Hosia Mviringi
“The US Government welcomes the opportunity to help you off-ramp from Russian equipment and explore potential US alternative options, to move as expeditiously as possible to off-ramp from use of Soviet/Russian equipment, not to export Russian equipment back to Russia, and to close all joint ventures or businesses of Russian defence sector entities…”
This is an extract from a recent US letter to the government of Zimbabwe, in which the US plyas. Big brother’s role on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy.
The letter and its contents are contemptuous of the Zimbabwean Government and its people, as it portrays them as unable to reason out things and to choose own path in international relations.
Such blatant attempts by the US Government to influence Zimbabwe’s foreign policy especially in the wake of the February 24, 2022 Russian military operation in Ukraine cannot go unchallenged.
It is not surprising that the United States of America has sought to use the Ukraine crisis to divide the world in the same manner they did in 2001 after the suicide bombing of the Twin Towers in Washington.
International relations and foreign policy in particular cannot be effectively defined or understood without a bit of hindsight.
The 2001 bombing marked a drastic shift in American foreign policy against perceived enemies.
It marked a turning point in the way nations of the world relate to each other, as the US became the self-imposed arbiter on whether one would be a good friend or not.
The US then forcibly assumed the role of world policeman as it went ahead to declare that any friend should be viewed in terms of how they relate to the US for them to qualify as a good friend.
The US then unilaterally assumed the role of defining what a good friend would be for world nations, typical of the World War in which Africa was forced to pick a side in a war which had largely nothing to do with the continent.
The then US President George W. Bush went on to publicly define the new US foreign policy on September 19 2001, which policy he inadvertently went on to force down everyone’s throat.
President Bush rubbished anyone who dared to think or choose differently when it came to charting own path or choosing own friends.
In that landmark speech George W. Bush declared that “You are either with us or with the terrorists,” otherwise interpreted as “either you are with us or against us.”
It is telling how the US has routinely and conveniently used bilateral crises to define the path of the world to its advantage.
In wake of the September 11, 2001, Taliban attacks on the World Trade Centre, the US drew the line for the world and forced nations to choose sides in a crisis they would rather have nothing to do with. Typical internationalisation of crisis for selfish foreign policy gains by the US!
The US policy has been to progressively divide the world into two distinct rival blocks from which all countries are forced to choose. Read; “either you are with us or against us”.
The US has perennially thrived on a divided and conflicted world than on unity and consensus.
In the Zimbabwean context, the US has tried to use the country’s desperate economic circumstances to dictate on its foreign policy.
Historically, Zimbabwe has stood and fought, in a number of struggles, on opposite fronts with the US and this fact cannot be wished away as it continues to influence the country’s ideology and foreign policy inclinations.
The pre-independence period saw the US stand side by side with Apartheid South Africa in support of Ian Smith’s sanctions busting mechanisms, in the process prolonging the struggle for Zimbabwe’s independence.
The US stood shoulder to shoulder with the British colonial forces in the gruesome massacres of native Zimbabwean liberation war fighters.
At Chimoio, Nyadzonia, and many other locations in and around Zimbabwe, gallant sons and daughters of the soil were mass bombed by the imperialist alliance, without remorse.
Regardless of the historical US aggressive hegemonic attitude towards Zimbabwe, it was the Government of newly Independent Zimbabwe which stretched a hand of reconciliation to the erstwhile aggressive Western alliance.
The hand, outstretched in good faith, has been spurned countless times culminating in the imposition of devastating sanctions on Zimbabwe by the European Union and the United States of America through ZDERA Act of 2001.
The US maintains these sanctions on Zimbabwe to date.
What exactly then does the US Government mean when they demand that Harare ‘off-ramps from Russian Equipment and explore potential US alternatives’?
Is this a suggestion that suddenly the US is ready to engage Zimbabwe and be its sole military equipment supplier, or it will be another short walk down the garden path?
Dear reader, this is the same US government which has spurned Zimbabwe’s reengagement policy, renewing sanctions on the country in February each year for the past five years, adding anguish to long suffering innocent citizens.
Can ZANU PF, itself a War-hardened liberation movement, be bullied so easily into submission, to the extent of throwing it’s long time friends and partners under the bus, only for the love of American trinkets?
Looking back, history will be the best teacher for Zimbabwe.
For 21 years, Zimbabwe has not had a functional fighter jet fleet owing to the US and European Union sanctions which prohibited the country from purchasing spare parts for the British made BAE Hawk Fighter Jets.
This is not how dependable partners behave. Zimbabwe has been exposed for two decades as the country could not replenish spare parts for its Western made equipment.
Then someone wakes up and demands that Zimbabwe ‘off-ramps from Russian equipment’! Madness on steroids it is!
Looking elsewhere into yonder fields, the call by the US government for Zimbabwe to “off-ramp from Russian equipment” sounds like the 2003 Libyan disarmament project which was premised on the false promise of international financial windfall to the Libyan government.
Of course, it is known that the then powerful Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi was sold a dummy, destroyed his country’s nuclear program, only to be killed like a rat by the same powers behind the disarmament.
The same script worked on Saddam Hussein of Iraq when he agreed to infiltration by the United Nations weapons inspectorate under the Muhamad El Baradei led I International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Yet it won’t work on Zimbabwe! Zimbabwe shall stand solidly on the side of those countries that support and promote its sovereignty and path to self determination.
In Zimbabwe’s trying times, it is the then United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), now the Federal Republic of Russia, Belarus, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the People’s Republic of China who have continued to stand by Zimbabwe.
The Southern African country would not have been able to free itself from Western colonial subjugation had it not been for moral, material, military and political support from these great friendly nations to whom the country remains indebted.
This is a piece of history that can never be altered or re-written.
Now fast forward to 2022, in the wake of a Russian military operation in Ukraine, and boom! The US is once again imposing itself to choose a side for Zimbabwe in a bilateral military stand-off between two neighbours and historical Siamese twins.
In all honesty, what has Zimbabwe
got to do with bilateral conflict in Ukraine, notwithstanding the geographical and ideological gulf between the two countries?
Why does it matter for Zimbabwe to take a side and what moral ground does the US occupy to choose a side for Zimbabwe?
In light of the above historical events, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy inclination on Russia and China has never been and can never be ambiguous to those who care to look closely.
It is thus trite to note that international relations is always about self-interest in stark contrast to populism and grandstanding. As such, Zimbabwe, like any other country, will seek for and forge relations that are of benefit to her aspirations and interests.
Zimbabwe will choose friends that add value to her goals while respecting her guiding principles of self determination and non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states.
Zimbabwe’s foreign policy is grounded in the historicity of its ideological grounding, and thus should be viewed in that context.
This was recently confirmed by ZANU PF Secretary for Finance Cde Patrick Antony Chinamasa in a candid Twitter thread communication.
Cde Chinamasa, quoting extensively from the said letter by the US government through its embassy in Harare on April 29, 2022, expressed dismay at the latest attempts by the US government to manipulate Zimbabwe’s foreign policy using unorthodox means.
In the contentious letter, the United States made unacceptable demands to the Government of Zimbabwe, demands which could only work had there been cordial working relationship between the two capitals.
Said Cde Chinamasa; “On April 29, 2022, the US government through it’s Harare Embassy wrote to the Government of Zimbabwe; (a) to ” urge the Government of Zimbabwe to additional immediate action to forego military-technical cooperation with Russia in response to Russia’s massive unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and to forbid the Government of Zimbabwe to “engage in financial or other transactions with Russia including in non-dollar transactions.”
Perhaps it is important at this juncture to take a few steps backwards and look into history.
Students of politics will agree that a country’s foreign policy, which is a set of rules, guidelines and principles that guide its engagement with other states and non-state actors, is to a larger extent a product of that country’s ideological historicity.
The United States of America has drawn pleasure for 20 years from the suffering of innocent Zimbabweans, while hopelessly propping a puppet opposition party to reverse the gains of the historic land reform program. This is not how a friend behaves.
It cannot be argued that for the past 42 years of Zimbabwe’s independence the US has done a tremendously job of exposing and entrenching itself as an enemy of Zimbabwe.
This is without a doubt especially when behaviour of successive US Ambassadors to Harare is to be considered.
When the US passed the ZDERA Sanctions Bill in 2001, it had clear intentions to deny Zimbabwe access to international credit and access to equipment supplies.
The US intentions were to see Zimbabwe down on its knees begging for forgiveness for ever daring to be independent and self-governing. Well, evidence is there to show that this has not happened.
In the contrary, Zimbabwe has not disintegrated but instead it has continued to grow stronger, forging new and strengthening old alliances with friendly nations.
The US has been a hostile country to Zimbabwe since independence and as such cannot be trusted.
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