Zimbabwe And The Battle Of Ideas: The CIA And Other
Imperialist Forces - Part Two
13 February 2010By Reason Wafawarova
Last week this writer took a look at Netfa Freeman’s
work relative to the pro-West adulatory writings of
Briggs Bomba, a self styled Zimbabwean donor-monger
that masquerades as a high achiever on matters of
human rights and good governance, albeit in the most
apparent lackey adherence to Western bidding on
matters related to Africa.
In his “Ballots vs Bullets in Kenya and Zimbabwe”
essay, Bomba tried this idea of “independent civil
society” in Africa and by that he explicitly explained
that the concept means organisations “without loyalty”
to African governments. The fact that these
organisations have been used for decades by
imperialist governments to implement immoral foreign
policy objectives in different countries is totally
ignored in Bomba’s idea of “independent civil
society”.
The funnelling of funds into civic groups by the CIA
and other imperialist forces has been proven many
times over and Nefta Freeman cited a paper presented
by CIA agent, Philip Agee in 1979. Agee pointed out
that there were opportunities in the developing world
for the US to create the “American Political
Foundation” to explore ways the US could exploit civil
societies in other countries for their own ends. He
explained that this was the genesis of “new policy
agendas” of the USAID and eventually it all led to the
formation of the National Endowment for Democracy in
1983. NED became the new dispensary of CIA funds since
its formation and Bomba prides in discipleship status
to organisations such as this.
Bomba is one of these misguided human rights
evangelists who hold the view that it is appropriate
for African NGOs to be funded by non-African
governments and they are proud of this hostility that
says it is inappropriate if such NGOs are funded by
African governments.
The illusion is that somehow European governments are
more interested in good governance than their African
counterparts. Bomba and other like minded people will
have the whole continent believe that the future of
Africa should be left to the telescopic and
hypocritical goodwill of Western taxpayers.
These people view those NGOs that relate well to
African governments or even get some material support
from them as “political apologists”, “puppets” or
“bootlickers”, yet those dependent on Western
governments are by that very fact considered
“independent”. Clearly Bomba thinks fooling people is
an easy venture and he probably believes he is
succeeding.
Briggs Bomba had a lengthy attack on the Zimbabwean
judiciary, whom he accused of being “dominated by
loyalists”.
This is despite the fact that Morgan Tsvangirai was
acquitted on charges of plotting the elimination of
President Mugabe and a whole list of other court
decision in favour of the MDC and those against the
interests of ZANU PF.
The essay by Bomba contains a sweet-reading series of
unsubstantiated accusations against President Mugabe
and the government he led at the time the essay was
written. He made unverified and reckless claims
against the military, the intelligence community and
the police, accusing all of them of merging
“seamlessly with the violent campaign machinery of the
ruling ZANU PF”. He equated this to Kenya where “the
police stood in President Kibaki’s corner and brutally
massacred hundreds of opposition activists in protests
that followed the disputed election”.
This claim is despite the fact that there was not a
single incident of police confrontation with
opposition activists anywhere in Zimbabwe during the
time in question. This is also despite that there were
at least 1500 confirmed deaths in Kenya while Morgan
Tsvangirai’s unsubstantiated claims on the deaths of
his supporters was at its most 185.
The Zimbabwean police have challenged those making
these claims to come forward with evidence but nothing
much has come out of it.
Bomba made an incorrect distinction between Kenya and
Zimbabwe when he wrote, “Kenya, unlike Zimbabwe, the
opposition used mass mobilisation and threats of total
economic paralysis to leverage its power...”
Surely the MDC have tried and failed to use mass
mobilisation a number of times; this highlighted by
the mega-flop 2003 “Mass Action” or “Final Push”
campaign. The fact that no sane Zimbabwean heeded the
call of the MDC-T does not mean that they did not have
the mass mobilisation strategy as one of the
directives from their masters in London and
Washington.
As for “total economic paralysis” to leverage power;
it is laughable that Briggs Bomba sought to dissociate
the MDC-T from this evil practice at a time the party
was signing Article IV of the so-called GPA, which
acknowledges the ruinous effect of the illegal
sanctions that the MDC invited from Britain and her
allies – sanctions which David Miliband says can only
be removed at the request of Prime Minister Tsvangirai
and his gang in the MDC-T leadership.
Basically writers like Briggs Bomba write from a
flawed ideological premise, and they ignore Western
interests and policy in Zimbabwe and in Africa. These
writers bemoan the lack of “access” and “diplomatic
leverage” for Western saviours to deal with “ruthless
regimes” as is often said of President Mugabe’s
Government.
They want to make their readers believe that the West
can make things right in Zimbabwe.
Bomba had high praises for the role of the United
States, Britain and others in the brokering of the
Kenya power sharing deal, but he had all sorts of
problems with SADC’s efforts in securing Zimbabwe’s
power sharing deal. Maybe he needs a reminder that the
West’s interests in Kenya have never been under threat
so far.
There are no Western regime change shenanigans in
Kenya and that is why both Kibaki and Odinga are
easily acceptable without any scepticism. In fact, it
is reality that Britain and other Western countries
prematurely extended congratulations to Kibaki on his
“electoral victory”, having to be forced to rescind it
two days later once they were aware of the humiliating
discrepancies that characterised the election result,
and more importantly the unrest that erupted soon
after the announcement of the result.
Compare this with Zimbabwe where both the US and
Britain have been excessively obsessed with the
outcome of elections since Zimbabweans repossessed
their colonially stolen land in 2000.
The 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2008 elections were all
roundly condemned as marred in the West even before
they had taken place. The only reason this happened
was that the prospect for victory of their favoured
MDC and its leader did not look good enough, and they
always wanted the option of playing the fraudulence
card so as to dismiss any result that did not suit
them.
Bomba calls the ruinous sanctions on his own country
“isolationist diplomacy” and he finds it perfectly in
order that the US and the UK continue to declare that
they want nothing short of regime change in Zimbabwe.
Clearly there is nothing remotely diplomatic about
that kind of aggression.
The Canadian writer, Stephen Gowans, does seem to have
a much better grasp of the politics of Zimbabwe than
Briggs Bomba in many respects. In his essay, “Zimbabwe
at War” Gowans asks these pertinent questions:
• “Should an election be carried out when a country is
under sanctions and it has been made clear to the
electorate that the sanctions will be lifted only if
the opposition is elected?” or as it is today, only
when the same party makes a request for the lifting of
sanctions, as recently outlined by David Miliband.
• Should a political party which is the creation of,
and is funded by, hostile foreign forces, and whose
program is to unlatch the door from within to provide
free entry to foreign powers to establish a
neo-colonial rule, be allowed to freely operate?”
• “Should the leaders of an opposition movement that
takes money from hostile foreign powers and who have
made plain their intention to unseat the government by
any means available, be charged with treason?”
This writer will add and ask: Should a Prime Minister
of a Government under an illegal sanctions regime
refuse to call those sanctions by name, insisting on
vague inferences like “restrictive measures”?
Should such a Prime Minister call for a phased removal
of those sanctions at a time his own Finance Minister
and his own Deputy are joining unanimous calls for the
total and unconditional removal of such a sanctions
regime?
Stephen Zunes is one Western apologist on matters
related to Zimbabwe. Like many others he contrives
credibility from a leftist posturing against
imperialism and he hides his true identity in
sophisticated writing as he did in the article,
“African Dictatorships and Double Standards”.
Zunes does not want to be associated with Western
propaganda of demonising Zimbabwe while overlooking
the West’s own iniquities in places like Iraq and
Afghanistan.
He however assumes this uninformed view that US
condemnations on Zimbabwe are all based on human
rights-motivated good intentions. He even
congratulated George W. Bush’s administration for
“joining” what he called “a unanimous UN Security
Council resolution condemning the campaign of violence
unleashed upon pro-democracy activists and calling for
increased diplomatic sanctions.”
Unless one was a propaganda peddler, phrases like
“isolationist diplomacy” and “diplomatic sanctions”
are a complete contradiction of terms with no meaning
whatsoever.
Zunes completely ignored the April 5, 2007 statement
by the US State Department when they went public
saying that, among several other measures they were
working to “discredit the government of Mugabe”. No
honest political analyst can ever ignore such facts.
Rather Zunes decided to write that the US government
“has justifiably criticised the Zimbabwe
liberator-turned-dictator Robert Mugabe”. This in
reality means that the US government that supported
Ian Smith’s UDI madness and his atrocities on innocent
refugees during Zimbabwe’s liberation war, the same US
government that conspired to murder Patrice Lumumba,
to assassinate Samora Machel, Thomas Sankara, to
overthrow Kwame Nkuruma of Ghana,Salvardo Allende of
Chile, Maurice Bishop of Grenada, Haiti’s Aristede,
Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Pathet Lao of Laos and to
invade South Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan; is now
responsible for altruistic mass-saving nobilities in
Zimbabwe.
We have not even mentioned the creation of Israel at
the expense of the Palestinians.
Zunes misrepresented fats about the UN Security
Resolution in question. Firstly it was a US/UK
initiated resolution so the US did not “join”
anything. Rather the two enemies of Zimbabwe
collaborated with others to join them.
Secondly the resolution that Zunes hysterically
praised as unanimously adopted actually failed to pass
in the UN Security Council as Russia and China did a
double veto against it, leaving what Netfa Freeman
called “the indisputably racist governments of the US,
UK and The EU” to execute their own illegal sanctions
– sanctions they today say can only be removed at the
request of their quisling party, the MDC-T.
These sanctions are not mere travel bans or
“restrictive measures” as Tsvangirai infamously calls
them. They explicitly outline stipulations designed to
damage the economy of Zimbabwe by denying any
extension of credit lines to the Government, or any
balance of payment assistance by international
financial institutions. They also actively dissuade
investment in, or trade with Zimbabwe, while at the
same time barring tourists from travelling to Zimbabwe
on the pretext of baseless red-level travel warnings.
Added to this, the sanctions directly bar any trade
with Zimbabwe’s top 40 corporations, and a freezing of
these companies’ assets, if ever they are located
abroad.
These are the factors totally ignored by Bomba and
Zunes, and they preach this vainglorious gospel that
Britain and the US want nothing in Zimbabwe besides
democracy and human rights.
Anyone who fails to see the direct correspondence
between the Western aggression on Zimbabwe and the
repossession of land in 2000 is either insane or just
deliberately trying to be obnoxious with the cause of
Zimbabwean masses.
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