Posted by
Joe on Saturday, January 13, 2007 3:34:26 PM
The targeted sanctions are directed at Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe and other leaders in Zimbabwe who have led the country into
economic and political chaos and are designed so as not to hurt
Zimbabwe’s poor, Teafund said.
The sanctions prevent Mugabe and his associates from traveling to the
EU, freeze any assets they hold in the EU and include an arms embargo.
They were first imposed in 2002 when the Zimbabwe elections held that
year were neither free nor fair, and because of human rights abuses
being committed by the government of Zimbabwe. The EU has renewed these
bans each year since.
The deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe visited the seat of America’s
government Friday when more than 75 MDC activists and concerned
Zimbabweans from different states demonstrated outside the White House.
Some traveled from as far as Ohio which is 8 hours away from
Washington DC to express their discontent.
Concerned Zimbabweans in the USA say 2007 is the year they will make a
concerted and consistent advocacy to remove the Mugabe regime. “We are
far away from home the best we can do is make sure we are supportive of
the heroic struggle that the people of Zimbabwe are waging against this
tyrannical regime,” Mlilo said.
When the revolt finally comes and the government breaks down
completely, it will not simply be a popular revolution of the starving
with (say) the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) at its head. It
will be a battle between emerging war-lords, seeking to control the
country’s mineral wealth.
An
editorial in the Zimbabwe Independent argues that the pro-democracy political movements need to unify against President Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front Party (ZANU PF) to replace Mugabe of be in a position to vie for succession:
As we have said in the past, merely standing on pedestals and calling
Mugabe a dictator is not enough to change Zanu PF's destructive
policies. This is because there are thousands of others who make a
living by propping up the establishment. Whether the MDC is up to the
task of shifting the balance of political forces this year is still to
be seen. That starts with the party putting its house in order and
setting a convincing agenda rather than waiting for the succession
crisis in Zanu PF to give it a boon.
The search for gold and diamonds has become an attractive option for
thousands of Zimbabweans struggling to make ends meet in a tough
economic environment.
But the cash-strapped authorities are
desperate to harness the foreign currency that sales of precious
minerals should rake in and have mounted a tough campaign to curb
leakages. More than 19,000 people have been arrested since the start of
a police blitz against illegal panners and dealers in November.
At a function to launch Tekere's book Tekere -- a
Lifetime of Struggle, the two veterans of the struggle for Zimbabwe's
liberation said Mugabe had to be persuaded to join the nationalist
cause yet he now regarded himself as a "king" who had solely delivered
the country from colonialism.
"We produced a creature that has destroyed this country," said Nkala,
who said he was instrumental in convincing Mugabe to join the National
Democratic Party, the precursor of Zanu and Zapu.
A column in the Zimbabwe Independent is
highly critical of Mugabe's economic reforms, in particular land reform:
Until the president, his ministers and the entire
governmental hierarchy are prepared to recognise facts, admit to them,
and effectively address them, Zimbabwe's economy will continue to
decline, the pronounced widespread poverty and misery will become
evermore intense and economic recovery will become increasingly distant.
At
the outset of his address, the president yet again claimed: "The
underperformance of the economy we are now turning around is largely a
product of the illegal overt and covert sanctions imposed on us by
Britain and her allies, for daring to reclaim our land."
The
labor problems of Zimbabwe are discussed in this post.
The government is also in the
process of hiring lawyers to defend the land reform policy before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ISID) against dispossessed Dutch farmers.
If the Dutch farmers win the case, it could open the floodgates for
similar claims in international courts by white farmers of different
nationalities whose businesses were protected under Bippa agreements
but were still expropriated without compensation. Bippas are Bilateral
Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements.
Pakistan has sent several senior military experts
to help strengthen President Robert Mugabe’s army, which has
been severely weakened by mass resignations, desertions and a Western
military embargo, says a report in The Independent.
The secondment of the Pakistanis to retrain and re-equip
the Zimbabwean army comes as Mr Mugabe is desperate to beef up his
forces as he fears the deteriorating economy may lead to social unrest,
the report says.
What is more troubling about
the ruling elite’s desires for political uniformity among citizens
is that they have racialized democratic discourse by reducing political
competitors to stooges for white interests. All those who question the
ruling elite’s administration have to be white and if they are
black they have white handlers, strategists and backers. According to
this thinking the Movement for Democratic Change, civil society and
the privately owned media are nothing but fronts and purveyors of white
interests.
Hmmmm, where have I seen this tactic before?