Why US interference in Zim is “terribly contentious”

Who, for example, would believe Ray’s statement that US “does not favour any one party over another in Zimbabwe” and wants to see a level playing field in the party politics of Zimbabwe?

By Tichaona Zindoga

Against a backdrop of rasping actions lately, United States of America Ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray made quite a sober presentation at a dialogue forum last Thursday.

He was making a presentation on “The Future of US-Zimbabwe Relations”.

 The American diplomat recently ruffled feathers when he said that Zimbabwe needed to be rebuilt from the from the foundation not from the roof which was interpreted to mean that his country had a more hideous agenda above the current regime change it wants to institute through the MDC formations.

Ray has also been active interacting with youths and newspapers among other curious activities, which would, as pointed out by some observers, make anyone mistake him for an MDC activist.

Some have called him the de facto MDC spokesman.

But at the diaogue forum Ray was more diplomatic, to the extent of calling for the opening of communication lines and building of bridges “of mutual confidence that we have allowed to fall into disrepair”.

In fact, Ray pointed out, he did not believe in the semantics of “re-engagement” as his country had full diplomatic relations with Zimbabwe.

But for the ideal relations between Washington and Harare there had to be certain conditions that the latter had to fulfil in this future that Ray said would be without “sanctions or restrictive measures”.

Zimbabwe’s parties, said Ray, should implement fully “the commitments that they themselves have made in the Global Political Agreement, as state institutions are delinked from partisan allegiances, and as credible elections are held and honoured, there will be no reason for the United States to retain our current sanctions policy in place.”

He declared: “I do not think that any of these objectives is terribly contentious.

“I would argue that those most likely to feel concerned when they hear some of these statements are those who recognise the illegitimacy of their positions of privilege or who recognise the abuses of authority in their own records.”

Not so many people would however fail to see beyond Ray’s seeming sincerity and practicality.

In fact, there is everything terribly contentious and indeed dangerous about US intervention in Zimbabwe.

Who, for example, would believe Ray’s statement that US “does not favour any one party over another in Zimbabwe” and want to see a level playing field in the party politics of Zimbabwe?

To this date of the inclusive Government the US government continues to have blatant allegiances to the MDC formations, especially MDC-T, and would cough when the party sneezes and have the idiosyncrasy of feeling along with the party when it is perceivably under attack from Zanu-PF.

Haven’t the world seen the almost similar statements that the US embassy in Harare and MDC-T issue on topical issues?

Take the statement made by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai when he did not attend the Anti-sanctions petition campaign in March and went on to address a press conference at his house in Strathaven.

Ray went on to write a letter in an “independent” newspaper which bore striking resemblance to Tsvangirai’s statement, including complaining that Zanu-PF had abused the Government coat of arms on the anti-sanctions adverts that appeared in the Press.

Then there is a multiplicity of organisations in the civil society with whom MDC formations share mutual funding, all in the name of America’s democracy promotion.

Clearly, the US itself has failed to de-link its allegiances to the MDC formations in the inclusive Government to the extent of barring a Zanu-PF member Walter Mzembi from attending a meeting between a Zimbabwe delegation led by Tsvangirai and US President Barack Obama.

(It does not matter, does it, that the US has removed Mzembi from their sanctions hit list.)

When it comes to the big issues of elections, the US provides support to the MDC formations and their foot soldiers in the media and NGO industry to win the hearts of Zimbabweans.

This does not make it any neutral nor does it make the Zimbabwe field even.

Right now the same media, NGOs and the MDC formations are calling for institutional “reforms” that are designed to clear the institutions of perceived Zanu-PF interests and “hardliners”.

The crime of these institutions and individuals is that they are resisting re-colonisation of Zimbabwe as intended by America.

America, it will be recalled as someone put it, is in a better position than former coloniser Britain to carry the out same.

America now seeks to rebuild Zimbabwe from the foundation not the roof by removing President Robert Mugabe only.

The modus operandi includes US diplomats getting to the communities and grassroots to get a favourable face.

It even includes the use of black people like Ray himself.

The latter has been thoroughly discredited and Ray exposed as an Uncle Tom in the service of the empire.

  The Zanu-PF that Ray believes “will, and should, continue to play an important part in Zimbabwe’s future” is certainly one bereft of “hardliners” who do not compromise on sovereignty.

Suffice to say a reformed Zanu-PF peopled with “reform-minded” members and leadership.

On elections it is no doubt that any elections that are won by Zanu-PF are in the eyes of US and the west are not free and fair, even in conditions and conduct that the West finds acceptable elsewhere.

Institutional “reform” will make sure Zanu-PF does not win.

This has little to do with the party being averse to reform but the fact that US always makes sure the field is tilted towards securing its interests.

It therefore insults to hear Ray making a pre-emptive judgement against those who might oppose its machinations and manoeuvres, believing that people would take US moves at face value.

As insulting is the patronising claims by America that she wants Zimbabwe as an equal partner when in fact it is known that when she has completed building the house from the foundation it will big-brother over us.

It is in its DNA.

That DNA has traces of racism that seeks to subjugate the black people of Zimbabwe that America did not want to see independent as America supported that rogue called Ian Smith who declared that blacks could never rule themselves in 1000 years.

That racism saw America imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2002 and legislator Cynthia McKinney helpfully noted that disturbing aspect.

In a word, there is everything terribly contentious in US’ meddling in Zimbabwe’s affairs.

Unpacking Tendai Biti's "trilemma"

Here comes an addition to Biti’s trilemma – to make a grotesque quadrilemma – that Biti and his MDC peers as handheld by the West cannot bring themselves to tackle the issue of sanctions.By

Tichaona Zindoga
Presenting the Mid-Term Fiscal Policy Review this week, Finance Minister Tendai Biti used a word that many people do not encounter every day.
He said Zimbabwe continued to suffer from a “trilemma” of high demand, huge expectations and weak fiscal space.
Many people would often relate to dilemmas, moreso in this politically polarised environment where someone has said that neutrals are an endangered species.
Of course in the legal fraternity where the minister hails from, the term is used fairly enough, as it also applies to religion, philosophy, and economics.
It will be interesting though to unpack what Biti calls Zimbabwe’s current trilemma.
He noted the current pressures of civil service wage demands, albeit justified, which he said was gobbling 70 percent of the total budget.
The huge demands and expectations on the budget, said he, were against domestic revenue collection.
On the other pillar of the trilemma, Biti said lack of fiscal space owed to limited (foreign) investment which left Zimbabwe largely relying on its own resources for capitalisation.
“Furthermore,” said Biti, “the country remains in the unenviable situation whereby the level of development assistance not only falls short of the levels enjoyed by other developing countries but largely remains outside the Government system.
“Notwithstanding the above, the inclusive Government appreciates the support our development partners have continued to pledge and disburse towards various sectors of the economy,” he said.
He noted further that with the “limited” alternative sources of revenue, domestic revenue on its own could not sustain Government’s “multitude” of requirements.
While there might be no denying of the situation above which Biti calls a trilemma – though there could be more as will be demonstrated here - there is something fundamentally about dishonest about Biti in relation to this situation.
Generally, it relates to Biti’s treatment of the politics of Zimbabwe’s economics from the partisan way which one is likely to find in MDC-T pamphlets.
Please note the repetition of the never-ending “outstanding issue of the GPA” which the MDC-T is so obsessed which Biti says slow or non-implementation thereof have “remained the number one nightmare.”
Because of the very dynamic nature of MDC formations’ list of outstanding issues, which even now include Douglas Nyikayaramba, the parties continue to play blame to mask their failure to bring meaningful development to Government.
Specifically, there is dishonesty in Biti as he fails to acknowledge that Zimbabwe’s fiscal space has been constricted by countries in the West that maintain sanctions against Zimbabwe.
It is not a secret that Zimbabwe does not receive development aid from United States of America and the European Union due to sanctions imposed by these countries on Zimbabwe.
These powers have even blocked Zimbabwe’s access to Global Fund to fight HIV and TB.
These countries deny Zimbabwe access to lines of credit at multilateral lending institutions such as the Bretton Woods institutions.
Sanctions stop Western companies from trading with Zimbabwe while countries in the West have attached risk stigma on investing in Zimbabwe.
Where the countries in the West have provided funds, the funds did not go into capacity building and suchlike developments but straight into consumables.
Even then, as Biti notes, the money is channelled through sources outside Government.
This is despite that Biti, who should hold the purse, is best Finance Minister in Africa!
Here comes an addition to Biti’s trilemma – to make the grotesque quadrilemma – that Biti and his MDC peers as handheld by the West cannot bring themselves to tackle the issue of sanctions.
Not that it will be in Western interests.
But Biti certainly would not want to be constricted, as demonstrated, while he finds the sanctions politically useful.
It is a complex web.
Ironically, Biti even mentions “policy inconsistencies and double-speak” as “imposing serious shocks and pressures on our economy”.
One finds it strange that Biti seems to apologise for his unforthcoming “development partners” notwithstanding their glaring shortcomings.
The torn, if not confused personality of Biti is as clearly demonstrated when he talks of diamonds.
Apart from the usual complaints about transparency, which have been noted to not have the best of intentions, one is struck by Biti’s impatience with the “international community” over Zimbabwe’s diamonds.
He says it is “important that the international community recognises the compliance levels attained by Zimbabwean companies and hence accord Zimbabwe the right of selling its diamonds within the Kimberly Process and Certification Scheme.”
By “international community”, of course Biti refers to the Western countries of the US, EU, Canada which have continued to try and deny Zimbabwe’s legitimate trade in its diamonds.
This is despite the fact that Zimbabwe has met all conditions necessary to trade under the banner of the KP.
A Finance Minister and a statesman worth his salt should have been equivocal about the issue.
In fact, Western interference at the KP, where they are a minority albeit a powerful one, is many, many times a danger to Zimbabwe’s diamond revenue than perceived leakages which Biti ostensibly wants to plug via that controversial Diamond Bill.
He should know that as well as any sane person can.
As Finance Minister, the best in Africa as we are made to believe, he should feel entitled to Zimbabwe potential diamond money that is being held up by the West.
Unfortunately, Biti is at a crisis again on this score.
Then big questions are should be asked of Biti and Zimbabwe.
Will Zimbabwe’s economy ever grow when Government through its Finance Minister prefers to go for cosmetic changes when there is need for critical and holistic changes?
 There is little doubt that the West poses a present and continuous threat to Zimbabwe.
Why won’t Biti become a true people’s champion and best African minister of finance by carrying the cause of the majority?
Why won’t the Government speak with one voice on the same threat, without the likes of Biti and his MDC peers being tempted to call against sanctions during the day while saying the opposite in their nocturnal moments with the West?

Zimbabwe should be able to slough off its dilemmas, trilemmas or a multiplicity of those forms and those who have the same really have no business masquerading as leaders.

Zimbabwe: Notes on the United States of America

Today America's ambassador here behaves like an aspiring local MP running under an MDC-T ticket.
He is everywhere, picking disputes with little men and women of local politics, engaging small constituencies that ordinarily would hardly be visible to his most junior officer in the mission. America has gone grassroots in her hostile engagement with Zimbabwe.
It engages vendors; it engages students; it engages war veterans, it engages nannies, etc, etc. Much worse, the American Embassy has an active cell in our newsrooms here.
It is buying newsprint for the so-called private media, in some cases it has repeatedly picked staff costs for newspapers that, except for her politically calculated beneficence, would have withered on the vine.
Today these papers do not need to sell, to attract advertisements at all. In one or two cases, products are free handouts, much like Rhodesia's African Times.
The Herald

FACED with a sub-region that grappled with the challenges of surviving under the shadow of a predatory empire; faced with a people who visualised their futures in terms of a powerful, rapacious northern empire they envied so unconditionally, so irrationally, Jose Marti, the founder of revolutionary Cuba, created a column in a US-based newspaper dedicated to Latino affairs.
The newspaper was called "Patria".

His column was simply entitled "Notes on the United States".
The column reprinted articles from early United States of America, articles clearly showing that far from enjoying innate virtue and glory, innate greatness, the United States of America - that land of invading immigrants, of "genocideres" - had in fact started off with more than a fair share of rejects, rogues and scoundrels, with more than fair share in murderers and thieves, more than ever existed or could ever exist in the Americas.

The column revealed that far from being a beneficiary of heavenly manna or Providential goodwill, America had struggled against vices, indolence, violent differences, mediocrities, conflictual identities, rapacity and backwardness, to become the mighty, united, developed and supremely unjust imperial "democracy" it later became. Against the Americas' mindless adulation and envy of this powerful and developed northern neighbour, Marti warned: "In our America, it is vital to know the truth about the United States.

We should not exaggerate its faults purposely, out of a desire to deny it all virtue, nor should these faults be concealed or proclaimed as virtues."

America's new near-abroad

Today Zimbabwe finds itself in more or less the same predicament.
Far more than the United Kingdom and the rest of continental Europe, America today treats Zimbabwe as her near-abroad, as her backyard. Today America is doing uglier things against Zimbabwe than our embittered "mother" country, Britain.

The scope of her intrusive politics in the national affairs of our country far exceeds her historical links claims and interests in this part of the world.

Even the 1969/70 National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM/69) done under the auspices of Henry Kissinger, while recognising Southern Africa as the "mineral Persian Gulf" of the world, devalued it as of direct strategic interest to America's national security.

But that was in 1969/70, a time of the Cold War, a time of liberation movements, a time of relative success for the American economy.
Today is 2011, a day in the unipolar age of American domination, doubtful domination at that, a decade of America's economic melt-down, one bearing down on her so inexorably, indeed a decade of acute resource shortages, set against resource nationalism, militant resource nationalism.
America is another empire, with a new set of eyes that see a different Southern Africa and within it, a marked little country called Zimbabwe which in history's yesterday, may have been a little, insignificant dot on the map.

Against America's current intense interest, one would be forgiven for thinking that Zimbabwe is a small, rich and strategic country in Latin America, geographically abutting the shores of north America in the era of another Cold War.
We have become America's Southern African Cuba. So far yet so near!

Ray, the local MDC MP
Today America's ambassador here behaves like an aspiring local MP running under an MDC-T ticket.
He is everywhere, picking disputes with little men and women of local politics, engaging small constituencies that ordinarily would hardly be visible to his most junior officer in the mission. America has gone grassroots in her hostile engagement with Zimbabwe.
It engages vendors; it engages students; it engages war veterans, it engages nannies, etc, etc. Much worse, the American Embassy has an active cell in our newsrooms here.
It is buying newsprint for the so-called private media, in some cases it has repeatedly picked staff costs for newspapers that, except for her politically calculated beneficence, would have withered on the vine.
Today these papers do not need to sell, to attract advertisements at all. In one or two cases, products are free handouts, much like Rhodesia's African Times.


Total strategy
The furious anger directed at Jonathan Moyo arises from the fact that he has revealed what should have been kept under wraps.
And what precious little revelation he has made, in relation to the scope of what America and her western allies are doing here!
There is a lot more happening which Professor Moyo does not know, may never know.
There is a lot more obvious, albeit indirect action which the good professor has not thrown up to public scrutiny.
Seemingly little, seemingly humanitarian things like using Bill Gates to fund the construction of condominiums in Mbare and other high-density suburbs.
This column shall do it's damnedest to give more tit-bits on this unfolding matter, one likely to be less and less discreet as we move towards elections.
America badly needs one outcome in that impending duel of democracy, and its ambassador here - gees he carries my pigmentation ! - is increasingly interpreting his role as taking matters beyond the hallways of diplomacy right down to Harare's hard streets where he meets vendors, paying them even.
Professor Jonathan Moyo...revealed what should have been kept under wraps.
He is now the shadow minister of war veterans, vendors, students, seminarians, the youth, the opposition, housing, ideology and many more things which shall unfold as the electoral tempo picks beat, this our kinsman from America!
America's intrusion has escalated, is highly mediased, and seeks to encompass total society.


Bad America is dead!
What I am addressing today is Obama's broke America with its bellicose focus on Africa, and within it, the highly mineralised but brittle Zimbabwe.
What I am addressing today is a Janus-faced America with a black president pursuing a white agenda; an America whose indefatigable black minions wave a supposedly totemless pro-democracy banner while pursuing aggressive, unenlightened self-interest. What I am addressing most is this mindless admiration of an assaulting America by sections within Zimbabwe, an irrational admiration reminiscent of Marti's Americas.
There is a genuine and even fervent belief in this country that America is a second liberator of Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans, a belief that America is doing all it does with a heart that profusely bleeds kindness for us and our welfare. Indeed, there is a belief that bad America belonged to the sixties and seventies, that bad America died in the sixties and seventies - hanged by her innumerable, bloody misdeeds in the Congo, Ghana, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Grenada etc, etc.
A fatal belief that good America has been born, has come, that today we have a born-again America, one out to save us from ourselves by way of eliminating our "bad" leaders, "bad" govern-ments, "bad" economics, "bad" advice, "bad" alliances, "bad" technologies, "bad" markets, "bad" democracies,"bad" morality, "bad" colour, "bad"dreams, badder aspirations.

There is this gratuitous admiration of baddest, assaulting America by us, its victims. We are an enchanted quarry. And when our successors look back at our age and its seeming collective blindness against so brazen a danger, so blatant an intrusion, they may not understand us. We shall come across as a generation that relished, nay, ululated at its own mortal assault. For no generation can be more deserving of a guilty charge than one unmoved by so guileless an intrusion.

Teaching Zimbabwe from an anthill
If you doubt this, ask yourself as a Zimbabwean why an outsider like Charles Ray feels comfortable and confident enough to mount a red savannah anthill to tell us - his hosts - the following mouth: "I don't think removing an individual (read President Mugabe) is going to solve the problems of Zimbabwe. The problems here are too complex and what is needed is to change the whole system . . . The situation here can be resolved with an interaction among and between the country's citizens and the army, the police, the media and the private sector. Until you fix all those relationships there will be no change. There can be only minor changes if he is removed as an individual."

Addressing a fallen species
Just what gives this ambassador the guts and the locus standi to say all these things, temerity to say all this without the slightest fear of contradiction, without a presentiment of worse to follow, by way of censorious diplomatic measures?
What? For goodness' sake he is not advising us on how to cook sadza better, how to grow better tomatoes.
He is not tipping us on how to mine better. He is telling us we are a bad home, a bad culture, a bad politics, a bad society, a bad government, a bad State and ultimately, a bad people.
We have to be born anew. Everything about us simply has to be uprooted, piled and burnt for a new, better society to be born from our ashes, we thistles!

His is the verdict of Divinity, a voice from an angry, righteous God addressing a fallen species. He is not asking for the overthrow of (President) Mugabe, the overthrow of Zanu-PF.
Those are too narrow a set of objectives. He is asking for the overthrow of a Zimbabwe that has emerged over "decades".
And given that we are a mere three decades after Independence, he is repudiating us, repudiating Independent Zimbabwe, all to three cheers from us! I hope the gentle reader notices that Ray excludes

Government in the reconstruction of the system he proposes for us; he is suggesting an antediluvian beginning, albeit one happily unfolding under the auspices of a selfless America. Except for our supine nature, what gives him the balls? What?

The real meaning of regime change
The lexis is clear.
His diction connects him to a political viewpoint, a political camp here. He is connecting with the notion of change as adopted by the MDC formations.
He is exceeding it even, to give the formations a more profound manifesto. He is addressing the notion of change whose desirability and acceptance by us he takes as given.
He is warning us against the artificial change we must not want, the deep change we need. But it is all civic change, not the fundamental one people like Kasukuwere and his ZANU-PF espouse, change founded on a new place and status for the native vis-a-vis the control of his/her resources. No, no, no!
Not that kind of change. The change he says we need is that of political governance only, change that subsist in security sector reforms, media reforms etc, etc.
Such change must welcome the rise of a pro-America civil society and of course an American-guided private sector.
I hope the gentle reader recalls the numerous conferences the Americans have been having at the Celebration Centre to "re-invent" the private sector here.
The upshot is that Ray has made a bold, existential statement about us -you and me - and this on behalf of his country America which visualizes itself in loco parentis to all of us.


America is losing the information war!
Why all this frantic response by our Ray? Let us build a context.
On March 2 this year, American Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The focus was on budgetary support for America's information sector. She came across as a deeply worried woman. America was losing the information war, she told the Committee.
I quote her: "During the Cold War we did a great job in getting America's message out. After the Berlin Wall fell we said, ‘Okay, fine, enough of that, we are done", and unfortunately we are paying a big price for it . . . We are in an information war and we are losing that war.
Al Jazeera is winning, the Chinese have opened a global multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English-language network. I've seen it in a few countries, and it is quite instructive."
She decried America's private information networks' failure to get America's messages abroad, preferring instead to sell America's unclad bodily curves by way of pornography and wrestling.
She just fell short of demanding the founding of State media, something unknown to America's mainstream media culture.
More significantly, she was talking not just of American media systems; rather, she addressed the combined reach and influence of Anglo-American media systems globally.
That tells you that on global affairs, only Africans act atomistically.
The previous year, Walter Isaacson, the man in charge of America's federal global broadcasting project within which falls Studio 7, had made the same frantic plea adding: "We can't allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies."

Serving the empire
Three months down the line, in June and in Lusaka here in Southern Africa, the same lady made a landmark address to Africans.
She was attending an AGOA review meeting. Heractual words are worth recalling in extenso: "We saw that during the colonial times, it was easy to come in, take our natural resources, pay off leaders and leave. And when you leave, you do not leave much behind for the people who are there. We don't want to see a new colonialism in Africa.... We want [investors] to do well but we also want them to do good. We don't want them to undermine good governance, we don't want them to basically deal with just the top elites, and frankly too often pay for their concessions or opportunities to invest." A little while later, addressing the
Zambian Chamber of Commerce she elaborated: "We want a relationship of partnership not patronage, of sustainability, not quick fixes.... We want to establish a strong new foundation to attract new investment, open new businesses...create more paychecks, and to do so within the context of a positive ethic of corporate responsibility. We think it's essential that we have an idea going that doing well is not in any way a contradiction of doing good."

A-historical moral universe
The emperor is building a universe in which his moral pretensions rule the roost. Exploitation happened some distant time in the colonial past. It is not American, it is not contemporary, it is not AGOA. Threats of continued exploitation come from the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, the Brazilians. Not from an America cutting deals with Rhodesia for continued chrome supply in spite of racist mis-governance of the natives. It is not Union Carbide creating a horrendous chemical genocide assault on India. It is not America creating war in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya to cream off oil and other base metals. Not America propping dictators in the Middle East or Latin America. No, all evil was in the colonial past, is in futures without her restraining hand of false piety. Here begins my problems. We tend to take America's claims at face value, to assume her goodness. Her present sense of morality is a-historical and we, the forgetful ones, are only ready to say Amen!

Perpetual elections
Against this background and the fact that America has only this month to stabilise her economy or face total ruin, it is not very difficult to comprehend what the western white empire, using blacks like Charles Ray, is trying to do here. Ray's dive into the murky world of newspaper vendors is not aberrational or idiosyncratic. He is obeying the dictates of a purposeful system in search of an information-led global re-dominance.

American imperialism has to have a punchy media correlative. We are seeing the local face of it here. American money translates into an hysterical tabloid media ethos united around screaming headlines as if they are run from the same newsroom, led by Siamese editors. Same headlines, same stories, same sources, same slant, often same sizes, same advertisements. Above all, same enemy. The objective is a simple one. Apart from demonising an individual and a certain type of politics, the objective is to create a continual atmosphere of febrile political excitement and ceaseless electioneering. Zimbabwe is about elections from Monday to Monday. Zimbabwe is about GPA and outstanding issues from Monday to Monday. Zimbabwe is about Zuma and Zulu from Monday to Monday. We have become a country in continual election mode, a country therefore in continual tension, thanks to the western media project here.

The input from labour
Something else is brewing. Apart from the instrument of the media, imperialism is harnessing labour to subvert all other investments from the non-western world. Especially Chinese investments, which is why unions which have presided over callous exploitation of Zimbabweans by western capital suddenly wake up to the so-called Chinese labour malpractices! Today we see screaming headlines of so-called Chinese bosses who cannot pay workers, who poison our wildlife. Really? A deliberate attempt to use the labour centre to whip an anti-Chinese sentiment in the country. We have become the askaris of the West. Our society has become one missile America can throw at her enemies abroad. I thought Mutambara put it so well in Parliament. He said: "You should not fight the Chinese on behalf of the Europeans. Most of the criticisms of the Chinese in Africa are initiated by their competitors from Europe and America. Africans are being used to do the bidding for them."

Seeing America's warts
Marti succeeded in creating a new political ethos which was independently Cuba. Bolivar tried the same, only succeeding recently through the Chavez and his Bolivarian revolution. Both societies have etched out a new destiny simply by exorcising the ghost of model America. They have looked inward, around themselves for inspiration, reaching the conclusion that the American model is neither possible nor desirable. Many in Zimbabwe see spotless America, cradle in its sweetened evil ways even. Will we ever see its ugly warts? I wonder. Icho!

Reverence for West's hatred for democracy!

The reverence continues no matter how dramatic the refutations. To select just one of many cases, in January 2006, the population of Palestine voted in an election that was recognised to be free and fair - apart from the Bush administration's intervention in an effort to gain victory for its favoured candidate, Mahmoud Abbas.
When the wrong side won, the US and Israel instantly turned to severe punishment of the population for their democratic errors, with Europe toddling along quite politely.The  Herald

By Reason Wafawarova
THE truism that characterises US meddling in the political affairs of weaker nations can be the Reaganite "democracy enhancement", the Bush II "democratisation," or the Blairite "democracy promotion," but the dramatic demonstration of the West's general hatred and contempt for democracy cannot be treated as controversial, at least from the view point of Aristotle's idea of democracy.

Refutations in relation to the declared nobility of the West's intentions whenever Western elites make interventions in world affairs are quite numerous and dramatic, but the reverence for such rhetoric as Bush's "messianic mission" to "democratise" is undoubtedly significant, even among the victims. Equally revered is Barack Obama's "responsibility to protect," a doctrine that has reduced prosperous and debt free Libya to a rabble - rendering its population desperate and its territory desolate.

The reverence continues no matter how dramatic the refutations. To select just one of many cases, in January 2006, the population of Palestine voted in an election that was recognised to be free and fair - apart from the Bush administration's intervention in an effort to gain victory for its favoured candidate, Mahmoud Abbas.
When the wrong side won, the US and Israel instantly turned to severe punishment of the population for their democratic errors, with Europe toddling along quite politely.

Israel even decided to brazenly intimidate the Palestinian population by cutting off water supplies to Gaza, where water shortages were already severe. When this did not prove to be effective enough, Israel increased its terror and started bombing and destroying power plants that provide electricity for pumping and sewage removal.
Of course this brutality was widely reported in the mainstream Western media, albeit within the confines of Bush's "messianic mission" to "democratise" the lesser nations, especially in the Middle East.

As usual there were pretexts, like saying Hamas was shelling Israel with unidentified missiles, pretexts that collapse even under superficial examination.
It is like the NATO brutality on Libya today. While the goal of the triumvirate US, UK and France to brazenly assassinate the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been openly declared, there are pretexts thrown around to explain the insane NATO aerial attacks on Tripoli; like heroically claiming to be protecting the civilian population of Libya - a reference shamelessly used in describing the Western-backed armed rebels from Benghazi.

This pretext would be laughable if what was happening in Libya was not so tragic. The Libya that NATO is freely destroying by spraying high precision aerial bombs endlessly is a country that under the same "dictatorial" Gaddafi gives its citizens loans at zero interest, albeit because of a religious value based on the Islamic faith.
It is a country where students are entitled the entry salary for the profession for which they are studying. After studying, if one is unable to get employment the state pays the full salary as if one were employed, until employment is secured for the person in question.

When Libyan citizens get married, the couple is entitled to an apartment or a house for free, or to a start up sum payment of US$60 000 - all provided by the State.
For those Libyans who choose to study abroad, the state pays US$2 500 plus accommodation and a car allowance.
Cars sold to Libyan citizens are sold at factory price, with the state subsidising the rest. In terms of university education, 25 percent of Libyans have a university degree. There are no beggars on Libyan streets, no one is homeless, and bread is sold at US,15 per loaf.

The country is debt free, with no loan whatsoever from the IMF, WB or any other source.
This is what NATO is bombing to pieces in the name of protecting Libyan civilians. The real crime committed by Libyans is to have a leader who called on oil producing countries not to sell their oil using the US dollar or the Euro, but to demand the gold equivalent.

The last person to make this deadly suggestion was Saddam Hussein, and of course the US hanged him for it - again on the basis of pretexts that are absolutely laughable, the blatant lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was about to destroy the whole planet.
Like they did to Saddam Hussein, the Western powers are going to kill Gaddafi, and there is no sign they will fail.

When Israel started bombing Palestine in 2007, the US-Israeli goals were not at all concealed. The main goal was to impose suffering on the population to induce them to shift their support to Washington's favourite.
It is not different to what the US did to the Nicaraguan population when they wanted it to disengage from the Sandinistas. It is not different to what the US continues to do in its bid to destroy the relationship between the Castro power and the people of Cuba.

It is not different to the West collective effort in disenchanting the population of Zimbabwe, and setting it against the revolutionary Zanu-PF and its principled and incorruptible leader, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. The script never changes. It is the players that change.
The hostility against Hamas' victory was a dramatic demonstration of hatred and contempt for democracy by the US and her Western allies.

It was reported quite frankly even in the Western mainstream media, albeit alongside praises for Bush and Blair's dedication to promoting democracy. Criticism from the right was more against the idealistic democracy, (emerging in Palestine) that could be harmful to the West's "civilisation".
To be in power in the West, one has to have this exceptional talent of being able to command a tolerance of contradiction, the talent for George Orwell's "doublethink": the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, while accepting both of them.

Demagoguery is all about this exceptional talent, and most oppressors and dictators are quite gifted in this art.
So the Western elites can on one hand utterly destroy prevailing democracies in Palestine, Chile or in Nicaragua, while on the other hand claiming to be fighting for it in Cuba, Libya or Zimbabwe.
It is hardly controversial that these elites get praised by some for both activities, baffling as it may sound.

It needs to be observed that Gazans and Libyans are protected people under the Geneva Conventions, and that any harm done to individuals except in response to their personal criminal acts is severe crime.
All signatories to the conventions are indeed obligated not only to adhere to the provisions of the conventions, but also to apprehend and punish those who are responsible for any breaches, including the leaders from the United States, or any other leaders from elsewhere.

When a victim of an open assassination attempt by Western powers seeks the protection of the Geneva Conventions, what we get is a politically charged ICC prosecutor coming to the victim's rescue wielding an arrest warrant, not for the leaders of the NATO assassins, but for the victim himself. This is exactly what has happened to Col Gaddafi. The African Union was absolutely disgusted, but could hardly do anything to stop the terrible joke.

The Geneva Conventions and all of international law would be helpfully relevant in a world of law-abiding states. But with states such as the US, France and Britain, international law is scarcely even intelligible.
Scholarship dealing with democracy promotion has come up with similar conclusions. Thomas Carothers is one prominent scholar-advocate for this cause. He calls himself a neo-Reaganite, and he agrees with mainstream scholarship that Wilsonian idealism took on particular "salience" under Ronald Reagan's leadership.

When George W. Bush suddenly discovered the quintessential mission to democratise the world, Carothers published a book reviewing the record of democracy promotion by the US since the end of the Cold War. He concluded that there was "a strong continuity" running through Bush Senior, Clinton all the way to Bush II himself.
Carothers also noted that democracy is promoted by the US government if and only if it conforms to strategic and economic interests.

He, however, claimed that all governments are "schizophrenic" in this regard. How explicable this malady is would be a matter of debate.
As an insider Thomas Carothers wrote extensively on the standard scholarly work on democracy promotion in Latin America in the 1980s. He was serving in the Reagan State Department, tasked with programmes in the "democracy enhancement" section.

Although Carothers describes these programmes as a huge failure, he still regards them as sincere, meaning he holds that Reagan was indeed motivated by the need to "enhance" democracy across the world, more like George W. Bush's highly visionary "messianic mission" to "democratise" the Middle East, or Obama's unquestionable resolve to join Sarkozy and Cameron in giving Libyans democracy through the power of high precision lethal bombs.

Carothers concluded that where the US had little influence, progress towards democracy was greatest, despite Reagan's attempts to impede it by installing right wing dictators all over the place. He also noted that where US influence was strongest, especially in the neighbouring region, progress towards democracy was least.
Carothers did give reasons. He said Washington would only tolerate "limited, top down forms of democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional structures of power with which the US has long been allied (in) quite undemocratic societies".

So Bush Junior did not discover the need for "democracy promotion". He inherited the pious doctrine. It is the view held in the mainstream intellectual community in the West that the dedication of Western leaders to the principle of democracy promotion is beyond question, throughout history and today, even considered laudable under Reagan and George W Bush; and under Obama too.
In fact democracy promotion dates back to 1945, a time from which the US has always proclaimed this doctrine as a guiding vision, and it is not even controversial that the US has a pregnant history of overthrowing parliamentary democracies, invading flourishing democracies, and propping up tyrannical characters. One can easily remember Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Congo and an endless list of other countries.

There used to be Cold War pretexts behind most of this aggression, but these regularly collapsed upon the slightest of investigation. It is like trying to remember how Reagan brought democracy to Central America by terrorist wars that left hundreds of thousands of corpses and three countries totally ruined. One has to be worse than insane to even think of the word logic when recalling these atrocities.
Policy makers from the school of realism are always fixated with the paradoxical character of policy formulation, where some policies elicit regret but are felt to be unavoidable.

President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Robert Pastor explained why the Carter administration had to support the murderous and corrupt Somoza regime in Nicaragua, and when that proved impossible, tried to maintain the US-trained National Guard even as it was massacring the population "with a brutality a nation usually reserves for its enemy," killing no less than 40 000 thousand people.

Pastor gave the reasons: "The United States did not want to control Nicaragua or the other nations of the region," he wrote, "but it also did not want developments to get out of control. It wanted Nicaraguans to act independently, except when doing so would affect US interests adversely."

The Cold War was hardly relevant here, but the dominant operative principle was being copiously illustrated, as always done throughout history. Indeed policy conforms to expressed ideas only if it also conforms to vested interests.
When we hear the phrase "US interests" we must not be deluded into thinking that these are interests to do with the domestic population of the US, and this applies to any other "interests" as defined by state power.

These are interests of the concentrations of power that are often determined to dominate the masses.
The maxim that speaks against concentrations of power is often derided by respectable opinion as a "conspiracy theory," as "Marxist," or "Communist," or some other such epithet. However, this is easily verifiable when put to objective inquiry.

Even right wingers Lawrence Jacobs and Benjamin Page rarely but unsurprisingly concluded that the major influence on policy is "internationally oriented business corporations," though there is a secondary effect of "experts," who, as the two pointed out "may themselves be influenced by business".
Public opinion is of very little import in policy formulation. In fact Jacobs and Page cited Walter Lippmann confidently noting that public opinion is "ill-informed and capricious (and) warned that following public opinion would create a ‘morbid derangement of the true functions of power' and produce policies ‘deadly to the very survival of the state as a free society,'" to borrow some of Lippmann's own words.

Public opinion has very little or no significant effect on public policy, more so on the foreign policy of those who seek to meddle in the affairs of weaker nations. The American public did not have much to do with their country's invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, or that of Iran in 2003.
Equally, it is not part of public opinion in the West that Zimbabweans should be intimidated into submission through a ruinous and murderous sanctions regime, so that they can be separated from their leadership and be shifted to vote for the West's favourite, Morgan Tsvangirai. This is a position merely taken by elites that are highly influenced by business.

There is no evidence that those responsible for planning policy have superior understanding and abilities than other mortals. What they have is a monopoly of opportunity, just like the five permanent members to the United Nations Security Council. There is simply no evidence to suggest that France, the US, the UK, China and Russia have a superior understanding of world affairs than all others.

All they have is an undemocratic monopoly of privilege and self-allocated power. We have a UN that is almost dysfunctional with Ban Ki Moon at its helm, helpfully toddling along the aggressive tendencies of Washington and her allies, endorsing the blatant barbarism we see happening in Libya today.

Perhaps this is "the white man's burden, the duty of the big brother," as Woodrow Wilson's military governor once explained.
We hear the West have a duty to see to it that Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement, whatever that means; is adhered to and implemented in full, by which they mean it is implemented to the satisfaction of one party, its lapdog Movement for Democratic Change led by Tsvangirai.

Even the nefarious attitude shown by Minister Tendai Biti towards the welfare of civil servants is a laudable feat to some for who holds it, and not for what it is. There is no doubt that the issue of increasing salaries for civil servants is now caught up between a genuine resolve to alleviate the poverty of the long-suffering civil servants and Minister Biti's salient arrogance - an obsession to be seen to be fighting even where humanity simply calls for no more than a sense of respect.

But Minister Biti has policy makers to obey; themselves influenced by "internationally oriented business corporations". We are talking here of the highly influential IMF, Biti's admired mentors, whose last mentoring sessions in Zimbabwe some two decades ago ended with an unprecedented devastation of the economy, wreaking absolute havoc through the notorious Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, another civil servant hating programme that fooled Zimbabweans into untold suffering in the mid-nineties.

The IMF does not really want a stable Zimbabwe before elections, not really because the IMF is inherently evil, but because it is manipulated and controlled by Western policy planners who favour the idea of intimidating the population of Zimbabwe into shifting their vote to Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party. Only that kind of voting would constitute democracy for Zimbabwe - otherwise the election would be deemed a sham.

We can prop ourselves up the ladder of democracies if we do the West's bidding on who should lead Zimbabwe's government. The message is very clear and the conditions for lifting the harmful illegal sanctions are also quite clear.

The slight problem is that Zimbabweans are not the easiest people to put into submission, let alone intimidate.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Why constitution needs sobriety

In a word, dominant views will carry the day, and there is nothing wrong about that as all historical eons and processes are so shaped.

Yet it is another thing when the heat of polarisation is on that tend to cloud better judgement and things swing dangerously from one phase to another in a short time.
By Tichaona Zindoga
Reading the story that MDC leader Professor Welshman Ncube, had said the envisaged new constitution for Zimbabwe would have to be "negotiated", one could come up with so many imaginations.

Impetuously, one could imagine the professor, who has continued to be a kind of fringe player in the supposed to be inclusive Government, wanting to have a say in the grander political scheme of things.

The same scheme, it will be noted, he has continued to be excluded from after fancying his becoming a "principal" following his ascent to the helm of his party.

His fight to become a "principal" is still on today.
One could also imagine Ncube, being an "intellectual" with the fine airs of learnedness trying to rubbish what the masses said during the outreach programme, which many people said was an exercise towards that glittering ideal called a people-driven constitution.

Still one could not forgive the professor for calling for a negotiated document after the hullabaloo over that Kariba Draft, which Zanu-PF, and MDC negotiators drew and annexed to the September 2008 Global Political Agreement.

Yet there was a degree of cogency in what Ncube said at a discussion in Harare effecting to the possibility, and even desirability, that the Constitution be a negotiated document.

He made the following observations:

· that critical issues had not been captured because the outreach had been hurried, which led to core issues being overlooked. · that there had been skeletal talking points, which do not address constitutional issues · that only a fifth of the things that are supposed to be in the constitution were asked. · that the time frame for making the constitution tentatively put at 18 months was inadequate.

These are arguments that even non-constitutional lawyers accede to, with both Zanu-PF and MDC-T officials all but admitting that the current process has a number of grey areas.

Of course for the many people that expressed their views, it is a different case altogether.
Even then, there have been reports that some people did not express their views freely as they were forced to adopt party positions.

That the constitution making process has run into all kinds of problems logistically and politically is a matter of public record.

That it is likely to become a political document for the expediency of the views of the dominant force is also a matter of fact, for better or worse.

To buttress this particular point, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai once revealed that his party would do away with the product of the present process, if his party got into power.

In a word, dominant views will carry the day, and there is nothing wrong about that as all historical eons and processes are so shaped.

Yet it is another thing when the heat of polarisation is on that tend to cloud better judgement and things could even swing dangerously from one phase to another in a short time.

That Ncube says the constitution should be a negotiated document - negotiated among the current main political players of this day - points to some form of expediency.

It does not matter that Ncube, a constitutional law expert himself, will conceivably be part of that.
Politics no matter how dumb can get the better of reason.
Ncube admits to the same with the 2000 draft in mind.
Suffice to say he joined the likes of another constitutional law professor Lovemore Madhuku to blow away a gilt edged chance for Zimbabwe and constitutionalism at large.

So what is to be learnt from the foregoing?
The one thing that Zimbabwe needs in relation to its constitution is sobriety.
A national constitution is vaunted, if hoped, to be a document for posterity.
It cannot; should not, be one to be reversed when a political player comes onto the scene not so many years after it has been drawn, the Morgan Tsvangirai way.

If one were to use Ncube's thesis, it cannot be one to be rushed, papered over, or otherwise be prone to the manipulation that befell the 2000 draft.

According to Ncube's submissions, contrary to the hot-headedness of the likes of MDC-T's secretary general Tendai Biti, the constitution cannot be rushed.

(Although it can be observed that he is not as eager now as he could have been before, as Ncube reported, having no doubt found more worth in delaying the constitution-making.)

This demonstrates the one problem that the current programme of making a new constitution in Zimbabwe had from the beginning: it was mooted with elections in mind.

It is a small secret that, as Ncube lets in, that Bit, and his party were at first too eager to see through the making of the constitution so that they could still use the currency of their marginal political popularity to win the subsequent election.

It did not quite turn out that way as the outreach was a reversal to the views of the MDCs as about 70 percent reportedly were for the position of Zanu-PF.

Then it was time for the latter to rub its hands in glee in anticipation of a victory in elections buoyed by the positive inertia of the outreach.

Naturally Biti who after all holds the purse had to recoil and dig in and stymie the progress of making the constitution which translated to hurrying a nemesis.

Tsvangirai even provided for a drawing of a new document altogether in the likely event that Zanu-PF, or perceivably so, had its way.

So presently Biti can all but welcome the three years that Zanu-PF's Patrick Chinamasa had calculated, as Ncube reported.
It serves the politics well, even on an intra-party level.
It is known that the MDC formations are not willing to go for elections and will do everything within their power to stop the holding of the same.

The delaying tactics, as they stand accused of, are meant to hold up the exercise of finalising the constitution, which is a benchmark towards the polls as stipulated in the GPA.

But given the fact that even without delaying tactics from the MDC formations in particular MDC-T, coupled with financial drawbacks entail Zimbabwe begging outsiders to draw its supreme law, the constitution cannot be done in say 18 months it calls for a different approach.

It should no longer be taken as a benchmark for holding elections, which elections are now overdue given the dysfunctionality of the inclusive Government.

In fact, it should run its full, sober course in spite of elections.
And, by the way, Zimbabwe has conditions and laws that conduce to the holding of free and fair elections.
Dating back to 2007 Zimbabwe has instituted electoral laws that make the country a leader as it was the first country to adopt the SADC Principles and Guidelines on Elections.

Zimbabwe incorporated this and in the Constitutional Amendment Number 18 which led to the holding of harmonised elections in March and June 2008.

The harmonised elections were deemed free and fair not least because the opposition MDC formations managed to upset the parliamentary majority that Zanu-PF had enjoyed since Independence in 1980.

That the results were delicately poised, with a hung parliament and without an outright presidential poll winner as required showed democracy, as defined by competition, at work.

It was only that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai purported to pull out of the logical run-off poll slated for that June.

Yet as his action was a nullity the presidential poll came and was won by President Robert Mugabe.

The one blight that assailed this latter poll was the confusion that Tsvangirai sowed in his purported pulling out.

On the other hand, Tsvangirai's MDC and its sympathisers still point to March elections as free and fair and a victory for democracy.

In this vein the same conditions that gave this can still be used, even with requisite additions.

Surely, the so democracy-friendly conditions (especially as a euphemism for anything that favours the MDCs) of March 2008 cannot have changed in such a short time?

As elections are held under the same conditions, the new constitution can wait to run its full course, probably to be useful in the next elections and the posterity hence.

It can only be hoped that, there won’t be any politicking of the matter as principally demonstrated by Tsvangirai who wants a national constitution that resembles his party’s.

It will be a sad day indeed because it is known that Tsvangirai can’t even follow his party’s law.

News Corp and neoliberal disaters

The MDC formations and the NGOs and newspapers supporting their neoliberal “reforms” are funded by the British, the European Union, the North Americas and other Anglo-Saxon countries in order to champion the same notions of the unfettered Press, the opening up of the airwaves and media self-regulation. Yet these have already come to grief in the sponsoring countries.

The Sunday Mail


 By Tafataona Mahoso
The Rupert Murdoch-News Corporation scandal unfolding in Britain constitutes a beautiful blowback against neoliberalism as the latest totalitarian myth.

The details are still sketchy but the following developments can be confirmed: As part and parcel of the neoliberal “reform” movement intended to relocate the capitalist crisis from the North Atlantic to the rest of the world and associated with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former US President Ronald Reagan — the Western “democracies” embraced the idea that the market should be allowed to determine all values; that especially in the media it was backward, costly and inefficient to use regulation to protect, let alone determine values.

A few billionaires emerged, including Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi (now Italian Prime Minister) who were well placed to benefit from the “reform” in at least five ways:

Using the myth of the unfettered Press as “the fourth estate” in order to defeat laws against media cross-ownership;
Using the defeat of anti-trust laws and the legalisation on media cross-ownership in order to build multi-media, multi-sectoral monopolies in the communications industry;
Using political advertising, intimidation and even hate speech (through the media) to make and un-make politicians;
Corrupting the entire social and political system by trying to make universal the neoliberal nonsense that everything and anything can be sold; that whoever sells anything and generates profits becomes good, noble and even sacred; and
Reviving and propagating the old missionary view which said “Ichokwadi nokuti chakanyorwa”, which is to say: It is true because I can show where it is written: which is to say whatever you can make people believe (through the media) becomes the truth and the reality. If it can also generate profits, that makes it even better.
As documented by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, the first extremes of neoliberal reform were wars and other disasters which became instantly and directly profitable because most services, including the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, were out-sourced to private companies and NGOs. For instance, the first instance of foreign-sponsored destabilisation and illegal regime change demanded by NGOs and humanitarian relief agencies was Somalia. NGOs in fact urged the US government to invade and occupy Somalia because they knew the resulting disasters would boost their income; since most of the services (to the occupying forces and to the victims of invasion) would be out-sourced to themselves. The media played a big role in agitating for invasion. The second set of extremes which triggered the current blowback against neoliberal reform took place in the arena of global finance and produced what has been dubbed the “global financial tsunami” centred around North America and Europe.

This was the result of unregulated or “self-regulating” markets. The outrage from this was that the welfare state was literally turned up-side-down: dishing out the people’s tax revenue in order to save bankrupt global banks and other monopolies, instead of using the people’s tax revenue to provide social services and support poor families and unemployed workers. This outrage is playing out in Greece as we go to press.

The third series of extremes in neoliberal reform is what has erupted in Britain and includes the destruction of journalism through neoliberal media reform and liberalisation. Just as the daily torture and murder of Iraqis and Afghans became profitable as outsourced business to companies and NGOs, the daily suffering, private misery, bereavement, illness and agony of ordinary British citizens (obtained via the hacking and stealing of private telephone numbers) also became profitable for The News of the World and other newspapers. Private, confidential and secret information (obtained illegally and even through organised crime syndicates) was used to create the appearance of a “robust” and thoroughly investigative journalism; or simply to exploit the vulnerability of readers in the face of a prurient Press which appeared to know every detail about everyone’s life without revealing how the details were obtained.

Those who were powerful and those aspiring to amass power began to believe that the only way they could protect or increase their power, or the only way they could become powerful, was by befriending or cooperating with the owners, editors and journalists of the corrupt mass media houses.

This went on until the evidence of criminal conduct by the Murdoch media empire was so massive that it became obvious that the emperor had clay feet and could be toppled. The result is a massive blowback and a great sigh of relief among those politicians who felt totally cowed and intimidated by the mass media. They call it “pay-back time” now in Britain. As a result Murdoch has now been prevented from acquiring more shares of British Sky Broadcasting beyond the 39 percent he already owned before the scandal broke out.
What Does the Neoliberal Blowback in Britain Have To Do With Zimbabwe Now?
Since 1999 Zimbabweans have been white-mailed and cowed by a British-sponsored political formation and an Anglo-American-funded Press claiming to own the holy mantle of “democratic reform” and represent “the democratic dispensation” just because everyday they kneel in front of the altar of British-defined “benchmarks” to which they seek to subject the whole nation. Yet in the same sponsoring Britain of the Westminster Foundation and the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, all the three major political parties who sponsored the MDC formations and the attendant Press in Zimbabwe are now saying an unfettered Press has turned into an unfettered security threat.

Indeed, even the Queen’s security personnel were selling numbers belonging to her family for payment in preparation for hacking into calls. How and why have the British rulers found courage to say no? Well, because the unfettered Press has now claimed the scalps of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and former prime minister Gordon Brown by bribing and buying senior police and other security officers who willingly sold supposedly secured telephone numbers to journalists and editors who then hacked them in order to gain access to most sensitive and most intimate details. In addition to the Queen and the Prime Minister, there are more than 3 000 victims of the same phone-hacking spree which also involved crime syndicates serving the Press.

That is really some “robust” journalism!
The MDC formations and the NGOs and newspapers supporting their neoliberal “reforms” are funded by the British, the European Union, the North Americas and other Anglo-Saxon countries in order to champion the same notions of the unfettered Press, the opening up of the airwaves and media self-regulation. Yet these have already come to grief in the sponsoring countries.

The debate is so uninformed that it has not even recognised the illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe as causing the greatest damage to freedom of expression and access to information here.
Britain, the US and EU have barred from entering their borders all those Zimbabwean leaders and intellectuals whom they fear might present a picture of Zimbabwe contrary to the one created by their regime change collaborators. Moreover, since the media business requires as much investment and credit as any other modern business, the illegal sanctions have also created a situation whereby 80 percent of all prospective publishers applying for publishing licences in Zimbabwe from 2004 to 2009 could not take off for lack of funds or lack of business. Illegal sanctions have greatly reduced access to information in Zimbabwe, but Misa will not look at the mounting evidence because it is paid to oppose media regulation.

It is useful to remember that Misa and the Windhoek Declaration are manifestations of a Cold War regime change model transplanted from the US experience in destabilising Eastern Europe. Likewise the Sadc Protocol on Culture, Information and Sport (ratified 1995) has also become outdated in view of the current post-September 11 2001 and post-global recession period which now includes The News of the World scandal. The sponsored regime change NGOs and media organisations in the Sadc region are stuck with the line of US 20th century media propaganda for regime change which was based on the assumptions of modernisation and information scarcity.

According to that Cold War regime change recipe for the South and the East, emphasis was put on dismantling controls and denying any strategic direction in public communication in order to enhance the mythical free flow of information, free flow of scarce hardware and software as well as plurality of platforms, a cacophony of voices and “free access”. But even in the 20th century, this was a myth. The Unesco Declaration of 1978 was about the myth. The Cold War approach is obsessed with the scarcity information technology as well as the scarcity of its output, so much so that any and all technology is better than nothing and any and all books, papers or magazines should be welcomed by a people viewed as merely waiting for information, aid and even rescue. Yet real freedom should mean freedom for a nation to select appropriate technology, appropriate content and appropriate information output as wells as suitable exchanges with other nations.



Contrary to the Cold War model, the majority of students in Northern universities studying engineering subjects in ICT happen to come from the South and the East and they do return to their own countries, making a mockery of the stereotypical “digital divide”. The Cold War approach is obsessed with the apparent contest of technologies and machines while missing the more central contest of ideas and values which alone can guide the strategic choices of machinery, software and platform. With reckless opening up, with abandoned free flow, there can be no national strategic choices of machine or software, nor can there be any strategic self-positioning in a changing public information environment. What is worse, the supposed free flow of information in the Murdoch case was never free. It was based on crime and bribery.

In fact the whole world now suffers from a choking saturation with unsorted information which is driven and exploited by those who have developed appropriate structures and systems for strategic research, strategic framing and positioning, deliberate segmentation of audiences, strategic delegation and optimal outsourcing and co-ordination.

From the very same USA, which is largely responsible for the antiquated model to which Article 19 and Misa are wedded, we learn that the events of September 11 2001 and the current global financial tsunami have forced a rapid abandonment of that 20th century model. This is also going to happen in Britain after the recently launched inquiries. Instead of the presumed information scarcity, there is too much information and too little knowledge; too many unrelated platforms; and too many “piped” channels to be deployed or received in an ad hoc and tactical fashion. The information climate cries for strategy, direction, order, clarity, ethics and rule of law.

Research done by the US Defence Science Board’s Taskforce on Strategic Communication in 2004 led to the conclusion that “the US doesn’t know what it knows”. That is because of the crisis of disordered information saturation in a society which still wants to presume information scarcity.
One year before the Seattle WTO Conference, Canadian journalist Linda McQuaig predicted that the myth of uncontrollable “free flow” of money and information resulting from digitalisation would come to an end.

“Computer technology has now made it possible to move money (and information) even more quickly. But does it follow that the faster movement makes it impossible to control money? On the contrary there is a flipside to this computer wizardry that is almost always omitted from discussion about the new technology of global finance: the very same technology that makes it possible to move money more quickly than ever before also makes it possible to trace (and control) that movement than ever before.”

This tracking and control is precisely what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US and EU leaders are demanding now in the wake of the global financial scandal and shock and the Murdoch scandal.
In media as in finance, five years before the Seattle WTO conference, one British media owner dismissed the same myth of media ungovernability arising from digitalisation. Clive Hollick, owner of Meridian

Broadcasting and Anglia Television, also agreed with Professor Robert Machesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy, that statutory regulation of media was the only way to protect democracy and meaningful access to information against corporatism. Now we hear that we need tight laws to protect citizens from media criminals. Hollick stated:
“Contrary to the general view, regulation can be the defender of free speech and the forces of the market place the chief threat to a plurality of views. But new technologies demand new forms of regulation and government intervention may be the best way of ensuring the plurality of voices on which democracy depends . . . The claim that technology makes regulation more difficult, even impossible, is a fallacy. On the contrary, it makes it easier . . . Rapid and complex technical change should not divert governments from addressing the more predictable consequences of enduring and straightforward human instincts which drive media organisations. The quest for market domination and the desire to wield influence and control are familiar and enduring characteristics of these organisations. Governments must defend public interest by protecting and sustaining freedom of expression, diversity of views, plurality of ownership and consumer choice, safe in the knowledge that media companies are unlikely to go hungry.”

We quote these informed passages at length because the preachers of Cold War neoliberal ignorance in our midst falsely cite British, European and North American claims as constituting “best practice”. The West will protect its people whenever that becomes necessary, as is evident from the panic response to the financial tsunami which is forcing heads of state to fire corporate executives in order to demonstrate popular public anger against reckless corporate behaviour. But with the help of Misa, the same leaders who are going as far as firing corporate boards and CEOs will turn around and claim that AIPPA is

“Draconian” because it requires just the mere registration of mass media services and accreditation of journalists.
In her Wall Street Journal article on April 23 1999, Peggy Noonan called the poorly regulated US media “The Culture of Death” which engulfs young people like a contaminated and untreatable ocean. Its corporatism is so absolute now that there are few alternatives.

“It is part of the reason that Hollywood people, when discussing these media matters, no longer say, ‘If you don’t like it, change the channel.’ They now realise something they didn’t realise 10 years ago. There is no (really different) channel to turn to.”
All the information pointing to the current global recession and the Murdoch scandal was theoretically available but no meaningful player, not even the free Press, really knew about it, let alone investigated or reported it. The global financial tsunami would not have been a surprise or shock if the free Press were really free from the perpetrators of the casino economy.

What we need in national information management therefore are strong government leadership, strategic direction, adequate inter-agency co-ordination, strict standards, sufficient resources and a new culture of strict media monitoring, segmented opinion research and evaluation. The performance of the media as well as the government agencies and ministries responsible for strategic communication for the nation must all be subject to evaluation by appropriate and qualified centres of authority and expertise.

The reason for these requirements should be obvious: From the point of view of strategic communication, the prevailing phenomena of information saturation and lightning speed demand the shortest response cycles in which the state must decide to respond or not to respond to critical issues of publicity and public diplomacy. Short response cycles at national level imply sustained direction, sustained monitoring, sustained evaluation, and sustained co-ordination rather than free flow. The current global economic crisis and the unfolding Murdoch crisis point to the unsustainability of media self-regulation. The South African government recently admitted the same prior to the Murdoch scandal.

Zim-EU: more of the same?

The Zimbabwe Government has said it is committed to the dialogue and is keen to reach a common ground with the EU. 

However, for all its past commitment to normalising relations with the bloc, Zimbabwe has seen precious little from the talks.
The greatest victory was the removal of dead people, Zanu-PF members perceived to be no longer effective in Government and wives of Government officials from the list early this year.

The Herald

By Tichaona Zindoga
Can one not be forgiven for having a feeling of déjà vu? Zimbabwe and the European Union are set to reactivate dialogue expected to explore ways of normalising relations between the two sides that soured in the last decade after Zimbabwe embarked on its land reform programme to address colonial land ownership imbalances.
In 2002, the European Union imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe against the tenets governing relations between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries espoused in the Cotonou Agreement.

A report compiled by a team of EU countries established that the EU wanted to effect regime change in Zimbabwe given the impending 2002 elections.
The EU says it slapped sanctions on Zimbabwe because of the latter's poor human rights record and alleged breakdown on the rule of law.

In 2009, the inclusive Government of Zimbabwe established the re-engagement team to see off sanctions as agreed to under the Global Political Agreement of 2008.
This was in line with the tenets of the GPA that set among its main focus the removal of the illegal economic embargo.
There have been two trips to Europe already and the third and newest round of meetings will be held at officials' level between Zimbabwe and the EU. The meeting is also set to review meetings that have been held to date.

Zimbabwean members of the re-engagement team include Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi (both Zanu-PF); Finance Minister Tendai Biti, Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma (MDC-T) and MDC's Industry and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube and Regional Integration and International Co-operation Minister Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga.

The Zimbabwe Government has said it is committed to the dialogue and is keen to reach a common ground with the EU. However, for all its past commitment to normalising relations with the bloc, Zimbabwe has seen precious little from the talks.
The greatest victory was the removal of dead people, Zanu-PF members perceived to be no longer effective in Government and wives of Government officials from the list early this year.

During its annual review of sanctions in February, the European Union removed 35 people conforming to the above description from its hit list.
But, the EU left 163 people and 31 businesses on the list.
The 27-nation bloc called for further reforms on the rule of law, human rights and democracy to pave the way for "credible elections".
Essentially, the sanctions remain, as does their grave intent to torpedo the status quo that seeks to consolidate the gains of the land reform and the greater liberation of the country from European domination.

Britain, not so long ago said it would remove sanctions on the request of the MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Apparently, that request has not been made - at least whole-heartedly.
There have been revelations that while the PM and his party might publicly call for the lifting of sanctions, (which PM and the MDC euphemistically call restrictive measures), they Nicodemusly go to the EU and call for their maintenance.

A Wikileaks cable reveals that MDC-T's secretary-general, Biti also extends his duties to become a local secretariat for EU sanctions by compiling names of those who must or must not be on the EU hit list.
As such the dead whose names were removed from the EU owes it to Biti, it is said.
The treatment that Zanu-PF members like Chinamasa have received at the hands of the EU has shown that the EU is selective in its treatment of the supposed whole called Zimbabwe's inclusive Government.

That is, if that is not natural, given the duplicity of MDC part of the same. So what will come out of this new round of talks?
This question has little to do with the fact that the latest foray will inevitably gobble up money, which many people would think Biti was averse to, if recent media reports are anything to go by.

It does not matter, too, that there is going to be another duplicity of the kind of against-sanctions-by-day-but-for-them-at-night practiced by the MDC.
So little has changed.

In particular, the regime change that the EU wanted has not been achieved and the EU definitely trusts the pressure of its sanctions to help them remove President Mugabe, someday.
And if one were to believe for a moment the reasons of sanctions according to the EU as relating to human rights, then the current attitude of the EU and its Western allies towards Zimbabwe's diamonds provides a clue of what to expect of the meeting.

The EU and its allies have been blocking consensus by the Kimberley Process and Certification Scheme on the unconditional sale of diamonds from Marange.
They have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe's diamonds and some reports suggest that EU banks have been urged not to deal with cash from Zimbabwe diamonds.
They argue that Zimbabwe wantonly violates human rights, which claim EU and American sponsored human rights groups peddle with the frequency of a mantra.

Much of this is figment of the imagination and lies fabricated by groups thousands of miles across oceans or locals who have never been to Marange.
The MDCs also feed mendacity to the West concerning human rights.
No doubt the EU holds on to all this to use it against Zimbabwe and one can imagine EU officials repeating the same tired claims of human rights abuses.

And to think that they use lies to assume moral high ground to lecture Zimbabwe on human rights!
One can surmise that the EU team will be looking down upon their noses from the high pedestal of being the human rights policeman of the world at the Zimbabwe team.
They are likely to be as intransigent as ever and this kind of deadlock cannot be expected to be broken any time soon.

The EU is on a position of strength, or so it believes.
By the same token, Zimbabwe is in a weak position, given the fact that it does not seem to believe in its own power as defined by its resources including the diamonds and land, which the West could kill for.

But Zimbabwe, or at least part of it, is known to have a modicum of pride that will not allow it to be lectured on non-existent human rights abuses by perpetrators of worse crimes.
This same part does not allow the country's resources to be stolen under the guise of human rights.
It is for this latter part that sanctions are reserved as it touches the fundamental aspects of sanctions.

As it is a war over Zimbabwe's resources as envied by the West, the presence of those who are able to defend Zimbabwe will likely cause the EU to hold on and screw tight on sanctions.
The latest excursion will have to show that it is not an exercise in futility.