|
|
Zimbabwe: Let's Disembowel Tsvangirai on June 27
 |
 Published by the government of Zimbabwe |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Herald (Harare)
EDITORIAL
23 May 2008
Posted to the web 23 May 2008
Harare
The ongoing wave of price hikes, while designed to compel people, particularly urbanites, to endorse Morgan Tsvangirai over President Mugabe in the run-off on June 27, should actually awaken the doubting Thomases to the manipulation we have been subjected to since the stand-off with Britain began in November 1997.
The Western countries -- led by Britain and the United States -- mooted the idea of an opposition to topple Zanu-PF and President Mugabe from power for daring to go beyond the façade of flag independence to holistic empowerment. This is the whole discourse of regime change. They, however, realised that in Zanu-PF and the Government, they faced insurmountable odds on account of the great strides Government made in improving livelihoods since 1980. To this end, they decided to systematically undo those gains in a bid to separate the majority from the leadership by laying the blame for the erosion on the Government while presenting the MDC as a viable alternative.
This strategy was exposed by former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker who, in a testimony to the US Senate in 2001, said "to separate the Zimbabwean people from Zanu-PF we are going to have to make their economy scream".
This set the stage for the imposition of illegal economic sanctions that cut our lines of credit from all multilateral lending institutions that have dealings with the US. The situation was not helped by the fact that the economy was, and still is dominated by over 400 British companies that were only eager to toe London's line. These companies either deliberately cut down on production and channelled the few products they made to the illegal parallel market where they were sold at extortionate prices, or simply hiked the prices of goods and services to unrealistic levels, all in a bid to abet the sanctions and force people to vote against the Government. This is why every major election has been preceded by a wave of price hikes. We saw this ahead of Election 2000, we saw it in the 2002 presidential election, we saw it in the general election of 2005 and again in the just-ended harmonised elections.
The closeness of the last contest that saw Zanu-PF trail the MDC-T in the presidential and House of Assembly elections on the back of protest votes made the Western hounds smell blood. They, thus, decided to ensure that voters are really squeezed so that come June 27, they seek recourse in the MDC-T. This is why the past few weeks have been characterised by spiralling inflation, shortages of basic commodities, incessant power cuts, high transport costs and intermittent disruptions to water supplies, which are all part of the regime change agenda as President Mugabe pointed out on Wednesday.
Thus, if some among us continue giving the Westerners hope by voting for the MDC, they will only be too eager to keep ratcheting the pressure in the hope that one day; we will capitulate. However, if we send a clear message to them that we have seen through their ruse by shunning Tsvangirai and overwhelmingly endorsing President Mugabe, they will be compelled to leave us alone.
|
June 27, is the day we should send that message, let it be the day we disembowel the neo-colonial project.
Why do I feel that the Herald means this literally? They really want to disembowel the opposition, leaving a bruised and battered group of people to vote using fear instead of logic.
Of course prices will be going up, Inflation is estimated by some to be a MILLION percent, and at that rate, prices would have to rise by 2% a minute to keep up, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.Add to this the continuous printing of new $500 MILLION dollar notes by the central bank, and the higher price of basic commodities and... [Read Full Text]
Having read the article, one has a choice of either agreeing with the writers viewpoint or disagreeing with it. Firstly lets take the viewpoint of agreeing with the writer, and that in fact all the problems within Zim today are as a result of sanctions and/or actions by Western countries. Point 1. It is amazing to see how powerful these western nations are. They dont come near Zimbabwe, they have not even sent a single soldier into the country but it would seem that they are able to bring the entire Zimbabwean nation to its knees, without lifting a... [Read Full Text]
Regardless of individual political choices, a question that deserves scrutiny is whether it is factual, as the article claims, that Chester Crocker, whose claim to fame is his support for the apartheid regime in South Africa during the 1980s, revealed a western strategy to distort the economy of an African country to influence the attitude of the electorate toward a political party that Crocker and those who believe what he believes about Africans do not like. This would mean that Zimbabwe is being abused as a test case to determine if African electorates are malleable to the neocolonialist will.This would... [Read Full Text]
Regardless of individual political choices, a question that deserves scrutiny is whether it is factual, as the article claims, that Chester Crocker, whose claim to fame is his support for the apartheid regime in South Africa during the 1980s, revealed a western strategy to distort the economy of an African country to influence the attitude of the electorate toward a political party that Crocker and those who believe what he believes about Africans do not like. This would mean that Zimbabwe is being abused as a test case to determine if African electorates are malleable to the neocolonialist will.This would... [Read Full Text]
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 The Herald. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
