A stick with which to beat Africa
Tuesday, 07 February 2012 00:00
Mabasa Sasa
There is an aspect of the Zimbabwe story that those who say the country's
problems are self-inflicted never want to talk about. Before Washington
officially unleashed its onslaught on Harare, former US Assistant Secretary
of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, made a shocking statement,
which has remained under-reported ever since.
While preparing for a Senate debate on the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic
Recovery Act, which lays the foundation for sanctions on the country,
Crocker told US lawmakers to turn the screws on the economy.
"To separate the Zimbabwean people from Zanu-PF, we are going to have to
make their economy scream, and I hope you, senators, have the stomach for
what you have to do."
Those are the words and intentions of the power brokers in Washington - not
Zanu-PF propaganda. With such a damning admission, why then do we still have
claims from all manner of corners that the sanctions on Zimbabwe do not
affect ordinary people and are "targeted" at President Mugabe and his
"cronies"?
Just this past month there was another glaring reminder about how
indiscriminate the sanctions are. The US blacklisted two mining companies
that are in the diamond sector. This is at a time when the government has
said it cannot pay improved civil servants salaries and offer other basic
services expected of a State. Are we not seeing an attempt to create
disaffection among the general populace ahead of elections that are expected
later this year?
Here's another byte from Crocker: "So if we were to decide to try and work
for change in power in Zimbabwe, I would hope that we would have the wisdom
to be discrete, to be low-key and to avoid giving those in power there the
excuse that foreigners are out to get them."
This was at 106th Congress House Hearings on "Zimbabwe: Democracy on the
Line" on June 13, 2000. Why then should anyone claim to know the US policy
on Zimbabwe better than the Americans who formulated that policy and
implement it with deadly precision?
Evidently, those who still claim Zimbabwe's problems are self-inflicted are
living testimony to how good the Americans have been in heeding Crocker's
advice to be "discrete, to be low-key and to avoid giving those in power
there the excuse that foreigners are out to get them".
While Zimbabwe is certainly bearing the brunt of this onslaught, the real
target is not President Mugabe: it is Africa and all other Third World
leaders at large. Zimbabwe is a stick that is being used to beat anyone else
who dares challenge the order of things.
Zimbabwe has a list of crimes: it unceremoniously dumped structural
adjustment programmes after realising they were doing more harm than good,
then the country deployed in the DRC against Western-backed troops, after
that the Government embarked on land reforms that acted as a precursor to
the wider economic empowerment agenda that is so topical at present.
All this was in a matter of three successive years. What kind of example was
Zimbabwe setting for the other poverty-weary people of the developing world?
The same one as Salvador Allende's in Chile of the 1970s.
Allende came into power on the back of a promise to "redistribute income and
reshape the . . . economy" through the nationalisation of major industries,
like copper mining, and the expansion of agrarian reform.
The US resolved it would not sit back and watch this happen. Henry
Kissinger, the then US Secretary of State, infamously declared in June 1970:
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist
because of the irresponsibility of its own people." There are stark shades
there of Crocker, three decades later, talking about separating the people
from their preferred leaders. How did the US go about it? Through the CIA
(as shown in declassified documents and research by scholars over the
years), the US spent "more money per capita to support Allende's opponent,
Eduardo Frei, than Lyndon Johnson and Barry
Goldwater" combined spent on their own presidential elections in the US in
1970.
Another similarity: simply check how much is set aside every year since 1998
to support the anti-Mugabe movement in Zimbabwe. At a September 15 meeting,
Kissinger and President Nixon told CIA Director Richard Helms - wait for it
- to "make the (Chilean) economy scream" . . .
Are anymore parallels needed? Is the template not clear for all to see? But
why the inordinate interest in Chile, or tiny Zimbabwe, for that matter by a
US that can survive and thrive regardless of the policies of a government
that is so many miles away from Washington?
Professor Noam Chomsky provides a spot-on answer:"Chile is a fairly big
place, with a lot of natural resources but the United States wasn't going to
collapse if Chile became independent. "Why were we so concerned about it?
According to Kissinger, Chile was a virus' that would infect' the region
with effects all the way to Italy."
The US will stop the "virus" of self-determination and resource nationalism
at whatever cost. The West simply cannot afford to let countries like
Zimbabwe get away with such policies that upset the apple cart.In the case
of Chile, Allende lasted three years and was murdered in September 1973.
People will say if the toll on the country is so great, then President
Mugabe should just step aside and let the country go on, that he should not
stand in another election. Well, that would be capitulation - and Africa
cannot start capitulating now, regardless of how big the stick that is
beating us is!
· Mabasa Sasa is editor of the Southern Times.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kizza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni et Docteur Kiiza Besigye, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
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