After Hopewell Arrest, Time For Zimbabweans to Quickly Form A Govt In Exile? Poland Also Did It And It Worked | A STUDY
7 November 2020
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Below is an excerpt from a study on the reality of exile governments, what has become topical in ZIMBABWE’S diaspora community, particularly South Africa, Europe and North America as people explore ways of ending a repeating cycle of state aided crime that had continued since 1983 by h By

The jailing of journalist Hopewell Chin’ono this week has made these calls get louder as Zimbabweans feel their lives are being wasted away with each passing day. How can this be fixed?

There are currently an estimated 7 million Zimbabweans exiled outside the country. 85% of this population will never return to their country of birth for the next 25 years unless for a visit. 60% of this large group will be buried in the diaspora. They clearly have no association with the junta leader Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa, apart from bring Zimbabwe born. It is very clear that the 2018 elections were rigged and people were killed during the commission of that crime, as planned. To sustain this regime, Mr Mnangagwa is utilizing military methods, and can only do so because such a setup is only feasibly maintained using state aided terrorism, and state aided corruption. In this way more people are being killed, more crimes being committed. That there is a criminal regime is undoubted.

Is the time ripe for this large group to create their own government?

THE rapidity with which the German armies, in violation of all inter-national agreements, overran vast territories and countries in 1939 and 1940 left many countries prostrate before they had opportunity to organize effec-tive defense or prepare some legal form for the maintenance of their national sovereignty.

Thus, in the early stages of the war, the anti-Axis forces, faced with an anomalous situation, were forced to resort to the formation of gov-ernments in exile in order to perpetuate the legal expression of the countries which suddenly found themselves with-out governments. The system of governments in exile is strictly a wartime expediency, without real precedent; but their formation was a natural procedure, as was their recognition by other powers.

The first government to form an ex-iled cabinet, Poland, had anticipated an emergency situation and had prepared the legal ground. Article 24 of the Polish Constitution empowers the President of the Republic to appoint a successor, un-der certain conditions, without the ap-proval of the Polish Sejm. On September 30, 1939, the Polish President, Ignacy Mocicki, who was interned as a refugee in Rumania by the Bucharest government, appointed by letter as the President of the Polish Republic, Wiadyslaw Raczkiewicz, the former speaker of the Polish Senate, who was at that time free in Paris.

In turn, the new President appointed as Premier, General \V?adyslas Sikorski, a political moderate and an opponent of the late Polish dictator Pilsudski. Gen-eral Sikorski, who had lived several years in exile, had been serving as com-mander in chief of the Polish Army in France. This government was recognized by Britain and France and was extended financial credit. Thus, by the simple acceptance by the Allied powers, the Polish Government was granted consti-tutional continuity.’

LEGAL STATUS OF EXILED GOVERNMENTS.

This simple legal formula has been applied to every nation whose govern-ment fled to Allied soil after defeat by Hitler.

The only government in exile whose constitutional continuity may be questioned is that of Czechoslovakia. On October 5, 1938, shortly after the Munich Conference, Eduard Benes re-signed as President, but a Czechoslovak Government continued to function un-der President Hacha and Premier Ru-dolf Reran, the leader of the Agrarian Republican Party along with former Premier Milan Hodia, until the Germans invaded the country in March 1939.

President Hacha’s government had been recognized by France, England, and the United States, in an effort to lend weight to the Munich agreement. But when a Protectorate under von Neurath was established by the German occupants, no steps were taken by the Hacha Cabinet to contest the legality of the new regime, even though France, Great Britain, and the United States explicitly refused to recognize the pup-pet state.

The campaign for a new Czecho-slovak Government started in exile soon after, when on March 19, 1939, Czecho-slovak diplomatic representatives in the United States urged Dr. Benes to as-
1 For a discussion of the legal issues involved in the recognition of governments in exile, see F. E. Oppenheim, “Governments and Authority-in-Exile,” American Journal of International Lair, Oct. 1942.