UK confession: Will Sadc now act on MDC?

By Professor Jonathan Moyo, MP (25/01/10)

THE saying that what goes around must come around is haunting Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T, which sought political power as an opposition party by treacherously campaigning for the imposition of illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabwe but which, as a leading member of Zimbabwe’s three-party coalition Government, must now call for the lifting of the very same sanctions in accordance with Article IV of the GPA underwritten by Sadc.
While Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his cronies have spent the last year in the coalition Government playing hide and seek over the sanctions issue, sometimes foolishly and insensitively claiming there are no sanctions against Zimbabwe and at other times hopelessly seeking to sanitise the illegal sanctions by calling them “restrictive measures”, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband let the cat out of the bag last Tuesday in the House of Commons.
As widely reported in the media over the last four days, Miliband essentially said that the illegal UK-sponsored EU economic sanctions on Zimbabwe will be lifted only if Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T says so. Asked by the Conservative Party’s Henry Bellingham in the British House of Commons whether he did not agree that the existing sanctions should not be lifted until issues of concern to the MDC-T are addressed, Miliband replied by saying that “ . . . We have to calibrate our response to the progress on the ground, and, above all, to be guided by what the MDC says to us about the conditions under which it is working and leading the country”.
Of course, seen from the regime-change policy of the British government against Zimbabwe, Miliband’s confirmation of the MDC-T’s role in the saga of the illegal economic sanctions is not new. In June 2004, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair openly told the House of Commons that his government was working with Tsvangirai’s MDC to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that the illegal economic sanctions have been the deadliest weapon of the British government and Tsvangirai’s MDC in the illegal regime-change agenda as confirmed by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in the House of Commons last Tuesday.
The role of the MDC-T in the sanctions narrative is now common cause and it stinks to the heavens above. In the circumstance, Sadc does not have any excuse to beat about the bush to entertain the MDC-T’s fairy tales about the illegal economic sanctions whose negative consequences on ordinary people are there for anyone to see. David Miliband put paid to the MDC-T’s nonsense, repeated by MDC-T’s Eliphas Mukonoweshuro in yesterday’s Herald, that “the MDC-T does not formulate foreign policy on any country’s behalf”.
Nobody believes or has said that the MDC-T formulates foreign policy for any country. Far from it! Rather, the issue confirmed by Miliband in London last Tuesday and which Sadc must now carefully note as the leading guarantor of the GPA is that Western countries which, led by Britain, imposed the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe will not lift them unless and until the MDC-T, which campaigned for the imposition of those sanctions publicly, unequivocally and consistently calls for their lifting.
The issue is not whether or not the MDC-T formulates foreign policy for any country, but whether or not it is willing and able to now call for the lifting of the illegal economic sanctions whose imposition it publicly sought and whose impact is now harming ordinary Zimbabweans and threatening the survival of the coalition Government.
In any event, and this is very important for Sadc to note and act on as the leading guarantor of the GPA, the MDC-T is bound by Article IV of the GPA, especially Sub Sections 4.6 (a & b) which provide that:
“Desirous and committed to bringing to an end the fall in the standards of living of our people, the Parties agree: (a) to endorse the Sadc resolution on sanctions concerning Zimbabwe; and (b) that all forms of measures and sanctions against Zimbabwe be lifted in order to facilitate a sustainable solution to the challenges that are currently facing Zimbabwe”.
As such, there are two things that must now be clear to anyone who really wishes to remove the dark cloud that still hovers on the social and economic well-being of Zimbabweans and these are: (1) the continued existence of the illegal economic sanctions imposed by Western countries in support of the British government at the request of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T and (2) the failure or inability of the MDC-T, which is now part of the Government, to call for the removal of the very same sanctions whose imposition it vigorously campaigned for as an opposition party to the detriment of Zimbabwe’s national economic interests.
Gorden Moyo, the Minister of State in Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s Office, has confided in public on several occasions to various individuals and groups that the MDC-T wants the illegal economic sanctions to remain as the party’s insurance or leverage against Zanu-PF, lest the coalition Government collapses or anything else happens that disadvantages or weakens the MDC-T. This wishful position from the Prime Minister’s Office whose treacherous intent is self-evident is opportunistic but misleading.
The truth of the matter, and again Sadc should pay attention to it if the GPA is to succeed, is that Tsvangirai and his cronies like Gorden Moyo, Eliphas Mukonoweshuro and Nelson Chamisa have not been able to call for the removal of the illegal economic sanctions in accordance with Article IV of the GPA mainly because they are not the ones who assured the imposition of the sanctions even though they indeed each and all called for them. What is now clear but is yet to be fully understood in the public domain is that the imposition of the illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabwe was sought and assured by a minority and white supremacist Rhodie community in the MDC-T led and represented by the likes of Roy Bennett and Eddie Cross.
It is important to note that when the Conservative Party’s Henry Bellingham asked the question which got David Miliband to let the cat out of the bag about the MDC-T’s complicity and duplicity on the sanctions issue, his main racial thrust was: “ . . . although the economic news coming out of Zimbabwe is now promising, there are still huge concerns about . . . the detention of Movement for Democratic Change MPs such as Roy Bennett?”
Instructively, Miliband responded by running away from the obvious Rhodie overtone of the question by claiming that, “It is right to say that, over the past year, the economic situation has changed in a quite fundamental way, although it is not quite right to refer to the detention of Roy Bennett as a continued threat to him through the legal case”.
Clearly, even Miliband now sees that Roy Bennett is facing a serious legal case which deserves serious adjudication in the courts and which does not constitute a political threat to Bennett or the MDC-T as often portrayed by Bennett’s theatrical lawyers and the Rhodies who are paying Bennett’s legal fees who seem determined to confuse and intimidate the court when everyone else including David Miliband can see through the attempted but doomed confusion and intimidation.
The bottom line, though, is that it is now patently clear why Tsvangirai and his cronies in his MDC, such as Mukonoweshuro and Chamisa, cannot come out unequivocally calling for the removal of the illegal Western economic sanctions in accordance with Article IV of the GPA: It is simply and only because the imposition of those illegal sanctions that are harming ordinary Zimbabweans was in fact made possible by a radical and minority section of Rhodies represented by the likes of Roy Bennett and Eddie Cross.
These Rhodies do not support the GPA while Tsvangirai and his black cronies in his MDC support it because it has given them some political power and status. The Rhodies will support the GPA only if it reverses the historic land reform programme, but the same GPA signed by Tsvangirai cannot do that because its Article V re-affirms the irreversibility of the programme.
Put simply, and Sadc must really understand this in order to find a way forward, while Tsvangirai’s MDC openly, publicly and unequivocally called for the imposition of the illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabweans, it is unable to now openly, publicly and unequivocally call for the removal of those sanctions only and only because the Rhodies who sought and assured their imposition on the strength of their racial kith and kinship with the West are the only people who can assure their removal but they are unwilling to have that done and the racially compromised West is not sure what to do in that situation.
But Sadc should surely know what to do. Allowing Zimbabwe to be held hostage by a radical and racist minority in the MDC-T to the detriment of the GPA is not a price worth paying. In 1979 Ian Smith and a small unrepentant core of Rhodies wanted the same thing through Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s United African National Council (UANC), but the Frontline States, who laid the foundation for Sadc, put its foot down. What the radical and racist Rhodies wanted but failed to get through the UANC with Ian Smith behind the scenes is exactly what they now want to get fronting the MDC-T with the likes of Roy Bennett and Eddie Cross behind the scenes.
For Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s MDC-T to be able to openly, publicly and unequivocally call for the lifting of the illegal economic sanctions that are harming ordinary Zimbabweans it would have to do what Bishop Muzorewa’s UANC failed to do: that is to break from the yoke of radical and racist Rhodies who foolishly believe that Rhodesia and Rhodesians would never die even if it means they should live in different guises under black rule or just on the worldwide web.
The same goes for the British government and its Western allies. The time has come for them to disabuse themselves of the folly of a neo-colonial Zimbabwe fronted by blacks and run by a radical and racist white minority. Zimbabwe’s independence is for real and it shall last forever. Rhodesia is history.
Sell-outs will never run this country come rain, sunshine or thunder because the enduring liberation spirits of Mbuya Nehanda and King Lobengula and the blood of our fallen heroes in the Second Chimurenga will never allow that to happen. Even more importantly, many more other heroes and heroines of the Second Chimurenga are still alive and one would have to be a fool to believe that the majority of them will allow radical and supremacist Rhodies represented by the likes of Roy Bennett and Eddie Cross to be the masters of independent Zimbabwe. Never! Surely, the West does not expect Nazis to run Germany today and by the same token it should not expect Rhodies to run Zimbabwe today.
It is encouraging to observe that British Foreign Secretary Miliband now realises the political limits and legal context of the Rhodie campaign around Roy Bennett. Miliband should now move to get the rest of the Western world to make the same realisation. More than that, he should disabuse himself of the notion that the MDC T is “ . . . working and leading the country” as he claimed in the British House of Commons last Tuesday.
There’s just no evidence on the ground for that. It is a matter of the public record that over the last 11 months since the formation of the coalition Government on February 13 2009, the MDC-T has not come up with a single visible policy whose implementation has improved the lot of ordinary Zimbabweans. Yes, the now ruling MDC-T politicians have new jobs, new clothes, new hairdos often displayed by Thokozani Khupe, new bank accounts fattened with huge monthly donor top-ups from the embattled Open Society Initiatives for Southern Africa (OSISA) whose evidence has been gathered over the last 11 months, new cars, and new houses, but there have been no new policies from the MDC-T.
It is common cause that the only new and major policy matrix implemented in Zimbabwe over the last year was the introduction of the multi-currency system adopted by Zanu-PF on January 29 2009 and implemented by Patrick Chinamasa as the then Acting Minister of Finance. Everything that has happened since then has been a footnote to that policy whose main thrust was to fight hyperinflation and to mitigate the effects of the illegal Western economic sanctions which are the MDC-T’s only continuing therefore old policy.
And so, instead of leading the country as imagined by Miliband, all that Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s MDC-T has been able to do is to prevaricate on the illegal economic sanctions that are designed to favour the radical and racist Rhodies in its ranks while peddling content-less platitudes about reforming the economy, politics, the media, the judiciary, the constitution, the military and just about reforming anything else that the MDC-T thinks would please its British, American and Rhodie handlers. On the ground, spectacular policy failures of the MDC-T are now visible in education, health, energy and power, housing and among local authorities to mention a few glaring examples.
One telling case of policy ineptitude is Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s mindless campaign sponsored by the African Development Bank (AfDB) for Zimbabwe to declare itself as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) ostensibly as a debt management strategy. Apart from its inherent and proven poverty as a debt management strategy, and the fact that it remains an untold tale of catastrophic failure and irrelevance around the world, it is unthinkable that any sane person would recommend HIPC for managing the debt of a country like Zimbabwe which is under illegal economic sanctions imposed by the same Western donors that must approve and support that strategy.
If Western donors that have imposed illegal economic sanctions on the country support a new debt management strategy for the country through HIPC, then surely they must first remove their illegal economic sanctions unless they want to put the horse before the cart, in which case they are just being silly.
The fact that Minister Biti is the secretary-general of the very same political party that the Western donors have used to impose the illegal economic sanctions that are now harming ordinary people in Zimbabwe is enough to discredit his treacherous campaign for Zimbabwe to seek HIPC while still under the economic sanctions.
It is also disingenuous for the AfDB to push Zimbabwe onto a HIPC trap while remaining mum about the need to first remove the illegal Western economic sanctions that are bleeding the country.
We have now reached a tipping point where things must be made abundantly clear: Anybody anywhere who thinks Zimbabwe must seek HIPC status before the removal of the illegal Western economic sanctions against the country must go to hell. This is what Zanu-PF must tell the MDC-T and anyone else who cares to listen. Given the treachery of the MDC-T on the all-too-important issue of the illegal economic sanctions, there is now a clear and present need for Zanu-PF to be vigilant for the sake of the nation over and above the blinding niceties of the GPA’s elusive promise of national healing and reconciliation which are good things but only when there is good faith all round. The MDC-T has shown dangerous bad faith by failing to acknowledge the existence of the illegal Western economic sanctions let alone to condemn them in accordance with Article IV of the GPA that Prime Minister Tsvangirai signed on September 15 2008. It’s definitely a good thing that the presence of the MDC-T in the coalition Government has brought political stability in the country. But stability alone does not grow or develop the economy. People don’t eat stability and stability does not pay bills or school fees. The time has come for the MDC-T to justify its presence in the coalition Government by complementing Zanu-PF’s introduction of the multi-currency system by openly, publicly and unequivocally calling on Western countries to remove their illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabweans.
Otherwise Zimbabweans will rightly conclude that the MDC-T views and abuses stability as blackmail against the nation and not as a foundation for economic development in a sanctions-free environment.