President Ian Khama, of Botswana, joins the growing number of African leaders calling for West imposed targeted sanctions against Mugabe to be lifted. This would be a gesture of good will by the West as from Mugabe the most the President could expect is “see where we go from there”.
The targeted sanction where supposed to hurt Mugabe and about 200 others in his inner circle by restricting their travel to the West and disrupting their business activities. If the truth be told; the sanctions have failed on both accounts. Mugabe and his cronies have certainly travelled out of Zimbabwe to the far east where shopping is just as good and New York or London more often than most of the counterparties in the rest of Africa. As for business; Mugabe and his cronies are all multimillionaires in their own right all from looting. The sanctions did not stop Gideon Gono’s over worked money printing machine or the violent takeover of white owned farms and businesses – the two activities responsible for Zimbabwe’s economic melt down, but netted billions for the dictator and his cronies.
The regime’s propaganda machines have gone into overdrive, blaming the sanctions for the country’s economic collapse.
The West said they imposed the sanctions in 2001 because of the regime’s failure to hold free and fair elections and human rights violations. The record, the regime had never held free and fair elections ever since it got into power in 1980. As for human rights violations, the regime committed its worst human rights violations with the genocide murders of mainly PF Zapu supporters in the mid 1980s. None of the Western countries condemned the regime let alone impose sanctions then?
The regime came up with its own explanation why the West imposed sanctions in 2001; because they object to regime’s land redistribution policy of taking land away from the white farmers and giving it to the landless peasants. In practise, the landless peasants have turned out to be the ruling elite with Mugabe, his wife and many in the inner circle owing five or more a thousand acres plus farms each.
The regime has stubbornly refused to implement democratic reforms that would end the regime’s human rights violations and, hopefully, delivered the free and fair elections in future. There are to be no reforms until the targeted sanctions are lifted. Why the basic human rights like freedom of expression and the right to life itself should ever be used as bargaining chips begs belief.
Sanctions against a regime have been known to work, apartheid South Africa being one example. Calls to West to focus their targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his inner have largely fallen on deaf ears. So the targeted sanctions against Mugabe have been, at best, an inconvenience to the dictator and his followers but a great scapegoat.
The question then is it worth while still maintaining these token sanctions? The answer has to be a no.
The farm invasions will stop, not because Mugabe and his cronies will have suffered a Saul on the road to Damascus moment. There are no white owned farms left in Zimbabwe. As for democratic reforms the regime will never give an inch; free and fair elections will result in regime change and that is something Mugabe and his cronies will never ever allow that to happen at all cost. They stand to lose all loot and, worse still, there are all the hidden skeletons the regime can ill afford to have brought out in the open.
So there is nothing to be gained from lifting the sanction except that the dictator will have to come up with a difference excuse for his continued repression. His excuse for Gukurahundi in the mid 1980s was love for absolute power and having tasted it for three decades the love burns stronger than ever. Lifting the sanctions will be seen by the regime as an acknowledgement by the West that the sanctions were responsible for all Zimbabwe’s economic problems and therefore it should be credited for having the sanctions lifted at last.
At the end of the day, lifting sanctions would be an act of appeasement and Mugabe like the ruthless dictator he is, will be expecting more appeasement; period!
@ Ndodana Sithole
“Failure of the people to asset their power over madness is scandalous.” You are right there Ndodana. It is really scandalous how we, Zimbabweans, have allowed Mugabe to rid rough shod over our basic rights, hopes and dreams! The latest scandal is the carry-on surrounding the writing of the new constitution.
By using violence through operation chimumumu (say nothing) Mugabe has effectively hijacked the whole process to ensure the new constitution is to his liking. He is set to do the same come the elections next year. When that happens, no doubt, many Zimbabweans will cry foul. And yet we have all known Mugabe will use violence to achieve his selfish goals. He brutalised the nation again and again in the past, the last time being during the 2008 sham presidential run off. If anyone ever doubted his future intention, the dictator has pointedly refused to disband the party militia and deployed them during the new constitution outreach meetings.
It is impossible to see how the nation can have any meaningful political activities be it drafting of new constitution or elections whilst Mugabe and Zanu PF are allowed to terrorise and murder the electorate to get what he wants. For three years we have pretended not to see this white elephant in the room. Tsvangirai and his ministers have all been there leading the mob from the front in this stupid madness.
If we want the world to believe we care about getting out of the hell-hole Mugabe has landed us in then we must first show that we are serious about facing our problems. So far we have not done that!
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