Mugabe’s illegal sanctions – Zimbabwe Vigil Diary

LONDON – The ignominious failure of the Mugabe regime’s court challenge to the sanctions imposed by the European Union has escaped much attention.

That the challenge was a ludicrous waste of public money was obvious to the Vigil from the start – thrown into comic relief anyway by the gradual removal of the targeted measures.

The court’s slap in the face for Mugabe should resound throughout Africa, which has been told by Zanu PF that the sanctions cost Zimbabwe fifty billion dollars.

Zimbabwe must now foot the bill for this legal circus – and the bill will be sizeable given that it has been ordered to pay all the legal costs of the European Union, as well as its own expenses.

Judging by the per diem allowances awarded to Zanu PF flunkies ontheir non-stop journeys abroad with Mugabe, this will be enough to put the final nail into the Zimbabwean economy! Except that, of course, Zimbabwe will not pay.

Even now, the Vigil doubts that the Zanu PF propaganda machine oiled by Jonathan Moyo will give up the tired mantra of ‘illegal sanctions’.

It has been a reliable prop for so many years that the party faithful recite it automatically as a reassuring slogan when discomforted by reality.

And what else can Zanu PF use as a fig leaf for their gross incompetence and nepotism. Official statistics put Zimbabwe’s imports for the first quarter of this year at $1.6 billion against exports of only $716.6 million.

That’s less than half. The trade deficit in March alone was reported as $340.2 million. In that month exports to our great Chinese partner amounted to the grand sum of $47,000. A least that’s what the official figures say.

Nevertheless it is becoming clearer by the day that reality is biting home as a disintegrating Zanu PF fails to put inplace a strategy to save the economy sinking like a stone. Any initiative by Finance Minister Chinamasa or anyone else for that matter is immediately stymied by Mugabe. The real sanctions against the Zimbabwe economy are shown to be his short-term expediency with the sole objective of preserving himself.

He certainly does not seem to be interested in saving anyone else, notably the thousands of Africans drowning in the Mediterranean in a desperate attempt to escape violence, oppression, misgovernance and poverty – things he provides in abundance.

While European governments met urgently to discuss the plight of migrants, the normally voluble AU Chair Mugabe was silent on the matter. But he knows why people are fleeing. And it’s not because of ‘illegal sanctions’.

The well-attended Vigil was exhorted by ROHR President Ephraim Tapa: ‘we must not allow the world to forget Itai Dzamara’.

Other points

·       Before the Vigil there was another demonstration outside the nearby South African High Commission against the xenophobic violence. Among those there were South Africans who proclaimed ‘not in my name’. During the week Vigil supporters also took part in another xenophobia protest outside the High Commission organized by the human rights activist Peter Tatchell.

·       The Vigil welcomes the independence day message by opposition parties which said:  ‘Zimbabweans must be ready to fight Mugabe as they did the Rhodesians. Just as we fought a brutal protracted struggle against white minority repression, so too must we be ready to redeem ourselves from the current penury, poverty and deprivation inflicted upon us by our own kith and kin. Independence is not enough without freedoms and prosperity and we must be ready to pay the ultimate price once again to save ourselves’.

·       Thanks to Esther Nyambi, Fungayi Mabhunu and Ephraim Tapa who were there at the start to help set up and to Enniah Dube and Patricia Masamba who looked after the Vigil table.

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FOR THE RECORD: 58 signed the register.