my age as well as many "progressive" urban folk.
Yet I just could not resist alienation from this creature.
It was the same "progressive" and urbane party that I later realised, far from being a workers' party that would serve even working father, carried the hopes of retrogressive forces that might as well had ambushed its agenda, and ranks.
As it turned out, these latter forces in the form of white commercial farmers, who had ridden on the legacy of colonialism and deprived black people, showed their colours and campaigned rigorously against land reform espoused in the envisaged new constitution that went into the referendum in February 2000.
  Land reform would rehumanise a people so attached to their land, which had been stolen from their ancestors.
Then the farmers' freedom with money for the cause of their racist occupation of Zimbabwe's prime lands was carried into the elections that followed hence, banking the reversal of the tide of land reform on my peers' MDC.
The rest, they say, is history.
Eleven years later, minus the obvious wart of the retrogressive white commercial farmers, MDC better (or worse) represented by the one faction named MDCTsvangirai after its leader Morgan, has not passed for an organisation that one can be proud of.
Not even when the party is in the "inclusive" Government, via an agreement struck among itself, another MDC formation and ZanuPF in 2008.
In fact, it is this very fact that exposes  pun intended  the party to ridicule.
The "strip" incident by the party's appointee, Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Australia, Jacqueline Zwambila is but one example.
She pulled off the stunt as she confronted embassy staff that she accused of leaking information on a website on which she had denied the existence of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union.
She had said that these sanctions, which have drawn worldwide condemnation, did not affect the country even though her party, which invited the sanctions from its Western friends, acknowledged their presence in the inclusive Governmentmaking Global Political Agreement.
The region, Sadc, the African Union, the NonAligned Movement, among other world bodies have all been seized with the matter and calls have been made for their immediate lifting.
Her denial of sanctions is not at all surprising.
Nor her wearing of a party hat when she is supposed to represent the country not just her Westernsponsored party which necessitates such denial.
Rather, it is the extent of her activism in MDCT hat that denotes the alarming levels to which the party can take in its pursuit of its agenda.
Those who have followed the activities of the party will see a pattern of behaviour that does not befit a political force that can be trusted with running a country.
The treacherous and treasonous grovelling for Western sanctions aside, the MDC has generally conducted itself in the most ignoble of terms since getting into Parliament in 2000.
It has shored up embarrassments on those who thought politics were for the mature and seriousminded.
Does anybody remember one Job Sikhala who walked into the supposedly august Parliament buildings clad in shorts and a tshirt and rightly earned himself ejection from the house?
Sikhala was one of the "young turks" that MDC brought from student politics, whence its less than noble showing in Government arguably derives.
Then came the walkouts and countless boycotts and threats of boycotts, which at some point earned Tsvangirai the lessthancomplimentary name of "Mr Boycott".
The boycotts have run to this day.
Apart from that incident in which Roy Bennett assaulted Zanu PF Patrick Chinamasa, MDC also brought a new brand of showing disagreement in Government in the form of heckling with the most infamous example occurring just as President Mugabe was opening a Parliamentary session in August 2008.
As we speak, MDC senators recently caused two disruptions of Senate business, which resulted in the adjournment of the House to next year.
MDC senators heckled in the Upper House in protest over the reappointment of provincial governors who were constitutionally appointed by President Mugabe.
On the diplomatic front, MDC caused embarrassment among Zimbabwe's African brothers calling them "a club of dictators".
During the inter-party dialogue that led to the formation of the inclusive Government, Sadc-appointed facilitator former South African President Thabo Mbeki suffered the insults of the infantile MDC which called the veteran statesman all sorts of names and even wanted him out of the process.
The party called Mbeki a "dishonest broker" because he had shown not to bend to the whims of the party, as extending from its Western backers.
Of course, Mbeki tried to knock sense into MDC, reminding the party its fate lay in Africa and its African neighbours not Europe or America.
  Unsurprisingly, the party do not seem to have heeded the lecture, albeit for obvious reasons.
On the main, it has to be feared, if not suffered, that MDC's brand of politics of embarrassments can continue: perhaps with the possibility of anything worse than public stripping.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Class Action on Sanctions - Whither Tripartite Support?

"The sanctions are a real threat to our sovereign interests as a nation. So are many other important bills up for consideration by the house. And people should go singing and dancing in Senate? Surely we need to show more seriousness and maturity in dealing with national issues".
The Herald/Allafrica.com

The case against US/EU sanctions on Zimbabwe continues to be vexatious.
Not only is it not disputed that the sanctions constitute a violation of Zimbabwe's sovereignty; there is disagreement as to whether Zimbabwe's present economic condition has been precipitated by the US and EU sanctions.

Whatever the differing perceptions, there is no doubt that the sanctions sting is hurting the economy.


Whichever side of the argument you fall, the reality is that the US and the EU have in place sanctions regimes against Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe's oppositional Press, parroting the view of EU diplomats in Harare, would rather blame the government for precipitating the economic malady through policy failure, maladministration, the land reform programme and lately indigenisation and economic empowerment.

Yet on the other hand, the US and EU have stood firm to maintain the sanctions.

There is talk that the EU may not drop the sanctions after all when they meet to review the so-called "restrictions" in March, but may even toughen their stance.

The reality on the ground is that Zimbabwe has experienced unprecedented economic implosion in the last eight years during which the US and EU sanctions have been in place.

To say the sanctions have not had any effect or impact is both cognitively dissonant and delusional, feeding on a deceptive western media slant that seeks to blame the victim.

Others have been less gullible to the all too powerful media onslaught on Zimbabwe.

These are the people who have rightly diagnosed sanctions as the oncogene at the centre of Zimbabwe's economic malaise.

Rightly so, they have also come to realise that whatever the nation may try to do to come out of the current economic quagmire may not achieve much for as long as the EU and US sanctions are in place.


Among these realists are the likes of the sitting president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Joseph Kanyekanye, who drew the ire of the MDC in Victoria Falls last week for daring to highlight the simple fact that unless the sanctions go, there will not be goodwill for much needed foreign investment in Zimbabwe, let alone enough prospects for economic turnaround.

The most vocal campaigner against sanctions has however, been Senator Aguy Georgias, founder and CEO of Trinity Engineering, who is also Deputy Minister of Public Works in the inclusive Government.

Single-handedly, at great personal cost, he has been fighting the battle in the courts, first in the British High Court and now at the European Court of Justice with a case pending in the ECJ's Court of First Instance.

Georgias is now seeking to strengthen the campaign against sanctions with a call for class action by the Senate, the upper house of Zimbabwe's polarised Parliament.

The question, however, lingers; is tripartite support for class action against sanctions likely given the backdrop of a deeply divided house that has had to adjourn until February for failure to conduct business.

Ingutsheni came to Senate last week as bedlam ruled with MDC senators disrupting the business of the house over the issue of the re-appointment of provincial governors David Karimanzira (Harare) Faber Chidarikire (Mashonaland West) Thokozile Mathuthu (Matabeleland South) and Martin Dinha (Mashonaland Central). The MDC protest led the Senate President Edna Madzogwe to adjourn the house's sitting until February.

The current gridlock in the inclusive Government over disputed issues of appointments of provincial governors and ambassadors presents a hurdle for Georgias to marshal concerted government action against sanctions.


Although the case was unsuccessful, Libya set a precedent in bringing a suit in the International Court of Justice claiming the UN sanctions imposed on it for refusing to surrender the men accused of perpetrating the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 were a violation of Libya's sovereignty.

Zimbabwe's case may not have to go to the ICJ as the sanctions against it have not been mandated by the UN, but rather unilaterally imposed by the US and by the EU.

It is worth noting that there are two types of law that govern the international system. One is the law of the political jungle.

This can be defined as an every state for itself system in which power is often what determines the course of events in a world divided.

Especially for matters, that states consider vital to their interests, the law of power, of authority, of gold and guns, has prevailed more often than not and continues to do so.

Economic statecraft -- the practice of states utilising economic instruments, such as sanctions, to gain their political ends -- is the common tool.

The second type of law is international law, where sovereign states conduct relations based on the mounting body of norms, treaties and other standards that form the foundation of modern international law.

There are a number of international courts in the world today.

One such is the ECJ, a regional court.

Georgias, on the advice of his London solicitors, sees great chance of success in a class action suit by Zimbabwe at the European Court of First Instance. Armed with this knowledge, he has repeatedly sought governmental support for this action.


Since September 2009, at a ministerial retreat in Nyanga, Georgias has made the observation that the EU and US sanctions were an albatross on Zimbabwe's economic turnaround efforts. At Nyanga, with promises of action, both Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara concurred that sanctions had to go for Zimbabwe to make economic progress.

Again this last September 2010, at a similar ministerial review of economic strategy, at Wild Geese on the outskirts of Harare, Georgias repeated his call for joint government action against the sanctions.

This time however, the Prime Minister's response was that the government had put together a committee headed by Economic Development Minister Elton Mangoma that was to visit Brussels to ask the EU to remove the sanctions.

Mangoma's committee eventually made the jaunt to Brussels.

But to Georgias' utter disillusionment, surprisingly Mangoma's team hardly raised the issue of sanctions with the EU -- the main item on their agenda with the Europeans.

Now that the senate has adjourned to February, what are the implications for Georgias' planned call to the house to bring a class action suit to the EU?

Says Georgias: "Obviously one feels taken aback by such misguided actions that deliver no value to the people. We have serious matters to deal with as a nation.

"The sanctions are a real threat to our sovereign interests as a nation. So are many other important bills up for consideration by the house. And people should go singing and dancing in Senate? Surely we need to show more seriousness and maturity in dealing with national issues".

And so what then will you do Senator? I asked Georgias. In characteristic response, said Georgias: "we have to decide as a people, whether to dwell on trivia, or on substantive matters of our economic interest? I choose to remain focussed. We are in it together.

"We have to see what is in our best interests as a nation. What future we bequeath on our offspring is our own responsibility, not that of the Americans, the British or Europeans.

"It is time to sober up and to proceed with vision and foresight. We have to contest the sanctions. We can ignore them only to our peril. There is always a danger when the victim identifies with the aggressor. It clouds your thinking".

When Zanu-PF was fighting to liberate this country, thousands of people died in the process, some buried in mass graves and if Zanu-PF gives-up now, it will be a serious betrayal of those who died.

SEE ALSO:
Tsvangirai can be sued over sanctions

Elections and Propaganda Frameworks

If, or when the people of Zimbabwe will vote for Zanu- PF in 2011, they will equally be labelled backward and truly undemocratic -- all because there is no prospect for a democracy that produces a losing Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe; from a Western point of view.
AllAfrica.com/ The Herald

 By Reason  Wafawarova
Elections in developing countries often face interference from the outside world, especially from Western countries as led by the headquarters of the imperial authority, the United States.

Some of these elections are held in friendly client states to legitimise their rulers and regimes, and a good example is the recent Afghanistan election, where it did not matter that Hamid Karzai's supporters openly cheated by multiple voting, and that Karzai himself openly admitted that the election was fraudulent; nevertheless "a victory for the Afghan people".


There is no irony here; fraudulent US-backed victory is always supposed to be the pride of the receiving nation, not least because all that comes from Washington must always be good for the unpeople of this world.

Other elections are in disfavoured or enemy countries and these are often used to discredit the political systems of these unwanted countries.

The elections held in Zimbabwe since 2000 are widely discredited in the West, not because they are any much different to elections held in other African countries over the same period.

Rather they are discredited because Zimbabwe is considered to pose "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States", a description for which countries like Nicaragua, Chile, Iraq and others have in the past been severely punished.

Morgan Tsvangirai is calling for a Zimbabwe election that is extensively sponsored and managed by Western countries, or, as he describes them, "the international community".

If Tsvangirai had his way in Zimbabwe, (something absolutely unlikely given the revolutionary resolve of the nationalist Zanu-PF), the sponsorship and management of elections by the US in a foreign country would not be a first at all, but would happen in Zimbabwe all the same.

In 1966, the Dominican Republic had US-sponsored and organised elections and these were called "demonstration elections".

These are basically elections held in client states, defined as elections whose primary function is to convince the home population that the intervention of the United States is well-intentioned, even that the populace of the invaded and occupied countries welcome the intrusion and that they are being given a democratic choice.

One can read George W. Bush's memoirs to see how he holds that the greater vision of "democratising" Iraq far outweighs the blatant lies on whose basis the country was invaded and wrecked to the ground.

In fact the "democratisation" far outweighs more than a million lives that were taken away by the mere presence of Western occupiers in Iraq.

The United States had other demonstration elections in El Salvador in 1982 and in 1984, just like they had in Guatemala in 1984/85.

These elections were used to enhance an image of democracy as preached by Washington.

By contrast, Nicaragua had an election funded and organised by the Sandinistas, a government that the Reagan administration wanted to destabilise and overthrow.

Understandably, the United States went to unbelievable pains to cast the Nicaraguan election in bad light.

It is like a Mugabe-called election in Zimbabwe.

That election will be funded and organised by the Zimbabwean Government and its conduct will have absolutely nothing to do with Tsvangirai's wish for a Western-sponsored and organised election.

Naturally, such an election is cast in very bad light way before it is even held.

That is quite understandable when one looks at it from the view that says the US must lead all others.

In fact, President Mugabe cannot call for a democratic election in Zimbabwe for as long as the West and the MDC-T are not ready for such a call.


It is a matter of how "democracy" is defined in the Western lexicon.

The Western propaganda model will always ensure that the favoured elections will legitimise the Western sponsored outcome, no matter what the facts are.

The disfavoured election will always be found to be deficient, farcical, and always failing to legitimise - again, irrespective of the facts at hand.

To this end a headline reading "Mugabe wants an election in 2011" is read to imply a dictatorship as reported by the likes of the BBC.

If the headline read "Tsvangirai wants an election in 2011" then such a call would be viewed as not only legitimate but highly democratic -- regardless of the fact that it is Mugabe who is constitutionally mandated to call for elections in Zimbabwe, and not Tsvangirai, a mere Superintendent Minister in Robert Mugabe's Government.

This is why Tsvangirai believes that his decision not to participate in elections is good enough to make an election illegitimate.

He knows that regardless of the facts around that election, his Western backers will always discredit that election as illegitimate.

He cherishes highly the prospect of another round of murderous illegal sanctions to push this cause.

The Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections of 1982 and 1984/85 were held under conditions of severe, ongoing and systematic state terror against the civilian population, just like the 2009 Afghan elections.

The Nicaragua 1984 election was a people driven popular process that had people expressing their will freely and independently.

It was important for the Western media to find a standard by which they would legitimise the Salvadoran and Guatemalan elections while they made the Nicaraguan election a farce.

The first step was to avoid discussing the Salvadoran and Guatemalan state terror and other basic electoral conditions in those elections.

This is precisely why the numerous undemocratic and even criminal activities within the MDC-T are never reported in Western media.

That is against the enhancement of the image of democracy that the West so wants to create through the pliant client party competing for political space in Zimbabwe.

The Australian, a high level publication in Australia, was the only paper to pick up the story of the MDC-T appointed Ambassador Jacqueline Zwambila stripping in rage before three male staffers at the Zimbabwe Embassy in Canberra last week.

The paper said "we are baffled" but pointed out that the more appropriate description for the act would have been that she "disrobed to her undergarments".

The democracy propaganda model adopted by the West is based on a traditional election propaganda framework.

The United States employs a number of devices in its sponsored elections so as to put them in favourable light.

There are always issues that the US wants stressed and those other issues they want ignored or downplayed.

About the rest of the West is just compliant to this tradition, if with little dramas from interesting countries like France and the Scandinavian region.


The common strategy is the manipulation of symbols and agenda so as to create a positive image to a favoured election. Favoured elections are always associated with the happy word "democracy" and this is why that word is exclusively associated with the puppet MDC-T party in Zimbabwe.

An election where the MDC-T does not participate, loses or complains cannot be democratic - regardless of the facts.

This is besides the point that it is the MDC-T's democratic right not to take part in an election, if they so feel.

It is seen as a form of moral triumph that Morgan Tsvangirai agrees to participate in an election, and this is why all Zimbabweans are supposed to put up with his politics of boycotts and flip flops.

The man practices his folly within the propaganda framework of the West, and he pays no price for whatever manner of baseness he may portray, or so he believes.

Tsvangirai calls for a people driven constitution and Zimbabwe produces one. The man realises that the produced constitution is a wild departure from the interests of his Western backers, and suddenly the whole process is labelled illegitimate and fraudulent.

He even openly says he would overrule the people on this matter as soon his party gets a chance to rule the country -- regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

Robert Mugabe says there will be an election in Zimbabwe because the legally agreed time for such an election is ripe and his call is vilified as undemocratic. Tsvangirai's kicking and screaming against such an election are hailed as the democratic voice.

The only reason for this is Tsvangirai feels he is not ready for an election, basically because his party is in disarray by way of a dismantling political infrastructure and an overindulging team unabatedly enjoying power privileges in the inclusive Government.

The newly appointed ministers in the inclusive Government will simply not allow an election to spoil their newly found luxurious lives, and even some from Zanu-PF are not too impressed with this prospect of a short-lived stint with luxury and privilege. The Benz boys won't let go easily.

In 2006, the people of Gaza were torturously punished by the US-Israeli alliance for "voting the wrong way" in a free and fair election.

This was a remarkable show of the people's will, and the long tortured and downtrodden people of Gaza chose to break out of the claws of the prison to which they had been confined by their US-backed captors from Israel.

Gaza is regarded as the biggest prison on this planet and the world knows who runs it, and the timid support from Europe for this mega atrocity is probably the biggest shame in international relations today, apart from the lapdog support European countries give to Washington's military invasions.

The Bush administration brutally responded to the democratic victory of Hamas in 2006, and some writers even blamed this administration for failing to recognise the incapacity of the unpeople of the Middle East to correctly appreciate democracy.

The outcome was then viewed as a sign of the primitiveness and backwardness of the Palestinian people - not as a measure of the expression of their democratic will.


If, or when the people of Zimbabwe will vote for Zanu- PF in 2011, they will equally be labelled backward and truly undemocratic -- all because there is no prospect for a democracy that produces a losing Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe; from a Western point of view.

There are virtually no limits to the soaring rhetoric about the marvels of free and fair elections when they are believed to have come out "the right way."

And equally there will always be soaring propaganda to discredit "unfree and unfair elections" when they are labelled as such because they are seen as having produced a "wrong result".

Accordingly, the 2008 election in Lebanon was greeted with hyper euphoria in the West.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman bragged that he is "a sucker for free and fair elections," so "it warms my heart to watch" that what happened in the Lebanon election "was indeed free and fair - not like the pretend election you are about to see in Iran, where only candidates approved by the Supreme Leader can run.

"No, in Lebanon it was the real deal, and the results were fascinating: President Barack Obama defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran".

He added, "a solid majority of all Lebanese-Muslims, Christians and Druse - voted for the March 14 coalition led by Saad Hariri, to the extent that anyone came out of this election with the moral authority to lead the next government, it was the coalition that wants Lebanon to be run by and for the Lebanese -- not for Iran, not for Syria and not for fighting Israel.

Saad Hariri was standing for Barack Obama in this election, the very way Tsvangirai stands for Britain in any Zimbabwean election.

The free election was credited to George W. Bush who stood up and pushed out the Syrians out of Lebanon in 2005, in order to create an environment of "free and fair elections".

Says Friedman, "Mr Bush helped create the space. Power matters. Mr Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter."

The euphoria was joined by the likes of Elliot Abrams who wrote, "The majority of Lebanese have rejected Hezbollah's claim that it is not a terrorist group but a 'national resistance' . . . The Lebanese had a chance to vote against Hezbollah, and took the opportunity".

The biggest problem with this euphoria is its incorrectness. It is never reported in the West that in reality, the Hezbollah-based March 8 coalition won handily, by approximately the same figure as Obama vs McCain in November 2008, about 53 percent of the popular vote, according to Lebanon's Ministry of Interior.

It is like the widely reported view that the MDC-T of Zimbabwe defeated Zanu-PF by winning one seat ahead of the later, regardless of the MDC-trailing Zanu-PF by 3 percentage points in the popular vote.

That popular vote is never reported in the West and when you mention it you are instantly labelled a propagandist for Zanu-PF.

In reality "the majority of Lebanese . . . took the opportunity" to reject the charges that Friedman and Abrams repeat uncritically from Washington propaganda.

Equally the majority of Zimbabweans endorsed Zanu-PF as the most popular party in the 2008 Parliamentary race and no amount of propaganda from the West can ever delete that reality.

Friedman and Abrams were referring to representatives in Parliament, the very same way the MDC-T's lead was based by one parliamentary seat ahead of Zanu-PF, precisely their 100 seats compared to Zanu-PF's 99 at the time, now 100 after an independent rejoined the party.

These are some of the weaknesses of the confessional voting systems, where seats granted to groups of people may be proportionally disadvantageous to other groups.

In Zimbabwe it is the delimitation process that may award more seats to certain areas than to other areas of similar populations.

In Lebanon's case it was the Shiites region disadvantaged by a system that sharply reduced the seats to some of the largest sects, where Hezbollah and its Amal ally had tremendous support.

Any analyst worth the salt cannot miss such a glaring factor. But these are matters to be buried when one is looking at promoting Western democracy.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!
  • Wafawarova is a political writer based in Australia.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Zimbabwe and the mortal fight with Goliath

In other words the US, which handles the “desk” critics of Zimbabwe among other forces, is keen on playing politics much to the detriment of the tiny African country, which just happens to reportedly have the largest deposits of diamonds in the world.


By Tichaona Zindoga
It seems he was referring to not only the size and power of the two sides.
He also clearly spelt out the intrinsic "bad boys" in the former against the inherent goodness and justifiability of the latter, who happen to be the owner of vast natural resources that its adversaries envy.
The same “bad boys” have imposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.
Thus the writer draws the following analogy: "Like the David and Goliath story, the sanctions story in Zimbabwe will not go away."This is especially so because, unlike the Biblical Goliath, the AngloSaxon bully does not stand in one place. It insists on trying to pursue Zimbabwe everywhere, thereby making the story spectacular and available to the masses far beyond Zimbabwe’s borders."
The 1-4 November 8th annual plenary meeting of the Kimberley Process in Israel, which ended with a stalemate over the export of Marange diamonds, represents the one side of the GoliathDavid story that has become of wherever Zimbabwe goes with the Western Goliath in pursuit.
With Zimbabwe having satisfied the minimum requirements of the antiblood diamonds watchdog, as set by the Joint Work Plan agreed in Namibia in 2009, and okayed by the KP monitor Abbey Chikane leading to conditional sale of the gems twice this year, the country expected to resume full exports.
But the US and its allies would not allow it.
The US and its allies exploited the consensusseeking provision of the KP to pull out a veto against Zimbabwe's gems resulting in the plenary meeting adjourning without reaching an agreement on this matter. 
In effect, the Zimbabwe issue precluded all the other business that the KP plenary had done in the four days, trying to reform and make the KP more efficient.
After the meeting, Boaz Hirsch, outgoing chair of the Kimberley Process, was somewhat fatalistic about the situation of Goliath's obsession with little David.
 "Despite rigorous negotiations, regrettably the Kimberley Process members were not able to bridge the gaps among them and were unsuccessful in their efforts to reach an agreement regarding the contentious issue of the Marange diamonds," he regretted.
Adding, though without so much of certainty: "We are, however, committed to reach a consensus that will enable Zimbabwe to restore its diamond exports within the Kimberley Process framework. “Achieving such a consensus is a formidable task, yet it is a task that lies at the heart of the Kimberley Process. We will relentlessly continue pursuing an agreement." 
Another news agency quoted him as saying of the stalemate: “It’s an agreement that comes to portray the complex reality that was displayed in the review mission report.”
 “There are a small number of countries that are still in consultation with their capitals. We had deadlines and the plenary has ended, but we do hope to reach a consensus in the coming days.”
There are significant observations one can make from Hirsch's statements.
One is the seemingly unbridgeable gap between those for Zimbabwe's full exports, having met the KP requirements, who form the vast majority of KP membership among them 70 countries, and the tiny minority opposed to Zimbabwe.
Connected to this is the exploitation of the spirit and letter of consensus-seeking by the same minority. 
Secondly, this chasm, ever widened by the nowapparentlyunfortunate consensus seeking, is threatening the KP as consensus is the "heart" of the voluntary body.
Hirsch admits consensus will be a "formidable" task.
That Zimbabwe has divided the KP for the second time this year, and that the body has seen its founding chair and industrialist Abbey Chikane being ignominiously challenged by what a participant at the recent meeting, Zimbabwe's Attorney General Johannes Tomana called “desk reporters” illustrates this.
Unfortunately for Hirsch, or anyone interested in sanity in the diamond industry, those opposed to Zimbabwe are just as “relentless” as those who want to see business prevail.
In other words the US, which handles the “desk” critics of Zimbabwe among other forces, is keen on playing politics much to the detriment of the tiny African country, which just happens to reportedly have the largest deposits of diamonds in the world.
Thus, in Israel it was reported that there was much diplomatic activity behind the scenes.
The legal advisor to the Mines Minister Obert Mpofu, Farai Mutamangira, was reportedly shuttling between Minister Mpofu and the American delegation led by the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Affairs, Susan Page, following America's invitation to directly engage with the Zimbabwean delegation.
It was also reported that Brad Rusin Brooks, an attorney with the US State Department, was in closeddoor discussions with Mutamangira for a greater part of one of the days of the meeting.
One can guess the direction of the talks, if the hung outcome of Jerusalem does not suffice.
One can imagine the US, with its fine airs, almost telling Zimbabwe that it should not have owned the rich resources in the first place.
Or, even if it owned, certain people in Harare should be removed from the picture, or brought in, as the case might be.
Goliath would, in a moment of generosity, also offer the removal of the sanctions.
But as expected, and reflected on the outcome, the David that is Zimbabwe would refuse to be cowed, or seduced even.
Thus Mpofu emerged from the unconsummated KP rightly so upright and even defiant.
“These are our God-given resources and we will do with them what we feel is best for our people,” Mpofu said.
The reason: “Our compliance must entitle Zimbabwe to immediately and unconditionally export (diamonds).
“It is now clear that the Joint Working Plan is no longer serving the best interest of Zimbabwe. It is now evidently clear that it is being used as a tool to regulate improperly the flow of exports out of Zimbabwe.”
With the flow of human and economic capital out of Zimbabwe that has been the story of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe by the US and its allies, this latter observation is not without parallels.
Western efforts have not only been to deprive Zimbabwe but also to spawn depravity, which finds root in chaotic situations.
The Affirmative Action Group, a civil society grouping that supports the participation of indigenous players in economic activities, which was part of the Zimbabwe delegation much to the disagreement of antiZimbabwe lobbyists noted the connection between the imposition of hurtful sanctions and opposition to diamonds sale.
The group said in a wellreceived paper at the plenary that it was not surprised by Western moves.
“The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2002 imposed by the (former American president George,) Bush Administration and subsequently renewed by the (Barack) Obama administration empowers the United State to use its voting rights and influence (as the main donor) in multilateral lending agencies, such as the IMF, World Bank, and the African Development Bank to veto any applications by Zimbabwe for finance, credit facilities, loan rescheduling, and international debt cancellation,” AAG explained. 
“We are therefore not surprised that USA is not supporting the restoration of Zimbabwe's diamond export status.”
AAG urged members of KP to “stand up to the arrogance of minority member countries who want to mix their political objectives in Zimbabwe with the diamond business.”
It said that as the KP was established to stop diamonds aiding politics and rebel regime change, similarly, diamonds must not be used as a tool for western regime change in Zimbabwe.
In other words, AAG said the western Goliath should stop its senseless pursuit of the Zimbabwe David henceforth. 




Zimbabwe and the West: reproduction of false consciousness

The Zimbabwe I saw, albeit in a short time, was very different from the Zimbabwe that exists in the media and in the minds of those ignorant enough to believe the tabloids in the U.S. that are under pressure to make money by selling the best “bad news”.

By Susan Nyadire
Let me begin my second instalment with a disclaimer. When I decided to write a piece about my experience in Zimbabwe, having emigrated from the country in the 1990s it was not for some narcissistic reason, but because I sincerely hoped that many young people of my age would benefit from my experience. 
The barrage of criticism and the abuse I got was shocking. The vitriol that was spewed at me was ridiculous, to say the least, but most of it was downright ignorant. 
My second instalment will be dedicated to those people; and I will revert to my experience in Zimbabwe at a later stage. 
We never left Zimbabwe “running away from Mugabe”. In that regard, our story does not fit the stereotype. My father, having won the Green Card Lottery, saw the opportunity to spread his wings, and learn from other cultures, so all those who wrote saying we had fled the country were wrong.
Not everyone outside Zimbabwe “fled” the country as some people would want us to believe.
Zanu-PF and Mugabe, I want to tell them that I can do a better job from here; thanks for the offer.
For me, going back to my roots was important, for personal reasons, and I truly immersed myself and took the opportunity to learn about my culture and my people; and that is the experience I shared.
Those who wanted to hear the typical anti-Mugabe, anti Zanu-PF or anti-government story should look elsewhere. That is not my experience and will not do it for expedience, for money or for popularity.
The Zimbabwe I saw, albeit in a short time, was very different from the Zimbabwe that exists in the media and in the minds of those ignorant enough to believe the tabloids in the U.S. that are under pressure to make money by selling the best “bad news”.
We live in an age of the media and we have to appreciate that journalists are under pressure to bring that one big story. They compete with bloggers, commentators, Facebook, and other social media and citizen journalist spaces for that one juicy story.
Zimbabwe satisfies that thirst, having so many juicy stories concocted by a naive media, oftentimes controlled from America and Britain.
The country has probably the largest deposit of diamonds, has a strong president who speaks boldly and fearlessly against leadership in the West ('tiny dots', etc) when everybody else is being politically correct, has an inflation rate that can go to billions of figures and go down to a single digit in less than a year. 
It has the highest literacy rate on the continent, and has embarked on a redistribution exercise that will shift power and resources from white people to black people and set a precedent for indigenous peoples' rights across the globe; at a time when the Western world is in decline and in serious need of resources and new markets to sell their products.
Today America produces a lot of cell phones, cars, watches, computers, and other goods. Yet the country cannot consume those products. The producing companies are going under as demand falls sharply. People are losing jobs fast – 28 to 42 million service jobs have been shifted offshore to China, India and other places in the Far east.
Foreclosure wars are raging on and people a losing their houses faster than ever before.
Many states are filled with ghost towns; in Eastern Colorado, in Cleveland, Louisville – the reality has become a brutal testimony to the financial catastrophes the US is currently enduring.
The diminishing of America is now a social psychological problem as well as an economic problem. 
The traditional views of the nation are being replaced by an ugly, uncompromising economic reality in which the American Dream is now a non-issue. 
Even more startling, the “service economy” which replaced the industrial economy is also vulnerable to off shoring, creating a "non-economy".
This is the America which is juxtaposed against a resurgent Zimbabwe, and a rsising Far East. America and Britain are 'Looking East' and are printing money (albeit cosmetically calling it 'quantitative easing'). 
It is against this background that we fight the tight media wars and it is not surprising that those who control the media - the establishment - would want you to believe that Zimbabwe is the worst place to live. It simply isn't.
No matter how one looks at the Zimbabwean situation, it is a classic case. How can all these things happen in a tiny, landlocked country? Why is there so much interest in this country? I will not answer this question. I have my curiosities, but will keep those to myself. 
Each one of us should examine the situation closely. On November 11 America celebrated Remembrance Day paying respects to heroes of the First World War.
November 11 is the 315th day of the year (316th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 50 days remaining until the end of the year.
While we have 50 days to reflect on what we want to do for the rest of the year, I was disheartened to hear that in Gary, Indiana, former Rhodesian fighters were celebrating the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith from Britain on the same day (11 November 1965). This is their independence, not ours.
 They had all the gun salutes and wore their uniforms proudly.
In Zimbabwe a different story was happening. There were people who were laughing at, and drawing cartoons of, our war veterans calling them names.
One can never be free until they free their minds. That’s why there are many wailing Zimbabwean souls in cyberspace today. Tendai Mwari nemadzitateguru enyu (Honor God and your ancestors), as my dad would say.
  • Susan Nyadire is a High School teacher in Wisconsin, U.S. She teaches mainly sophomore and junior students. She can be contacted via: susannyd@yahoo.com