OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: A letter from the diaspora
By Pauline Henson
The news that the EU is to remove some of the sanctions against Zimbabwe as a ‘reward’ comes as a shock. ‘Reward for what?’ was my immediate reaction. Reward for being a police state, perhaps?
News that the police have banned certain radios revealed just how intolerant and one-sided the ZRP is. Like Zanu PF, the police are keen to ban all dissenting voices. Hence, the ongoing raids on NGOs.
This week it was ZESN offices, the second raid in a week, by ‘armed men and women’ who stole a computer and drawers full of printed material. The police claim they are looking for electronic gadgets used for espionage and once again Jestina Mukoko’s ZPP is in the firing line.
Zimbabweans have surely not forgotten how she was imprisoned and tortured by the Mugabe regime.
The radios that are banned said Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba, are those that are “incompatible with state owned stations.”
She went on to say, “We strongly believe that the intention of such people (ie. SW Radio Africa, VOA and other independent radio stations) are not holy but meant to create and sow seeds of disharmony.”
I find it hard to apply the adjective ‘holy’ to the state broadcaster but, in the light of Mugabe’s claim on his 89th birthday that he was appointed by God to rule Zimbabwe, perhaps the word is not inappropriate!
What the Assistant Commissioner did not say is that the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Act refers specifically to the possession and operation of signal transmission equipment. The short-wave, solar powered radios owned by many rural Zimbabweans are not transmitters, they are simply receivers.
The fact that this same regime is regarded as worthy of a ‘reward’ by the EU implies either that the EU is incredibly naïve or that they have some hidden motive for rewarding Zimbabwe. And that, I suggest, is where diamonds come into the picture.
The world’s largest diamond trading centre is in Antwerp, so in this case Belgium and the EU share a vested interest.
Not surprisingly, the EU’s decision to lift sanctions against certain named individuals and, conditionally, against a state-owned diamond mining company provoked a massive outcry from human rights organisations.
One of the individuals removed from the sanctions list is said to have been the war veteran responsible for the violent attack on a couple of elderly white farmers. Human Rights Watch commented that the EU’s decision has given Robert Mugabe a free hand to continue with his repressive policies.
“They have put profit before principles” said Human Rights Watch; principles go out the window when diamonds are involved. In the case of Zimbabwe’s diamonds, a war veteran revealed this week what everyone always suspected: that it is Mugabe himself who is controlling the diamond industry and needless to say the profits – or some of them – are going into Zanu PF’s coffers.
Coincidentally, across the world this week in the Belgian capital a diamond heist was being carried out that had all the makings of a Hollywood movie with $50 million worth of the ‘sparklers’ stolen.
The thieves appeared to know exactly how the stones were to be transported, not via Antwerp, the diamond cutting centre, but from Brussels and they simply cut through Brussels airport fence and in a black car with flashing blue lights drove straight up to the bay where the diamonds had just been unloaded from the security car. It would be interesting to know where those diamonds came from – or where they were going.
If Charity Charamba has her way, Zimbabweans will never hear that on their radios.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle, Pauline Henson.
