Zimbabweans reading the Sunday Mail which reported on the peaceful national run-off elections in June 2008 which were won by President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe then headed to Egypt for the African Union Summit.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Courtesy of the Herald
Opening the Second Session of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe on Tuesday, President Mugabe characteristically extended an olive branch to those who have been fighting to destroy Zimbabwe through all kinds of machinations.
President Mugabe said Zimbabwe remained "in a positive stance to enter into fresh, friendly and co-operative relations with all those countries that have been hostile to us in the past".
To his compatriots in the august House — some of whom have not been without a part in the evil machinations — he encouraged the "building of bridges of amity, forgiveness, trust and togetherness".
But we hear America, the chief architect of Zimbabwe’s misery through illegal sanctions, ZDERA, which apart from seeking to destroy Zimbabwe’s economy, expresses undue interventionist and divisive manoeuvres such as sponsoring hostile pirate radio stations, has "reacted coolly" to President Robert Mugabe’s overture for better ties with their deeply wronged victims.
"We encourage Mr Mugabe to show his commitment to positive relations with the US by fully implementing the Global Political Agreement which he signed in September 2008," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly reportedly said referring to the GPA which President Mugabe signed with leaders of the two MDC formations.
Kelly is said to have urged President Mugabe to end "politicised arrests and prosecutions and often violent land seizures" and fire what he described as Zimbabwe’s "corrupt Attorney-General and Reserve Bank governor" — apparently referring to Mr Johannes Tomana and Dr Gideon Gono, respectively.
Crying more than the bereaved
America wants the repeal of "emergency decrees and draconian laws restricting personal freedoms" and for Zimbabwe to commit to drafting a new constitution and to holding elections under international supervision, a report said.
"What we would like to see is some real concrete action," Kelly reportedly said.
Talk of a stranger crying more than the bereaved.
It seems Mr Kelly actually knows more "repression" and "politicised arrests" than the purported victims of such evils!
Heaven knows if America did not want MPs from the MDC to boycott the opening of Parliament in protest over the wrongs Kelly knows so much about.
Or at least, they should have jeered and sang and heckled.
Yet if there is one thing that could demonstrate willingness of Zimbabweans to work together it was the absence of reckless heckling that characterised the opening of the previous session last year, which one Madhuku then told us was "an integral part of Parliament".
For all the sober-minded, this was just an unacceptable showing by Members of Parliament, which only served to demonstrate contempt for those who elected them and a show of unacceptable division at the expense of the nation.
Now the absence of this "integral part of Parliament" — according to Madhuku at least — should demonstrate to the world that Zimbabweans are ready to work for their country, and please, there is no need to be Kelly (NB: lively and aggressive) about it.
No Apologies
It is to be hoped that after this welcome show of patriotism and sense of duty on Tuesday, the apparent disdain of the US will not lead the responsible and honourable countrymen and women to do kongonya during the actual sitting as a way to atone for the displeasure that their maturity might have excited in some quarters.
Much the same way one wouldn’t expect Mangoma really to feel bad for being called an "apologist" for saying the unequivocal truth that Zimbabwe’s land "has its own history".
Apparently someone who does not, and cannot share, the emotions that all Africans have when the land of their fathers is mentioned, was so upset to hear Mangoma telling a visiting German delegation that the emotive land issue in Zimbabwe "has its own history".
Fumed one bigoted columnist, who usually feels that anyone who does not agree with his racist-coloured views is delusional: "The response of people like Mangoma has been to do nothing except to offer the limp excuse of ‘history’.
"A history of colonial land seizures does not mean every single abuse needs to be repeated, especially when, as South Africa has shown, there are other remedies," he pontificated.
With due respect, no one who is serious about the correction of historical imbalances can cite South Africa as a role model, especially where land is concerned.
Unless, of course, he is trying to do those "by opposite" jokes that only titillate those with a primary school education.
Since South Africa attained "Independence" in 1994, to date it has managed to redistribute only about 4 percent of land against projections of 65 percent by 2015.
The willing-buyer/willing-seller model has failed in South Africa, as it has done this side of the Limpopo, as former colonisers are not willing to let go of the gains for which they in the main killed and tortured.
It is to be wondered what these "other remedies" might. Unless one is talking about getting meaningless compliments and weary blandishments for basically doing nothing for the price of losing a precious period of one’s life.
As a matter of fact, whatever "other remedies" may be, it is a known fact that those who cling to ill- gotten colonial gains will never let go unless force is used.
Bloching the tourists
So we hear that the reason why white tourists have not been coming to Zimbabwe in recent years — coincidentally the period Zimbabwe has been under sanctions and negative perceptions at the behest of the West — is "first and foremost the very negative image that Zimbabwe has a safe destination".
How many of us remember when a visitor, or any "innocent bystander", was last molested in Zimbabwe or caught in the "frequent malabuse (sic) of law and order" by what somebody called "the guardians of law and order"?
We certainly have heard visitors expressing surprise at the peace and tranquillity that exists in Zimbabwe which is quite different from the negativity of certain sections of our society, here and abroad.
The kiss of the Devil
We have often heard that when the Devil kisses you, you better count your teeth.
But then, our own hardworking Finance Minister, hailed as "Best Minister of Finance in Africa" in some circles, is perhaps not too eager to count his teeth even when he is yet to complete a full fiscal term.
And Zimbabweans might better start counting theirs.
Have we not possibly lost teeth worth something close to a billion dollars?
Poor Amanpour . . .
It has generally been agreed that Christiane Amanpour fared all too badly in her interview with President Mugabe on her CNN programme on September 24.
Westerners, many of them over-anxious to see President Mugabe outwitted by Amanpour, were shocked by her shallow understanding of the Zimbabwean story.
She did not even know of something called the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, an integral part of the land question in Zimbabwe, despite the fact that the same was drafted in the city where she was born.
She apparently had not read the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, which is her country’s misguided expression of love for the people of Zimbabwe and the matrix that moulds the current US-Zim relations.
One could go on and on; but the bottom line for many Zimbabweans should be the dawning of this fundamental truth: that the US media is excellent in everything except that which you know.
After all, that respect that some of us might have accorded her for her reportage of Iraq, etc, she is human — and enormously fallible.
As a matter of fact, if one has followed Western reportage of Zimbabwe in recent years, they will testify to the media’s lack of credibility, which even their own home audiences acknowledge.
And Annan . . . pooh!
As a self-respecting African, you cannot help but feel disgusted by a chap called Kofi Annan who was once UN secretary-general.
Here is a man who in 2003 folded his arms when George W. Bush proclaimed that with or without international support he was going to torture, maim, rape and kill innocent civilians in Iraq, because "God" had told him to do so.
What has followed is a humanitarian disaster, which will not disappear any time soon.
Neither will the excesses of Israel, America’s lap dog ally, in Palestine.
Nor in Afghanistan where little children are killed because they will be harbouring terrorists, if not suspected Al-Qaeda themselves.
Yet Annan, throughout his term as UN chief, or now when he is masquerading as some kind of statesman, has not told the world that perpetrators of these crimes against humanity need to be brought to book.
Rather, if there should be somebody at The Hague, it is Africans and Africans only.
Now he tells the world that International Criminal Court trials are needed for leaders of last year’s American-sponsored post-election violence in Kenya. (This after he "negotiated" a power-sharing deal there.)
And all on behalf of a country that says it does not recognise the same court it wants only its opponents to go to.
Feedback: Tichaona Zindoga, theherald@zimpapers.co.zw
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