Zimpapers Logo

American voters have spoken emphatically in rejecting Washington’s establishment candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in favour of rank outsider and now President-elect Donald John Trump.

And the reason is obvious.

They want change.

Change from the politics of destructive engagement that have seen US stock plummet the world over as the country has come to be identified as a blundering global bully.

For us in Zimbabwe, the destructive engagement has been manifest in the illegal economic sanctions regime, ZDERA and the sponsoring of opposition activities and wars of destabilisation throughout the world.

If anyone had doubts as to the disaster that a Hillary Clinton administration portended for Zimbabwe, they need only listen to the dirges in the opposition camp where they are wailing more than the bereaved.

This is because the Democrats were at the forefront of sponsoring opposition activities in Zimbabwe and the comatose opposition, from Biti to Tsvangirai, saw a Lazarus moment in a Hillary presidency.

For those not in the know, Hillary Clinton was at the forefront of supporting the US sanctions law, the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, that was introduced and sponsored by Senator Bill Frist on March 8, 2001 and which cut Zimbabwe’s lines of credit from all multilateral lending institutions with dealings with the US when it was signed into law on December 21 that year.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with the collusion of the likes of Susan Rice, sought to have Zimbabwe destabilised by abusing the UN Charter’s Chapter 7, responsibility to protect; which machinations were only shot down by the vigilance of China and Russia in the Security Council.

Hillary’s hands drip with blood from the DRC to Libya and many will remember her ‘‘we came, we saw, he died!’’ rejoinder when told of the brutal murder of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of Nato forces, a rejoinder that was followed by a guttural laugh reminiscent of vampires.

We once again thank Americans for keeping this warmonger from the reins of power.

We hope Trump, who was considered an outsider and who was attacked no end for all of 18 months by the US and Western media that sought to cast him as an unstable, unelectable ogre, will — with the benefit of experience — understand Western characterisation of Zimbabwe.

The Washington establishment did not want Trump at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue which is why they deployed the full arsenal of their media embeds led by CNN to cast him as a political Frankenstein, but the American voters were not fooled. They similarly wanted Trump in Washington for a reason.

And the reason is they expect change. Change not only in the way their country is governed, but also change in the way the US relates to other countries in the community of nations.

And here in Zimbabwe we hope there will be that change because we have no quarrel with the US. Our quarrel was with the Labour regime of Tony Blair who reneged on obligations to fund land reforms as agreed to with the Tory administration of Margaret Thatcher at the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in 1979.

To this end we are encouraged by Trump’s campaign message that pledged dialogue with other nations. We were similarly encouraged by his victory speech, in which he pledged to seek common ground and partnership, not hostility with others.

‘‘I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America’s interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone. All people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict,’’ Trump said in part.

Zimbabwe, which has long extended a hand to build bridges, hopes the incoming US president will live up to this promise to do things differently from the Washington establishment.

It was on the back of doing things differently that he trounced the highly fancied and to use his own words “Crooked Hillary”, to become the 45th President of the United States.

Congratulations are in order and we wish him all the best as he takes the reins at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.