THE opposition MDC Alliance party led by Mr Nelson Chamisa has been burning the midnight candle, fervently agitating for economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies to stay as the party appears unsettled by the prospects of their removal ahead of the 2023 national elections.
The machinations manifested last week when Mr Chamisa and
his retinue of hangers-on attempted to torch a violent storm in Masvingo to
cast the Government in a bad light, but that ploy dismally flopped.
After failing to grab his desired attention ahead of the
United Nations special rapporteur Ms Alena Douhan, who is in the country on a
10-day fact-finding mission to assess the impact of the illegal sanctions, the
MDC-A leader in cahoots with the usual anti-Government civil society
organisations have been preparing damaging dossiers to submit to the UN Special
Rapporteur.
In a draft report to be submitted to Ms Douhan and gleaned
by this publication, the MDC-A sensationally claims that Mr Chamisa escaped an
assassination attempt last week and is banned from travelling around the
country.
“Just last week we saw how our party president was almost
assassinated and our members abducted and severely assaulted in Masvingo
Province. Vigilantism is on the rise and our party is being barred from
operating.
“We have already submitted a comprehensive dossier on these
issues and we are going to be meeting the UN special rapporteur in person to
discuss these issues,” reads part of the draft report.
Despite the erroneous aspersions of being barred from
moving around the country, Mr Chamisa has in fact been carrying out his party
meetings across the country and was in Chipinge on Monday where he violated
Covid-19 protocols.
Analysts said it was disingenuous on the part of Mr Chamisa
to paint a grim picture of the situation in the country and play victimhood.
“Over the years, the MDC-A has perfected the art of brewing
non-existent crises through staging fake abductions. A good example is the
so-called abductions of opposition activists in 2019 of Obey Sithole, Gonyeti
(Samantha Kureya) and Peter Magombeyi that were planned and executed after an
anti-Zimbabwe NGO had invited a UN special rapporteur to assess Zimbabwe’s
human rights situation, in what was an attempt to undo the anti-sanctions
diplomatic score that had been scored by Zimbabwe at SADC and AU platforms
where Nelson Chamisa’s lobbying whirlwind hit a snag,” said Mr Takaedza
Nyawanza, a Harare-based political commentator.
Presently, three MDC-A activists — Joana Mamombe, Cecilia
Chimbiri and Netsai Marova — are facing charges of faking abductions and stand
accused of employing Stalingrad tactics to delay their trial since their arrest
in May 2020.
They timed their antics to coincide with another
international event so as to negatively spotlight the country.
Using the alleged abduction of the trio, MDC-A vice
president Tendai Biti wrote a letter to the World Bank president David Malpass,
claiming that the three were arrested, tortured and sexually assaulted by
security forces.
The anti-Zimbabwe stance taken by the MDC-A is in stark
contrast to the collective national aspirations, which have seen other
opposition parties, the Church and the business community calling for the
unconditional removal of the illegal economic sanctions that have bled the
country of billions.During hearings of the US sanctions laws at the turn of the
millennium, that country’s former assistant secretary for African Affairs
Chester Crocker is infamous for remarking that: “To separate the Zimbabwean
people from Zanu PF, we have to make their economy scream, I hope you Senators,
have the stomach for what you have to do”.
Since the illegal sanctions were imposed in 2001, Zimbabwe
has lost an estimated US$42 billion, losing an estimated US4,5 billion in donor
support annually for more than two decades.
The country also lost US$2 billion in IMF, World Bank and
African Development Bank loans which could have helped in developing
infrastructure, as well as losing commercial loans amounting to US$18 billion
which could be extended to the private sector and other companies.
0 comments:
Post a Comment