Dale Dore writing for the Voice of Democracy takes Graca Machel in his sights after she suggested that Britain should keep quiet on the situation in Zimbabwe. The “situation” by the way is actually a crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans need food aid, the formal employment sector is crippled leaving the majority of Zimbabweans with no hope of finding a job, while power and water supplies are erratic. The list of ZANU PF made ills that plagues Zimbabwe is endless. Dale Dore reckons that countries like Britain, with their helping hand of over 1 billion in aid, should be given the freedom to criticise and comment on countries that, amongst other things, consistently put their citizens on the bottom of the list when it comes to treating them right.

Here’s Dale for you:

Ignore Machel: Turn up the volume for violence-free and fair elections

On behalf of the poorest and most vulnerable people of Zimbabwe, the Voice for Democracy applauds and says a big ‘thank you’ to Britain. Despite every provocation and insult from the Zimbabwean government, and because of Mugabe’s utter disregard for his own people, the British government has given Zimbabwe over $100 million in humanitarian assistance last year: from health care and education to providing water, food aid, seed and fertilisers to the poorest households. Since Independence in 1980, Britain has given Zimbabwe over $1 billion in aid.

Yet Britain continues to be unfairly censured from a most unexpected quarter. The Elder’s Graça Machel has told Britain to ‘keep quiet’ and let SADC deal with Zimbabwe (The Guardian, 16 April 2009). We ask Machel: What has SADC, and South Africa in particular, done for the Zimbabwean people? It has kept quiet. For a whole decade it has refused to restrain a brutal and dictatorial regime that has bought nothing but violence, ruin and misery to its own people. In one election after another, SADC and South Africa have sanctioned violence-stained and rigged elections that have maintained Robert Mugabe in power. South Africa has taken an obtuse pleasure in defending Mugabe’s malevolent government while Britain and its allies in the United Nations were trying to isolate and restrain it.

Let the truth be told. If Britain has acted as ‘big brother’ – as Machel avers – it has been to care for and feed Zimbabwe’s hungry and destitute. It has been to protect the people of Zimbabwe against its bullying leader by supporting human rights, democracy and the rule of law. And what have SADC and South Africa done? They have sided with the bully. They allowed Robert Mugabe to sit at the high table of Presidents even when they did not recognise his election to office in June 2008. It was SADC and South Africa that pushed through an undemocratic inclusive government that handed back power to their despotic ally to continue his gruesome handiwork. It is they that have insisted that Zimbabwe must sort out its own problems, knowing full well that Mugabe’s only methods of negotiation is with an iron bar and through the barrel of a gun.

If anything, the Voice for Democracy believes that Britain has been too soft on those SADC countries which it supplies with huge amounts of aid. Britain and its allies in the European Union and the United States should be exerting much more diplomatic pressure on SADC and South Africa to ensure that violence-free and fair elections bring about a democratic transition in Zimbabwe. If Machel wants Britain to keep quiet then SADC and South Africa must bring an end to the brewing state-sponsored violence that will inevitably erupt during the run-up to elections. We are watching and waiting.

This entry was posted on April 28th, 2010 at 9:22 am by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.