Let’s prove ‘detractors’ wrong
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
January 11, 2013 in Opinion
NEWS that German ambassador Hans Gnodtke has warned his country might pull
out of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation General Assembly due to
be held in Victoria Falls later this year if government does not guarantee
protection of its nationals must be a worrying development for Tourism
minister Walter Mzembi who has worked hard to make the event a success.
Candid Comment with Iden Wetherell
Gnodtke reminded the government it had invited Germans to invest in the
country under the terms of a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection
Agreement (Bippa) but this agreement had been ignored.
The ambassador said recent assurances by Lands and Resettlement minister
Herbert Murerwa that investments under Bippa would be spared remained just a
statement of intent until government acted.
The latest violation has witnessed powerful Zanu PF apparatchiks, who have
already benefited from land reform, hunting in the Save Conservancy.
Murerwa’s statement that there will be no more seizures of foreign-owned
farms has come too late for many. Investors from Mauritius and South Africa
have lost properties in the Lowveld. Sugar estates as well as game
conservancies have been seized while a large ostrich scheme in Matabeleland
has fallen victim to local predators.
It is against this background that Ambassador Gnodtke issued his warning.
Next month European Union governments will meet to discuss the sanctions
regime. Zanu PF likes to pretend sanctions were imposed as part of a
bilateral dispute with the UK.
In fact they were the product of political violence and electoral
manipulation as reported by an EU observer mission in 2002 headed by Pierre
Schori. The government found Schori’s report inconvenient so he was
expelled.
Now Zimbabwe is demanding the lifting of the sanctions claiming to have
cleaned up its act, as reflected in Murerwa’s remarks.
But it must be evident to even the most simple-minded observers that very
little has changed on the ground.
The farms audit remains a mirage, senior civil servants are still blatantly
partisan, broadcasting is the fiefdom of the former ruling party as it
attempts to claw back its electoral losses, while local government has sunk
into a state of anarchy as Zanu PF supporters build wherever they like.
In the midst of this chaos we have the sad prospect of a party hoping to win
power that is asleep at the wheel.
They are reluctant to tell us what they stand for, slow to respond to the
mendacious claims of our erstwhile rulers, and only too keen to learn from
their mistakes. Meanwhile their leader is pressing for a motorcade which is
the last thing the motorists of Harare want to see on their roads.
Zimbabwe, I am sorry to report at the beginning of 2013, is a mess. For
those of us following events over the years, it is galling to have people
remind one that much of this was forecast by our detractors, to use a
current term.
One particularly vocal detractor, a former prime minister, was unrepentant
in his Belgravia exile. We joked that he didn’t need to give interviews to
his many press visitors. Instead a large banner across his driveway would be
sufficient bearing the inscription “Told You So”.
Let’s hope he was not entirely right!