By Chigumbu Warikandwa
Zimbabwe has been under American sanctions for the past 18 years. These illegal sanctions have meted untold suffering on ordinary civilians whose rights America ironically claim to be protecting. The biggest lie coming from Washington is that the punitive measures are targeted at a few individuals and businesses and the rest of the country has nothing to fear. This is far from it. The only true fact is that Government is the major protagonist which Capitol Hill intends to fight down and away. Regime change is the end being sought here.
Why? Is America interested in what type of government the people of Zimbabwe get? Is America concerned about the welfare of people who owes it nothing? Far from both these two! America is simply interested in installing a Zimbabwean government that bends to its whims and perpetuates its foreign policy.
The unwritten American foreign policy is that all wealth held by Americans in pre and post-colonial establishments whether that wealth was acquired legally or illegally must never be dispossessed from the Americans and their near and distant cousins.
If the Zimbabwean Government abused its citizens and abolished the rule of law and trampled against every form of human right there is but still backed off from reclaiming land and other natural resources from former Rhodies, America will be parking its cool today and never singing the human rights chorus it is selling to the world on Zimbabwe. There are many countries with a dismal human rights record that are darlings of America.
American foreign policy does not care for any man except for the interest of Americans back home. America is for Americans. America survives on natural resources scavenged from weaker states it threatens without shame.
Zimbabwe has made a bold resolve to reclaim land and the majority of its natural resources from the extractive sector. Other African countries are salivating from this boldness and are not opposed to the idea either. Africa being a major natural resource source, the West stands to lose big time if the natives were to regain total control of this God-given wealth. Lately, western corporations are the major exploiters of Africa’s natural wealth. They do not want to be dispossessed of this stranglehold either. The death of political colonialism activated a new form of colonialism; economic imperialism. The French are the leading practitioners of this form of oppression in the northern swathe of Africa where they gave their former colonies paper independence as a form of appeasement to the new bourgeoisie class which occupied government buildings left in the countries’ capitals so as to capture them into docile puppets.
The open secret is that America is the biggest violator of human rights, beginning with the endangered lives of black Americans who have suffered under the heavy hand of the state on flimsy accusations. In fact, being black in America is half a step into state sponsored trouble, trouble that can lead one to jail or at most to an early grave. The United Nations, a permanent tenant and beneficiary of the US, has never raised a finger against this absurdity. Away from American soil, the US has trampled against the human rights of defenceless nations which threaten its military and economic superiority. Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Palestine, Venezuela, North Korea and Libya are some of the few countries whose heads are banged on rocks by America the same way Zimbabwe’s is being banged, all in the name of human rights yet the hidden reason is the want of natural resources held by the natives of these nations or held by their respective government.
America is the worst actor on international relations despite having a record number of foreign missions.
Despite being the said bad nation Zimbabwe is said to be, America built a US$200 million embassy in Harare in record time, the biggest such embassy in Africa. In fact, the US Embassy at Westgate, Harare can pass as the headquarters of the African Union. If Zimbabwe was such a bad destination, would Capitol Hill splurge such a fortune in a rogue state? The truth is, America is the rogue partner in this political relation.
Instead of hiding behind a finger, the US must declare its interests clearly on Zimbabwe so that it can raise a substantial number of supporters on African resources. The only drawback on this easier move is that it is unethical.
Just yesterday, the US spiked Zimbabwe’s diamonds from its market claiming they are mined using forced labour. This unsubstantiated claim is against the reality of the happiest miners in the country as diamond mining firms in Marange pay handsome wages in an effort to reduce corruption through pilfering of the resource among employees. The embargo is obviously meant to diminish the worth of the Zimbabwe gems on the international market so that Zimbabwe suffers. America must present its evidence of forced labour in the diamond mining fields to back its claim. Failure to do this, the claim must be dismissed with deserved contempt.
Zimbabwe is a highly literate country where labour laws are enforced and observed in all sectors of the economy. The fallacy of forced labour in any sector is as archaic as the American imagination of the sophistication of Africans.
