“West should have lifted sanctions after 2017 coup!” ANC maintains. Nonsense, Zimbabwe was and remain a pariah state.
By Wilbert Mukori |One of the most obnoxious things appoint white racism is the how the whites denied the blacks a voice. “Our blacks are very happy it is the Russian and Chinese communists how are agitating for black majority rule because they want to colonise the country,” the whites would say.
The blacks were never given the opportunity to speak for themselves. Of course, they were not happy! Who can ever be happy when they are being treated as third class citizens, oppressed, exploited and denied the freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
In Rhodesia, blacks did not have a vote. Period!
Sadly, things did not change much in independence Zimbabwe. We remove the white oppressors only to get black oppressors. The ordinary Zimbabwean had the freedoms and rights in theory but not in practice. Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies made it clear that if the party lost the 1980 elections, the bush war would continue. Of course, the people voted to end the war.
Some people have argued the threat was just campaigning stratagem born out of the mistrust of the British and the whites holding a free, fair and credible elections. The doubters were silence the victorious Zanu PF regime launched the 1983 to 1987 Gukurahundi massacre whose sole purpose was to force PF Zapu to sign the Unity Accord and join Zanu PF. This cleared the way for the imposition of the de facto one party state.
Zanu PF has rigged elections ever since the country’s independence all in the name of unity, development and peace. All lies! The nation has never enjoyed peace, especially during elections when the regime has blatantly rigged the elections and used wanton violence to retain its iron grip on power. 43 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have left the country’s once upon a time robust economy in ruins.
Zanu PF has completely ignored the demands of the ordinary Zimbabweans for free, fair and credible elections not only as birth right but as the prerequisite for good governance, peace, justice and economic prosperity. The regime, just like the Smith white regime before it, has only heard the Americans and the British’s call for free elections. It has dismissed the calls as “regime change agenda”.
How it has never occurred to Zanu PF leaders that the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans want free, fair and credible elections and regime change, especially given the country’s economic ruins; beggars belief. Of course, Zanu PF leaders have elected to ignore the suffering and lamentation of the ordinary Zimbabweans.
Alas! It is not only the Zanu PF regime that has turned a deaf ear to the cries of ordinary Zimbabweans for free and fair elections; the ANC regime in SA is now fighting in Zanu PF’s corner, fighting to end the West’s “regime change agenda”.
“The US and UK, Mbalula charged, have been changing goal posts every time an opportunity presents itself for the two global powerhouses to drop sanctions against Zimbabwe,” reported Bulawayo 24.
“Such an opportunity, he added, came to being when incumbent President Emerson Mnangagwa toppled Robert Mugabe through a bloodless coup.”
“President Mugabe was characterised as the main problem and was removed through a coup d’etat in Zimbabwe,” Mbalula said.
“Mnangagwa came in and still the British and the Americans are looking the other way and not coming to the party.
“What the Americans and British want in Zimbabwe is regime change. We are now faced with Zimbabweans crossing to South Africa because in Zimbabwe there is no bread.”
This is utter nonsense:
the removal of Mugabe through a military coup underlined just how desperate the political system in Zimbabwe had become, Mugabe could not be remove through free, fair and credible elections, only a military coup.
following the coup, Mnangagwa and his coup plotters promised to stamp out corruption and to hold free and fair elections. They corruption is rampant and they went on to blatantly rig the 2018 elections; confirming Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. The November 2017 military coup facilitated a musical chairs changes in Zanu PF otherwise nothing of substance changed.
everyone know Zanu PF has repeatedly failed to hold free, fair and credible elections and that is the reason why Zimbabwe withdraw from the Commonwealth before it was booted out in 2003. The country’s application to be readmitted was refused because it failed to hold free elections in 2018.
SADC refused to endorse Zanu PF’s 2008 election victory because of the blatant cheating and wanton violence, it was so bad even they could not ignore it. It was none other than the regional body itself that forced Zanu PF to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA), agreeing to the need for Zimbabwe to implement the raft of democratic reforms. SADC was the guarantor of the agreement and President Thabo Mbeki of SA signed on behalf of the regional body.
SADC leaders know that not even one meaningful reform was implemented during the five years of the GNU nor since. Zanu PF emerged from the GNU with all its carte blanche powers to rig elections. Zanu PF rigged the 2013 and 2018 elections and is rigging the 2023 elections.
the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic mess and political turmoil is the country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. The ANC government knows this and why it is choosing to pretending to be blind, deaf and stupid and indifferent to the cries for free elections in Zimbabwe beggars belief.
The ANC government has held free, fair and credible elections since the end of apartheid in 1994 and so they know that Zanu PF has been rigging elections. They also know that Zanu PF would have never lasted these last 43 years if the party held free and fair elections.
So ANC know it would be the democratic wishes of the people of Zimbabwe to have regime change in Zimbabwe. And by granting the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy, ANC is frustrating the people of Zimbabwe’s democratic wish.
Why? What has ANC to gain from propping up a corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging Zanu PF regime?
It is only by looking at the mess SA is in today, nearing 30 years of corrupt and mediocre ANC rule have reduced that country into a real mess. As we speak many South Africans are sitting in the dark, the sweeping power cuts have crippled the country, for example. The chaos in ESKOM is repeated in all the other sectors across the board. And, worst of all, the ANC government, which is responsible the economic mess, has no clue what to do to end this mess.
History will show that the ANC government is hell bent on stopping regime change in Zimbabwe because it prefers the dunderhead Zanu PF government because its own failures in SA will be nothing compared to the mess in Zimbabwe.
The tragic irony is that the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe has accelerated SA’s economic collapse and as long as Zimbabwe remains a failed state, SA’s economic recovery will be that much harder. It is not in SA’s interest to keep dunderheads in power in Zimbabwe!