We should be proud of the threat we pose to US Bruce Wharton

my turnDon’t we all know that the US imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe in response to the land reform programme, which saw poor black people benefiting from their God-given resource which had been appropriated by colonial settlers?

It’s not like Zimbabwe is a terrorist nation, or much worse, a sponsor of terrorism. There are many dangerous places in the world, either by way of rogue governments or by way of rogue activities that these governments allow to flourish, or have no capacity to stop.

A rogue government is like the one you have in Saudi Arabia, for example — a monarchy that does not even allow women to drive cars and executes people at will.

Or the other one that has been executing opponents en mass and without any sense of justice or shame at all.

Then there are countries such as Nigeria who have become hatcheries of terrorist activities and have given us Boko Haram, and Somalia which has given us Al Shabaab (but who can blame Somalia for being a failed state and terrorist hotbed after the country’s destruction by the US?)

In short, Zimbabwe would pass for an angel among the host of devils that make the constellation of the world’s states.

Ironically, Zimbabwe is considered an “unusual”, “extraordinary” and “continuing” threat to the United States of America, mighty America – the Great Satan, as the Iranians love to put it.

You tend to baulk at the suggestion.

For it is absurd; absurd as it well sounds.

But hold on a minute!

Bruce Wharton

Bruce Wharton

The US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Bruce Wharton, had an “exclusive” interview with the NewsDay, a local daily for a story that appeared yesterday.

Mr Wharton took time to explain what his country means by saying little, peaceful and hospitable Zimbabwe poses a threat to the security of America, which has made successive US presidents, George W Bush and Barack Obama, routinely sign Executive Orders against Zimbabwe.

Much the same way a Hilary Clinton or Jeb Bush or whoever will in the near future.

We are told by NewsDay that the ambassador said the signing of an Executive Order every year by a sitting United States president, renewing sanctions against (President) Mugabe and his inner circle and a select group of corporates meant (on the whole a euphemism for sanctions against Zimbabwe) that Harare remains in the category of “threats” to American interests.

“In that Executive Order it talks about threats to American security interests.

“That includes health security, economic and democratic security.

“President Obama and (George W) Bush before him have consecutively decided that the situation pertaining to Zimbabwe does pose a threat to American security interests.”

If you wanted something concrete for America to pin down as Zimbabwe’s sole transgression against this world power you would be hard-pressed to find one.

Tony Blair

Tony Blair

This is simply because the Americans won’t tell us.

And thus you have Mr Wharton telling us about vague constructs such as “health security, economic and democratic security” blah blah blah.

My own interactions with the ambassador have not been warm, nor have they helped shed light on the nature of relations between the US and Zimbabwe.

In fact, Mr Wharton has declined an “exclusive” interview with this paper, preferring to give such an exclusive interview to NewsDay which is well satisfied to be told that Zimbabwe poses a danger to America’s “health security, economic and democratic security”.

Don’t we all know that the US imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe in response to the land reform programme which saw poor black people benefiting from their God-given resource which had been appropriated by colonial settlers?

George W. Bush imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe as a favour to his equally murderous friend called Tony Blair who somewhat felt that Zimbabwe was an erring extension of Britain.

Because the settler and post-settler economy was based on land, which land was thus rightly taken for equitable redistribution, one could rightly say Zimbabwe inflicted a mortal blow on the neocolonial economy.

But then that’s something we should be proud of.

Zimbabwe did not kill anybody during that land revolution save for a couple of unlucky souls who lost their lives probably at the hands of drunk villagers.

And they were too few as to be negligible in the overall narrative of land redistribution in Zimbabwe.

We did not do it the way they do it in other countries where such exercises or uprisings take place in a bloody, prolonged and destabilising fashion. Nor did we do it the way colonisers did by exterminating indigenous populations in Africa, Australia and North America.

In fact, it is Britain, America and their allies that sought to destabilise Zimbabwe to halt and reverse a land reform programme which had gone fairly smoothly.

They have failed and Wharton’s America thinks we pose a threat to it, not least because these ideas could spread to other countries in Africa and beyond.

I guess this is the point at which we should be proud of our transgressions, the threat we pose to mighty America!

Ask the farmer in Hurungwe or Chivhu who has benefited from the historic land reform programme whether they think it is such a bad idea to be owning a farm in the land of your ancestors.

It is not, of course!

The threat they will tell you about is of bullies denying them credit lines and squeezing critical institutions that must support agriculture and improve the livelihoods of people.

The people are proud that throughout the world they are some rare species who actually lay claim to the land, their land, when even in the most developed countries such a commodity is hard to come by; to use or, at will, prefer not to use!

By the way, Zimbabweans have not asked for a square inch of Europe or America, as President Mugabe once put it, but are content on their land.

Which makes it even ironic that one Bruce Wharton would continue mouthing the mantra that Zimbabwe poses a threat to America.

But you have to give it to Wharton. It is one burden he has to carry for his country whether he likes it or not.

He may consider himself lucky he is only in Zimbabwe. He would better appreciate a threat if he were in Syria or Egypt where he would be forced to defend America’s butchering and roasting of civilians, including babies, in the name of fighting for whatever cause.

 

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