PHA-Exch> Appeal for Zimbabwe : Ten years of economic sanctions, that's enough!

[Leslie London]

This is a strange message, indeed.
 
That the problem should be framed as "We remind Great Britain, the US
and the EU of the exorbitant social and human cost of the punitive
measures imposed and foisted upon this country" is all very well, yet
little in the message refers to the devastation primarily visited on the
Zimbabwean people by Robert Mugabe himself, his close aides and his
party, all amply documented for those who wish to hear. Notable, these
elites' personal wealth has not been affected by the implosion of the
Zimbabwean economy caused by government policies to keep Mugabe in
power, not to mention the repression meted out to Zimbabweans daring to
oppose him. These are described somewhat ingenuously as "mistakes" in
message below.
 
None of the signatories appear to be Zimbabweans but all feel free to
speak on behalf of the victims of "... punitive measures that kill,
starve and impoverish innocent people..."  One might at first have
thought that the perpetrators of such heinous crimes are Mugabe and his
supporters, but no, the perpetrators are the former colonial powers.
 
Of course, there is a need to call the colonial powers to book, of
course there is a need to speak the truth about the extent of the
colonial legacy.
But the unspeakable contempt wished upon Zimbabweans by Zimbabwean
elites must also be named for what it is - a crime against humanity -
and no amount of SADC and African solidarity can or should sanitise such
actions. 
 
It is the willingness of our peoples to speak out against our own
dictators that is the only route to being agents of our own future, and
telling the colonial powers about right and wrong.
 
Leslie London
 

>>> Michel Collon <michel.collon at skynet.be> 2009/03/05 11:59 AM >>>

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Appeal for Zimbabwe
Ten years of economic sanctions, that’s enough!
Aminata Traoré, Jean Ziegler, Samir Amin, René De Vos, Amadou
Diarra...

Bamako, Mali, February 11th 2009

More than 3000 deaths and nearly 70 000 people affected by cholera in
Zimbabwe, with risks of epidemic spreading to neighbouring countries,
have not been enough to end the economic sanctions Great Britain and its
allies have imposed on this country since the end of the 90’s. That’s
how the European Council, during its session on 26th January 2009,
decided “to extend for another year the Common Position on restrictive
measures against Zimbabwe”. Of extreme gravity, such a decision can only
exacerbate a situation which is already characterised by the highest
unemployment (94%) and inflation rates in the world, by food shortage
which 7 million people suffer from, by a lack of schooling for children
as well as brain drain and labour outflow among which many teachers and
medical staff members. 

The sole wrongdoing of the Zimbabwean people consequently deprived of
jobs, income, drinkable water, healthcare and of food - all in all
condemned to a veritable descent into hell - is to be led by Robert
Mugabe whose ousting and overthrow have been demanded during long weeks
of destabilisation and demonization. The former colonial power,
political opponents of the Zimbabwean president as well as NGOs and
mainstream media accuse him of having ruined the country, of violating
the rights of his fellow citizens and of remaining in power by the
repression of his opponents and electoral fraud and ballot rigging. For
lack of his resignation, the power sharing deal with his main rival
Morgan Tsvangirai has just been concluded after four months of talks
during which the President of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
claimed, on top of the Prime Minister position, the control of key
ministries. 

It’s a good thing that the Southern African Development Community
(SADC) member countries’ meeting held on 30th January 2009 led to this
peaceful outcome which has just translated into the setting up of a
governm
ent of national unity. Let’s hope that President Robert Mugabe
and the Zanu-PF will live up to the expectations and this crisis will
only be a bad memory! 

But this important step is only the start of a normalisation process.
To end the agony of the Zimbabwean people, what’s required is the
immediate and unconditional lifting of the economic sanctions that have
widely contributed to throw former Southern Rhodesia into such a
calamitous situation. 

Such a reading of the Zimbabwean tragedy from the point of view of
punitive measures that kill, starve and impoverish innocent people does
not exempt or exonerate at all the Zimbabwean President and his party
for the mistakes they may have made. It is a matter of giving a chance
to peace by highlighting fundamental facts which have deliberately been
overshadowed and concealed. 

Let’s go back to the Lancaster House Agreement which, in 1979, ended
fourteen years of a fierce struggle for the liberation of former
Southern Rhodesia from the claws of racist Ian Smith. It was signed in a
context in which 6000 white farmers owned more than 15.5 million of the
country’s most fertile hectares. Meanwhile, with difficulty, nearly 4.5
million blacks lived on community land, often arid, where settlers had
confined them during one century. The willing buyer, willing seller
principle is one of the main aspects of the plan of action which was
supposed to remedy that situation. Ten years later, it had not evolved
in a tangible way because white farmers increased prices and were only
giving up the less fertile land. 

In 1997, Tony Blair’s government made it known to Harare that it could
not longer financially contribute, as agreed, to the transfer of
farmland to blacks by compensating British farmers who were supposed to
be expropriated. The Zimbabwean President decided then to confiscate
their land without compensation.
Economic sanctions are the financial, economic, social and political
war machine that has been deployed by way of punishment meted out by
Great Britain and its allies, particularly the United States. Let’s
judge for ourselves: 

- In December 2001, the United States Congress passed the Zimbabwe
Democracy and Economic Recovery Act. It comprises, among other things,
the US opposition to any loan to Zimbabwe and to the cancellation of the
debt by international financial institutions. This act has widely
contributed to throw Zimbabwe into economic recession and turmoil and
visit upon it a more and more vertiginous and astronomical inflation
rate. 
- In 2002, the Bush administration also implemented a programme
entitled Governance & Democracy with a budget of 6 million dollars to
support opponents (MDC, trade unions, religious groups, “independent”
media, etc...). 
- At the peak of the land redistribution campaign, the United States
opposed the World Food Programme (WPF) aid to Zimbabweans. 
- In 2004, the Bush administration also opposed the support of the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS to help sick people in Zimbabwe.
- Since 2002, the United States and Great Britain have been urging the
European Union to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, which is in violation of
article 98 of the Cotonou Agreement signed in 2000 between the European
Union and the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries. 
- All the funds granted by several Western countries and devoted to
education, healthcare and sanitation were suspended. 

Let’s add to these sanctions the usual and disastrous consequences of
the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) from the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (liberalisation, privatisations,
low wages, worsening living conditions...) as well as the more frequent
cycle of droughts to understand the deep underlying causes of Zimbabwe’s
sorry plight. Other African countries escape this fate only because they
live with cash injections from external funding of which this country is
deprived. 

Sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe are even more unjustifiable when they
proceed from 
States or institutions that are non-transparent and
non-democratic in their dealings with Africa if we study the rules of
global trade, the terms of economic partnership (EPA) or African
migrants’ readmission agreements. They are illegitimate because
unrepresentative of African people whose rights they deny and trample
under foot but to which they callously pay lip service to in the defence
of their own interests. 

Such undemocratic and murderous economic sanctions also stem from
political and financial corruption insofar as by punishing leaders they
consider undesirable, world powers dissuade other leaders who would
otherwise be tempted to stray from the straight and narrow. 

Democracy, human rights and good governance are debased,
instrumentalised and discredited when powers who claim to be their
representatives, ridicule them if not convert them into dreadful weapons
of pressure, domination and blackmail to withdraw their financing. 

It’s high time to prioritize in the discussion on the present and the
future of the postcolonial State in Africa, the key question, which is
often overshadowed and concealed, of the control of resources as well as
the initiative of change, including agrarian reform. Beyond the extreme
personalisation of the political debate, Robert Mugabe’s country is, in
this regard, a textbook case to meditate on at a time when you see
multinationals from all over the world rushing to grab the fertile land
of the continent and everything being sold off in the name of growth and
the prevailing whims and supremacy of the market. 

While the diagnosis is biased and the economic sanctions are deadly for
entire populations, voices exhort President Obama to pursue the same
course in his turn His “Yes we can” does require a radical change in
perspective, discourse and practices in terms of US foreign policy in
Africa. It is of the utmost importance that he plays on the black
continent like in the Middle East the listening and out-stretched hand
card instead of carrying on with sanctions that are one way or the other
nothing but a violent onslaught against destitute, helpless and
disinformed people. 

More practically, it means discarding and jettisoning George W. Bush’s
Axis of Evil theory which has inflicted on the world the aggression
against and occupation of Saddam Hussain’s Iraq, the barbaric and
repeated attacks of Israel against the Palestinian people, illustrated
with the latest deluge of fire power unleashed on the Gaza Strip. In
Africa, this theory applies to a certain extent to Zimbabwe too. The
clarification of global economic, social, financial and environmental
issues, in order for Zimbabweans and, more generally, Africans to be
committed to the democratic process on other grounds than mere
alternation of power for its own sake and the jockeying for key
positions, is the real challenge which should preoccupy and be uppermost
in the minds and thinking of African leaders, sub-regional institutions
as well as the African Union and the genuine allies of the continent. 

It is perilous for Africa to follow the advice of the masters of this
world who have sunk into the mire of a deep crisis, an indictment of
failure of their model of society that the moralisation of the financial
sphere will not rehabilitate and manage to restore faith in. As for the
legitimacy of political power in Africa, it is necessary to underscore
that, beyond the requisite elections, it lies above all in the
willingness and ability of elected leaders to trade and manage the
resources of the continent in the best interests of those men and women
who have elected them and mandated them to do so. 

Also, the temporary lull and respite that has been attained by the SADC
needs to be used to set up a lasting peace for Zimbabweans and be
grasped as an opportunity for the whole of Africa to shed a different
light on crises since its customarily battered image has been
considerably tarnished by the hypocrisy of lies which prevail in the
analysis of the pr
edicament of this country. 

Intellectuals and other actors of critical civil society, along with
African and non-African leaders who firmly believe that the black
continent is not an isolated planet but well and truly the cradle and
birthplace of humankind and an innocent victim of a wild, rampaging and
destructive capitalism, need to analyse, reveal and dismantle the cogs
of its oppressive machinery. 

To give a chance to authentic and lasting peace in Zimbabwe, we join
our voices to the chorus of Zimbabweans, of the SADC and the African
Union. We remind Great Britain, the US and the EU of the exorbitant
social and human cost of the punitive measures imposed and foisted upon
this country. 

- We declare that drinkable water, food and medicine must cease to be
deployed as weapons of war. 
- We call for the immediate lifting and removal of the blockade that
deprives millions of Zimbabweans of these amenities which are absolutely
essential for human existence. 
- We hold that it is profoundly unjust and irresponsible to make human
lives depend on a top level political power sharing agreement.

Yes, we can! What is required is to stop mixing up British, US and
European interests with the legitimate rights and entitlement of the
Zimbabwean and African populations to land, food, drinkable water,
healthcare, education, employment and income. WE ARE ALL ZIMBABWEANS!

Signatories : 
Aminata D. Traoré (Essayist, Mali) – Jean Ziegler (Sociologist,
Switzerland) – Boris Boubacar Diop (Writer, Senegal) - Mireille Frantz
Fanon (Frantz Fanon Foundation) – Diadié Y. Dagnoko (Teacher, Mali)
-Demba Moussa Dembélé (Economist, Senegal) – Assetou Founé Samaké
(Biologist, Mali) - Bruno Rebelle - Souleymane Koly (Choreographer, Côte
d’Ivoire)– Hamidou Magassa (Writer, Mali) – Christian Koné (Journalist,
Burkina Faso) – Ismaël Diabaté (Painter, Mali) – Bibi Diawara
(Demographer, Mali) – Lucette & Christian Morillon (France) – Mamadou
Goïta (Socioeconomist, Mali) – Sarah Jane Mellor (Translator
France/UK) – Moussa Bolly (Journalist, Mali) – Valerie Ngo Biem
(Cameroun) – Jean Michel Naud (Teacher, France) – Clariste Soh Moube
(Cameroun) – Moustapha Diaté (Economist, Senegal) – Aziz Coulibaly
(Accountant, Côte-d'Ivoire) –Aboubakary Gollock (Economist, Canada)
–Amadou Gollock (Consultant, Mali) - – Koulsy Lamko (Ecrivain,
activiste culturel, Tchad-Mexique) - Amadou Kane Sy (Kan-si), (Artiste
Plasticien, Sénégal) - Juan Montero Gómez –(Las Palmas, Iles Canaries,
España.) - Aboubacar Demba Cissokho (Journaliste, Sénégal) - Oumar
DEMBELE (Prof. d'Enseignement Secondaire, Mali) - Zohra
Bouchentouf-Siagh (Professeur de littérature a l'Université de Vienne
(Autriche), Algérie) - Mabrouka Gasmi (Communicateur, Tunisie) -
Nathalie M'Dela Mounier (Enseignante, France) - Massamba Mbaye
(journaliste, Sénégal) - Diagne Fodé Roland (enseignant, membre de
Ferñent / Mouvement des Travailleurs Panafricains – Sénégal) - Amadou
Tiéoulé DIARRA (Avocat-MALI) – BAH Djenebou (Bamako, Mali), Samir Amin
(Forum du Tiers-Monde, Sénégal) - Abdourahman Waberi, ecrivain
(Djibouti-France) - Docteur Brigitte MAITRE (Médecin, France) - Hamédine
Racine Guissé, Professeur-Consultant (Sénégal) - Ibro Abdou (économiste,
Niger) - Coumba Ndoffène Diouf, Professeur à l'Université Cheikh Anta
Diop (UCAD) de Dakar - Révérend Louis Anatole NTCHINDA (Pasteur,
Cameroun) - Dr Patrick HIRTZ, (Praticien Hospitalier, Spécialiste des
Hôpitaux, France) - René de VOS (Sociologue, France) - Seydou Nourou
Ndiaye, (écrivain, Directeur des Editions Papyrus a Dakar) – (Pascal
Paquin, Militant associatif, Fleury La vallée, France)

If you wish to take part in this campaign, please sign the text by
sending us your name, profession and address to the following email
djenneart at afribone.com.ml

More about Zimbabwe (in French) : www.michelcollon.info (
http://www.michelcollon.info/ ) 
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