Crucifying the innocent, feting Barabas

The Herald

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Two UN security details pose with the new Libyan and UN flags to applause from Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and Mustapha Jalil (with backs to camera).

Well the UN General Assembly is underway and nowhere was Robert Copper's dream of a world of double standards evident than at this great gathering of animals great and small.

To those who may not have heard of Robert Cooper. He was former British premier, Tony Blair's chief policy advisor and wrote a treatise titled, "Re-Ordering the World: The Long Term Implications of September 11" that helped shape the doctrine of neo-liberal humanitarian intervention blind to state sovereignty.

Cooper's essay, which was published in April 2002; envisaged a world of double standards in pursuit of a new form of ‘acceptable' imperialism.

Said Copper in part, ‘‘the challenge to the post-modern world is to get used to the idea of double standards.

‘‘Among ourselves, we operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security. But when dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era - force, pre-emptive attack, and deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in the nineteenth century world of every state for itself.

‘‘Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle . . .

‘‘All the conditions for imperialism are there, but both the supply and demand for imperialism have dried up . . . What is needed then is a new kind of imperialism, one acceptable to a world of human rights and cosmopolitan values.

"We can already discern its outline: an imperialism which, like all imperialism, aims to bring order and organisation but which rests today on the voluntary principle.''

Well, well, well this doctrine has been underway in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya without even a whimper from the UN which was formed on the back of the lofty ideal of "saving the world from the scourge of war.''

To all intents and purposes the annual UN General Assembly is one big masquerade where the little people are invited to the world of the big and given 15 minutes to speak as equals in the General Assembly though they are not welcome to the roundtable where the real decisions are made.

That exclusive club called the UN Security Council where the little ones are only welcome as visitors, and on a rotational basis at that. They will be there just to rub shoulders with the big boys for two years at a time but without full powers to disturb the will of the big boys. Thats is why they do not wield the veto; the power to tamper with the decisions of the big boys.

The UN, as currently constituted, is a sorry excuse for an international organisation and the sooner it goes the way of the League of Nations, to the dustbins of history, the better for everyone.

This became even more apparent to me yesterday as I witnessed two events that really exposed the need for UN reforms, failing which member states should pull out and form an alternative organisation that is truly international and where all member states are equal in every sense of the word.

One pertained to Libya, recently ravished by the plunderers and bleeding to boot for the entire world to see.

The other pertained to the long-suffering people of Palestine who had their land stolen courtesy of the same country that masquerades as a global policeman today and who are seeing their dream of statehood going up in flames as one of the big boys is digging in that they won't get recognition.

Opposition is coming from the fork-tongued US that only a year ago promised that the 66th UNGA would welcome a new Palestinian state ‘‘living at peace with Israel,'' or so a Pollyanna Obama, who did not yet know he did not have the power he thought he had, told the 65th UNGA to applause from the politically innocent and cynicism from those who know how forked Uncle Sam's tongue is. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas formally informed the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, of his intension to submit an application on Friday for Palestine to become a UN member state.

Under the provisions of the Charter, the secretary-general is tasked with verifying a letter requesting UN membership, following which he sends it to the Security Council and the General Assembly.

The application is considered by the Council, which decides whether or not to recommend admission to the 193-member Assembly, which has to adopt a resolution for the admission of any new member state.

Since Palestine only has observer status at the UN, Abbas will submit the membership bid in his capacity as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. He will address the General Assembly on the same day after which he will present the request to Ban.

He is pressing for a Palestinian state on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, encompassing Gaza and the West Bank and including annexed Arab east Jerusalem.

For the request to be passed to the UN General Assembly for approval, it must garner nine Security Council votes and avoid being vetoed by one of the five permanent members.

It is highly unlikely that it will get to the General Assembly stage since the US has made it clear that it will veto the Palestinian request.

It was at the UN that international crime was legitimised yesterday through a flag raising ceremony where the flag of the NATO Transitional Council, sorry National Transitional Council, rose majestically to replace the all green of the Gaddafi era.

Earlier on two UN security details brought and posed with the new Libyan and UN flags to applause from Secretary General Ban ki-Moon who was sitting side by side with Mustapha Jalil, the man NATO chose as the face of the new Libya. All this before the eyes of a world that knows the heinous crimes committed in Libya.

To rub salt into the wound, it was at the same UN HQ that long-suffering Palestinians are being denied statehood and effectively told they have to continue living under the boot of the Zionists.

These are Palestinians represented by a legitimate leadership that they chose and who are not fronting anybody.

Contrast that with the so-called NTC (whose N should stand for NATO, the real power behind the Libyan invasion), who were feted as the legitimate representatives of the people of Libya.

One wouldn't believe a UN resolution authorising "the (protection) of civilians and civilian-populated areas under the threat of attack", has been flagrantly violated by NATO to bring the likes of Jalil to the UN.

NATO which furthered its own agenda by bending a UN resolution to effect regime change in Libya by raining cluster and depleted uranium bombs on civilian-populated Sirte and other "Gaddafi strongholds."

One wouldn't believe that Gaddafi, who only a year ago today was received at the UN headquarters and addressed it as a legitimate leader of the Libyan people today is being hounded like an animal with NATO having put a bounty on his head, wanting him dead or alive; all of which was not authorised by resolution 1973 that was all about effecting a no-fly zone over Libya.

And still some of the leaders pontificate oblivious to the irony of the charade before their eyes. At this rate, we Africans should not be surprised if they come to chain and yoke us again. These men of the white skin, surely they shall finish us all off if we continue watching our eyelids.

9/11: Day bullies play great victims

The Herald

Wednesday, 14 September 2011 02:00

President Barack Obama (left) and former US president George W Bush By Caesar Zvayi A decade after the 9/11 bombings of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon; the symbols of America's capitalist dominance and military destabilisation, Uncle Sam once again played great victim at the site on which once stood the monstrous twin towers. Uncle Sam's hallowed ground which he has come to call ‘‘Ground Zero,'' his rallying point for the so-called War on Terror, which is infact a War of Terror. Uncle Sam wept for the 2 977 people who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania (excluding the 19 hijackers of course). The place where the two towers of Babel stood until 9.59am and 10.28am respectively on September 11, 2001 has become the theatre for the absurd over the years, a shrine where Uncle Sam perennially seeks to magnify a grief that pales in comparison to the disasters he has wrought on innocent people the world over. The 2 977 who perished on 9/11 are just a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of thousands who have been target practice for Uncle Sam's forces the world over. I must give it to Uncle Sam, he sure knows how to grieve and play great victim, how to whip national emotions. The crowd that gathered at Ground Zero gave moving tributes. Quite a number wore T-shirts emblazoned with photos of their loved ones, or held aloft placards with pictures of their dear departed with endearing words. Media reports say it took four and half-hours to read out, in alphabetical order, all the names of the victims. Obama and Bush could not be outdone. The former reading from Psalm 46 - ‘‘God is our refuge and strength'' while the latter borrowed from Abraham Lincoln espousing ‘‘the grief of a loss so overwhelming.'' Interestingly, both men spoke from behind bullet-proof glass screens, a sharp reminder of their own insecurity despite pretensions of might. I was almost moved but then I asked myself who grieves for the millions who have fallen under the might of the American war machine the world over? Do they have a hallowed ground like Ground Zero where they can converge in collective grief? Do they even have the freedom to congregate or will they be pulverised by tons of bombs or fall victim to the notorious American drones, the unmanned, efficient killing machines. It was quite ironic to see Uncle Sam masquerading as a great victim when he is busy trampling on the toes of the innocent the world over spawning severe disenchantment, the very reason that so aggrieved the forces behind the 9/11 bombings. I refuse to call them terrorist bombings but retaliatory attacks. As we speak, Uncle Sam is engaged in several wars of destabilisation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. As if that is not enough he is also busy threatening Iran and North Korea oblivious to the fact that the more he does that, the more the enemies. This partly explains why Obama and Bush were so insecure that they could only deliver their speeches behind fortified glass screens. Closer to home, MDC-T supporters converged at Gwanzura Stadium in Harare to mark the 12th anniversary of the launch of the MDC, where again a party that brought so much suffering to the innocent not only played great victim but also great saviour. The man who, at his party's launch threatened to ‘‘violently remove'' President Mugabe and his government masqueraded as the great victim of violence. Tsvangirai made his utterances as MDC supporters burnt and tore copies of the Herald on the grandstands heralding the arrival of politics of brawn not brains. MDC-T was launched on a ZCTU platform at Rufaro Stadium on September 11, 1999 following a meeting of minds between the three main British political parties; Labour, Tories and Liberal Democrats. These three parties came together under the Westminster Foundation to launch the MDC on the back of misguided economics that it was better to fund an opposition party to unseat Zanu-PF than fund the land reform programme as agreed to by the Tory administration in 1979. The MDC launch, which was suspiciously timed to coincide with the 111th anniversary of the hoisting of the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury, raised eyebrows. It was not long before people's fears were confirmed when the party began acting like a latter-day Rhodesian Front or its successor the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe by not only having ex-Rhodesian Front and security forces personnel in its structures but also pursuing a patently foreign agenda aimed at safe-guarding the interests of white former commercial farmers and big business, all predominantly British owned. From his party's inception, Tsvangirai did not make his contempt for the land reform programme a secret. Infact his secretary for education Fidelis Mhashu told the BBC's HardTalk programme that MDC would return all land to white former farmers should it assume power. Mhashu's sentiments dovetailed with the US sanctions law, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act that says, in part, that sanctions against Zimbabwe can only be repealed once land tenure is returned to pre-2000 levels. From inception, MDC leaders called for the imposition of economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, pursuant to visiting unprecedented suffering on Zimbabwe in the hope that people would revolt against Zanu-PF and President Mugabe in favour of the MDC. This is what the then US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Chester Crocker meant when he asked US senators if they had the stomach for what they were about to do to Zimbabweans during a Senate hearing on the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill. ‘‘To separate the Zimbabwean people from Zanu-PF we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you senators have the stomach for what you have to do,'' Crocker quipped. And as it turned out the senators had the stomach for it, and Tsvangirai had the zeal for it as well as he asked villagers during one of his rallies in Manicaland, ‘‘mati mune nzara? Hamuna chekudya? Zvino muchanyatsoshaisisa chaizvo-izvo,'' and indeed people really suffered to the extent that I saw the unthinkable when I attended an uncle's wedding in Njanja, Chief Mutekedza's area in 2008 where I was shown a stunted maize field whose cobs hungry dogs ate. Yes, dogs! That which is proverbially impossible I saw with my own eyes in Njanja simply because villagers had no morsels to leave for their mangy dogs. The economy did scream as thousands lost their jobs and livelihoods, with many dying of preventable diseases like Aids-related illnesses as the Global Fund for HIV and Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria was politicised to deny Zimbabwe assistance and where it came it came in negligible amounts. Thousands more died of cholera in Harare and other cities and towns. Hardest hit were senior citizens who saw their pensions and savings wiped out by sanctions-induced hyperinflation that prompted the British government to airlift its pensioners resident in Zimbabwe to the safety of Albion. This is what all those who gathered at the MDC-T celebrations in Gwanzura Stadium were celebrating, self immolation. The MDC-T's 12th anniversary should have been a sombre moment to reflect on the ravages wrought on Africa by its sons and daughters who chose to be used by the West against their own people. Moise Tshombe's escapades in what is now the DRC account for the sorry state the country is in today, the same goes for Afonso Dhlakama's Renamo in Mozambique and Jonas Savimbi's Unita in Angola. Nothing good has ever come out of puppet politics because askaris are put in place to serve empire. There you have it. The past 12 years have shown us MDC-T or MDC constitutes our own 9/11 and we are duty-bound to fight to defend what this party and those behind it seek to undo. It was not coincidental that MDC-T was launched on the eve of the 111th anniversary of the arrival of the Pioneer Column that was a strong message the party's handlers were sending; that Rhodesia shall never die was not just an idle turn of phrase. President Mugabe captured it well in his book, Inside the Third Chimurenga where he said, among other things: ‘‘The MDC should never be judged or characterised by its black trade union face; by its youthful student face; by its salaried black suburban junior professionals; never by its rough and violent high-density lumpen elements. "It is much deeper than these human superficies; for it is immovably and implacably moored in the colonial yesteryear and embraces wittingly or unwittingly the repulsive ideology of return to white settler rule. The MDC is as old and as strong as the forces that control it; that converges on it and control it, that drive and direct, indeed that support, sponsor and spot it. "It is a counter-revolutionary Trojan horse contrived and nurtured by the very inimical forces that enslaved and oppressed our people yesterday.'' To this day, MDC-T leaders are still to prove that President Mugabe got it all wrong in this characterisation. The Westerners have not made it a secret that they not only played a big role in the formation of the MDC, but that they actually bankroll its activities. Former British prime minister, Tony Blair confirmed to the whole world on June 14 2004 that he worked closely with the MDC in his quest to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe. While the US State Department has revealed in successive annual reports that it was in bed with the MDC in efforts to unseat the Government. To us, 9/11 should be a day for introspection on the part of all those who have chosen to be ahistorical to the extent of walking on the wrong side of history, running with the hares, and hunting with the hounds so to speak. This land and all the blood that soaked it during the liberation struggle will not forgive you.

My Turn:- WikiLeaks: Penny for my thoughts

The Herald

Wednesday, 07 September 2011 02:00

Julian Assange the founder of the Wikileaks What you do in that dark can be known in the day, hokoyo! Rinamanyanga hariputirwe; What you think is a secret, can be a gossip everywhere, hokoyo! Rinamanyanga hariputirweImbebebe ziyakhuzwa, Izibobo ziyakubona What you do behind closed doors will be known everywhere! Hokoyo! Rinamanyanga hariputirwe . . . Goes Oliver Mtukudzi's ditty "Hariputirwe," off his hit album Tsivo (Revenge). I just found myself whistling the lyrics to this song in the shower yesterday as my mind strayed to the 3000 plus diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Harare that were uploaded on the whistle-blower website, www.wikileaks.ch, last Friday. Cables that have sent tongues wagging in the streets and shivers down some guilty spines in the corridors of power. Boy oh boy! What riveting reading they make and what insight into the inner workings of some of the political heads in our midst. Some of the cables are quite hilarious, some very explosive, others border on treason, some outright shocking in the extent of the betrayal, double-dealing or treachery exhibited by some politicians. They, however, all serve a very useful purpose; they show us the inner workings of the minds or private thoughts of some politicians. While some, whether from Zanu-PF or MDC-T, remained true to their convictions in their musings with the US ambassadors others appeared to mistake the American envoys for Catholic priests to whom they could lay their hearts bare oblivious to the fact most of the Yankee envoys are spooks on a mission. Yet others came out as schizophrenics in the mould of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, portraying one persona by day and another by night. While the US embassy's diplomatic cables were never meant for my eyes, I can't help some scepticism as they have a bearing on my country's political landscape. Were it not for the ingenuity of Cde Julian Assange who somehow continues "defying" the odds by laying his hands on over 250 000 cables, almost a whole year, after his initial security breach, I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of seeing even one such cable. WikiLeaks is the talk of the town. Newspapers are feasting on the contents. Even some people who have not seen a single cable talk authoritatively of the contents, albeit from hearsay. WikiLeaks is the new fad, soon to pass with or without some political casualties. Who knows, Zimbabweans being Zimbabweans, WikiLeaks may soon become a baby name. Anyway in all this euphoria, history counsels caution when dealing with Uncle Sam and anything associated with him. Several questions beg answers and bid us to suspend belief. Firstly the cables are all from one source - the US embassy in Harare - which has its own agenda to serve, namely the advancement of US foreign policy. This means the US envoys are at liberty to omit context, doctor quotations and put their own reading to the conversations knowing their sources can't see the final, confidential despatch. Secondly the WikiLeaks began at the end of last year; almost a year ago which means the US would have tightened its intelligence system by now to curb further leaks and potential embarrassment. The fact that the latest releases contain this year's cables raises eyebrows about WikiLeaks in general. The site may since have been compromised with the US giving Assange access to what they want him to have to further their own interests. Uncle Sam doctored intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion, what would prevent him from doctoring cables in a bid to influence Zimbabwe's political process? Food for thought. I personally take anything from the US embassy, at this stage of our revolution, with a pinch of salt. I suspect there are lots of fabrications in some of the cables. Western ambassadors are not exactly known for giving their home countries the real Zimbabwean picture anyway. Third, and to me most importantly, I can't believe that senior Zanu-PF officials - fully aware of the state of Zim-US relations - would badmouth the President or First Lady to the Americans knowing that sooner or later it could be used against them. The cables are by and large the opinion of successive US ambassadors, it is their reading of the political situation in our country at specific times. The contents of the cables are essentially an expression of the private thoughts of politicians and some key stakeholders. Thoughts they wouldn't air publicly and only pronounced when they thought they were speaking in confidence. Each of us, unless we are brain-dead, have our own private thoughts, and the only difference between us and those named in the WikiLeaks cables is that our private thoughts are not known. So let's tread carefully. Like we say in journalism, lets check the interest of the source, the US embassy. Our three main political parties must also self-introspect, why are its senior officials outsourcing what should be vibrant intra-party debate to the US embassy? For the two MDCs I would understand since Uncle Sam is co-owner of their franchise, I do not get it where Zanu-PF is concerned, the grievances being taken to Uncle Sam should be addressed at Shake-Shake Building. Let's promote intra-party debate, it is only through vigorous debate that the supreme view can prevail to guide policy. Don't get me wrong, I am questioning the veracity or lack thereof of the contents of the cables, and just counselling caution in reacting to the allegations therein. I am not condoning midnight meetings with representatives of hostile forces at this stage of the revolution. That is unforgivable, and I hope those who were given to such habits dig a hole and spit in it.