Sanctions a good scapegoat for Mugabe

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    Discovered: 2010-03-16 04:11:49 | Author: | TheZimbabwean.co.uk Source: TheZimbabwean.co.uk

HARARE -- Two young men with dreadlocks hung around idly near a mall in Eastlea, one of the better suburbs in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare, waiting for a potential employer to pick them up. ( Pictured: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown – Rejected President Jacob Zuma’s calls for lifting of visa and financial sanctions on Zanu (PF)’s top leaders and allies.)
They had folders filled with references and resumes with them, and approached every car that rolled onto the parking lot, hoping to find work. “But there is no work,” Jason Chivunga sighed, “because of the sanctions.” His former classmate, Blessing Kwaramba, nodded in agreement. “We are suffering for it. If there was no boycott, Zimbabwe would reach for the stars. Why are we still being punished?”
The two were no fans of President Robert Mugabe – who was elected to Zimbabwe’s highest office exactly thirty years ago last week. Like almost everybody else here, they support former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who became Prime Minister in February last year as a member of a government of national unity.



Propaganda

But the two unemployed Tsvangirai aficionados were anything but immune to Mugabe’s political propaganda. Like many of their compatriots throughout the country, they believe European Union">The European Union and the United States are leaving Zimbabwe little breathing room. “We want to trade internationally again,” Kwaramba said. “Then we will be able to get back to work.”
In the past few weeks, the EU and the US announced they would be extending sanctions against Zimbabwe by another year because the governing parties there have made too little progress in implementing the power-sharing agreement reached after the disputed elections of 2008. The Netherlands and the UK were most vocal in their support of the extension. Human rights, media restrictions and land reform have seen the least improvement. The prospective deputy minister Roy Bennett, of Tsvangirai’s Mdc party, has yet to be inaugurated by Mugabe, and other ministerial appointments have also led to disagreements.
“But Zimbabwe can trade as it pleases,” a European diplomat emphasised. The “restrictive measures,” as the sanctions are known officially, “only apply to a small clique of Mugabe loyalists. The man on the street is not hurt by them at all,” he added. The president, his family and a number of prominent members of Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party are not allowed to travel to Europe and the US, and a small clique of entrepreneurs affiliated with Mugabe is not allowed to do business in the US.



Zimbabwe’s problems

The trade embargo only applies to arms, but Mugabe has been able to portray the sanctions as the cause of all Zimbabwe’s problems in the public eye, especially in rural areas. When the International Monetary Fund refused to grant Zimbabwe, a country that owes billions in debt, any further loans, people were quick to blame the sanctions. A food shortage caused by a local drought and the collapse of the country’s agricultural sec... ...

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