Flip flop Jonathan Moyo exposed on sanctions

Tsholotsho North MP and Zanu PF apologist Professor Jonathan Moyo is the butt of many Zimbabweans jokes right now. Publication after publication is exposing his contradictory statements over the years, showing a man with no principles but  a perchant for self preservation at whatever cost to his dignity.

Writing in the state owned Sunday Mail newspaper this weekend Moyo said “the historic Zanu-PF-led anti-sanctions petition launched by President Robert Mugabe on March 2 gathered further momentum this weekend with its localisation at major centres in all the country’s 10 provinces.”

This he said signaled ‘its rolling national character, sanctions denialists among regime change donors and their puppets in the MDC and some media circles are becoming jittery, desperate and reckless because their assured doom is now written on the wall.” This he said was because “Zanu-PF has come up with a dynamic, comprehensive and actionable response to the evil sanctions.”

How your own words come back to bite you was there for all to see as several newspapers reproduced an article written by Moyo in May 2006 in which he attacked “the dire poverty of Mugabe’s speech at the opening of the second session of the sixth parliament’ and said the anti-sanctions mantra was just propaganda.

Moyo wrote, “For example, Mugabe claimed, as part of his new propaganda line, that the economic suffering in the country is being caused by so-called illegal economic sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and some white members of the Commonwealth.

“But to show that this claim is just propaganda, Murerwa’s (Finance Minister) fiscal policy statement did not address the so-called illegal sanctions at all. This is odd. When, as the head of state, Mugabe identifies a particular issue as the cause of the country’s economic woes, it stands to reason that his Finance minister should prioritise and systematically address that issue.”

Commenting on the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) in the United States Moyo said although it was ‘objectionable’ its provisions “cannot be said to be illegal either in terms of United States law or international law.”

“If there was any illegality in terms of international law, the government of Zimbabwe would have by now taken the matter up with the appropriate international bodies with the relevant jurisdiction. The fact that no such thing has happened or will happen shows that the mumbo jumbo from the Zanu PF government about the so-called illegal sanctions is cheap propaganda.”

Moyo went further to argue that “despite spirited attempts to attribute the present economic turmoil to the so-called illegal sanctions, all available indications suggest that the sanctions issue is indeed nothing but propaganda. That is why there is no response to it either in the fiscal or monetary policy.

“Yet Mugabe and Murerwa understand that the sanctions talk is pure Zanu PF propaganda for mobilising political support from the masses by seeking to make them believe that their suffering is due to economic sanctions imposed by imperialist foreigners and not a result of the failure of their government,” he added.