The Sunday Mail
The term “regime change” has become a shibboleth of sorts since the turn of the millennium on the back of the stand-off between Zimbabwe and some Western countries, principally Britain, over the African country’s land reforms. The Sunday Mail is running a series of articles based on author Dr Nyaradzo Mtizira Nondo’s book “The Regime Change Agenda: Focus on Zimbabwe”, which unpacks the subject.
***
Dr Nyaradzo Mtizira
Underpinning the many paradigms that govern international law lies the concept of Westphalia sovereignty.
The year 1648 saw the adoption of a remarkable document known as the Treaty of Westphalia. Crafted by two individuals, France’s Cardinal Jules Mazarin and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Westphalia Peace sought to create sovereign nation-states in a Europe that was in a mess economically, socially and politically.
Adding to the toxic atmosphere, the 30 Years War, religious wars and internecine struggles had taken an exacting toll on the fraught relationship between France’s Louis XIV and the Venetian-controlled Hapsburg Empire.
The economic policy of protection that resulted from the 1648 Treaty came to be known as dirigism. Two principles formed the basis of the treaty and these were; “the benefit of the other” or “the advantage of the other”.
This is better understood to mean the promotion of mutually-beneficial economic development.
Colbert’s common-good principle remains relevant in today’s world where conflicts flare up daily without cognisance of this principle that is tailor-made to resolve conflicts.
Just imagine a world in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East could be resolved peacefully with level-headed negotiators on either side, each making compromises for the common good.
In fact, any conflict could be settled timeously with minimal loss of human life if only this principle were adhered to zealously in conflict resolution.
Then there is “the forgiveness of the sins of the past”. This principle is self-explanatory.
Reconciliation and forgiveness are dichotomous elements in human to human interactions.
Notice President Mugabe’s remarkable magnanimous statesmanship speech in 1980 targeted at an irredeemable white ex-Rhodesian audience.
Other examples of this principle at work include the mushrooming of truth and reconciliation commissions around the globe for example South Africa, Rwanda, Iraq and Vietnam.
Problems with the application of this principle in the resolution of conflicts arise when the extended hand of reconciliation is cynically spurned by the other party thus causing deep resentment and a flaring up of previously pent-up negative emotions.
Events in Zimbabwe’s history since 1980 are a stark reminder of what happens when detractors particularly the British government do not play by the rules of international law and justice in their dealings with a sovereign ex-colony (Zimbabwe), now independent and united.
Intriguingly, Article 1 of the Treaty postulates that “peace among sovereign nations requires that each nation develops itself fully and regards it as its self-interest to develop the others fully and vice-versa, a real family of nations”.
So there we have it; sovereign Zimbabwe makes a decision to develop itself through the fast-tracking of land reform but is condemned for taking a decision in its self-interest.
The irony remains palpable when viewed in the context of Article 1.
Colbert is regarded as the greatest political economist and nation-builder of his time and his teachings spawned a host of economic theorists including Gottlieb Leibniz, Benjamin Franklin and others who successfully developed economic theory using Westphalia principles.
He further believed that the development of infrastructure projects was the most important aspect of the common good.
Colbertism rings as anathema to the modern world’s oligarchies who attempt to thwart the common good through their shrill calls for globalisation.
The hostile reaction of the multinationals to Zimbabwe’s land reform process and the indigenisation programme is instructive and avails much about the interests of the multinationals.
In the Westphalia system, the national interests of states superseded those of the citizen or ruler.
Giving impetus to Westphalia Peace was the 19th century rise in nationalism under which legitimate states were assumed to correspond to nations-group of people united by a common language and culture.
The Treaty of Westphalia has profoundly affected the practice of international relations.
Firstly, it embraces the notion of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, a regular theme in the speeches of the peerless President Robert Mugabe.
Secondly, it allows leaders to establish their own country’s national militaries.
In the case of Zimbabwe, the Western agents, home-grown and international, of the regime change agenda have made security-sector reform within Zimbabwe a key arrow in their quiver of strategies to undermine the sovereignty of Zimbabwe thereby in the process facilitating the desired outcome of said agenda.
Lastly, Westphalia established a new oligarchy of ”super-states”; the US, France and England remain the usual suspects in the nefarious sinister pursuit of the regime change agenda on the world stage with America and Britain currently being in the forefront of destabilising a sovereign Zimbabwe using the various underhand tactics of regime change.
Dr Nyaradzo Mtizira Nondo is an author and keen historian who has written an informative fictionalised narrative of Zimbabwe’s land reforms titled “The Chimurenga Protocol”
