The regime in Zimbabwe has always frequently and emphatically shouted about our status as a sovereign State. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that because sovereignty is a recognised principle in international relations.
But for a country that uses a multiple (foreign) currency system, mainly the US dollar; a country whose “sovereign” Parliament is a donation from China and whose President is widely rumoured to be from the Mumbwa area of Zambia, all our rhetoric about sovereignty begins to fall flat on the tenuous reality of the foreign-ness of our lived circumstances.
Indeed, we must laud being a sovereign nation but our claim to sovereignty becomes trite and meaningless if one considers how the Zanu PF regime has undermined the same through massive corruption, incompetence and cluelessness.
We are a sovereign country blessed with vast mineral and natural resources that could greatly improve the lives of the sovereign citizens of this great country. But the resources are being looted by a small parasitic elite directly linked to Mr Emerson Mnangagwa and his inner cabal, including a vast shadowy network of foreigners in the criminal underworld as confirmed by the Gold Mafia documentary.
Dear reader, just how does a truly sovereign country host its international football matches outside its own territory? Later this month, the Zimbabwe Warriors, the national football team, will be hosting its FIFA 2026 World Cup qualifier matches in Kigali, Rwanda. Our national football stadia have all been condemned and for us as Zimbabweans, Rwanda is now our “sovereign ‘ football home.
A ‘sovereign” nation with a quarter of its population living outside the country and whose leaders unpatriotically get greated outside their own sovereign borders and who stash away their stolen millions outside their own countries.
A “sovereign’ African country with a “sovereign’ population widely regarded as the most proficient speakers of the English language but who lack similar proficiency in the knowledge of their own sovereign languages and local customs.
Sovereignty? My foot!
Sovereignty as a principle
Sovereignty is a principle of politics, international relations and international law that recognises that each country has exclusive control over its own territory and affairs. Students of politics and international relations will recall that the modern international system of sovereignty has its origins in the treaty of Westphalia of 1648
The Treaty of Westphalia was in fact a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. The Treaty of Westphalia established the precedent of peace reached by diplomatic congress and a new system of political order in Europe based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign States. The Westphalian principle of the recognition of another State’s sovereignty and right to decide its own fate laid the foundation for the concept of sovereignty as we know it today.
Sovereignty is now ingrained in the United Nations Charter, which now recognises the right to self-determination and the principle of non-interference.
However, it must be stated from the outset that in today’s world, particularly on the backdrop of globalisation, sovereignty is no longer absolute. When a country signs up to or joins a regional or international body, it surrenders part of its sovereignty and agrees to be governed by the principles of that regional body or international organ, which is why SADC is exercising its mind over the electoral crisis in Zimbabwe and the resultant regime illegitimacy. SADC has every right to do so without being accused of interference because by being a member of the regional body, Zimbabwe reposed part of iher sovereignty as she agreed to be governed by the regional body’s founding treaty and protocols.
The rising spectre of international wars such as the war in Ukraine and the Palestine-Israeli conflict in the Middle East that have sucked in many countries as well as the advent of global epidemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic that we experienced a few years ago have all exposed the trite notion of sovereignty. These are global events and developments that have trammelled borders and showcased the interconnectedness of individual nations.
This explains why, for example, SADC, particularly South Africa, is worried about Zimbabwe because the crisis in Harare has led to a huge influx of economic refugees into that country. For South Africa and other regional countries in the region, the crisis in Zimbabwe is not a foreign policy issue. Indeed, for our neighbours, the Zimbabwean crisis is a domestic issue, a sovereign issue in their own jurisdictions because the crisis has a direct impact on their own domestic economic situation, thus rendering the notion of sovereignty trite and vacuous.
Dear reader, let me hasten to say though it is fast losing its lustre, sovereignty as a concept is supreme. Sovereignty generally refers to the independence and autonomy of modern States in determining their own fate and governing their own affairs. Sovereignty presumes that countries have supreme power in and over their own jurisdictions but despite conveniently hollering and parroting about sovereignty when it suits them, this regime has actively undermined Zimbabwe’s sovereignty by, among many other things, stealing the sovereign electoral expression of the will of the country’s citizens.
It is in the citizens of any nation that the true essence of sovereignty is reposed. So unlike what the regime in Harare is doing, no prudent government can claim sovereignty when every day it is undermining the sovereign expression of its own citizens by stealing the vote and conspiring to recall elected representatives directly deployed by the citizens themselves, who are truly sovereign!
The fallacy of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty
We all respect and savour the sovereignty of our dear Zimbabwe, which has been seriously undermined by the Zanu PF regime.
For example, China’s “donation” of a whole Parliament building in Mt Hampden that was officially opened last November seriously undermined our sovereignty. Surely, how does a nation claim sovereignty when the building that houses its sovereign parliament is a donation from a foreign country?
I have previously written about this shame which the unschooled among us have lauded and praised as a confirmation of our deep and cordial relations with Beijing.
But let it be known that in the realm of politics, a Parliament is the theatre and embodiment of national sovereignty where elected representatives transact the citizens’ affairs on their behalf. A Parliament is the sole cradle of a people’s sovereign power and to have a country’s Parliament building constructed by a foreign country is a shameful development that must leave all of us wallowing in unbridled collective shame.
Coming on the back of a similar “donation” from the same Chinese government which constructed the African Union’s plush headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2012, the much-vaunted mantra of the principle of sovereignty by the leaders of both Africa and Zimbabwe becomes an embarrassing rallying cry.
For such grand symbols of national and continental sovereignty cannot be “donated” by foreigners, be they from the East, the North, the West, the South, from Mars or from the planet Jupiter.
Dear reader, Africa cannot claim to be a sovereign continent when a whole continental headquarters was built and donated by a foreign power.
By having our “sovereign” continental headquarters and our “sovereign” Parliament constructed by a foreign country, we have hit a new low on the index of sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.
These developments must be a source of our unmitigated collective shame both as Zimbabweans and as Africans.
Just how does a man claim sole and sovereign authority at his home when both his bedroom and the mating reed-mat were gifts from the man next-door? Or, more appropriately, how does a man boast of his presumed matrimonial sovereignty when his wife’s underclothes were bought by the dip attendant ( mudhhibhisi ) from a village faraway? This is exactly what the Chinese have done to Africa and Zimbabwe by ‘donating” what ought to be poignant symbols of national and continental sovereignty!
The Chinese have been touted as our all-weather friends and it is true they stridently supported the country’s liberation war effort.
But it is also true that they are all over the sectors and all over the country scouring and spiriting away our wealth, leaving no-one and no place behind.
Chinese projects in Zimbabwe include but are not limited to the Matabeleland Zambezi Water project, the Kunzwi dam project, the New Parliament building, the Hwange 7 and 8 rehabilitation projects, the Robert Mugabe International Airport, the Kariba South expansion project as well as diamond mining in Chiadzwa where Chinese companies such as Anjin were heavily involved.
Across the vast labyrinth of this country, Chinese companies are heavily involved in various mining activities in the country’s extractive sector. The Chinese have been using what is called the Angola model which involves swapping a country’s mineral wealth with huge infrastructure projects.
True, this model has benefited countries but only to a certain extent as it has also led to the spiriting away of the respective countries’ vast mineral wealth.
Zimbabwe’s relations with China stretch back to the Ming and Qing dynasty when the Chinese established ties with the Munhumutapa empire based on trade and cultural exchanges over 600 years ago. The relations strengthened during the liberation struggle when China offered unconditional support to our freedom fighters.
The relations rose to a higher level when the “Look East’ policy was adopted in 2003 following the souring of relations with the West and Zimbabwe’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth.
Indeed, the Chinese have been our all-weather friends but in modern international relations, we must strive to be friends with everyone, the only cardinal being that every relationship and every bilateral business deal with a foreign country must primarily benefit this country and its citizens.
As Kwame Nkrumah once said:” We look neither East nor West. We look forward.”
Our donor-funded Parliament bankrolled by the Chinese has massively eroded our claim to sovereignty. As I have stated earlier, a country’s Parliament is the true repository of a nation’s sovereignty and its construction cannot be outsourced to a foreign power like China, or any other country for that matter.
Moreover, we are not sure whether the Chinese have not bugged our Parliament which they have “donated to us, just as they reportedly did with the AU headquarters.
The 20-storey AU headquarters in Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia, was constructed as a “donation” from China and the construction work was completed in 2012. The Chinese also built the entire computer network, which they reportedly bugged. The bugging was not detected until January 2017, when it was noted that all the data at our continental headquarters was being copied to servers in Shanghai.
Of course the Chinese denied the bugging and these are the same guys who have just “donated” a new Parliament building to us.
My own take is that the whole mess and the alleged donation of a Parliament building is a huge breach of our sovereignty as a nation. And what must humiliate us even more is that we were even cheer-led as we became complicit in that breach!
Conclusion
Dear reader, our sovereignty has been seriously undermined under this regime.
A sovereign country is governed by its own people who must collectively claim ownership of their shared land and its resources. . But then Zimbabwe has now been surreptitiously annexed by a small clique that purports to own this country. Those are the real owners of the country ( vene ) who are now looting and spiriting away the country’s vast mineral and extractive wealth.
When they say Nyika inotongwa nevene vayo , they are not talking about you and me. They are talking about a small band of kleptocrats connected to the citadel of stolen power!
Indeed, while all Zimbabweans collectively own this country, the real owners (vene) are this small clique of corrupt brigands and relatives connected to one Emmerson |Mnangagwa that now virtually owns this country.
For me, the lasting impression that we are not a sovereign nation was the image from last year’s opening of the new Parliament building in Mt Hampden. There stood Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa, a Zambian who presumes to be our President, drunk with Russian vodka, dressed in an Italian suit and obviously with US greenbacks in his pocket while officially opening a Chinese-donated Parliament.
Given the foreignness around that occasion, how can one claim sovereignty?
What sovereignty?
Whose sovereignty?
Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is a journalist and a political scientist by profession. He is also a change champion in the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). You can interact with him on his Facebook page or on his X handle @ luke_tambo.
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