In an interview with the
New Zimbabwe the EU made another effort to give a rational reason to its irrational
decision to lift the sanctions and re-engage the Mugabe regime.
Mugabe still maintains
it was the sanctions that caused Zimbabwe’s economic melt-down and not mismanagement
and corruption. Indeed Mugabe has continued to vehemently deny there was
corruption in Zimbabwe.
Even if one was to accept
Mugabe’s position that the country’s economic melt-down was cause by the sanctions,
this will only point to a fundamental but serious weakness in the Zimbabwe economy.
If sanctions imposed on a hundred individuals by a handful of nations can
result in the total collapse of the nation’s economy then those hundred individuals
must be therefore have a totally disproportionate economic clout!
A nation of over 12
million people and all economic power is concentrated in the hands of Mugabe
and his cronies! Mugabe has to explain how this had happen, if this is not proof
of rampant corruption and looting by the ruling elite? The very evils that are
in fact responsible for the economic melt-down and which Mugabe has for years vehemently
denied!
With all due respect to
EU’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, Aldo Dell'Ariccia, but he is not being honest
here.
“As a matter of fact,
there is an evolution of the situation in the country, a positive evolution,”
said the envoy. What evolution is he talking about?
MDC failed to get any
meaningful reforms implemented much to the disappointment of all these
including the EU, USA and SADC who had pushed Tsvangirai hard to implement the
reforms but to no avail. It was the failure to get any meaningful reforms in
the country’s key institutions like the Police, media, ZES, etc. that allowed
Mugabe to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections.
The EU had a simple
choice here, to abandon Zimbabwe’s search for democratic change as SADC has
done and accept Mugabe’s vote rigging. Or simply refuse to give legitimacy to
an illegitimate regime as the Americans, Canadians and Australians have done.
Initially the EU’s
position was the same as that of the Americans, Mugabe rigged the elections and
therefore he is illegitimate. In the last eight months the EU has been softening
its position, pushed hard notably by the Belgians who are keen to get Zimbabwe’s
diamonds regardless of the true stories of looting and brutal oppression going
on in Marange.
I would accept if the EU
was to come out and say MDC should have implemented the reforms, they did not
and now the rest of the people have to suffer and the EU has to lift the
sanctions and move on. Instead the EU is now coming up with a feeble excuse for
lifting sanctions and talk of “a positive evolution” when the nation has in
fact regressed.
For anyone to say the new
Constitution was anything other than just another MDC blunder is an insult to
the people of Zimbabwe. MDC assured the nation that the new constitution would
deliver free and fair elections and, of course, it did no such thing. It was
Mugabe “who wrote the constitution,” as MP Paul Mangwana, Mugabe’s own Zanu PF
crony of the body set to write the new Constitution later admitted. The new
constitution turned out to be a dictator’s creed and not the democratic
constitution the nation wanted.
The economic melt-down crystalized
by the reckless spend before the 2013 elections and after by Mugabe plus the
ill effects of the three decades of rampant corruption has pushed the Zimbabwe
economy into a dangerous nose-dive. Having agreed to re-engage the regime the
EU now faces the tough decision of being on the sinking Titanic but helpless to
influence the way forward because having tacitly accepted Mugabe’s legitimacy
they have to accept his determination to remain at the helm!
Ambassador Aldo
Dell'Ariccia, is the EU going to bankroll the $27 billion ZimAsset bailout? Whatever
the EU pays to appease Mugabe it will be wasted because he is not going to deal
with the root cause of the problem which is corruption. The only sure thing is
he will continue to denounce the West and demand they pay him more!
This is one mess the
greed of one country has ended up dragging all the other EU countries into and
now all them are going to end up with egg on their faces!
16 comments:
@ Mavheti
It was Tsvangirai and MDC's breath-taking incompetence that has kept Mugabe and Zanu PF is power.
After 34 years of denying that corruption was a problem the chickens have come home to roost. Corruption has been eating away everything from the inside and now the hollowed shell is collapsing.
It should have been free and fair elections that got Mugabe and Zanu PF out of office, that did not happen because Mugabe outwitted Tsvangirai. Even Mugabe must have been surprised at just how easy it was to bamboozle Tsvangirai.
Just when Mugabe thought he could seat back and relax one story after another of corruption have emerged; bang, bang, bang. The damage is so great even he cannot ignore it but he is helpless to stop it because his own loot is there for the world to see!
Having outwitted his political opponents for years starting with the late Joshua Nkomo, Muzorewa, Tekere, and now the blundering idiot Tsvangirai; irony of ironies it was his own greed that was to prove his outdoing!
"Chidya matovo akazo dzipwa nedovo rehuru!" as the Shona would say! Like it or not the tough and canning Mugabe who has chewed through the hide of buffalos and hippos is now choking on the hide of a calf!
Malawi will be holding its elections this May and already there have been reports of increasing violence. Two people were killed recently.
When the Malawi President Joyce Banda started cozying up to Zimba-bwe's corrupt and murderous tyrant and even publicly endorse his rigged vote in July 2013 the people of Malawi like many other SADC members said nothing. It was assumed they approved what their president was doing. It will not be surprising if she too is going to use the same dirty tactics to win the May elections!
The people of Malawi should know that what goes round comes round. They should have publicly condemned what Mugabe did in Zimbabwe and thus send a clear message to their own leaders that they will be in trouble if they too tried the same things. The storm has broken and they only now remember of a cave hundreds of miles away where they could have got shelter! It is too late!
@ Jukwa
Well the Zimbabwe economic is sinking and you can witter all you like about your Afrocentric nonsense, it is not going to stop the sinking!
Even Mugabe has finally admitted that corruption "is hurting us"! You can continue to hide behind your little finger of sanctions!
@ Bruce Mawillis
That is rich coming from the man whose master, Mugabe, was saying "I am British!" and is himself a refuge in the West to escape the economic melt-down brought by the regime he/she has supported all these years!
Now you want to escape into ultra-nationalism like the idiot in Gambia who talking of abolishing the use of English to take attention away from his failures as a leader.
What is at issue here is that Mugabe rigged the elections and his years of corrupt and brutal rule has ruined Zimbabwe. You can say what you please in whatever language you chose but the issue is as stated above.
Your pathetic attempt to make talk about what language we should use is only meant to entrap simpletons. Stick to the real issue!
@ Andy Marongwe
But not as retarded as the tyrannical idiot who turns a once prosperous country into a basket case of how African have failed to govern themselves and the morons who have cheered and applauded the tyrant.
Did you shed innocent blood for Mugabe? Well as soon as this dictatorship has collapse you will have to answer for what you did and note Mugabe will deny he ever knew you. From the day you are arrested, you will be on your own!
A few people in the CIO know the person behind the assumed name Andy Marongwe and one has only to catch one CIO and he will spill the beans on the others. It is a well-known fact about you rats; you do not go down alone and prefer the company of your fellow rats.
Someone has a dossier on you already so flashing you out will be easy.
You are the retarded moron who killed innocent people thinking Mugabe will reward you but only got a few crumbs and he killed you out like a dog! Now you will be hanged for murder!
For years many Africans have cheered Mugabe for his fire and brimstone speeches especially at international occasions like the annual address by State and Government leaders at UN. The journalists loved the speeches too; they made for good stories that help boost newspaper sells.
Not content with his notoriety at public gatherings alone, Mu-gabe went further and implemented his policies full of rhetori-cal nonsense but devoid of any common sense. Implemented with the zeal of a paranoid tyrant the policies have completely destroyed Zimbabwe and now some of those nations who had cheered Mugabe and making him the butt of their political jokes!
"Look at Zimbabwe. It used to be the bread basket of Africa. Today it imports almost everything. The Zimbabwean dollar has disappeared. This economy will disappear if that is the ex-ample we want to follow," South Africa ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe told a church group.
Mugabe is now the epitome of how to misrule the nation. How the high and mighty have fallen and humbled! Or as the Shona would say “Aiva madziva avamazambuko!”
Many Zanu PF leaders will have some serious explaining to do when this Zanu PF dictatorship collapse.
"Some people might say ‘The First Lady is greedy, why does she want more land?’, but we are saying it is justified for her to have more land,” said Minister Martin Dinha. And who gave you the right to turn the lives of hundreds of others to gratify the insatiable greed of the spoilt few?
Martin was dully rewarded for his loyalty to the tyrant with the ministerial appointment but one of this days when the tyrant no longer rule the roost all those who turned themselves into little tyrants and ruled with an iron fist will have to have some tough questions to answer!
@ Informer
Mugabe has pissed off the people many, many times in the past and has got away with it each time but one of these days he is not going to get away with it. I believe the current economic crisis is so deep rooted that Mugabe will leave to regret he rigged the July 2013 elections!
Rimwe zuva gava rachababura musungo!
@ Alba
Well may God also punish all those who were fast asleep and al-lowed Mugabe to do as he pleased for all these years?
Mugabe is a mere mortal like you and me. The political and economic mess the nation is in right now is a man-made problem and per se it is in the power of man to put right and yet for 34 years we have fretted and faffed around without ever doing anything to end this madness.
Being a sloth is one of the cardinal sins; as a nation we are sure guilty of that. We certainly refused to apply ourselves mentally and hence the nation has been beset and confounded by problems that the application of a bit of common sense should have put right.
We have been content to use our God given talent of the superior intellect just know what is right from wrong much to the good Lord's disappointment and despair. It is not enough to know the difference without ever acting on that knowledge!
God meant us to know what is right from wrong and then do something to put the wrong to right! And not just sit there and mourn about it!
Whilst Mugabe may get "the full measure of God's judgment' in the next year, we are certainly getting a full whack of God's anger with us for doing nothing on this side of the grave. Millions are unemployed, millions have been forced to leave the country in search of greener pastures, we must have clocked millions of man-years of seating in the dark "sezvidzvororo" during the regular power cuts, hundreds of thousands have died unnecessarily because the country's health service has collapsed, etc.
Behind the grave, the Lord might have some home punishment for us. My understanding of heaven is that it is a place of those who earned by their good deeds whilst on earth and not earned by subjecting oneself to well-earned suffering for being a sloth!
@ Zvobgo
To be fair to the majority of Zimbabweans, they did not vote for the tyrant. He rigged the vote and that is the reason he has refused to release the voters roll, the smoking gun. Still the next democratic government will set up a thorough judiciary inquiry so that the historic record is clear that this regime is illegitimate.
Free and fair elections are the corner stone of democratic and accountable govern-ment; those who rig elections threaten the stability and every existence of the Re-public of Zimbabwe. So no stone will be left unturned in establishing how Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections, who helped him, how much the tyrant paid them, everything down to names of the youths who were bussed around voting on election-day. All the key players in this vote rigging must be hanged to underline the seriousness the nation considers vote rigging as a crime – it is high treason.
@ Joseph Hwande
Thank you for keeping the nation's eyes firmly fixed on the task at hand - the search to end this Zanu PF dictatorship and replace it with a just and democratically ac-countable system of government.
"Greedy people grab and amass more than what they need because they are not conditioned with a sense of sharing or fairness," you said. That is the most profound statement of fact that I have ever heard.
The fact that Mugabe and his cronies have been allowed to grab and amass so much wealth and waste even more over the last 34 years and dragging the nation into this hell-hole unchallenged is something every thinking Zimbabwean out there should hang their head in shame for. What kind of people are we who can be so indifferent as top allow a gang of village bullies takeover the whole country and thrash everything causing so much suffering, death and despair to the people themselves to their own children and to posterity? Shame on us!
“I made a commitment to the minister (Obert Mpofu) to help lift sanctions on Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) and I worked extremely hard to keep these promises,” said Antwerp World Diamond Council (AWDC) Chief Executive Ari Epstein in an address to the two-day parliamentary seminar in Harare.
Zanu PF's commitment to AWDC was that Zimbabwe will sell her dia-monds in Belgium when the sanctions are lifted.
The sanction against ZMDC were lifted in August 2013 a few weeks after the rigged elections. ZMDC did not keep its promise and has been selling its diamonds in Dubai and Shangai instead.
The story confirms that the EU has not been honest about lifting the sanctions because there had been "positive evolution," as Ambassador Aldo Dell’Ariccia claimed. It was AWDC Chief Executive Ari Epstein who had "worked extremely hard" to have the sanctions lifted regardless of the retrogressive changes in Zimbabwe.
Of course AWDC is very disappointed that after all it’s hard work the Mugabe regime did not honour its part of the promise to sell its dia-monds in Belgium.
The Belgians should not expect any sympathy from any Zimbabwean. After all when Mugabe failed to honour his promise to the people of Zimbabwe on a more serious matter of holding free, fair and credible elections, AWDC’s hard work was make sure Mugabe’s vote rigging was dismissed it as unimportant.
AWDC placed a greater value on profits in the trade of our diamonds over the basic right of 12 million Zimbabweans to a meaningful say in the governance of their own country.
May be that is why it is said those who dine with the devil must use a long spoon. A short spoon will mean you will be too close for a quick getaway if you should need to. AWDC and in turn EU got to close to Mugabe only to the tyrant to betray them and it is too late to reinstate the sanctions without being seen as petty and vindictive!
@ Kwv
You are right Zimbabwe is fvcked!
You are right too that the people stupid. It is the daily suffering that has forced them out of their sloth like stupidity. Years is living in the dark sezvidzvororo living in a house that stinks, going to bed hungry night after night, etc., etc. have taken its toll. Even the village idiots have woken up to the reality that something is wrong. Things are set to get even worse in the coming month; that should wake up a few more village idiots.
We have allowed a bunch of village thugs rule the nation and now we lack the courage to stop the chaos that has ensued and to restore the rule of law. Of course, we are fvcked!
Those who will not learn from their past mistakes or are too lazy to do stop repeating the same mistake will be forced to repeat the lesson and pay the price. That is the 11 th Commandment!
@ Jukwa
The ordinary Zimbabweans who constitute the 90% unemployed and have faced the dehumanizing of kiya kiya just to get by for decades now for many of them care about corruption and the economic crash.
The millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have had to seat in the dark for hours because of power cuts and have had to put up with the whole house stinking because the toilets are not being flashed properly because there is no running water. They care about corruption and the economic crash.
For 34 years Mugabe has denying these ordinary Zimbabwean a vote and a voice but that does not mean they are dead or are not suffering the ill effects of his misrule.
It is my honour and privilege to give the millions of ordinary Zimbabwe-ans a voice and reassert again and again their right to be treated as human. You calling me a traitor because I am speaking against the injustice of a corrupt and murderous tyrannical regime is water off a duck's back.
I know why you are supporting the tyrannical regime; you murdered for Mugabe and now fear being called to account.
You will be call to account for the blood on your hands. You idiots murdered innocent people because they dared demand the right to be treated as humans. Well justice must be done here.
@ Jukwa
Mugabe and his acolytes are nothing but a gang of thugs with no more sense than the village idiots which is why they have turned a rich and prosperous nation into one of the poorest in Africa.
You idiots have looted so much that it is unthinkable that the next democratic government will allowed you morons to seat on so many resources whilst the rest of the nation continue to suffer in damn anguish.
Take is from me, most of you looters are going to lose most of your loot! As for those found guilty of rigging elections and/or murderer it is a mandatory jail term at the bottom end and the hangman's rope at the other end.
What I have said here and on other sites has all come true; trust me on this so too is what I said above. Mugabe's reign of terror is over and never again will fear rule Zimbabwe!
@ New Commissioner
I agree Mugabe has taken the people for fools for years and he is sure he can do so forever but that is where he is wrong. In the past the country had not sunk to the same depth as it has this time.
If the Chinese had stepped up and paid some of the ZimAsset bailout it would have bought him breathing space. He no breathing space and everything is crashing down all around. He is finished! The Zanu PF dictatorship is sinking, that is a mathematical certainty.
If it was anyone else they would accept they have failed and walk away. Mugabe is a tyrant he will hang on to the bitter end even though that means forcing the nation deeper and deeper in the mess. This why tyrants finally fall people kill them like rats!
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