Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Reason Wafawarova
21 May 2008
opinion
Sydney — IF there is one moral truism that should never provoke controversy it is the principle of universality.
"We should, as a people, apply to ourselves the same standards we see fit to apply to others -- in fact, more stringent ones."
Noam Chomsky, the renowned American intellectual and linguist, spoke these words in July 2004, while giving a lecture on the Iraq War.
When states award themselves the power to be exempt from the principle of universality, doing so with impunity as the United States is doing in Afghanistan and Iraq, then they disdain the very essence of moral truisms.
Each day we live keeps bringing new illustrations of this disgraceful reality.
Zimbabweans have just been graced with a self-anointed Good Samaritan in US ambassador James D. McGee -- a man whose discourtesy, incivility and rudeness makes a big mockery of diplomatic protocols.
Indeed, violence against one single person is unacceptable and the death of any single Zimbabwean is just one too many.
The reported political violence in some parts of the country simply has no room in any society, more so in a country founded on such a revolutionary foundation such as Zimbabwe is.
However, when American imperialism postures in a truistic fashion in its bid to seize Zimbabweans by the throat, the role of a revolutionary people is not to combat the banditry of political hoodlums while embracing the draconian hand of the imperialist monster.
So McGee wants to show the world his undying commitment against violence and injury to humanity?
Yet this "true-hearted" man flew American fighter planes in Vietnam in the 1970s, recklessly spraying bombs on unsuspecting villagers who had no idea what an aeroplane was until they saw this bird-like metal creature ruthlessly dropping bombs in their midst.
McGee finds it not only acceptable but also understandable to go and gather "evidence" of victims of alleged violence and torture in rural Zimbabwe while the troops of his home country continue to massacre hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians. To him, the priority is Zimbabwe and Iraq, being a weaker country at war with the mighty America, should suffer what they must.
Is this because Zimbabwean blood is so sacrosanct to the American conscience or because Arabic blood is less human when it comes to US foreign policy?
Or is it that Zimbabwean blood is worthy defending if the reward for doing so is to open up an avenue for imperial control of the country's resources?
And Zimbabweans are supposed to profusely acknowledge the transcendent truth that their blood is more valuable than the blood of the Palestinians, a people the shedding of whose blood is remorselessly backed by the US.
Zimbabweans are supposed to see in McGee a solicitous humanitarian with a passion for human charity -- a passion sans Arabic humanity. In this view the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed by McGee's fellow Americans are of no priority when it comes to the "chosen" blood of Zimbabweans.
This unctuous posturing in a futile attempt to imitate lofty morals by McGee is just but another ominous example of the US' abuse of diplomatic missions.
First was Christopher Dell, a man who thought he was going to do a Milosevic on Zimbabwe, and now there is this Vietnam War aerial soldier pretending to be fighting for freedom and democracy.
In June 2004, John Negroponte was posted to Baghdad as US ambassador to Iraq, heading the world's largest diplomatic mission.
His mission was handing over sovereignty to Iraqis in order to fulfil Bush's "messianic mission" to bring democracy to the Middle East and the rest of the world, as we are solemnly told by Western commentary.
Negroponte learnt his trade as US ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, during the Reagan era. While Dell called himself Mr Fix It while in Zimbabwe, Negroponte was nicknamed "The Proconsul", a title given to ruthless and powerful administrators during colonial times.
In Honduras, Negroponte presided over the second-largest embassy in Latin America, with what was the largest CIA station in the world that time. This was hardly because Honduras was the centrepiece of world power.
No, it was all because the Honduran dictatorial military junta provided a client state for the US.
Honduras provided the military base for Reagan's covert war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government. The Sandinistas' crime was to allow their revolution to take control of Nicaragua.
Washington was openly scared and Reagan professed fear that a second Cuba was about to develop in Central America.
Negroponte was tasked with supervising the bases where a terrorist mercenary army -- the Contras -- was trained, armed and deployed with instructions to overthrow the Sandinistas.
Like Honduras, one neighbouring country to Zimbabwe has a bloated US diplomatic mission and an over-presence of the CIA and it takes no rocket science to guess who the target of these diplomatic foot soldiers is. Even the US Embassy in Harare is unusually large and there is also a high concentration of CIA presence -- of course, in line with the "messianic mission" to free Zimbabwe into what some have been fooled to call a "New Zimbabwe".
McGee's role is to stir as much trouble as possible within Zimbabwe.
The idea is to trigger a diplomatic row that can provide the scantiest of pretexts for outside intervention. This is what they call "provocative engagement" in the circles of US foreign policy.
Nicaragua saw beyond this trick and responded by appropriately taking its case against the US to the World Court in The Hague.
The court ruled that the US was to terminate the "unlawful use of force" -- the official euphemism for international terrorism. The US was also ordered to pay reparations to Nicaragua.
Washington did not only ignore the court decree with the arrogance of a village bully, but also went on to veto two UN Security Council resolutions affirming the judgment and calling on all states to observe international law.
This is the US represented by McGee who masquerades as a humanitarian soldier of charity in matters utterly unrelated to his role as a diplomat.
When the US ignored the World Court and vetoed Security Council resolutions the then State Department legal advisor, Abraham D. Sofaer explained the rationale.
He said that most of the world could not be "counted on to share our view", and, therefore, the US had to "reserve to ourselves the power to determine" how to act and what matters can be regarded as "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States, as determined by the United States".
The reference here was the terrorist attack against Nicaragua that the World Court had condemned.
With the same disregard as was shown by Washington over the court decree, and the same disdain for the international community as is seen over Iraq today, Washington will not listen to anyone when it comes to matters involving Zimbabwe.
While the terrorist war in Nicaragua left a dependent and corrupt formal democracy -- at an incalculable cost -- the terrorist wars on Iraq and Afghanistan have dismally failed to establish even the facade of democracy.
The economic terrorist war on Zimbabwe is meant to leave a dependant and absolutely useless formal democracy in the place of the governance of the nationalist Zanu-PF Government.
As Thomas Carothers writes, the "democracy enhancement" programmes of the Reagan era failed because Washington would tolerate only "limited, top-down forms of democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional structures of power with which the United States has long been allied".
This is a typical refrain in the pursuit of democracy, a very typical American abrogation consistent with the sabre-rattling US foreign policy.
Nicaragua has now replaced the dependent and corrupt "democracy" left by Washington's terrorist war by re-electing Daniel Ortega -- a man ousted as the Sandinista leader.
This is because under Washington's "democracy", Nicaragua became the second poorest country in Latin America, only second to Haiti -- a country that easily ranks as the US' main target in the twentieth century.
As of 2004, Nicaragua had 60 percent of its children under the age of two afflicted with anaemia from severe malnutrition -- and that is one grim indication of what the US-UK alliance hails as a victory for freedom and democracy.
Now the Bush administration, through McGee, claims it want to bring democracy to Zimbabwe, using the same experience as in Central America and Iraq. In fact, they want it via a man with an experience that has a strong Vietnam War slant.
One sure thing is that a change of government for Zimbabwe can only be meaningful if that change is under sovereign conditions.
As it is, there is no guarantee that Zimbabwe will not go the Nicaragua route. In fact, what would be most surprising is a development where Zimbabwe will fail to fall under a dependant democracy.
The US brought someone with Yugoslav experience to Zimbabwe in 2005, sent someone with Honduran experience to Iraq in 2004 and they have now sent a Vietnam war veteran to Zimbabwe.
As McGee may now confess, the villagers in Zimbabwe are not exactly the same as the hapless souls he and his mates killed for fun in Vietnam.
The terrain is definitely a little rougher down South and very soon McGee will be wondering where the heat is coming from.
These diplomatic foot soldiers have nothing to do with democracy. They are the arsenals at the disposal of imperial authority.
It is now incumbent upon the children of Zimbabwe to be very careful. In the opposition Zimbabwe has a slattern grouping ready to give their all to the imperialist gang. Embracing the promised US$10 billion package as promised by the MDC-T is like celebrating the wedding between a slut and a robber.
Zimbabwe is not going to prosper on children of harlotry and from fatherhood by the biggest robber on this planet.
This is not time for Zimbabweans to be fighting one another. It is a time for unity. There is no hope for those who look up to America.
The only democracy that Zimbabwe needs is a democracy respected by its own people, a democracy agreed to by its own people, a democracy that pushes the needs of the Zimbabwean people ahead of any other need, and a democracy that is totally dependent upon the people of Zimbabwe.
Those who think they are ordained crusaders for the democratisation of this planet must look at themselves in the mirror before trying to lecture unto others what their own fingers cannot lift.
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I live in Nicaragua. I can assure you that the information about Negroponte, Nicaragua, Honduras and the U.S. war against Nicaragua in the 1980s is the truth.
The "divide and conquer" approach on the U.S. government shows through. Generally, people who know a lot about one region don't about another so people such as Negroponte can continue to get away with their games. Cuidado.
I don't know which part of being a Zimbabwean are u but I recon u are being well paid by Mugabe to talk such bullshit. Well then nothing doesn't come with its consequences my country is going down because of such ignorant people like u well guess what its taking u and your so called comrades with
THE HERALD IS THE PROPAGANDA MOUTHPIECE OF THE ZIMBABWE GOVERNMENT AND ARTICLES PUBLISHED BY IT SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS TRUTH