Friday, May 28, 2010

The cancer of MDC-T politics of personalities

In the main, the post March 29, 2008 election problems emanated from the fact that the founders and funders of the MDC-T wanted ZEC under Justice Chiweshe to unlawfully declare Tsvangirai as the winner of the presidential election when everyone, including idiots, who observed knew only too well that there was no outright winner in terms of the law requiring the victor to have 50 percent plus one; meaning that a runoff election had to be held by law.

The Herald

By Prof jonathan Moyo
IF there is one thing that is going to seal the fate of the MDC-T, it is its apparent fatal preoccupation with personalities and their positions.

This preoccupation has now taken the form of an incurable "pp syndrome" most recently dramatised by the embattled party's rather crazy reaction to the appointment of Justice George Chiweshe as Judge President of the High Court of Zimbabwe and its continuing subservience to Roy Bennett and his sickening antics.

Just think about it.

Ever since its formation in 1999, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party has never pushed for clear and implementable policy programmes to benefit ordinary people, the masses, based on a coherent and homegrown ideological framework.

Instead, and prior to joining the Government in February 2009, MDC-T's ideological and policy mantra was simply and only that "Mugabe must go".

MDC-T has now dropped that thoughtless mantra, which was all about President Mugabe as a person, following the discovery by its stalwarts in Cabinet that Mugabe, in Tsvangirai's words, "is not the problem but the solution" to Zimbabwe's challenges.

In fact, the majority of MDC-T cabinet ministers now openly admit that it is a privilege that history has been kind to give them the rare opportunity to work under an iconic African leader with a towering global stature such as Mugabe whom they used to routinely demonise at every turn.

After the formation of the coalition Government last year, MDC-T's negative politics of personalities and positions shifted away from President Mugabe and focussed on the positions of the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Attorney-General respectively with cacophonic calls that "(Gideon0 Gono must go" which the party alternated with "(Johannes) Tomana must go".

These individualised calls targeting Gono and Tomana were occasionally interspersed with yet some more personalised demands to share the positions of provincial governors despite the fact that these positions are part of the President's office in terms of our Constitution, relevant laws and practice.

Against this backdrop, the whole saga of the so-called outstanding GPA issues, which in fact are half-baked MDC-T afterthoughts since September 15, 2008 when the GPA was signed, has essentially been a pathetic discourse about personalities and positions with nothing in it for the struggling masses elements of which now regret that they squandered their vote on Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his foreign founded and funded party on March 29, 2008.

Given that for the MDC-T, politics is not about ideologies and policies but only about personalities and their positions, it is no wonder that the party has reacted in a scandalous manner to President Mugabe's constitutional appointment of Justice Chiweshe to the position of Judge President of the High Court on the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission which is required by law to discharge its functions without any influence from any authority.

What is revealing about MDC-T's appalling reaction to Justice Chiweshe's appointment is that, although he was appointed together with four other justices three of whom were elevated to the High Court and one to the Supreme Court, Tsvangirai and his cronies have been concerned only about Chiweshe and his office and not about any of the other justices, procedure, policy, process or principle.

It's just personal about Chiweshe in the typical fashion of MDC-T politics of personalities and positions.

The unacceptably ridiculous message from MDC-T is that Justice Chiweshe should not be Judge President because he is a former Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

In other words, the issue is not about Justice Chiweshe's qualification as a judge, which is all that should matter, but the mere fact that he is a former Chairperson of ZEC disliked by MDC-T's founders and funders.

It is common cause that before serving as Chairperson of ZEC, Justice Chiweshe was a judge of the High Court of Zimbabwe based in Bulawayo and that he served in that capacity with distinction. This means he is a qualified and experienced judge with no blemish on the bench. Full stop.

The record will also show that it is Justice Chiweshe who presided over the March 29, 2008 general election, which arguably stands as the freest and fairest election ever held in Zimbabwe.

There is no serious minded person who can challenge this fact in terms of what happened in the run up, the organisation and the conduct of that election and still hope to be taken seriously.

Yes, there were problems after the March 29, 2008 election but they had nothing to do with ZEC or Justice Chiweshe.

In the main, the post March 29, 2008 election problems emanated from the fact that the founders and funders of the MDC-T wanted ZEC under Justice Chiweshe to unlawfully declare Tsvangirai as the winner of the presidential election when everyone, including idiots, who observed knew only too well that there was no outright winner in terms of the law requiring the victor to have 50 percent plus one; meaning that a runoff election had to be held by law.

The idea that Tsvangirai should have won an election that he did not contest is so absurd that it is better left without any comment.

As such Justice Chiweshe is without doubt an eminently deserving appointment to head the High Court of Zimbabwe to manage its work. Only dunces think that a judge president of the High Court is there to order other judges to make particular judgements in particular cases.

So what then is the MDC-T's fuss over Justice Chiweshe's appointment all about?

Well, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.

As a foreign founded and funded political party, the MDC-T does not want an independent minded judge who is wholly grounded in the Zimbabwean national experience and who is above brown-envelope justice to administer the High Court.

The truth of the matter based on his professional experience is that Justice Chiweshe, whose qualification as a judge is beyond question, is incorruptible and the MDC-T does not like people like that because its British and American founders and funders foolishly believe that their dirty money can buy anything, everything and everyone in Zimbabwe, especially in the judiciary, the media and security organs of the state which have been targeted as brick walls against regime-change.

The fact that Tsvangirai took the advice of the founders and funders of his party to violate our electoral law by "boycotting" the June 27, 2008 presidential runoff election cannot rationally be blamed on Justice Chiweshe or ZEC. There comes a time when we must all carry our own crosses and that applies to Tsvangirai, his MDC-T and its founders and funders.

In the meantime life must go on.

The irreversible reality done without prejudice is that Justice Chiweshe is the Judge President of the High Court of Zimbabwe as an expression of a selection by the Judicial Service Commission, which President Mugabe has accepted and implemented. That is the end of that story, the rest is the future.

But there is another different but related story about Roy Bennett and his endless legal and political troubles.

Bennett's ongoing case has more than anything else demonstrated the MDC-T's policy paralysis and ideological bankruptcy on the altar of its negative politics of personalities and their positions.

Zimbabweans still remember that in October 2009, MDC-T disengaged from the coalition Government in a desperately illegal and unconstitutional move to pressure the AG not to indict Bennett and to force President Mugabe to swear him in as deputy minister of agriculture despite the very serious terrorism charges he faced.

That ploy remains the most blatant and most outrageous attack on the rule of law in general and the independence of the AG ever witnessed in this country since 1980.

Thank God the ploy failed and the MDC-T went back into the coalition government with its shameful tails in between its treacherous legs.

But all hell broke loose and the negative MDC-T politics of personalities and their positions were on full display yet again after Bennett's recent acquittal in the High Court.

Tsvangirai and his cronies abused the acquittal to demand that Bennett should be sworn-in as deputy minister of agriculture when they knew that he has never been appointed to that office and when they were aware of the State's appeal.

Nelson Chamisa, the MDC-T's weak link in information went further amok by interpreting Bennett's acquittal to mean that the well known Rhodie with Selous Scouts credentials was "an angel" as if he did not know that this would be the ultimate insult to the majority of Zimbabweans who know about Bennett's association with Rhodesian atrocities and his unrepentant disposition over the matter.

Encouraged by MDC-T's view of him as a satanic angel, Bennett and his apparently unthinking and arguably unZimbabwean lawyers now say they will sue everyone, including this writer, The Sunday Mail, The Herald and its news editor, who has reminded MDC-T, its founders and funders of Bennett's unacceptability because of his indubitable links with some murderous Rhodesian outfits.


Well, let Bennett and his lawyers go ahead and make our day in court.

That will be a moment to savour: appearing in an open court of law to face defamation charges from an unrepentant rogue Rhodie that has been masquerading as a champion of democracy and human rights asking the court to banish freedom of speech and fair comment about his dirty and brutal past!

Bennett represents everything that is wrong with the MDC-T. Nobody should be left with any doubt that many of us in Zanu-PF shall use every ounce of our energies and our total imagination to oppose Bennett everywhere and at every tic and toc until the end of time.

We cannot wait for Bennett to take us to court so we can use that opportunity not only to tell the world about his unacceptable Rhodesian past and his rogue and violent present but also to teach him and his MDC-T important lessons about fair comment in a constitutional democracy such as we have in Zimbabwe.

We are eager to show that apart from his unacceptable Rhodesian past about which he has remained unrepentant it is common cause that Roy Bennett is a crude and brutal Rhodie who has done jail time because of violent acts of common assault inside the chambers of the Parliament of Zimbabwe.

Just before his recent acquittal, which is now on appeal, he lambasted the judge in the case and called him all sorts of unprintable things. \


After his acquittal he boasted that his swearing in should be done so that he can take up office to cause confusion in the coalition government.

Now, anybody who thinks such a person deserves to be part of the Cabinet in any government in a free Zimbabwe is just mad and that madness will not be entertained by the majority of Zimbabweans who are all Zanu-PF at heart.

In the meantime Bennett's acquittal now stands suspended by the appeal lodged by the State whose representatives include the MDC-T which is part of the coalition government.

His legal case is so serious and so controversial that it should be settled by more than one judge in the national interest and that can only happen in the Supreme Court. As for his political case, Bennett should just forget it.

We don't want him in the people's government and we are not going to be forced by anyone to have him.

Obama's Statement On the LRA Disarmament

(I certainly hate brutal mobs as such we continuously see in LRA. Im however disturbed that an equally brutal America as we have seen in Iraq, Afghanistan - to name but only those - has the moral standing to try to stop brutality.
Show your good intensions for world peace and security by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and stop supporting Israeli apartheid in pPalestine, NOW! Stop you mad economic warfare on Zimbabwe NOW.
Be open and talk about Ugandan OIL.- tich)

The New Vision
Washington, DC - Today, I signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. The legislation crystallises the commitment of the US to help bring an end to the brutality and destruction that have been a hallmark of the LRA across several countries for two decades, and to pursue a future of greater security and hope for the people of central Africa.

The Lord's Resistance Army preys on civilians - killing, raping, and mutilating the people of central Africa; stealing and brutalising their children; and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Its leadership, indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has no agenda and no purpose other than its own survival. It fills its ranks of fighters with the young boys and girls it abducts. By any measure, its actions are an affront to human dignity.

Of the millions affected by the violence, each had an individual story and voice that we must not forget. In northern Uganda, we recall Angelina Atyam's 14-year-old daughter, whom the LRA kidnapped in 1996 and held captive for nearly eight years - one of 139 girls abducted that day from a boarding school. In southern Sudan, we recall John Loboi - a father, a husband, a brother, a local humanitarian assistance worker killed in an ambush while helping others in 2003. Now, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, the people of Dungu and of Obo, too, have their stories of loss and pain.

We mourn those killed. We pray for those abducted to be freed, and for those wounded to heal. We call on the ranks of the LRA to disarm and surrender. We believe that the leadership of the LRA should be brought to justice.

I signed this bill today recognising that we must all renew our commitments and strengthen our capabilities to protect and assist civilians caught in the LRA's wake, to receive those that surrender, and to support efforts to bring the LRA leadership to justice. The Bill reiterates U.S. policy and our commitment to work toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict in northern Uganda and other affected areas, including north eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic. We will do so in partnership with regional governments and multilateral efforts.

I commend the Government of Uganda for its efforts to stabilise the northern part of the country, for actively supporting transitional and development assistance, and for pursuing reintegration programmes for those who surrender and escape from the LRA ranks.

I also want the governments of other LRA-affected countries to know that we are aware of the danger the LRA represents, and we will continue to support efforts to protect civilians and to end this terrible chapter in central African history. For over a decade, the US has worked with others to respond to the LRA crisis.

We have supported peace process and reconciliation, humanitarian assistance and regional recovery, protection of civilians and reintegration for former combatants, and have supported regional governments as they worked to provide for their people's security. Going forward, we will call on our partners as we all renew our efforts.

I congratulate Congress for seizing on this important issue, and I congratulate the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have mobilised to respond to this unique crisis of conscience.

We have heard from the advocacy organisations, non-governmental organisations, faith-based groups, humanitarian actors who lack access, and those who continue to work on this issue in our own government.

We have seen your reporting, your websites, your blogs, and your video postcards - you have made the plight of the children visible to us all. Your action represents the very best of American leadership around the world, and we are committed to working with you in pursuit of the future of peace and dignity that the people who have suffered at the hands of the LRA deserve.

Zim envoy clashes with US official

The Herald

By Tichaona Zindoga
Zimbabwe’s Ambassador in Washington, Mr Machivenyika Mapuranga, on Tuesday publicly clashed with United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson whom he accused of acting like a "house slave".

At a reception to mark Africa Day in Washi-ngton to which African diplomats invited Car-son, Ambassador Mapuranga and embassy staff ended up walking out in disgust after the American government official "spoke in a denigrating manner on the continent, and Zimba-bwe in particular".

While US media, such as the Washington Post, tried to blame Ambassador Mapuranga for the public fallout, it has emerged that Carson’s behaviour at the reception had left several African diplomats shocked by Ameri-can attitudes towards the continent.

Ambassador Mapuranga walked out of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel — along with other Zimba-bwean Foreign Service staff — as Carson addressed the diplomats.

Carson had alleged that Zanu-PF officials were hindering democracy, cracking down on the "opposition" and failing to honour their Global Political Agreement obligations.

"In Zimbabwe, the ruling Zanu-PF Govern-ment officials continue to hinder democracy through harassment of the opposition and civil society and failure to honour their obligations to open the political space as called for in the Global Political Agreement," Carson claimed.

Ambassador Mapuranga immediately objected and reminded Carson that Zimbabwe was a sovereign state.

"Now you are talking like a good house slave. We will never be an American colony, you know that!" he charged.

In a telephone interview from Washington yesterday evening, Ambassador Mapuranga said he was surprised Carson could not even stick to the theme of this year’s celebrations, which was "Peace and Security through Sport".

"He chose to speak like the emperor’s representative," Ambassador Mapuranga said.

"He was categorising African states into black sheep and white sheep, or rather sheep and goats.

"He spoke divisively against the spirit of the African Union.

"When he came to Zimbabwe and said Zanu-PF was hindering progress in the inclusive Government, I couldn’t stand it.

"I was enraged and I told him that he was talking like a house slave," Ambassador Mapuranga said.

"I had to remind him that Zimbabwe would never be an American colony."

Ambassador Mapuranga accused Carson of going against the spirit of the AU that fully endorsed Zimbabwe’s inclusive Government.

Ambassador Mapuranga said he would continue to push for an end to all forms of illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe, saying: "It is part of my job here."

Referring to the "amended" version of the discredited sanctions law as tabled before the US Congress by three legislators — the Zimba-bwe Transition to Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill — Ambassador Mapuranga said the US had admitted its sanctions were hurting ordinary people.

"(George W) Bush and now the (Barack) Obama administrations didn’t want the world to know there were sanctions against Zimbabwe.

"They wanted to refer to the Executive Order by the US president which is renewed every March against certain individuals.

"They did not want the world to know about the real sanctions," he said.

The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic

Recovery Act, signed into law in 2001 by ex-president Bush, among other things, bars Zimbabwe from accessing funding or credit lines from multilateral organisations in which Washington has voting rights.

ZDERA also outlaws American state or private trade with Zimbabwe until land tenure patterns revert to pre-1998 levels when a handful of whites held virtually all the best arable land.

Ambassador Mapuranga said the new Bill tried to narrow a "broad frontal attack on Zimbabwe" to a more specific goal.

"The idea is to pour money into ministries under the MDC to increase the party’s profile while no cent will be channelled to ministries under Zanu-PF," he said.

Senator Russ Feingold, who sponsored ZDERA, is co-sponsoring the new legislation with senators John Kerry and Johnny Isakson.

At an AU Summit in Libya, last year, President Mugabe described Carson as an idiotic little fellow for trying to lecture Zimbabwe on how to conduct affairs of State. Carson, who had requested a meeting with President Mugabe on the sidelines of the Summit, had not shown willingness to understand the real Zimbabwe situation despite having all the facts presented to him.

Carson, a career African-American diplomat, served as US ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1995 to 1997, and ended his tenure just before the bilateral dispute with Britain flared up.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

State Must Process, Sell Own Goods

The Herald
(EDITORIAL)
Government and diamond firm Canadile Miners should be commended for taking the bold decision to invest in the construction of a diamond technology centre to process diamonds in Zimbabwe.

Given that developing countries have been losing trillions of dollars by exporting raw materials, the decision is as refreshing as they come.

President Mugabe has over the years spoken passionately, at local, regional and international forums, about the need for developing countries to benefit fully from the value of their products by selling processed rather than unfinished products.

Value addition also creates more jobs than those generated at the primary level of producing raw materials.

Products that are exported unprocessed are mainly from the agriculture and mining sectors. These include cotton, tobacco, gold, platinum, copper and diamonds.

For as long as developing countries export raw materials they will never get the full value of their efforts, particularly given the skewed nature of trade in favour of the developed world.

These unfair trade arrangements confine developing countries to producing raw materials whose prices inevitably go down for very good scientific reasons.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has also made some very incisive points at various forums on the need for Africa and other developing regions to export finished goods.

He argues that raw materials are easy to produce hence, all countries with similar climatic conditions produce them.

This leads to over production and, therefore, declining prices.

Some of these resources, especially those that are mined, are finite and with time will be exhausted.

It is crucial then for a country to maximise benefits from such resources before they become extinct.

There is also the issue of advancement in science and technology, which might substitute certain raw materials or lower the quantities required to make certain products.

This, therefore, diminishes the use of the raw materials or renders them irrelevant altogether. A good example is copper. Copper was a raw material for telephone wires in the old telecommunications technology.

With new techniques of wireless telecommunications technology, less copper is demanded and its prices continue to fall.

Zambia is among developing countries that had considerable economic prosperity based on copper in the 1960s when copper prices were good. Therefore it is imperative for African economies to integrate to benefit from economies of scale, and to lower the cost of doing business through beneficiation and value-addition to realise high returns on their resources.

President Museveni has described Africa as the de facto donor to the developed world through the export of raw materials, which the West processes and sells at much higher prices.

At last year's smart partnership dialogue summit hosted by Uganda, he cited the example of African coffee producing countries that he said were realising only US$15 billion from the global coffee trade that generates an estimated US$144 billion annually.

In the case of Uganda, the West was buying a kilogramme of coffee beans for US$1 yet were making US$15 for each kilogramme sold after processing, translating to a profit of $14 at the expense of Uganda.

Zimbabwean farmers sell their soya bean crop for about US$200 per tonne yet in South Africa it is processed into soya cake, a stockfeed, which then sells for about US$1 000 a tonne.

These are chilling examples that put into perspective the good vision Government and Canadile have to invest in a multi-million diamond technology centre.

State Must Process, Sell Own Goods

The Herald
(EDITORIAL)
Government and diamond firm Canadile Miners should be commended for taking the bold decision to invest in the construction of a diamond technology centre to process diamonds in Zimbabwe.

Given that developing countries have been losing trillions of dollars by exporting raw materials, the decision is as refreshing as they come.

President Mugabe has over the years spoken passionately, at local, regional and international forums, about the need for developing countries to benefit fully from the value of their products by selling processed rather than unfinished products.

Value addition also creates more jobs than those generated at the primary level of producing raw materials.

Products that are exported unprocessed are mainly from the agriculture and mining sectors. These include cotton, tobacco, gold, platinum, copper and diamonds.

For as long as developing countries export raw materials they will never get the full value of their efforts, particularly given the skewed nature of trade in favour of the developed world.

These unfair trade arrangements confine developing countries to producing raw materials whose prices inevitably go down for very good scientific reasons.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has also made some very incisive points at various forums on the need for Africa and other developing regions to export finished goods.

He argues that raw materials are easy to produce hence, all countries with similar climatic conditions produce them.

This leads to over production and, therefore, declining prices.

Some of these resources, especially those that are mined, are finite and with time will be exhausted.

It is crucial then for a country to maximise benefits from such resources before they become extinct.

There is also the issue of advancement in science and technology, which might substitute certain raw materials or lower the quantities required to make certain products.

This, therefore, diminishes the use of the raw materials or renders them irrelevant altogether. A good example is copper. Copper was a raw material for telephone wires in the old telecommunications technology.

With new techniques of wireless telecommunications technology, less copper is demanded and its prices continue to fall.

Zambia is among developing countries that had considerable economic prosperity based on copper in the 1960s when copper prices were good. Therefore it is imperative for African economies to integrate to benefit from economies of scale, and to lower the cost of doing business through beneficiation and value-addition to realise high returns on their resources.

President Museveni has described Africa as the de facto donor to the developed world through the export of raw materials, which the West processes and sells at much higher prices.

At last year's smart partnership dialogue summit hosted by Uganda, he cited the example of African coffee producing countries that he said were realising only US$15 billion from the global coffee trade that generates an estimated US$144 billion annually.

In the case of Uganda, the West was buying a kilogramme of coffee beans for US$1 yet were making US$15 for each kilogramme sold after processing, translating to a profit of $14 at the expense of Uganda.

Zimbabwean farmers sell their soya bean crop for about US$200 per tonne yet in South Africa it is processed into soya cake, a stockfeed, which then sells for about US$1 000 a tonne.

These are chilling examples that put into perspective the good vision Government and Canadile have to invest in a multi-million diamond technology centre.

Uganda: West Interested in Our Politics Because of Our Oil

(This is an excellent piece underlining why the West is Africa’s number one enemy…even with their democracy, which we are said we inherently lack)
Keen observers will note that as we count down to the 2011 elections there is renewed interest and focus by the West on Uganda more than ever before. They are right in saying that we should have proper democratic benchmarks, but they will go to ridiculous levels and finer details of our politics like hyping up minor incidents like somebody hurled a mineral water bottle at the leader of the opposition (which may not even be true, but they never take time to find out).
The New Vision
By Karooro Okurut
Kampala - The discovery of petroleum resources in Uganda and the newfound potential with which it clothes the country has captured widespread attention across the globe. Many commentators call it yet another chapter of good news from a country that is now set firmly on the right track.
By November 2009, it was estimated that Uganda had several billion barrels of oil principally in the Albertine region, but with plenty more on the outskirts. In a world where oil is possibly the most cherished commodity and possibly the biggest and best bargaining chip, the discovery of oil and the potential it holds for Uganda means this country has now taken on even more weight in the eyes of the West.
The attention that Uganda is now enjoying in the international community means many countries will want to take centre-stage because they want the oil.
Oil means many things. Money and jobs would come to mind first. Increasingly tight oil supplies will continue to push the price of oil higher with the cost of crude hitting $150 a barrel by end of 2010 and soaring to $225 a barrel by 2012, forecasts a new energy report from CIBC World Markets.
Uganda's attraction and profile as an investment destination has increased tremendously and the country will soon have better bargaining chips at the global roundtable. Oil is now being consumed four times faster than it is being discovered, and the situation is becoming critical. The world now consumes 85 million barrels of oil per day, or 40,000 gallons per second, and demand is growing exponentially. But oil production in 33 out of 48 countries has now peaked, including Kuwait, Russia and Mexico which are now generally viewed as countries with declining oil production.
With limited discoveries of oil worldwide, it just so happens that Uganda is only one in very few cases where oil has been discovered in the last 10 years. The importance of oil is in part shown by the discrepancy between who has it and who uses it most. Interestingly, while the US and Russia have vast oil reserves, they do not rank among the big exporters, since they use almost all of what they produce. In fact although the US has immense oil resources, it imports 60 percent of the oil it uses. Almost 40 percent of the energy used in the US comes from burning oil.
With approximately five percent of the world's population, the US is responsible for some 25 percent of global oil consumption. About 15 percent worldwide is used up by the European Union; meaning that the rest of the world put together subsists on the 60 percent. Translated into international relations, this means that the US and EU (who comprise what we normally call the Western World and who form the bulk of the donor community) are wont to pay more attention to oil production than anybody else in the world because energy is critical to their nation's security and material wellbeing.
A state unable to provide adequate energy resources to its citizens is asking for its economy to grind to a halt. The fact that those who need oil most are not the ones who produce it in large quantities means that oil is therefore not only an economic issue, but a highly political one.
Little wonder that in 1990 then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait in his desire to control more of the world's oil reserves. That would have meant two things for Saddam: money (dollar for dollar) and global influence. Little wonder still that the United Nations wasted no time in putting together a force that attacked Saddam and threw him out of Kuwait.
The force that comprised Operation Desert Storm included 500,000 US troops and the goal was simple and straightforward: ensure continued unfettered access to oil. (I stand to be corrected if I am wrong). The rich West will go to any length therefore to ensure that oil producers are either on good terms with them or are under their firm control. That is why we have seen cases of the West installing puppet regimes in some countries so that they can order them around without too much trouble.
Oil-producing countries therefore come under scrutiny and the rich West makes it a point to follow up everything that is going on in those countries to the minutest detail, because their economies are largely and almost incurably dependent on oil resources. In short, the era of the international community taking nothing more than passive interest in Uganda is firmly behind us and we should prepare for the glare of the global spotlight.
Keen observers will note that as we count down to the 2011 elections there is renewed interest and focus by the West on Uganda more than ever before. They are right in saying that we should have proper democratic benchmarks, but they will go to ridiculous levels and finer details of our politics like hyping up minor incidents like somebody hurled a mineral water bottle at the leader of the opposition (which may not even be true, but they never take time to find out).
No doubt at the back of their minds is the awareness that if they do not take close interest in our politics, China now a quickly growing threat to Western global hegemony will surely keep close tabs and that in a way that fundamentally undermines Western interest. China has the strength of numbers and a growing military might, but so far not much yet by way of economic muscle that reaches superpower proportions.
The Chinese who have a no-questions-asked approach about democracy and human rights have over the last few years entered the African market, a sign which does not exactly enthuse the West.
As our oil potential grows, we should expect to see continued Western interest in Uganda's politics. Just watch this space.

Seeing Through American Sheepskins

If Washington decides to continue attempting to boost Tsvangirai's image, for the purpose of destroying the inclusive Government, their rhetoric purporting concern for the welfare of Zimbabweans will be met with due derision.

The Herald
By Obi Egbuna
On May 10, 2010 the National Democratic Institute presented Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai with the annual Averell Harriman Democracy Award.
Recipients of this honour must meet the following criteria: sustained commitment, moral integrity, and engagement in the political process and recognised efforts that require solidarity.
Candidates should represent larger political movements and lastly must be connected to NDI's work.
PM Tsvangirai received the award from former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who currently serves as NDI's chairperson, which provides her a platform to exert significant political influence as a private citizen.
Before presenting PM Tsvangirai with the award, Albright described him as a "courageous democratic leader of our time".
In his remarks, Prime Minister Tsvangirai said: "As African leaders we must end the conspiracy of silence that has allowed repression to continue unchecked."
The premier went on to say that, "the reality is that thousands of Zimbabweans have suffered ever worse hardships in our struggle for a free society and dignity, and these Zimbabweans remain committed and determined to continue the peaceful fight until our country is truly democratic".
While PM Tsvangirai might be basking in the glory of receiving the honour, it is critical to determine the persona behind the award, Harriman.
If the Prime Minister and his staff had done even casual research, they would have discovered that, in addition to being Secretary of Commerce under the Truman administration, Harriman was a Senior Partner of the banking business that financed Hitler and the Nazi Party in its early days.
The name of the business was called Brown Brothers Harriman & Co and served as the monetary pipeline to Hitler.
It was arranged by Fritz Thyssen along with George Herbert Walker and his son in law Prescott Bush, the father of 41st US President George H W Bush and grandfather of the 43rd US President George W Bush.
There is a very naked irony in all this especially when earlier this decade, it was President Mugabe and Zanu-PF that were compared to Hitler and the Nazi Party because of the historic land reclamation programme.
Biographical information available on Herriman reveals that he belonged to two secret societies, Skull and Bones at Yale University and another one called the Knights of Phytias.
Herriman even had close ties to Irving Brown, a CIA agent who was then in charge of the AFL-CIO's International Relations Division.
Another important point is that approximately 50 percent of the National Endowment for Democracy's funding, goes to the NDI's international division, the Centre for International Private Enterprise, the International Republican Institute and the American Centre for Labour Solidarity.
Because PM Tsvangirai has repeatedly stated that no Zimbabwean has a monopoly on patriotism, he should certainly understand the best way to determine one's character, is by the friends and enemies they make in their lifetime.
In a word, PM is in for public scrutiny and his apparent blindness to the ugly side of Washington, which his acceptance of the supposed honourable award mirrors, is most unfortunate.
This brings into question what were his motives for boycotting Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Zimbabwe for the annual International Trade Fair in Bulawayo, while appearing extremely cosy in the company of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or President Barrack Obama.
The fact Prime Minister Tsvangirai used his second Washington visit in less than a year, to present Roy Bennett as a liberator of Zimbabwe, shows a blatant disregard for our ancestors who shed countless drops of blood for Zimbabwe in particular and Africa in general to be truly sovereign, fighting against the likes of Bennett.
If the Western media continue to take a sensationalist approach when discussing Bennett's court case, they are guilty of insulting and underestimating the intelligence of the international community.
Any attempts by Western journalists to make President Mugabe and Zanu-PF anti-white and afraid of Bennett's "mass appeal" in Zimbabwe, are going to cause major embarrassment to the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC. As long as he yearns for the days of white privilege Bennett is his own worst enemy.
The members of MDC-T like Minister Sekai Holland who is in charge of their policy and ideology branch, should clearly understand that any attempt to portray Bennett in the same vein as whites like Timothy Stamps (President Mugabe's Health advisor), national hero Guy Clutton Brock or Father Michael Traber, is to tarnish Zimbabwe's rich history.
The US-EU alliance would love nothing more than to see Bennett sworn in as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, because it provides him a platform to sabotage the land reclamation programme.
They hope this appointment will forever wipe Bennett's slate clean and his Rhodesian history.
Since the end of the Cold War, CIA assassinations of African leaders, and bloodthirsty coups staged by mercenaries on the US Government's payroll, are no longer viable options.
What this means in relationship to Zimbabwe is that Washington must depend on its ace in the hole, the Council of Foreign Relations due to the political muscle and influence it has exerted on both the Democratic and Republican Party since it began in 1921.
While Washington functions from the understanding that it would be detrimental to make Zimbabwe or any African country front and centre of US Foreign policy especially under Obama's tenure, there is overwhelming evidence that the Council of Foreign Relations are extremely worried about President Mugabe and Zanu-PF.
Their regime change agenda is well documented.
In October of 2007 while Michelle Gavin who currently runs the Africa desk of the National Security Council, was an adjunct fellow at CFR, she wrote a journal entitled "Planning for Post-Mugabe Independence."
Other US officials, whose pro-Tsvangirai stance is hardly a secret, that are members of CFR include, General Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Ambassadors Johnnie Carson and Susan Rice and Congressman Donald Payne to name a few.
The CFR also extends membership to private corporations, and has among its ranks groups like Goldman Sachs Inc, Chevron Corporation, and the Exxon-Mobil Corporation.
The CFR states their Africa programme has a special focus on Nigeria and South Africa because of their size and strategic importance.
This explains why Obasanjo and Yar'Adua's arms were consistently bent on the Zimbabwe question, and why the US-EU alliance want to give the impression that they won President Zuma on Zimbabwe.
What President Mugabe and Zanu-PF have consistently conveyed to their citizens throughout the decade, is that they should never underestimate the international support the country enjoys for their cause as well as their courage and vision.
It should be noted that Zimbabwe's foreign policy and support on the African continent have caused many sleepless nights to the individuals that President Obama depends on for insight and briefings and it appears many more lie ahead.
When President Mugabe announced the Look East Policy a few years ago and went on to receive an honorary degree in China, we can be assured US Foreign Policy experts like Madeline Albright turned back the clock, and remembered when W E B DuBois, at the age of 91, stood before Mao Tse Tung in Peking and said: "Turn from the West and your slavery and humiliation for the last 500 years and face the rising sun."
When President Ahmedinejad was in Zimbabwe voices in Washington trembled over the possibility of Zimbabwe's vast uranium reserves serving as a repository for a nuclear enrichment programme that will serve as a catalyst for world peace.
This gives Africans the enthusiasm to use our fingertips and write in the sand death to Africom, and other attempts to continue to pollute our water and land with US bombs given American obsession with genocide and war.
Africans were pleased to hear the Zanu-PF chairman unapologetically saying that Zimbabwe intends to use its diamonds for the purpose of busting the sanctions.
One of the most disturbing trends in connection to hostile diplomacy towards Zimbabwe, are the attempts to exclude President Mugabe from forums, to discuss the country's challenges and future.
We recently saw Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara under attack for using connections with the Forum Of Young Global Leaders to ensure President Mugabe was part of a symposium entitled The Future of Zimbabwe alongside Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Mutambara himself.
This demonstrates that Mutambara is committed to the pledge he made two years ago, that he would fight to ensure Zimbabwe had "One Flag, One Voice and One Vision".
Zimbabwe and Africa anxiously wait for PM Tsvangirai's denunciation of US-EU attempts to keep using MDC-T to sabotage the inclusive Government.
When Prime Minister Tsvangirai stands next to President Mugabe in Zimbabwe, he talks of fighting to end sanctions, however when he comes to Washington he allows Zim's enemies to portray him as an angel surrounded by devils.
We recently saw Senators Kerry, Issakson and Feingold use Zimbabwe to practice a political version of the story the Three Musketeers by introducing legislation that is supposed to represent relaxed and flexible sanctions.
The timing of this legislation comes on the heels of an appeal crafted by grass roots organisations, that uncompromisingly called for the lifting of US-EU sanctions once and for all.
The new sanctions bill is a continuation of US imperialism trying to pull wool over the eyes of Africans worldwide committed to ending imperialism in all its guises.
If Washington decides to continue attempting to boost Tsvangirai's image, for the purpose of destroying the inclusive Government, their rhetoric purporting concern for the welfare of Zimbabweans will be met with due derision.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Africa: New Colonialism - Pentagon Carves Africa into Military Zones

The US is not dragging almost every nation in Africa into its military network because of altruism or concerns for the security of the continent's people. AFRICOM's function is that of every predatory military power: The threat and use of armed violence to gain economic and geopolitical advantages
By Rick Rozoff
Last year the commander of US African Command (AFRICOM), General William Ward, said the Pentagon had military partnerships with 35 of the continent's 53 nations, 'representing US relationships that span the continent'.[1]
That number has increased in the interim.
As the first overseas regional military command set up by Washington in this century, the first since the end of the Cold War and the first in 25 years, the activation of AFRICOM, initially under the wing of US European Command on 1 October 2007 and then as an independent entity a year later, emphasises the geostrategic importance of Africa in US international military, political and economic planning.
AFRICOM's area of responsibility includes more nations - 53, all African states except Egypt, which remains in US Central Command, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara), a member of the African Union but which the US and its NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) allies recognise as part of Morocco, which conquered it in 1975 - than any of the Pentagon's other Unified Combatant Commands: European Command, Central Command, Pacific Command, Southern Command and Northern Command (founded in 2002).
The US is alone in maintaining regional multi-service military commands in all parts of the world, a process initiated after the Second World War as America pursued its self-appointed 20th century 'manifest destiny' as history's first worldwide military superpower.
Until 1 October 2008 Africa was overwhelmingly in the European Command's area of responsibility, with all African nations assigned to it except for Egypt, Seychelles and the Horn of Africa states (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan) overseen by Central Command, and three island nations and a French possession off the continent's eastern coast (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion) placed under Pacific Command.
The month before AFRICOM began its one-year incubation under US European Command in 2007, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Ryan Henry said: 'Rather than three different commanders who have Africa as a third or fourth priority, there will be one commander that has it as a top priority.'[2]
The Pentagon official also revealed that AFRICOM 'would involve one small headquarters plus five "regional integration teams" scattered around the continent' and that 'AFRICOM would work closely with the European Union and NATO', particularly France (a member of both), which was 'interested in developing the Africa standby force'.[3]
The US Defense Department official identified all the key components of African Command's role and adumbrated what has transpired in the almost three-year interim: By subsuming nations formerly in the areas of responsibility of three Pentagon commands under a unified one, the US will divide the world's second-most populous continent into five military districts, each with a multinational African Standby Force (ASF) trained by military forces from the United States, NATO and the European Union.
Later the same month, the Pentagon confirmed its earlier disclosure that AFRICOM would deploy regional integration teams 'to the northern, eastern, southern, central and western portions of the continent, mirroring the African Union's five regional economic communities...'
The Defense News website detailed the geographic division described in Defense Department briefing documents issued in that month:
'One team will have responsibility for a northern strip from Mauritania to Libya; another will operate in a block of east African nations - Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar and Tanzania; and a third will carry out activities in a large southern block that includes South Africa, Zimbabwe and Angola ... A fourth team would concentrate on a group of central African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Congo [Brazzaville]; the fifth regional team would focus on a western block that would cover Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Niger and Western Sahara, according to the briefing documents.'[4]
The five areas correspond to Africa's main Regional Economic Communities, starting in the north of the continent:
- The Arab Maghreb Union: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia
- The East African Community (EAC): Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda
- The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo
- The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS): Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda and Sao Tome & Principe
- The Southern Africa Development Community: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Africa's far northeast, in and near the Horn of Africa, is in a category of its own, having long been subordinated to the US's Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) based in Djibouti and where the Pentagon has approximately 2,000 personnel from all four branches of the armed services. The Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa area of operations takes in the African nations of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda as well as Yemen on the Arabian peninsula. In addition to Seychelles, the CJTF-HOA is expanding its purview to include Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Three years ago it was reported that the Pentagon had already 'agreed on access to air bases and ports in Africa and "bare-bones" facilities maintained by local security forces in Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia'.[5] That is, in northern, eastern, western, central and southern Africa.
The US has maintained its military base in Djibouti, Camp Lemonnier, since 2003, established a naval surveillance facility in Seychelles last autumn, and has access to base camps and forward sites in Kenya, Ethiopia, Morocco, Mali, Rwanda and other nations throughout the continent.
AFRICOM, as noted above, plans a central headquarters on the continent - its current headquarters remains in Stuttgart, Germany, although Djibouti's Camp Lemonnier functions as a de facto one in Africa - with five regional satellite outposts in northern, southern, eastern, western and central Africa.
The African Standby Force is nominally under the control of the African Union, but its troops are being trained and directed by the US, NATO and the military wing of the European Union.
The website of the African Standby Force contains links to the following sites:
- ASF Headquarters (Addis Ababa)
- Eastern
- Western
- Southern
- Central
- Northern.[6]
The African Union's secretariat, the African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethiopia is also one of the nations - Liberia and Morocco are others - that has been discussed as a potential site for AFRICOM's main headquarters on the continent.
Each of the five geographical units listed above is to supply a contingent of up to brigade size (4,000-5,000 troops by NATO standards) for the African Standby Force that is projected to be launched this year.
Two days before AFRICOM was established on 1 October 2007, the American armed forces newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that 'The command, scheduled to become operational this week, will focus much of its activity on helping to build the fledgling African Standby Force.
'It is hoped the force, being organized by the Ethiopia-based African Union, or AU, will be ready by 2010. It would consist of five multinational brigades based in the giant continent. Each brigade would perform missions in its given region, such as peacekeeping when the need arose.
'Gen William E. Ward, nominated to become the first AFRICOM commander, last week told the US Senate in writing that US troops would help the brigades come to life.'
Ward, earlier head of NATO's Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia in 1996, said in his own words: 'AFRICOM will assume sponsorship of ongoing command and control infrastructure development and liaison officer support. It would continue to resource military mentors for peacekeeping training, and develop new approaches to supporting the AU and African Standby Forces.'[7]
This February a NATO website detailed the North Atlantic military bloc's role in complementing AFRICOM efforts to build the African Standby Force:
'NATO began providing support to the AU Mission in May 2005 based on specific requests from the AU. NATO nations supported [the] AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) by providing airlift for 32,300 personnel ... NATO continues to support the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) through the provision of strategic sea and air-lift for AMISOM Troop Contributing Nations on request. The last airlift support occurred in June 2008 when NATO transported a battalion of Burundian peacekeepers to Mogadishu.
'Joint Command Lisbon is the operational lead for NATO/AU engagement, and has a Senior Military Liaison Officer at AU HQ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. NATO also supports staff capacity building through the provision of places on NATO training courses to AU staff supporting AMISOM, and support to the operationalisation of the African Standby Force - the African Union's vision for a continental, on-call security apparatus similar to the NATO Response Force.'[8]
The NATO Response Force (NRF) completed what was described at the time as its final validation in the two-week, 7,000-troop Steadfast Jaguar military exercises in the African island nation of Cape Verde in 2006.
Africa was the testing ground for the NRF and the NRF is the model for the African Standby Force:
'Since June 2007, NATO has assisted the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) by providing airlift support for AU peacekeepers. This support was authorized until February 2009 and the Alliance is ready to consider any new requests from the AU. NATO also continues to work with the AU in identifying further areas where NATO could support the African Standby Force.[9]
'NATO is also providing, at the AU's request, training opportunities and capacity building support to the AU's long term peacekeeping capabilities, in particular the African Standby Force.'[10]
Since the Berlin Plus agreements between NATO and the European Union in 2002, the military components of both organisations not only overlap and complement each other, but are being integrated at a qualitatively higher level for overseas missions like those in and off the coasts of Africa.
Three years ago French General Henri Bentegeat, then chairman of the European Union Military Committee, met with EU defence ministers in Germany and an account of his comments included: 'The European Union's drive for a stronger global military role includes an upgrading of ties with the United Nations, NATO and the African Union.' In addition to last year's military mission in Congo and logistical help for African Union forces in Darfur, Bentegeat said the EU wanted to help an ambitious AU programme to create a standby force for peacekeeping missions.[11]
Even before AFRICOM was activated as a separate military command in the autumn of 2008, US European Command was conducting large-scale multinational military manoeuvres in various regions of Africa to train units for the five regional brigades that will form a unified, continental African Standby Force.
Starting in 2006 US European Command (and subsequently Africa Command) has conducted annual Africa Endeavor multinational communications interoperability exercises - frequently in nations on the strategic Gulf of Guinea - with the participation of the armed forces of African, NATO and European Union nations. Africa Endeavor 2007 was held in Ghana and the contributing countries were the US, Algeria, Angola, Belgium, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Lesotho, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sweden, Uganda and Zambia. It was jointly run by US European Command, US Central Command and the nascent US Africa Command.
'AE [Africa Endeavor] fosters better collaboration in the Global War on Terrorism and supports the deployment of peacekeepers in Sudan and Somalia.
'Furthermore, AE assists in establishing critical communication links to enhance the African Standby Force's developments in command, control, communications and information systems (C3IS) and strengthens national, regional, continental and partner relationships...'[12]
Africa Endeavor 2008 was held in Nigeria and included military personnel from 22 African and European nations as well as the US.
'During the course of the exercise, participating nations and organisations also continued their efforts to develop standard practices and procedures for the African Union and its African Standby Force.'[13]
In 2005 the US launched the first of regular Flintlock multinational military exercises to initiate and expand the Pentagon's Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI), formed in the same year, to train the military forces of Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia. Washington's NATO allies Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain are also involved in the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative.
The exercises are run by US Special Operations Command Europe. In 2007 NATO announced that its Special Operations Coordination Center would be headquartered at the same Kelley barracks on the US base in Stuttgart where AFRICOM headquarters are located.
An account of the initial 2005 operation divulged that 'The US Government reportedly plans to spend $500 million over five years to make the Sahara Desert a vast new front in its war on terrorism ... During the first phase of the program, dubbed Operation Flintlock, 700 US Special Forces troops and 2,100 soldiers from nine North and West African nations [participated].'[14]
This year's 22-day Flintlock 2010, launched on 2 May, includes 600 US special forces and 150 counterparts from Britain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Spain.
'The objective of Flintlock 10 is to develop military interoperability ... Centred in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, but with tactical training conducted in Senegal, Mali, Mauritania and Nigeria, Flintlock 10 will begin 2 May and end 23 May, 2010 ... Flintlock 10 looks to build upon the successes and lessons learned during previous Flintlock exercises, which were conducted to establish and develop regional relationships and synchronisation of efforts among the militaries of the Trans-Saharan region.
'This exercise will take place in the context of the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP). Supported by the US Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and the Special Operations Command (SOCAFRICA), the exercise will provide military training opportunities...'[15]
AFRICOM recently announced that the Special Operations Command Africa 'will gain control over Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans-Sahara (JSOTF-TS) and Special Operations Command and Control Element - Horn of Africa (SOCCE-HOA)',[16] to centralise special forces activities in Africa.
Efforts to create the proposed African Standby Force brigade in the north of Africa have floundered for several reasons. Egypt is not a member of the Maghreb Union nor is it in AFRICOM's area of responsibility. Libya is one of the most vocal opponents of AFRICOM. There is residual tension between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara, which Algeria recognises as an independent nation. But Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia are all members of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue partnership program.
AFRICOM's plans for regional military intervention contingents are proceeding more favourably in the east, west and south. In June of 2008 the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) conducted a military exercise, Jigui 2008, in Mali with its 15 member states, and 'for the first time, the regional force exercise involved the African Union, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the multinational Standby High Readiness Brigade based in Denmark (SHIRBRIG) and the Ethiopia-based Eastern African Standby Force (EASTBRIG).
'All the exercises were supported by the host governments as well as France, Denmark, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the European Union.
'Jigui 2008 is consistent with previous training programmes of ECOWAS and is within the framework of the African Union (AU) Standby Force, which seeks to have ready by 2010 one force by each of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in Africa.
'The ECOWAS target is to create a 2,770-man Task Force of the 6,500 troops of the regional force which will be available under the control of the AU.'[17]
A year before Senegal hosted military manoeuvres with several other West African nations - Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, the Republic of Guinea (Conakry) and Mali - to 'test the [troops'] deployment ability' with military aircraft, vehicles and ships provided by France 'ahead of the planned creation of an ECOWAS standby force'.
The participating states were trained to 'form the western battalion of the 6,500-men intervention force which ECOWAS wants to set up by 2010.
'Army chiefs of ECOWAS member countries agreed in June 2004 to create the permanent 6,500-man force, including the 1,500-strong rapid reaction unit for troubleshooting missions.'[18]
Jigui 2009 was held in Burkina Faso with the participation of US Army Africa and the Vicenza, Italy-based army component of AFRICOM.
Last month ECOWAS held a field training exercise in Benin, Exercise Cohesion Benin 2010, which 'aimed to evaluate the operational and logistics readiness of the Eastern Battalion of the ESF, which is part of the overall preparation for the operationalisation of the African Standby Force by December 2010'.[19]
In October of last year the Kenyan press reported on Western involvement in building the African Standby Force brigade at the eastern end of Africa:
'Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish officers will assist the region in the ongoing establishment of a united military force to deal with conflicts on the continent.
'Once functional, the East African Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) will be deployed to trouble spots within 14 days after chaos erupts, to restore order ... The brigade will have troops from 14 countries.
'The experts from the European countries ... are based at the EASBRIG headquarters, at the Defence Staff College in Karen, Nairobi.
'Vice-Chief of General Staff Julius Karangi said the foreign experts would help fast-track the process of setting up the standby brigade.'[20]
EASBRIG consists of troops from Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, and through the Eastern African Standby Brigade Coordination Mechanism is moving toward the consolidation of the eastern wing of the African Standby Force.
The East African Standby Brigade is to be headquartered in Kenya, and last November a field training exercise was held for it in Djibouti where the US has its main military base in Africa and France has its largest anywhere abroad. A Rwandan news source wrote of it months afterward: 'The historical exercise brought together approximately 1,500 troops, police and civilian staff from 10 countries working side-by-side for the first time.'[21]
The most immediate site for the use of the East African Standby Brigade is Somalia, where member states Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya are already involved. EASBRIG will also be available for operations in Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic, as well as against Eritrea. In March of last year AFRICOM chief General William Ward 'cited three areas of current conflict on the continent, including border disputes between Eritrea and Djibouti on the Horn of Africa and in North Africa [with] the Western Sahara, and clashing in the Democratic Republic of Congo'.
Speaking of the command he heads, Ward added, 'the United States was able to lend assistance to Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and to a lesser degree ... the Central African Republic.'[22]
The European Union, already involved in the first naval operation in its history, European Union Naval Force Somalia - Operation Atalanta, in the Horn of Africa, has deployed a military mission to Uganda to train 2,000 Somali troops to defend the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu.
AFRICA PARTNERSHIP STATION: US WARSHIPS PATROL AFRICAN COASTS
In recent years US Naval Forces Europe-Africa has developed the Africa Partnership Station (APS) as a naval component of AFRICOM. Its first deployment took the APS to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Senegal, Sao Tome & Principe, and Togo - all on the Gulf of Guinea except for Senegal, which lies to the north of it.
In the same year, 2007, NATO's Standing Maritime Group 1, with one warship each from Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the US, started a circumnavigation of Africa with stops in the Gulf of Guinea and ending with 'exercises in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Somalia...'[23]
At the time Admiral Henry Ulrich, commander of US Naval Forces Europe, said: 'The Global Fleet Station concept is "closely aligned" with the task to be provided by the still-developing US Africa Command',[24] and later announced the departure of the USS Fort McHenry and the High Speed Vessel Swift for a seven-month deployment to the Gulf of Guinea in November of 2007 as part of the Navy's Global Fleet Station programme. The Africa Partnership Station is one of several Global Fleet Stations recently set up by the US, others being assigned to the Caribbean Sea and Oceania. 'As a dock landing ship, the Fort McHenry is designed to help get US personnel onto "hostile shores", according to the Navy.'[25]
Phil Greene, director of Strategy and Policy, Resources and Transformation for US Naval Forces Europe, added that the USS Fort McHenry would have a multinational staff, 'partnering with nations such as France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and others who have an interest in developing maritime security in that region'.[26]
In fact the USS Fort McHenry first arrived in Spain 'to take on passengers from several European partners - Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Germany, among them - before heading to the Gulf of Guinea', where it was joined by the High Speed Vessel Swift to 'transport students as well as trainers during visits to Senegal, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, Gabon, and Sao Tome and Principe'.[27]
In 2007 US warships visited Mozambique for the first time in 33 years and Tanzania for the first time in 40.
As part of Africa Partnership Station port visits last year, the guided-missile destroyer Arleigh Burke travelled to Djibouti, Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and South Africa, in the last case holding a week of joint exercises with one of the nation's warships.
In February of 2009 'for the first time the US Navy [had] warships on each side of the African continent as part of Africa Partnership Station's ongoing teaching mission with African nations.'[28] To wit, a frigate in Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania and an amphibious transport dock in Senegal.
The month before a US frigate became the first navy warship to anchor off Equatorial Guinea's mainland city of Bata 'as part of the Navy's Africa Partnership Station initiative', after visits to Cape Verde, Senegal, Benin and Sierra Leone on its way to Tanzania and Kenya.
The US chargé d'affaires in Equatorial Guinea was quoted as offering one reason for the visit: 'It's the third largest oil and gas-producer in sub-Saharan Africa, with a significant foreign investment footprint...'[29]
'The October 2007 initial deployment of the Africa Partnership Station (APS) to the Gulf of Guinea and the coincident rollout of A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower signalled a strong American commitment to leveraging US sea power ... The APS is a Global Fleet Station (GFS) sea base designed to assist the Gulf of Guinea maritime community in developing better maritime governance ... The Global Fleet Station, born out of a need for military shaping and stability operations ... is a proven concept for this mission in such areas as the Gulf of Guinea and the Caribbean basin.'[30]
Currently AFRICOM is leading the Phoenix Express 2010 maritime counter-insurgency exercise in the Mediterranean Sea with Morocco and Senegal among other African nations.
Paralleling NATO's almost nine-year Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean, which patrols the northern coast of Africa from the Suez Canal to the Strait of Gibraltar, the US Navy now regularly roams the African coastline from where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean down to the strategic oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and all the way south to Cape Town, then north again along the entire Indian Ocean coast to the Red Sea. Africa is encircled by US and NATO warships.
PENTAGON BUILDS SURROGATE ARMIES TO CONTROL AFRICA REGION BY REGION
On the mainland, the Pentagon has transformed the armed forces of Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia into military surrogates on both ends of the continent. Since 2006 'a US State Department-led initiative ... has completely rebuilt the military in Liberia', according to AFRICOM.[31]
Last October the commander of US Army Africa, Major General William B. Garrett III, visited Rwanda (whose military is a US and British proxy) and 'stressed that the US army is interested in strengthening its cooperation with the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF)'. Garrett confirmed that the US was ready to send more advisers and trainers for the Rwandan army and added, 'Likewise, we hope that the Rwandan Defence Forces can also participate in our exercises. So we are hoping to increase the level of cooperation between the US and the Rwandan defence forces.'[32]
Earlier in the year AFRICOM's General Ward also visited Rwanda, where he 'met with Rwandan defence leaders and watched displays of Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) capabilities during a two-day visit April 20-21, 2009'.[33]
Late last year Ward visited Morocco, a US military partner for several decades, where he had paid two visits the preceding year, and 'discussed bilateral military cooperation and opportunities to strengthen partnership between the Royal Armed Forces and the US Army'.
Recently US marines trained Moroccan troops in Spain ahead of 12-nation naval manoeuvres in the Mediterranean Sea.
On 28 April this year Ward paid his third visit to Botswana, 'where he discussed ongoing regional security efforts and potential future military-to-military activities with the BDF [Botswana Defence Force] ... The BDF and US military conducted 40 cooperation events together in 2010.'
The following day the AFRICOM chief paid his first visit to Namibia where 'he met with Namibia's National Defence Force officials to discuss potential future cooperation activities'.[34]
On 27 April Brigadier General Silver Kayemba, chief of training and operations for the Ugandan People's Defence Force (UPDF), visited Washington to meet with Major General William B. Garrett III, commander of US Army Africa.
The Ugandan general was quoted saying on the occasion: 'This visit strengthens our relationship with the US Armed Forces, particularly with US Army Africa. We are looking forward to even closer cooperation in the future.'[35]
Under an Africa Partnership Station programme, a 130-troop Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task Force has been training military forces in Ghana, Liberia and Senegal. The marine commander in charge, Lieutenant Colonel John Golden, said: 'This is the cutting edge of phase zero counterinsurgency', an aspect of 'military-to-military training in a very austere environment in areas where there hasn't been a lot of US military presence in the last 235 years.'[36]
A report by the Stars and Stripes on 2 May disclosed that 'At a remote military base in the jungle city of Kisangani, an elite team of US troops is attempting to retrain a battalion of Congolese infantrymen.'
The feature laid emphasis on the humanitarian facet of the operation, as reports on AFRICOM activities generally do, but also contained these excerpts:
'There are economic and strategic incentives to bringing more security to the Congo, which is rich in natural resources such as cobalt, a key component in the manufacturing of cell phones and other electronics. The country contains 80 percent of the world's cobalt reserves ... An April 2009 report to Congress by the National Defense Stockpile Center made clear that ensuring access to mineral markets around the world is of vital interest to national security.'[37]
The US is not dragging almost every nation in Africa into its military network because of altruism or concerns for the security of the continent's people. AFRICOM's function is that of every predatory military power: The threat and use of armed violence to gain economic and geopolitical advantages.
This article was originally published by Uruknet.info. Rick Rozoff is the list manager of the Stop Nato international email news list. – Pambazuka News

Can we expect anything from the Tories?

Their properties and interests spawn the world. The decisions they make are premised to ensure protection of their interests.
The Herald
By Alexander Kanengoni
THERE is obviously nothing much to expect from the recent quasi-election victory of the Conservatives in the United Kingdom especially when they are in a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats but a fleeting look at history reveals a rather interesting story.

Let me begin with the formation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953 during the nascent stages of the rise of African nationalism.

Winston Churchill, a Conservative, was the prime Minister then. The Federation, which Kenneth Kaunda aptly described as a relationship between horse and rider, was intended to forestall the rise of African nationalism and entrench British interests.

The point here is the Conservatives took the problem head-on and did not try to wash it off their hands, as we shall see the Labour Party consistently doing. The Conservatives formed the Federation to entrench British interests.

When they realised they could not stem the rise of African nationalism and the demand for independence almost became violent, they agreed to dismantle the Federation in 1963.

Although the actual dismantling was presided over by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, another Conservative prime minister, it was Harold MacMillan, who was also a Conservative, who had set the tone in his famous "Winds of Change" speech in Cape Town in 1960.

Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia subsequently became independent in 1964 and 1965 and became Malawi and Zambia respectively. At the same time in 1965, Ian Smith revolted against the British and declared his own independence. This time, it was the Labour Party under Harold Wilson that was in power.

Wilson threatened to use force to dislodge Ian Smith but he never did it. Instead, it was to the United Nations where he sped to try and dump the Rhodesia crisis and wash his hands clean.

He called for non-recognition of the rebellious government and lobbied for international sanctions to be imposed on the breakaway colony. A series of fruitless meetings to resolve the crisis were held with the British but Ian Smith remained defiant. Perhaps he could see the sympathy the Labour Party had for him.

In 1969, he came up with a draft constitution that he took to the traditional chiefs who he claimed were the legitimate leaders of the blacks for endorsement. The Chiefs Council, chaired by Chief Jeremiah Chirau, as expected, endorsed it.

In the draft constitution, white interests remained entrenched. The voters' roll remained qualified with an A, B and C rolls based on property, education and remuneration. All the whites were on the A roll, a few blacks on B and the rest on C.

There were some blacks that would not even qualify to vote. One vote in roll A was equivalent to five votes in the B roll and 10 in C. Using that design, it would be almost impossible to get any black into Ian Smith's parliament.

Smith took the draft to the British as a settlement proposal that he claimed had the blessings of the blacks. It so happened that in 1970, the Conservatives stormed into power under Edward Heath, sweeping aside the Labour Party.

There is no assumption that Labour might have endorsed the proposal but at least, the Tories had the sense to put the draft to a referendum rather than merely accept Ian Smith's claim.

In 1971, Edward Heath sent what was known as the Pearce Commission to establish whether the blacks really accepted Smith's draft constitution. I was at Kutama High School then and I remember the grey-haired and studious looking members of the commission coming and asking our opinion.

We felt important because someone had realised we too mattered. Our answer was a vehement NO! It didn't require anyone to have gone to school to see that we had no place and future in the draft constitution. It could only require the Rhodesia Front's handpicked chiefs to endorse such a document.

Meanwhile, dark clouds of the liberation war were massing on the country's horizon. We had worked out clearly our own solution to the Rhodesian problem.

I don't believe the Tories did it out of any love for us. As Dr Stan Mudenge pointed out in a recent interview, it was more out of the desire to protect their interests here. Unlike Labour, the Conservative Party is a party of the propertied.

Their properties and interests spawn the world. The decisions they make are premised to ensure protection of their interests.

Ian Smith tried something more. Against the backdrop of an intensified war, he cobbled another arrangement in 1978 with Chief Jeremiah Chirau, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Ndabaningi Sithole and called it the Internal Settlement.

Labour was in power then under James Callaghan. As usual, the party engaged Smith in a series of fruitless talks in Geneva and Malta. Besides the United Nations, the Labour Party had roped in the Americans and Henry Kissinger, the American Secretary for State, was shuttling between Rhodesia, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania and England to work out a deal. As usual, the Labour Party watched from the sidelines with folded hands.

Ian Smith was desperate for recognition of his internal political settlement. Bishop Muzorewa, who had been elected as prime minister of the country now they called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, travelled the world to solicit support for the deal.

Mixed signals began to come from the Western capitals regarding the deal. In the USA, some Republicans were prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. And in London, too, the Labour Party seemed to have found the perfect opportunity to rid themselves permanently of the Rhodesian problem.

Ian Smith could smell whiffs of victory in the air and for the first time since UDI, he was allowed to visit Washington and London to argue his case. As he made presentations in America and England, the arrogance that the brutal guerrilla war had chiselled away from his voice over the years returned.

He had been given the strongest indication that they might after all recognise his internal settlement.

Then, once again, something happened in the UK in 1979 similar to what had happened in 1970. The Labour Party was swept out of power and Margaret Thatcher came in.

At the Commonwealth Conference in Lusaka towards the end of that year, she hammered out the framework of an all-party conference that included the nationalists to be held at Lancaster House in London.

The Lancaster House Agreement was the result of that conference and elections were held in February 1980 and independence was attained on April 18 the same year. Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF won the elections and he became the first Prime Minister of an independent Zimbabwe.

There is absolutely no suggestion that we got our independence from the benevolence of the Tories but it must be accepted that unlike the Labour Party, they were prepared to roll their sleeves and take responsibility of the problem.

Perhaps Labour Party's hypocrisy is best summarised by that infamous letter Claire Short wrote to Kumbirai Kangai disclaiming ownership of the Lancaster House Agreement on the basis that the Tories negotiated it. President Mugabe himself is on record as saying that if the Conservatives had been in power between 1996 and 2010, our relations with the British might not have degenerated to this woeful extent.

And once our relations began to nosedive a decade ago, Tony Blair, just like what Harold Wilson did in 1965, rushed to the United Nations, the USA and the European Union and called for sanctions thus internationalising the problem that was technically bilateral. The Americans imposed the punitive ZDERA and the Europeans responded in equal measure from their headquarters in Brussels.

I have always argued that the fundamental disagreement between the British and us at the moment is interpretation and implementation of the terms of the Lancaster House Agreement regarding the land issue.

We negotiated the agreement with the Conservative Party as the Labour Party, in their usual bid to run away from the problem, rightly pointed out through Claire Short's letter.
The Conservatives have a solid history of taking our issue head-on. I don't think it's expecting too much of them to act differently from Labour regarding our turbulent disagreement.

Just as it was in 1979, when we had clearly determined the would solve our problem through the war, we have got the inclusive Government and the Global Political Agreement as the way to resolve our problem.

And yet there are other issues beyond our control. We want sanctions to be removed and the British, under Labour, were instrumental in the imposition of those sanctions.

It might be misplaced to expect the Tories to act differently but historically, they have always been the people to look us in the eye and do things we least expected. Certainly not, because they love us, but because they will be thinking of themselves more.

We will see.

ZDERA: When American T is not sweet

"...the new letter is a "T", not an "I" or a "U" for "inclusive" or "unity" Government. Obviously the divisive goals of the law make "unity" or "inclusivity" incongruous. The accent is on transition, but not to suggest the importance of elections, but rather the ephemerality of the present politics which clearly fall short of America’s foreign policy goals."
The Herald
(Column)
THE conquest and opening up of North America to British occupation in the 17th Century was achieved through the exertion of various players: individuals, orthodoxy missionaries, heretics, fortune-seekers, hardcore criminals, companies, etc, etc.

Always couched in the language of gushing divinity and wonderfully good intentions, this enterprise of subduing and despoiling local Indians was, quite naturally, a bloody affair whose justification lay in bringing "civilisation" and "good news" to the heathens. It was no irony to Albion that "good news" flew to natives as piercing projectiles of hot lead or cannon balls, indeed visited them as fire and brimstone from the maxim gun.

Colonial lore

Those to be civilised had to be killed first, Britain’s strange kindness which repeatedly comes through in colonial lore. In 1703, soon after the slaughter of Pequot Indians, a colonial soldier, prompted by a clergyman, wrote: "Sometimes the scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents." If you think this was some freak sentiment, listen to Massachusetts Bay Company. Founded in 1620 to herald corporatised British imperialism, the Bay Company was no less ingenious in explaining such needful genocidal deaths of natives. Blending so well with this abiding ethos of impunity and nonchalance in the face of genocidal mass murder of native Indians - by arms, by diseases or as in the case of Barbados, by rum — the company’s governor [CEO in those days ruled the main!], John Winthrop, upon hearing the "good" news that a smallpox epidemic [imported by the invading British] was wiping out local Indians, was not slow in detecting and reading Divine Will in the ensuing tragedy. He remarked: "They [local Indians] are all dead of the small pox so as the Lord cleareth our title to what we possess". Imperialism has always draped its mission in divinity and high purpose.

Come over and help us!

But Massachusetts Bay Company is richer in significance. Its history furnishes mankind with an exemplum of seminal grim humour. It set on its seal a device which showed an Indian with a scroll above his head with the inscription: "Come over and help us." This was a benighted native’s call and plea to the white man, all written in perfect English! So the company could not have been an invader or killer. Reluctantly and with the humility of the wielder of a burdensome mission, it had harkened to an emergency call from "a thing most brutish", a benighted race of heathens. No iota of self-aggrandisement, no hurtful contact. Only selfless, puritanical zeal and piety as befits God’s chosen race! How different is this from a man and woman who goes to America with a sanctions draft bill for formalisation into America’s punitive arsenal? Come over and help us!

Colonial sense and sensibility

For many, all this belongs to history, which is what would seem to make the above paragraph some kind of gratuitous self-indulgence, a dabbling in superfluous memories from a bygone era. Yet few know that imperialism works through forced erasure for the colonised. Its trends and thoughts appear to have been a one-time oddity, long gone by and severely antiquated and therefore discarded. That is a grave error for the colonised. The imperial tradition has an abiding hold on western mind, politics and practices. It is a living tissue that permeates current (mal)practices. This seminal juxtaposition of cruelty and kindness, greed and piety, death and redemption then, persists and exists now, albeit manifesting itself through various and vexing permutations. The western mind, specifically Anglo-American mind, remains steeped in colonial sense and sensibility. One citation suffices. Bring me any one lynching statement of Zimbabwe by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or by State Department which is not prefaced by long statistics of what Britain/America has done to help heathen natives in Zimbabwean: by way of health, food, clean water, education and, hey, good governance, democracy and human rights, and I will be prepared to give you a decolonised Britain or America. Yesterday it was ignorance and heathenism. Today it is poverty and underdevelopment. The white man’s burden may be changing with time and circumstances, but it runs through and through to the current interface, uninterrupted from the days of Captain Cook.

And now ZTDERA

This issue is a long tale whose telling is sure to outlast many moons, many lives, many ears. I will narrow it down to Zimbabwe Transition to Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZTDERA) of 2010, the new law which presumptuous America - itself a British transplant – proposes for our country, Zimbabwe. Call it America’s sequel law under Democrats and their Obama.

How sweet America sips

This new law is packaged as an improved sequel to the notorious Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) which America, then under the Republicans and their Bush, passed against Zimbabwe in 2001. So America has moved from Republican ZDERA to Democrats’ ZTDERA. The net gain is the mighty letter "T" which Obama’s Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, thought of adding to mark and reward the new situation we find ourselves in, by way of the Inclusive Government. Let’s test the Democrats’ "T" for sweetness.

And you, too, Brutus?

Here is a sample of the confusion which can easily visit an unsuspecting nation. The Southern Times, itself a joint venture publication between Governments of Zimbabwe and Namibia initially welcomed this so-called amendment to ZDERA, simply on the strength of some regime-change NGO which the editor may have read for direction. After a better wind, the editor "withdrew" his baffling editorial for a better one. But the damage had been done by a man who should know better. Then you have our Prime Minister who happened to have been in the US when the monstrous law was introduced and debated. He, too, welcomed it! Some very high-ranking MDC official and Cabinet Minister went as far as suggesting Cabinet must draft a supportive paper to the Fishmonger Group. My goodness, turning Zimbabwe’s Cabinet into a Committee of a strange association of equally strange imperial ambassadors? I hear the Fishmonger Group has since met and resolved that ZTDERA is indeed a good legal proposition which must be supported. Did this minister have anything to do with this decision of those who enjoy fish while sitting on Zimbabwe’s carrion? Come over and help us!

Sweetener for MDC-T

Of course it is not difficult to see why the divided MDC-T would welcome this monstrosity. Divided MDC-T, if truth be said. I happen to know a number of MDC-T officials who have taken a progressive stance against this latest American outrage, and have made this known to their Zanu (PF) counterparts. And recognition is due to DPM Mutambara for making the first official Government reaction to this thing of the disgraceful Obama, misled by his State Department under a woman who thinks President Mugabe snubbed her once upon a time when she visited us as America’s First Lady; misled by right-wing congressmen, a good number of whom wear my colour. ZTDERA’s so-called "Findings" include a paragraph which reads saccharine to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister: "Under the direction of the new Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, both from the MDC, the transitional government in Zimbabwe has initiated a series of critical economic reforms, putting a stop to some of the quasi-fiscal activities of the previous administration, resuming salary payments to civil servants, and directing limited budget resources towards critical social protection services and infrastructure repairs." Yes, there is sweet tea in that paragraph of remarkable inaccuracies, innuendos and downright lies.

Playing divisive game in MDC-T

If Tsvangirai is "the new Prime Minister", who is the old one? And what is it which makes his premiership "new" but without making Biti’s ministerial appointment equally "new"? Surely they were appointed at the same time? Let us grant it that America will not recognise Mugabe or the Cabinet of Zimbabwe for making "new" policies. Why mention Tsvangirai and Biti in seeming apposition? Surely it would have sufficed to put everything under the "new Prime Minister" to whom America would want to see charge transfer unconditionally. Why upgrade his underling? Why mention in equal measure persons who have a hierachical relationship? A-haa, therein lies America’s poison. America envisages two competing leadership trajectories in the MDC-T, through the persons of Tsvangirai and Biti. It is remarkably revealing that the two get separate and competing reference at this time of seething rumours about their relationship, and that America has decided to enshrine this split leadership in her daft, sorry draft, law. It will be interesting to see whether name-mentioning in a bill is with precedent in the world history of law-making.

And now the real lies ...

But in which Zimbabwe does the Prime Minister and Finance Minister direct policy? And which policies have the two initiated? Why spring a lie for honest Biti? Spend a minute with him and Tendai will be quick to tell you that at the start of the Inclusive Government he did no more to the budget than what Chinamasa, as acting Finance Minister just before the Inclusive Government, presented to the nation. It was Chinamasa, not Biti, who introduced a basket of currencies as trading units at home. It was Chinamasa, not Biti, who dollarised earnings of civil servants. And much more. Further, honest Biti will tell you he found STERP already in place before his appointment, with his modest input being on governance issues to make the stabilisation plan speak to the times, as well as improve its appeal to governance-obsessed donors. So what is America talking about? And which salaries for civil servants? Empires do lie.

Barack Bush?

Read by illegitimacy, content and intention, there is no real difference between ZDERA and ZTDERA. That means no real policy shift between Republicans and Democrats, between George Bush and Barack Obama, indeed between America then and America now. A "T" is just a letter in the sanctions alphabet and let no one pontificate. Strange minds are inclined to tell us that 4(3) under "Statement of Policy" marks a departure. It allows "the promotion of trade by United States companies with Zimbabwe to stimulate the country’s economic growth and support the livelihoods of its people."

It’s very tempting to read it as a departure from previous orders prohibiting American companies from doing business with Zimbabwe. I hope you have not, gentle reader, missed the language of divinity and high purpose in that clause. What has Zimbabwe’s economic growth to do with the return of US companies? What has livelihoods of Zimbabwean people to do with US companies? Why did they leave in the first place if their anchor was the livelihoods and economic growth of Zimbabwe? Surely America has always told us its sanctions target Zanu (PF) people? And how does the collapse of Zimbabwean economy and livelihoods constitute "a continuing, extraordinary threat to US foreign policy"?

The fear of Chinese encroachment

The truth is that with the dragon (China) lurking on the continent and in Zimbabwe in particular, and against the background of the ensuing economic meltdown in that country, America has no choice but to modify its policy towards Zimbabwe, an ill-conceived policy which was beginning to pose a continuing, extraordinary threat to its interests in Zimbabwe and the sub-region. Besides, America had hoped for a short, sharp war with Zimbabwe whose Government was expected to collapse within a year of sanctions and subversion. It is remarkable that Zanu (PF) has been able to stretch America this far, including now under conditions of inclusivity. America cannot afford a longer conflict, which is why it is basically adjusting its costly and futile law to cut costs to itself, never for the high purpose of improving Zimbabwe’s economy and livelihoods.

Splitting the Zimbabwean person

Intentionally, ZTDERA seeks to divide Zimbabwe: by way of its people, by way of its parties, within its parties and by way of its Government. I have already referred to how this new law encourages divisive leadership big-headedness within the MDC-T, in line with America’s long-reached decision to take advantage of MDC-T’s leadership calendar to effect a change of guards at Harvest House. But much worse, through selective support to "reform-minded" ministries and departments, both the Zimbabwean Government and Zimbabwean person are split and partitioned. If America thinks Made is not reform-minded, while Chamisa is, the outcome of that beauty contest is that the Zimbabwean citizen is being told to seek ye the kingdom of ICT on an empty stomach! After all Christian America knows that man does not live on bread alone! Or if America thinks Mnangagwa is not good enough, while Coltart is, clearly the Zimbabwean citizen is supposed to echo the words attributed to an unnamed tribesman during the onslaught of colonisation, who was said to make the following plea to an invading colonial army: "Give me a Gospel for an assegai as the love of war has been taken out of my heart." Which economy ever grew from such partitioned, differential inputs? Clearly what is at issue here is not the Zimbabwean economy.

… and regime change

Thirdly, ZTDERA still upholds and pursues the regime change agenda. Significantly the new letter is a "T", not an "I" or a "U" for "inclusive" or "unity" Government. Obviously the divisive goals of the law make "unity" or "inclusivity" incongruous. The accent is on transition, but not to suggest the importance of elections, but rather the ephemerality of the present politics which clearly fall short of America’s foreign policy goals. Surely elections which must come as they have always done before, cannot be a marker of transition. If they were, then all democratic societies, America included, would have been perpetually transitional.

It is clear then that America is not agitating for just another election. It expects an election which changes the regime (read as bundle of rules structuring a society) of Zimbabwe as we have it, to ensure an outcome which coheres with American goals. This is why the law agitates for "security sector reforms" which America does not seem to know have become antiquated talk in the National Security Council.

Land, land, land, stupid

Lastly, ZTDERA is clear in its intention to reverse land reforms and re-introduce colonial property relations in the name of "private property rights." Surely at the global level, Zimbabwe’s natural resources are national private property which must not be violated by marauding states such as the United States of America? Why is international law permitting what it denounces under domestic law? The vehicle for rolling back land reforms is land audit and it does not need extra imagination to know what is good for America.

Still thy brother’s killer

So this is all that all those frenetic black Congressmen were trooping here for? Curiously, in the needless meetings which the President correctly ended up turning down, it was the African-African American who led the charge against an African Government. The irony is upheld when one realises the main sponsor of this latest outrage is still a black congressman. The irony gets particularly painful when one finds within our own ranks persons dangling a plaque eminently reading: "America, come and help us." Need we blame her for the lexicon of divinity and high purpose? Icho!