Western governments and monetary institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have carefully orchestrated an ill-conceived situation, insisting that Zimbabwe pursue democracy and the rule of law in exchange for aid. But the integrity of their “virtues” is extremely questionable given the extent of the human rights abuses perpetrated in the scandalous Iraq war the brainchild of the “democratic” west.
While other African countries contain formal acknowledgements of democracy in their constitutions, Zimbabwe has been overt about its own needs and has set out a democratic agenda at its own realistic pace. The result of the Wests demands has been brutal retribution disguised as economic sanctions targeted at the hierarchy of the ruling party, but in effect bloodsucking on the ordinary citizens regardless of their political affiliation.
A long, hard look
We often hear that Zimbabwes problems emanate from years of maladministration, poor governance, lack of democracy, human rights abuses, unwise spending and risky disregard for tomorrow, but let us pause and take a long hard look at desperate efforts made towards rectifying these allegations.
The move in Zimbabwe, to launch an Anti-Corruption Commission, increase political pluralism and introduce a cut-throat monetary system was highly ambitious. No matter how noble the intentions, the price of fuel still went up, the price of food and basic commodities still skyrocketed with reckless abandon and neither was there significant reduction on external dependency for essential services such as health facilities.
The cruel paradox of all this is the injustice of Zimbabwe and other third world countries subsidising the western countries and their ignoble monetary institutions through reparation of huge debt deficits that impact heavily on the men and women on the street.
Without prejudice, Zimbabwes policy makers have been miserable subjects of gross political manipulation perpetrated by western governments to ensure that even though we obtained Independence on April 18, 1980 after a bitter struggle the annoying strategy was to ensure that economic muscle remained with Anglo-American conglomerates and former colonial powers.
Deep rooted crisis
It is therefore crucial to realise that the present crisis in Zimbabwe has deep roots. The political manipulation succumbed to by the policy makers was an appropriate circumstance for the emergence of incompetent civil servants who fed fat on a convenient opportunity to breed corruption.
The political manipulation included fostering experimental and unrealistic Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (Esap) that led to a decade of rising interest rates and falling export revenues from the late 1980s onwards.
Only a cold-blooded capitalist would expect a resemblance of democracy in a country writhing from the wounds of IMF and World Bank erroneously recommended structural adjustment programme. The fact of the matter is that the IMF and the World Bank operate as commercial banks and are boldly and shamelessly making profits from Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole.
Democracy and sovereignty in Zimbabwe have been under threat from the very day the constitution for an independent Zimbabwe was negotiated at Lancaster House in 1979 in the United Kingdom. The popular democracy promised earlier had conceived a stillbirth.
Ugly consequences
The ugly consequence emerged with the Third Chimurenga in 1998 that sought to redress the land distribution imbalances as the failure to promptly improve the quality of life of the ordinary people soon brought disillusionment and shattered hopes with the policy makers and in due course the serious political crisis triggered the creation of a spontaneous opposition political party in 1999.
In spite of its surprising popularity, however, the opposition was simply not organised enough to a degree where it could benefit from the unforeseen opening of political space.
Zimbabwe had become a democracy at the expense of its sovereignty and is to this very day still trying to clutch at the straws of its autonomy given the wretched erosion of the value of its currency, the deplorable deterioration of its democracy and the pathetic denial of its sovereignty. Maybe the time is ripe for reflection and not reaction.
Post published in: Opinions