ZDERA represents continuity of colonialism
Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga (second from right) joins hands with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Ambassador Frederick Shava, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Dr Jenfan Muswere (left), Minister of State for Harare Provincial Affairs and Devolution Charles Tavengwa (right) at the Anti-Sanctions Day commemorations in Harare last week. —
Munyika yedu yeZimbabwe ndimo matakazvarirwa.
Anamai nanababa ndimo mavari. Tinoda Zimbabwe nehupfumi hwayo hwose. Simuka Zimbabwe.
HE above chorus from the ZANLA hymn book (paged in the anti-colonial memory of our people) captures a dedicated declaration by patriots/foot soldiers that Zimbabwe is the land of their birth — the land of our mothers and fathers.
“We love Zimbabwe and all the wealth in it.” This liberation hymn passionately emphasises the empirical anti-colonial imperatives of our armed struggle as a roadmap to the full attainment of Zimbabwe’s political and economic democracy.
On the merit of this song, sanctions are opposed to the full realisation of our national liberation and undermine our autonomy to decide the future of our nation. This alone makes the fight against sanctions a final push for true national liberation and restoration of our people’s dignity.
The SADC Anti-Sanctions Day speech by Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga highlights a nationalist agitation emanating from the illegality of sanctions and the subsequent need for their immediate and unconditional removal. Noteworthy, in the 43 years of our independence, we have lost two decades to legislated neo-colonial disarming of our independence by colonial powers.
This year marks 22 years since the imposition of sanctions by the United Kingdom, the European Union (EU) and the United States through the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA).
While commending the EU for its repentance in reducing the sanctions, the Vice President stated: “The United States of America’s ZDERA, however, remains in place as an albatross around Zimbabwe.
“And more specifically, the sanctions include financial restrictions and economic measures that alienate Zimbabwe from global supply chains and the global financial system, as well as bar capital inflows mainly from the West.”
It will be recalled that from 1980 until the launch of the land reform programme in the late 90s, our economy was under white control. This is another lost decade, characterised by the
Tadoption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s Economic Structural Adjustment Programme.
The massive economic deprivation of our people resulted in the unprecedented agrarian revolution.
To buttress this, Dr Chiwenga posits: “. . . the Zimbabwean experiment of reclaiming land forcibly taken away from the indigenous people should not be allowed to succeed at all costs, lest the rest of the disempowered societies in the world will follow suit.” The West responded by imposing sanctions on us on the pretext of addressing property and human rights violations. The ironic fixation on addressing human and property rights of a foreign minority is massively evident in that the West has applied a selective allocation of whose rights must be respected; when and how that respect for rights should be exercised.
It is as if Africans had no rights when colonial powers looted and plundered the continent; now, when Africans demand that which was stolen from them (land), then laws are activated to criminalise their inevitable reparative exercise.
The continuation of ZDERA represents the continuity of colonialism.
As an illegal law, ZDERA bullies Zimbabwe to reverse land reform.
With all its unwelcome interference in our domestic politics, ZDERA supports the existence of an opposition movement positioned to undermine the virtues of African nationalism and its underpinning virtue of economic democratisation.
To this effect, Vice President Chiwenga argues: “Since 2001, we estimate that Zimbabwe has lost or missed over US$150 billion through frozen assets, trade embargoes, export and investment restrictions, from potential bilateral donor support, development loans, IMF and World Bank balance of payment support and commercial loans.
“This has forced our gross domestic product to contract drastically in the two decades that followed the imposition of sanctions. The restrictive measures are also a direct attack on Zimbabwe’s currency, which is our sovereign currency of choice, hence our motherland remains subdued by the United States dollar.”
Those subscribing to the pro-Western argument for maintenance of the sanctions need to be reminded that the call for the punitive measures to fall is no longer a ZANU PF institutional standpoint.
Instead, the call for the immediate and unconditional removal of sanctions is now a humanist predisposition for Zimbabwe to be given its full independence, characterised by unfettered control of its economy and democracy.
In other words, “Zimbabwe demands no more than equal status with the rest of the countries in the world which are enjoying full rights of self-determination as enshrined in the 1945 United Nations Charter”, says the Vice President.
Zimbabwe is pleading for its rightful place in terms of international law.
Those of us in the anti-sanctions intellectual/ideological movement are rearguing that America should not impose itself as a prefect for the internal affairs of Zimbabwe, which is a sovereign State.
Consequently, that makes the illegality of sanctions a Global South advocacy entry point for the de-Westernisation of power, with the same effect that the land reform made Zimbabwe a leading post-colonial template of reclaiming economic independence.
This same point has been addressed in Dr Chiwenga’s seminal academic work “Goose or Gander — The United Nations Security Council and the Ethic of Double Standards”.
Dr Chiwenga (2020) challenges the structural inequality of the global power ecosystem and calls for the repositioning of perennially marginalised “Third World’’ states to the centre, away from their peripheral fate.
The text not only tackles the unequal decision-making in the United Nations Security Council ((UNSC) ), but it also exposes that the normative notion of belonging within the international system is characterised by superficial balances of power. In other words, coloniality of power continues to manifest in more structural terms, which posture insincere advocacy for equality within the global system.
VP Chiwenga’s proposal for the reform of the UNSC forms the fundamental basis of the Global South intelligentsia’s long-ignored call for the democratisation of the international system. The same multilateral hypocrisy is exposed by the perennial silence of global institutions as Zimbabwe continues to suffer under the burden of illegal sanctions. However, special thanks goes to the Southern African Development Community for setting aside October 25 as a day for the world to call for the immediate and unconditional removal of ZDERA and the weight of colonial nostalgia it imposes on Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. Until the albatross of the illegal ZDERA is removed from our nation, the search for a lasting alternative to black dignity continues.