Sanctions are not the problem, bad governance is
Mutsa Murenje argues in this week’s Pambazuka News that what is affecting the Zimbabwean people’s wellbeing is not the sanctions resulting from Robert Mugabe’s rule but rather his rule itself. Murenje writes that the sanctions that were implemented by the international community do not actually have an effect on Zimbabwe’s population, and makes the case for good governance as the key to helping Zimbabweans.
Robert Mugabe is a liability to the nation and is no doubt also a traitor to the cause of freedom. He does not care at all about what he says. I am in particular making reference to his responses in an interview with a CNN journalist, Christiane Amanpour, on 24 September 2009 ahead of his speech at the UN General Assembly. The suggestion by the tyrannical despot that sanctions have had adverse effects on Zimbabwe is, in my opinion, a fundamental attribution error. It is not sanctions that have hurt Zimbabweans but bad governance. We will have to ask ourselves about what preceded the other, bad governance or sanctions? The truth is that the targeted sanctions were a response to bad governance in Zimbabwe. In other words, we cannot look beyond Mugabe himself, for he is wholly responsible for this. Mugabe is the problem. Ndosaka tiri for regime change. Ko yanga yakaipei?
To say the land-grabbing process was the best thing to have happened to an African country is an irresponsible statement to say the least. Mugabe and his hoodlums purport that the so-called land reform programme was an effort to redress the historical imbalances that existed. Land reform per se is a noble idea, but the way in which it was carried out in Zimbabwe was nothing but a political gimmick by a ruling clique whose political fortunes were waning and which needed to consolidate its dominance. The evil and illegal land reform however brought with it a multiplicity of problems. Mugabe’s new farmers embarked on the indiscriminate cutting down of trees and burning of grass, resulting in serious negative implications on environmental stability. The operation also attracted widespread condemnation by the international community, resulting in subsequent isolation of the country. But who caused all this? Mugabe did!
In the year 2003 the United Nations estimated the population of Zimbabwe to be 12,891,000 people.[1] Suggesting that sanctions targeted at about 220 people have affected the whole population of Zimbabwe is being economical with the truth. This view is not only philosophically unsound but is equally practically unthinkable. The sanctions are the only scapegoat at the disposal of the octogenarian tyrant, who is struggling to maintain his unwanted grip on those who rejected him a long time ago, the suffering and oppressed people of Zimbabwe. Mugabe is a political reject and nothing will be gained by assuming or even wishing the contrary. What makes Mugabe an illegitimate ruler is that after having been rejected by the populace he refused to accept defeat. He instead rejected the rejection with the obvious assistance of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, who quickly inaugurated him following the one-man stand-up comedy show of 27 June 2008.
What we want is but one thing, good governance, especially when taking into consideration the fact that good governance gives meaning to life and the world. It is indeed the greatest incentive for a good life. From this standpoint, I humbly but authoritatively proffer that only good governance gives us the assurance that all that is noble and valuable will be conserved. This assurance resulting from good governance I find to be in its greatest virtues, and certainly any sane man cannot ignore them. The prolonged absence of good governance in Zimbabwe has made our life miserable, dull and meaningless.
In a nutshell, ‘The next step calls for leaders endowed with the gift of statesmanship to listen to people’s grievances, heal the wounds and pacify the nation’ (Henry E. Muradzikwa). I put it to you and rest my case.
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* Mutsa Murenje is a Zimbabwean human rights defender and an intern with World Youth Alliance Africa. He writes here in a personal capacity.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.
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