Re-Engagement With Zimbabwe: West Must Walk the Talk

Republic of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe greets former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young. He was in the country as an envoy of the State Department., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Editorial Comment: Re-engagement: West must walk the talk

Monday, 22 April 2013 00:00
Zimbabwe Herald

WE welcome the re-engagement drive by the Anglo-Saxon alliance — Britain, the EU, the US and their allies — who say they want to normalise relations after 14 years of unwarranted estrangement.

The moves, coming as they do before the watershed harmonised elections, are a tacit admission by the westerners that the regime change drive has aborted, and only Zimbabweans can choose their leadership.

We should applaud ourselves for this feat, for refusing to go under despite the arsenal the westerners ranged against our country and its people since the turn of the millennium.

Once again we reiterate President Mugabe’s constant refrain that we have no quarrel with the Western alliance, but just a bilateral dispute with London that the new Labour government of ex-premier Tony Blair tried to internationalise, and which the EU and US needlessly bought into.

We have always insisted on the justness of our cause and been open to building bridges. We hope — as President Mugabe said — the re-engagement drive culminates in the unconditional lifting of the illegal sanctions regime.

The sanctions were not only imposed illegally, outside the purview of the United Nations system and in violation of the Cotonou Agreement that governs relations between African Caribbean and Pacific countries, but were a blatant attempt to mask wilful violation of international law.

This is because by refusing to honour obligations entered into by the Tory administration of Margaret Thatcher which pledged to meet the costs of land reforms in Zimbabwe in 1979, the Labour regime violated customary international law that bid it to uphold all treaties and contracts of the Tory government, the same way the Tories today are bound by obligations of the Labour regime.

Be that as it may, the traditionally all-white Commercial Farmers Union on whose behalf the sanctions were imposed has since indicated that land reforms are a fait accompli, and no longer wishes to continue swimming against the current.

They say they now want to work with Government and also be considered for resettlement like other Zimbabweans.

This is what they should have done long back because land reforms were about equitable distribution of land from those who held it in excess by virtue of colonial patronage to those who did not have it by virtue of colonial dispossession.

We, however, welcome the meeting of minds between the CFU, whatever remains of it, and its kith and kin in the West.

Estrangement has passed its sell-by date.

To this end we hope the Westerners move to scrap their sanctions regime ahead of the harmonised elections because talking engagement while keeping the ruinous embargo that was designed to influence voting patterns would be the height of hypocrisy.

The Westerners must also stop their covert and overt interference in our domestic affairs by cutting all funding of political parties and quasi-political groups masquerading as civil society.

Our people suffered a lot over the past decade as the sanctions regime decimated our currency, wiped out pensions and savings and destroyed livelihoods.

The gains Government made in the social-services sector since independence were stymied with thousands of innocent people succumbing to preventable diseases like cholera.

Reparations for the damage wrought by the economic warfare are worth pursuing.

Progressive re-engagement should be coupled by an admission by the Western alliance that they were wrong in buying into a bilateral dispute, that they were wrong in trying to subvert our march to economic independence, and that they were wrong in sponsoring political opposition in Zimbabwe.

The US special envoy, Mr Andrew Young, struck the right note when he apologised for the sanctions his country needlessly imposed.

As always Zimbabwe’s hand is extended, the same way it was extended to Rhodesians who decimated our people during the Second Chimurenga.

We seek only co-existence, mutual recognition and the respect due to us as an equal member of the community of nations.