14 October 2021, the United States was elected to the UN Human Rights Council. This was 8 days too late for them to stop the UNHRC from releasing its preliminary report on the negative impact of their sanctions on Zimbabwe.
Nevertheless, ever since they joined the UNHRC, the US government has used its seat to downplay the implications of that report and to turn their efforts on tarnishing Zimbabwe.
That’s why since the damning report was issued, not a single Zimbabwean civil society organization standing up against sanctions or an individual suffering under their sanctions, has ever been invited to Geneva to speak on the U.S. and UK crime against humanity, that is depriving civilians of water, food, healthcare, education, jobs, development and displacing millions of Zimbabwean refugees into neighboring countries.
When we apply to go and present at the UN or UNHRC, we are told that we first need to be accredited as observer organizations.
But while civil society organizations, formed to fight sanctions and advocate for Zimbabwean human rights, struggle to be heard on this important issue that the UNHRC has condemned, created resolutions against and voted against; non-accredited INDIVIDUALS and criminals with no standing -representing no common interest- like Hopewell and Fadzai Mahere, are invited to Geneva every year to speak, without a counter from those that they condemn.
The fact that Fadzai, a criminal convicted for lying in order to bring a UN member state into disrepute in order to invite more sanctions on that state, is invited to speak on her conviction at the UNHRC, while the case is still sub justice. Is the UNHRC [in step with the US] clearly interfering in the affairs of a sovereign state, seeking to influence its judicial process.
Furthermore, the fact that she is a leader of a political party that lies to invite more illegal sanctions to collectively punish civilians, to force them to vote for her party as a means to achieve undemocratic regime change. Is a clear conspiracy against her victims.
Just last year, the UNHRC itself, claimed that the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe, were forced to witness the massacre of 20,000 of their own during Gukurahundi, and now they are being denied their right to raise monuments and mourn their dead.
The UNHRC, simply publicized wartime ZAPU propaganda -debunked by every independent international report on Gukurahundi (including the CIA report)- and weaponized it against a UN member state, without doing any verification. And somehow, as a country, we let this sacrilege, stand to stain our national image?
Where is our Foreign Affairs when others are defecating on our flag? Why is our Ambassador or Permanent Representative at the UN not addressing these clear abuses of administrative process in the UNHRC? Why is he not as active as the American team, in advancing Zimbabwe’s national interest?
Is our Foreign Affairs accepting our national image to be trampled upon because they are busy reengaging with an obdurate enemy that keeps sponsoring the production of endless reports and documentaries that seek to implicate Zimbabwe in money laundering, in order to isolate the country’s financial system through FATF?
Are they reengaging with enemies who ensure that Fadzai, Hopewell and any anti-Zimbabwean critic, speaks in the UNHRC, to tarnish the image of Zimbabwe, while the same Ministry fights to keep the most potent pro-Zimbabwean voices out of the UNHRC, to prevent them fighting sanctions because they don’t want us to disrupt their reengagement party?
One might think that they are blocking pro-Zimbabwean civil society organizations from defending Zimbabwe and fighting the enemy because reengagement is succeeding. But clearly with the west working hard to sabotage our government, as I illustrate above, reengagement is not working.
But the fact is, they don’t care whether reengagement is succeeding, just as long as it allows them to go overseas on reengagement trips, receiving generous travel allowances and their children are enrolled in prestigious western colleges.
In fact, they will destroy anyone seeking to end these perks by fixing Zimbabwe’s image or god forbid, ending sanctions.
That’s why they don’t have time to challenge the abuses of the US and her western allies in the UNHRC, because they want more sanctions for more reengagement trips and more plush allowances.
Written by Rutendo Matinyarare, Chairman of ZASM.
