Washington is pushing for U.N. sanctions against Zimbabwe following President Robert Mugabe’s victory in the country’s runoff election for president. The sanctions would include an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze targeting Mugabe and other top government officials.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, throwing her weight behind the imperialist offensive, told the Associated Press that the European Union will pursue “all possible sanctions” against Zimbabwe.
The European Union is demanding that new elections be held as soon as possible in Zimbabwe, adding that it “will only accept a formula which respects the will of the Zimbabwean people as it was expressed in the elections of March 29.” In other words, no election that does not yield victory for opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai will be recognized.
Sanctions fully contradict and deny the imperialist pretense for concern with human rights or the well-being of the people of Zimbabwe. The Senegal-based human rights group Raddho has warned EU officials and the international community against all sanctions against Zimbabwe, which would “risk aggravating the tragic social conditions of the Zimbabwean people.” Raddho added that sanctions would worsen conditions for 400,000 children threatened with famine.
Recent news coverage has the western powers decrying the elections held in Zimbabwe as a “sham.” The United States and Britain are attempting to isolate and demonize Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government to bring about regime change in Zimbabwe.
While the imperialist powers may talk about democracy and freedom, the real reasons for their animosity toward Mugabe are his social policies, in particular his land redistribution policy.
Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia, was one of the last African countries to throw off the shackles of colonialism. In 1970, British colonials declared independence from Britain and ruled the country as an apartheid state. After a protracted war against this so-called independent colonialism, revolutionary forces in Zimbabwe won out, but not without concessions to the former white ruling class. Much of the former ruling-class structure remained intact.
According to the Zimbabwean government, whites who made up less than 1 percent of the population owned 70 percent of the country’s commercially viable arable land until the year 2000. In that year, ZANU-PF began to implement a compulsory land redistribution program so that more of the population, especially veterans of the war of independence, could use this land. The program was met with condemnation by the U.S. and British governments, which began slapping waves of sanctions on the Mugabe government.
Since 2000, Washington and London have hypocritically accused the Mugabe government of human rights violations and election fraud. Western powers reserve their criticism for those who seek a path independent of imperialist domination. U.S. politicians have no words of condemnation for the government of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, who has faithfully done the bidding of imperialism. Zenawi’s government is occupying Somalia as a proxy for U.S. interests in the region and Ethiopia’s economy is in dire straits.
The imperialist countries care nothing about human rights or free, democratic elections. Their only concern is that governments of oppressed nations be amenable to their interests. Whether those governments are capitalist democracies, military dictatorships or authoritarian monarchies is immaterial.
The Western powers, especially the United States and Britain, have sought to squeeze Zimbabwe. In order to facilitate this process, they secured a candidate and a political party willing to represent their interests in Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change. Tsvangirai has used the current economic crisis in Zimbabwe to increase his own political clout.
The current crisis came to a head when Tsvangirai took refuge in the Dutch embassy on June 22 after withdrawing from the country’s presidential elections, saying he feared for his safety. At the time, the Western powers suddenly jumped to the defense of “democracy,” saying that the runoff elections could not be held until something was worked out with their man on the ground, Tsvangirai.
But the constitutionally sanctioned run-off elections came about because no one was able to win the March general election with 50 percent of the vote plus one vote. Tsvangirai had come in first place with a plurality of the vote. Mugabe had come in second. Tsvangirai has repeatedly said that he should become head of the government because he won the plurality, in contravention of the election laws.
As part of the so-called international chorus against Mugabe and Zimbabwe, some of the statements coming from its former colonial master, Britain, are blatantly threatening. Paddy Ashdown, a British politician and diplomat, told The Times newspaper that military intervention in Zimbabwe has to remain an option.
According to the Times, Britain had two contingency plans for the Zimbabwean election, one of which involved deploying troops into the country.
Any talk by any of the Western powers, especially from U.S. and British politicians, should be looked at closely for hypocrisy. Washington sponsored elections in Iraq under the gun of occupation and refuse to recognize the victory of Hamas in the 2006 democratic elections in Palestine—elections that U.S. officials had pushed for until the outcome turned out not to be to their liking. Democracy is hailed when its institutions serve imperialist interests, but all that goes out the window otherwise.
In fact, AP writer Donna Bryson wrote on June 25 that President Bush “called upon the African Union to continue to highlight the ‘illegitimacy’ of the elections and keep reminding the world that the process is ‘not free and it’s not fair.’”
Despite the imperialist offensive, Mugabe still has supporters in the region. South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been a key mediator in the conflict, has refused to back the imperialist accusations. In the most recent U.N. vote calling the electoral process illegitimate, South Africa effectively vetoed the proposal.
The exact plan for what the U.S. and EU governments would like to do with Zimbabwe is laid out in the thinly disguised, racist analysis of Robert Rotberg, director of Harvard’s Kennedy School on Intrastate Conflict. The AP article explains, “Neighboring countries could ‘effectively bottle Mugabe up’ by banning Zimbabwean aircraft from flying over their airspace and curtailing electricity deliveries to the landlocked country.”
Tsvangirai is straddling a very fine line. He tries to present himself as acting in the interest of Zimbabwe while at the same time trying to orchestrate an outside intervention. He told the AP, “We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force.”
The statement—one of Tsvangirai’s most honest to date—openly calls for imperialist military intervention should Mugabe not step down.
Zimbabwe still carries support in the region, despite the criticism from certain officials and imperialist efforts to sow divisions among African leaders. In the most recent U.N. vote calling the election illegitimate, South Africa effectively vetoed the proposal as it still sees Zimbabwe as an ally.
If Washington and London cannot divide and conquer the people, they will not hesitate to starve Zimbabwe to death. Western powers did not blink an eye before slapping genocidal sanctions on Iraq through the United Nations. The 12 years of economic strangulation killed more than one million Iraqis.
We must expose the true intentions of imperialism and denounce the great crime being committed against the people of Zimbabwe. No imperialist intervention in Africa! Hands off Zimbabwe!
