Foreign Correspondence

[fuagf]

Violet Gonda chats up opposition leader, Arthur Mutambara
http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/print.php?art_id=401

and then has a go with Mr Morgan Tsvangirai

http://www.zimdaily.com/news/117/ARTICLE/2423/2008-03-13.html

how did we get here? .. well there was this in 2002 ..

Deadline set for EU sanctions against Mugabe

By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels
29/01/2002

THE European Union decided last night to impose "targeted sanctions" against President Robert
Mugabe and his cronies within a week if Zimbabwe refuses to admit independent European observers. ........
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/29/wzim29.xml

.. this in 2004 ..

NEW BID TO PUT PRESIDENT MUGABE ON TRIAL

Application for arrest warrant and extradition order

Bow Street Magistrate's Court, London

10am, Wednesday 7 January 2004

Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner, is applying for a warrant for the arrest and extradition of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, on charges of torture under Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
http://www.petertatchell.net/international/mugabetrial.htm

now, lemme see, there were some earlier financial sanctions .. damn have lost it .. oh, yes .. heh .. stranglehold ..

Western sanctions source of Mugabe's demise
By Jon’osi Sibanda
03/20/2007

THE United States and their European Union and Australian allies must be smiling.

Finally, their plan to remove Robert Mugabe from power appears to be gaining momentum. The end of their arch nemesis' reign in southern Africa appears nigh.

This is thanks to the erosion of Mugabe’s power as a result of the financial sanctions imposed against the country by the Western countries and Mugabe’s own obviously demented response to the ensuing economic, social and political crisis facing the country. ....

.. and from further down, if you are still hanging ..

While it is inconvenient now that it seems that Mugabe is finally losing his grip, both on power and his reasoning, a few questions do need to be asked of the US government and others that proclaim that the only sanctions in place against Zimbabwe are “smart and targeted”.

Hasn’t the US, through the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act:

• Blocked extensions of finance, credit facilities, and debt rescheduling and cancellation made by Zimbabwe to the IMF, World Bank and other multilateral lending agencies?

• Ensured that the IMF unreasonably keeps pressure on Zimbabwe to pay outstanding debts, notwithstanding that the country has a foreign currency and food crisis and clearly unable, without rescheduling, to maintain its current debt obligations;

• Confiscated cash proceeds from US companies which sold agricultural machinery with Zimbabwean companies?

• Frozen financial assets of Zimbabwean companies, whose only fault is to be controlled by the government, or to have as shareholders, Zimbabweans who happen to support Zanu PF?

• Ensured that dollar denominated trade between a Zimbabwean company and any other company attracted greater scrutiny from the US Federal authorities, and hence attracting a premium;

• Imposed a punitive premium on any company – both US and non-US - that has major business dealings with the US on trading with Zimbabwean companies; and;

• Ensured that until ZDERA is repealed, Zimbabwe has a snowball’s chance in hell of normalising relations with multilateral lending agencies such as the Bretton Woods institutions?

The US, EU and Australia bans the trade of produce from Zimbabwean farms identified in the list of specified persons and companies created by these countries. And in the last 6 months, Australia has stopped honouring any foreign currency trade originating from Zimbabwe.

And yet all three in bad faith falsely claim that the only sanctions in place are travel bans and asset freezes against a few Zanu PF people and companies. How pathetic!

All three countries claim that Mugabe’s poor human rights record is the reason why they imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe. Again this is a smokescreen. But even if it were true, a question has to be asked: How many more people have lost their lives, lost their livelihoods as a direct result of the financial sanctions? Perhaps the end justifies the means. And Mugabe is such a high value threat that any deaths and suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans pales in comparison

Yet, without the complicity of the MDC hierarchy, the US, EU and Australian sanctions and actions would have rung hollow. And without the crass incompetence and delusions of Mugabe and his Zanu PF government, the situation may not have deteriorated to this level.!
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/opinion248.16137.html