Wake up, barbarians are at the gate

INASMUCH as elections give people a voice and consolidate democracy, they also bring rancour and divisions. Senegal is presently on fire as President Macky Sall’s decree to push back elections from February 25 to December 15 has touched off a major conflagration that threatens to burn the West African country to ashes.

By last week, more than 25 people had been killed in violent street protests.

It is now all up in the air in Dakar as the country’s top court has since ruled that the decree was unconstitutional.

However, in this part of the world, what makes elections in our neighbouring countries all the more noteworthy and intriguing is the fact that former liberation movements — FRELIMO (Mozambique), SWAPO (Namibia) and ANC (South Africa) — will be fighting to retain power. In particular, Africa’s oldest liberation movement, the 112-year-old ANC, will have the fight of its life, as the plot to remove it from power thickens.

After South Africa’s recent decision to take United States-backed Israel to the Netherlands-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) to protect lives of innocent Palestinians who are being callously butchered in the Gaza Strip, Washington has just had enough of the ruling ANC government.

But the ICJ case was the latest in a series of run-ins that began when South Africa refused to be coerced into joining an alliance against Russia after Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022.

Washington, which was actively trying to isolate Russia, was further miffed when South Africa decided to host joint military drills off the coast of Durban with both China and the East European country in February last year.

And, as a sign of the widening rift and souring relations between SA and the West, President Cyril Ramaphosa did not have a seat at the table at the G7 meeting that was convened in Hiroshima, Japan, between May 19 and 21 last year, especially after having been invited for the 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 editions.

Matters also came to a head on May 11 last

John Steenhuisen year when the US ambassador to SA, Reuben Brigety, decided to trash all diplomatic protocol by publicly accusing Pretoria of having loaded weapons on a Russian ship — the Lady R — when it docked at Simon’s Town naval base on December 8, 2022.

This was largely interpreted as South Africa’s subtle support for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

Brigety — a black man who has a curious proclivity for bow ties — had to be demarched by the authorities for his conduct, which came barely six months after the US embassy had also blindsided the SA government by inexplicably issuing a warning of a possible terrorist attack in Sandton, Johannesburg.

All this intrigue betrays the covert conspiracy against the ruling ANC government. But the attacks on Pretoria have now become increasingly overt. A fortnight ago, two congressmen — Republican John James and the Democratic Party’s Jared Moskowitz —introduced the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act, which is eerily reminiscent of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA).

Ostensibly designed to review relations between Washington and Pretoria, the bill essentially heralds the beginning of incremental actions that will culminate into a full-frontal assault meant to cow SA into submission.

The litany of allegations against SA, according to the US, include its cosiness with the Russians and Chinese, who are described as “malign global actors”, as well as mismanaging state resources, inability to deliver effective public services to its citizens, the cholera outbreak, load shedding, high-level corruption and being anti-Semitic (or opposing Israel). You simply cannot make this up. Why would American congressmen, who have neither qualms nor compunction in supplying lethal aid to Israel to slaughter innocent Gazans — close to 30 000 people by last week’s count — be concerned about cholera and load shedding in South African neighbourhoods?

Why would South Africa sever ties with Moscow, which supported it during apartheid, and embrace the Americans, who readily supported the racist minority establishment? And who are they anyway to dictate relations of sovereign states?

As Zimbabwe, we have been similarly punished for the past two decades through ZDERA for daring to repossess our land from white former commercial farmers, just in the same way SA is now being punished for standing up against Israeli bullies and their American godfathers.

Gird our loins

That South Africa will be holding its polls this year makes it vulnerable to various schemes by hostile forces desperate to see the back of the ANC government.

South African Security Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni recently indicated that the country’s spooks were currently on high alert to prevent foreign interference, particularly ahead of this year’s elections.

And this is to be expected.

Many countries, especially in Africa, are increasingly wary of foreign powers that intend to influence electoral outcomes, particularly after the adoption of the Gdansk Declaration at the end of a convention of quislings of the West, which was attended by the who is who of puppets and sellouts from all four corners of Africa, in June last year. Kikikikiki.

The list of attendees was as telling as it was revealing.

It included characters such as Tendai Biti, who was representing the now-radarless CCC; Kizza Besigye, who has perennially lost elections to his former boss Yoweri Museveni; Raila Odinga, another serial loser of elections in Kenya; Ivone Soares of RENAMO, a party that has historically caused all sorts of problems in Mozambique; and Greg Mills of The Brenthurst Foundation, a pet project of the powerful Oppeinheimers that came up with that dubious opinion poll last year suggesting that Nelson Chamisa would win elections in Zimbabwe.

Also in attendance was Alberto Costa Júnior, the leader of UNITA, which is infamous for the bloody and costly 27-year civil war in Angola under Jonas Savimbi; Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulani) of Uganda; Branco Brkic, the editor-in-chief of SA’s Daily Maverick (Branco Brkic); John Steenhuisen from SA’s racist Democratic Alliance; and Botswana’s former president Ian Khama.

Revealingly, two months later, in a joint opinion editorial published on August 14 by News 24, a South African publication, to explain the essence of the Gdansk Declaration, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who is now firmly in the pocket of the Oppenheimers; Lech Walesa (former Polish resident); and Yulia Tymoshenko (former Ukrainian Prime Minister) accused liberation movements in countries such as Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe of hanging onto power, stifling growth and development at the expense of the people.

It all but summed up the active plot that is underway to oust ruling parties in various African countries, particularly where liberation movements still hold sway.

But the evil schemes will not succeed. Psalms 21: 11-12 says: “Though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed. You will make them turn their backs when you aim at them with drawn bow.”

Psalms 33: 10-11 further teaches us: “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.”

Verses 16-19 are also insightful: “No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength, it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.”

Against all the odds, the Lord will sustain us. You might remember how our security agents busted a plot by Ian Khama, American diplomat Andrew Young and some influential individuals from SA, among others, at the Victoria Falls International Airport in April 2019, who were on a mission to oust Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi from the leadership of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party.

You will remember, too, how our alert men and women in the shadows blunted a scheme by the European Union, some non-governmental organisations, the opposition CCC and — rather uniquely — some venal characters in the Southern African Development Community to tilt the scales against the ruling ZANU PF in the August elections.

It all came to naught.

So, essentially, polls in this part of the world represent a continuing struggle to assert our sovereignty and fend off persistent imperial designs. We must stand guard as the barbarians are now at the gate.

Africa is once again a coveted prize, for its resources have become of existential value in the wake of the obtaining great power rivalry, which is hotting up.

Little wonder we now even have the Italy-Africa Summit, Saudi Arabia-Africa Summit and the first-ever Korea-Africa Summit that will be held later this year.

With South Africa likely to be the latest victim to be slapped with sanctions by the US, it means, as Zimbabwe, even as we continue to lobby for the removal of ZDERA, we must be prepared to bear the coercive measures for some time.

President ED is alive to this.

This is why he exhorted his team at the first sitting of Cabinet this year to consider innovative ways to achieve the Government’s ambitious goals, notwithstanding the sanctions. A luta continua; vitória é certa. Bishop out!

Bishop Lazi called it AS a couple of weeks ago, this year is going to be hectic, particularly with elections being held in no less than 19 countries on the continent, including in neighbouring Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.