Disgusted Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe will lead his geariatrics in another year of struggle to unshackle the EU sanctions but all will be in vain unless he implements Constitutional agreements he signed with MDC frmations on 15 September 2008 that he has reneged on.
The EU has poured icy cold water on Zanu PF attempts to have sanctions first imposed against the vile Zimbabwe political party in 2002.
President Mugabe is seething with anger at the latest development. But it is him who is failing to uphold the Laws of the country and allowing his Party loyalists to indulge in impunity who deserves the punishment of sanctions because he remains defiant in his crusade against wishes of the majority of Zimbabweans.
He is the President by default and he speaks only for those that imposed him on us after we clearly voted against his continued tenure in the highest office in our country.
Of the 243 odd Zanu PF leaders and State owned companies slapped with travel banishments and trade embargoes only 6 individuals out of the original list 203 together with 8 State-owned companies and Parastatals and 1 Zanu PF closely associated individually owned company out of the original 40 were for technical reasons removed from the list.
The 6 individuals that have been relieved of the travel ban to EU countries include 4 (Richard Hove, Thomsen Jangara, Joseph Msika and Vitalis Zwinavashe) deceased Zanu PF zealots and fallout former Politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa and Thamer Al-Shanfari who is now exiled from Zimbabwe and has ceased operations of the Oryx-International operation that has also been exonerated together with State owned Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company, ZIMRE Holdings, ZIMRE Reinsurance Company, ZB Financial Holdings, ZB Holdings, Scotfin and Intermarket Holdings.
New Zanu PF National spokesman Rugare Gumbo could not hide his party’s exasperation with the extension of the sanctions regime against the bulk of his party stalwarts.
"We are not worried by their extension. It's a continuation of the struggle, just like the liberation struggle. We are our own liberators. Why should we worry?" he consoled himself and the party.
Well that the party's Supreme Leader and most of his geriatric followers are at variance and not amused with this development is one thing for certain.
Not after all the efforts it had channeled into highlighting its discomfort with the sanctions regime of late.
The Zanu PF National Congress had resolved in December 2009 that its representatives in the tripartite negotiations within the coalition not to abide by Constitutional amendment No 19 in implementing the founding document of the coalition government unless the sanctions have been lifted.
In its words the Zanu PF National Congress resolved that it had instructed its First Secretary and Lead Negotiators not to concede any further powers agreed to be shared with coalesce partners on 15 September 2008 unless the partners caused the lifting of sanctions against Zanu PF party leadership by the EU and US and their partners and associates.
Now that the EU has officially pronounced the opposite of what the Zanu PF Congress decreed which was later upheld by the party’s Politburo in the first week of February 2010 and much closer to the 16 February review date for impact which has all come to naught, we expect Zanu PF to live by its threat and declare a deadlock on implementation of CA No19.
Zanu PF turncoat Professor Jonathan Moyo whose penchant for opportunism needs no reminder to anyone has been yapping from the dungeons of political obscurity he was dumped following the futile attempt to regain lost political marbles in the Zanu PF Politburo does not know how to deal with the shame of rejection he recently suffered.
He accuses the Premier of promoting lawlessness by dissociating himself from the vindictive and value diminishing empowerment and Indigenisation regulations recently promulgated by Minister Kasukuwere in order to find a shoulder on which to shed his tears.
By attacking the Premier he hopes to curry favour with “comrades” in Zanu PF who have unequivocally made it known to him that he is not worthy their trust and that of the Party Presidium when he was omitted from the Politburo that he targeted for revival of his waning political fortunes.
We expect to hear what he has to say about being an active participant in a Party Congress that passes resolutions encouraging its members to breach the Constitution and in particular CA No19 and how he rates the level of encouragement to lawlessness coming from the Premier if any at all to that emanating from the entire Zanu PF Congress and its Politburo which includes the National President and his two deputies.
The reason for the entire party of geriatrics declaring resolutions that infringe the Constitution of the country is because of the party’s heart ache over travel restrictions and impounded senior party officials loot that is stashed in EU countries which the Party wants us to believe are sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Any pretence from Zanu PF National spokesman Rugare Gumbo that the party is not perturbed by the extensions of restrictions imposed on its senior leadership flies in the face of his lamentations that the measures were MDC induced.
If they were not a party bother why waste so much effort and sacrifice national cohesion on lifting of insignificant measures?
Why did Zanu PF Mwenezi East MP Kudakwashe Bhasikiti find it proper to introduce his ill advised Sanctions motion in Parliament two weeks before the EU review of the said sanctions if they are not a bother for the party?
Why has the Herald been singing the discordant sanctions removal song and denigrating the MDC-T leadership over an issue that does not worry Zanu PF?
We ask these questions because we sense hidden dishonesty and hurt within the party statement saying there is no worry in its ranks about the extension of the sanctions after all it has done and is doing to keep the sanctions protest agenda at the apex of national issues when most people believe it is trivia.
Are we to believe that the spat between Parliament Speaker Hon Lovemore Moyo and Clerk of Parliament Austin Zvoma that the Herald devoted acres of space following the abortive Bhasikiti sanctions motion was all out of an irrelevant irritation for Zanu PF given the extent the paper that is more reliable as Zanu PF mouthpiece than as a national media house, went to denigrate the Speaker.
We think not because we know Zanu PF is seething with anger at the extension of the sanctions and we know that in that state the party is palpable and usually shoots itself in the foot in trying to showcase its false sense of independence and ability to defy international pressure to do anything right or wrong it does not matter.
We have a simple solution to Zanu PF sanction woes. Abide by CA No 19 and the sanctions will ease off your backs.
Alternatively you can now cry, squirm and scream and lash out at perceived MDC initiators of the “vile and illegal” sanctions and in turn invite further tightening of the sanctions if not incremental measures to be considered
Motions from blind party followers like Kudakwashe Bhasikiti (Zanu-PF, Mwenezi East) even if passed by the Zimbabwe Parliament will not be enforceable on the US and EU members and their associates such that they will cause the relaxation of the sanctions regime.
They are an absolute waste of scarce financial resources and valuable time that could be used to map out strategies of democratizing the country and endearing it to the global village thus making the sanctions route an irrelevant means of making the country conform to internationally expected norms of good governance.
The extent that the EU extension of the sanctions has defied what the Herald defines as widespread discredit of the sanctions by Sadc, the Pan African Parliament, the Non-Aligned Movement, Comesa and most recently the African Union passed its second such summit resolutions, it is instructive that Zanu PF explores other means of trying to unshackle its leadership from the sanctions bondage than resolutions from political blocks that have not imposed restrictions on the party.
These lamentations will not help persuade the lifting of sanctions neither will deliberate refusal to implement agreed Constitutional amendments strengthen Zanu PF’s hand in forcing the lifting of sanctions.
If anything it will weaken the party further as most people will realize that they are held at ransom by individuals wanting relief from sanctions that they invited upon themselves.
In any event failure to share power with coalesce partners will not in any way impact negatively on sanction imposers but rather will prolong the suffering of the very Zimbabweans Zanu PF says it is fighting to liberate from the sanctions which is a shameless lie.
Premier Tsvangirai will lose more credibility from championing the lifting of restrictions against the vicious Zanu PF leadership than he would lose from any vilification or denigration that will be printed in the Herald and Broadcast on National Electronic Broadcasting media.
His political maturity and wisdom will tell him that he is better off vilified by Zanu PF than by his grassroots supporters who would want restitution for losses they incurred at the hands of Zanu PF (real sanctions for them) than seeing their oppressors being rewarded with lifting of restrictions before they have repaired the damage they caused the nation.
Premier Tsvangirai has demonstrated that he can persuade the EU and US axis to relax measures against Zanu PF geriatrics by securing the relaxation of measures imposed against State owned companies.
It is now up to Mugabe and his blind followers to bank their trust in him and implement those provisions of CA No 19 still in dispute fully and the Premier will unshackle the sanctions burden for them.
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