West must listen to Zim voices

The Herald 03/03/10

WE hope the condescending Westerners were listening on Monday afternoon when Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai finally added his voice to the anti-sanctions lobby by calling on the West to remove all forms of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans.

This time there were no euphemisms like ‘‘restrictive measures’’ or ‘‘integration,’’ as the PM called the sanctions by name.

Speaking after meeting Danish Minister for Development Co-operation Soren Pind in Harare on Monday, PM Tsvangirai also took the opportunity to disabuse Pind and those of like mind of the notion that the legitimacy of President Mugabe was ever in question.

‘‘President Mugabe is President of Zimbabwe and you can’t separate him from the process (of supporting Zimbabwe,’’ Pind was told.

We would have loved to see Pind’s face particularly after he had shot his mouth off questioning President Mugabe’s legitimacy ahead of his arrival in Zimbabwe hoping to get support from MDC-T.

We salute the PM for putting Pind in his place and hope that the message was received in toto by the Westerners who are now hard-pressed to explain on whose behalf they are maintaining their ruinous economic embargo.

As it stands, all the three parties in Government have closed ranks on sanctions.

PM Tsvangirai’s voice had been conspicuous by its absence from the anti-sanctions lobby that has drawn in the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, Comesa and Sadc as well as progressive people the world over.

We urge the PM to rise to British foreign and Commonwealth secretary, David Miliband’s challenge by communicating to London the need to lift its part of the embargo. After that we hope the European Union and the United States, who all bought into a fight that was never theirs, will follow suit.

We also hope those in the MDC-T, some of whom had the temerity to deny the existence of sanctions with a straight face, will stop that grandstanding and echo their leader’s voice.

We hope the gesture by the PM signifies a new kind of thinking in MDC-T ranks that will see the party closing ranks with the generality of Zimbabweans on matters of national interest.

Ironically as the PM made his anti-sanctions call, Western media were abuzz with reports casting aspersions on the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act that seeks to place majority shareholding in foreign-owned companies in the hands of indigenous Zimbabweans. The PM’s name featured prominently in those reports as the man opposed to black empowerment.

Being denied the right to participate in the national economy were the age-old sanctions imposed on Zimbabweans by the legacy of colonialism, and we hope the PM will also join Zanu-PF and the MDC in defending our right to preside over our resources and companies in our jurisdiction.

That economic sanctions are hurting ordinary people is not debatable since in the US’ words they were designed to make the Zimbabwean economy scream, and that economy has been screaming for a decade and only recently forced the British to airlift their pensioners.

That the sanctions are illegal is also not debatable since they were imposed outside the purview of the United Nations system and have been roundly condemned the world over.

That the sanctions benefit no one is given since they have failed to achieve their intended objective, which explains why those who initially campaigned for them are now condemning them.

That the sanctions were imposed for the benefit of Zimbabweans is the blue lie we challenge the West to prove since all Zimbabweans have closed ranks against the ruinous sanctions. The embargo, in all its guises, has to go, period.