Zimpapers Logo

Perspective, Stephen Mpofu
The anti-Zimbabwe campaign in the West — particularly by the United States and Britain — appears to be trending ominously annihilative and this behooves on this country to tread cautiously in order to avoid falling into the trap of her enemies.

The two chief proponents of regime change are now hell-bent on destroying tourism; the goose that continues to lay the golden eggs for Zimbabwe after illegal economic and financial sanctions virtually ruined other sectors of the economy with business closures worsening joblessness and poverty among families of former employees.

Tourism and Hospitality Minister Walter Mzembi has decried travel warnings by Britain and the United States to their citizens, to frighten them off any dream of visiting this country as tourists — this heinous move being intended to act as the straw to break the camel’s back as it were. But why such warnings when Zimbabwe probably remains one the safest tourist destinations on the African continent, even in comparison with Europe and America where reports about acts of violence are reeled out daily, like weather bulletins.

In fact, one might suggest with equanimity that continuous political fixations on Zimbabwe by those two countries are meant to divert world attention from crises in which those two countries find themselves at this point in time in their history.

While a majority of the British people voted in a referendum in June to pull out of the European community, recent developments have left that country in a dilemma as more and more people there now say no to Brexit, leaving the country parked at a cross roads.

Apparently, reality has dawned on those British people, who may have been swayed, blinded by mob psychology, to vote for their country to leave the union, but are now persuaded especially by economic benefits accruing from membership of the union to change their minds about quitting continental Europe.

If not knowing exactly which safe way to go when a country hits a crossroads, as Britain has now found itself, then what amounts to a crisis?

But worse than the British predicament over Brexit is the trigger happiness of white American police officers who have been gunning down blacks, even unarmed victims for that matter, as though in a shooting range practice.

The callousness of the white officers, which cuts across the grain of the sanctity of human life, would appear to be driven by racism which regards blacks wherever it has reared its ugly face including in former colonial Africa, as being less human than people with a white pigment and therefore their lives being similar to those of flies that one swats as a nuisance and without any fear of the law catching up on them.

Statistics released by the police in the United States say 173 blacks have so far been shot dead by the police, against an alleged tally of 300 whites also reported shot by police officers.

In recent weeks, several American cities including New York, America’s commercial capital, have been embroiled in demonstrations by blacks after white police officers shot some of their kind even without provocation and none of the trigger-happy officers are known to have been charged with murder or much less so to have been fired.

Now if so many whites have also been shot and killed, as alleged, one really wonders why no demonstrations against the shootings were reported.

Which suggests that the high figure of whites allegedly shot by white officers may have been cooked up to try to give the impression that white police officers exercised extreme impartiality in their law enforcement duties.

Perhaps the two top American leaders, on either side of the political isle now, jockeying for the White House painted a more succinct picture on Monday of the fate of blacks in that country during one of three scheduled Presidential debates.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – reputed for shooting from the hip, said blacks and Hispanics in America “live in hell” as they risk getting shot when getting out of their homes.

There was “no law and order” in the United States, Trump added, with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate concurring by saying the question of race was a big challenge in that country.

A former Secretary of State, Mrs Clinton spoke of a need for better relations between black communities and white police officers. Or would one be accused of too much exaggeration by suggesting that the whites in America seem to want to put the political legacy of Barack Obama, himself the son a Kenyan father and white American mother, and therefore an African American, in shambles by the time he leaves office next January after the presidential elections in November?

White Americans also through their kith and kin in the police force may also be secretly trying to antagonise blacks into believing that their fellow black in power under the Democratic Party has failed to protect them and so they should ditch the party they have traditionally supported in favour of the Republican Party in the forthcoming elections.

Coming back to Zimbabwe, worse might happen as America tries to make itself holier than this country to face-lift its face, painted ugly by the violence against blacks there, who no doubt have gone down memory lane to the days of their slavery when they were treated worse than animals in the bush by their white masters and then to the civil rights period and then the current racism that has even manifested itself in some educational institutions there, not to mention in jobs.

Actually, this pen believes the restraint exercised by our police officers during recent violent demonstrations by supporters of opposition parties and at the behest, no doubt of the same Western powers wanting to topple our government, temporarily delayed rather than stopped altogether more satanic moves by the enemy against our country.

For instance during recent demonstrations, apparently meant to shut down the country, the demonstrators burnt a police car as well as a car belonging to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, looted shops and harassed innocent people, the police acted with extreme caution.

Had these violent acts been in the United States or in Europe, blood would have flowed.

And yet what shrill noises do Zimbabweans hear from the Western enemy and its lackeys, including lawyers who are not apolitical?

The police are accused of cruelty in dealing with violent demonstrators by critics who say the constitution gives Zimbabweans the right of assembly as well as the right to demonstrate as an expression of their grievances.

True, those rights are enshrined in the law of the country but also with a silent yet, loud rider.

It is the silent-loud paradox that unscrupulous opposition political parties and lawyers who back them have found it necessary to exploit in an apparent bid to besmirch the image of the Zimbabwe Republic Police.

All reasonable and impartial Zimbabweans are aware that the constitution, while giving the people the right to make a statement through demonstrations also carries the loud injunction banning demonstrators from infringing the rights of other people.

Yet those keen to take a dig at the government and the police for their own political expediency as well as on behalf of the proponents of regime change would make us believe that demonstrators have the right to vent their grievances in whichever way they choose including violence.

But, of course, the bottom line here is that the police in this country, as elsewhere in the world have a right to protect law and order in a civilised manner for the good of every citizen

Thus, had anyone been shot even by a bullet accidentally discharged during those violent demonstrations, the enemies of this country might have used those incidents as an excuse to invade Zimbabwe on the pretext of protecting lives, human rights or democracy while deep down in their hearts they would be pursuing the regime change agenda.

That the enemies of this country continue to create ploys to annihilate our government, witness the latest move to stop tourists coming to this country in order to destroy the economy and cause an uprising by disgruntled Zimbabweans against their government suggests that the worst is yet to come so our people should brace for it.

Countries ill at ease with themselves for failing to come to grips with their own domestic stripes are always wont to use other innocent states as victims in an act of escapism.

But guess what?

Imperialist stooges who even stage demonstrations in foreign lands to try to make Zimbabwe a pariah state will not be spared when their masters succeed in their hegemonic push against Zimbabweans.

To be sure, these people do not realise that they are being used as cat’s paws by this country’s enemies.

But all in all this pen believes that intervention by God’s spirit and not new leadership either in the Western countries or in this country and elsewhere on this globe will succeed in healing the people to bring about a new order of peace and stability.