The Sunday Mail
FOR a small teapot-shaped country ensconced deep in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe can surely pack a punch on the world stage.
By dint of periodically — if not routinely — grabbing world headlines, we have become known far and wide.
As a country and as a people, we have found ourselves being discussed in hallowed halls and world capitals, and for good reason, too.
On Wednesday, all 16-member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), together with Zimbabwe’s allies, will unite in bringing diplomatic pressure to bear on the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union to lift the 22-year-old sanctions on Harare.
Of all the violators of UN sanctions on Rhodesia, France was the worst. It supplied Rhodesian forces with most of its military equipment, including Alouette helicopters
It is the fifth year running that this political and diplomatic ritual is being observed in this part of the world, ever since the late Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli (may his revolutionary soul rest in peace), who was the SADC chairperson then, pushed for October 25 to be declared Anti-Sanctions Day, in solidarity with Zimbabwe.
Happily, and incidentally, Bishop Lazi was in Dar es Salaam when that historic declaration was made on August 18, 2019.
As the product and fruit of a Pan-African leader known for a surfeit of revolutionary fervour, Magufuli’s lobby — reminiscent of the Frontline States’ leaders unstinting and selfless resolve to fight in the corner of oppressed fellow Africans — has since progressively snowballed into a formidable anti-sanctions advocacy that is now delivered annually by African leaders at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly.
But the Bishop knows, so do many, that the sanctioners will not be moved solely by the optics and pageantry associated with growing protestations against the two-decade-old coercive measures, which, unlike the international sanctions of the 1960s, are outside the framework of the United Nations, and, therefore, illegal, according to international law.
There is a reason a country such as the mighty US would remain recalcitrant and reluctant to remove sanctions on a tiny country such as Zimbabwe, which it preposterously regards as an adversary, even in the wake of growing criticism and pressure.
It is the same reason that led a small white minority community, led by Ian Smith, to defy Queen Elizabeth II by carving out part of her imperial territory and unilaterally declare independence on November 11, 1965.
It is the same reason that also forced then-British Prime Minister Harold Wilson to pressure the UN to impose comprehensive sanctions for the first time since its formation in 1945 on a country (Southern Rhodesia) to collapse its government.
Ironically, it is also the same reason that helped the same Smith regime to ride out the UN sanctions, only for his administration to capitulate in 1980, as determined liberation fighters closed in.
And, yes, it is also the same reason freedom fighters had to remain in the trenches for more than 14 years as the stubborn white minority government refused to let go.
You see, all of Zimbabwe’s problems — historical and current — can be traced to the allure of its fabulous mineral wealth, which makes it a coveted prized possession.
Remember, Bishop Lazi recently indicated that our minerals will be our salvation.
The zeitgeist of the current epoch in Zimbabwe — to build a prosperous country and lift its people out of poverty — is born out of the realisation that we have an onerous generational responsibility to succeed despite the deleterious impact of sanctions.
This is what will define President ED’s agenda in the next five years.
Last week, he critically observed: “Our enemies need a lot more than sheer pleas and persuasion. They need to see us forging ahead in spite of their sanctions, to hear and respect us. We have to show real determination to beat those sanctions, and to prosper our people and nation under the adverse conditions they create.”
Our weakness, our strength
Not many people know that Zimbabwe (known as Southern Rhodesia then) has the dubious distinction of being the first country in the world to be slapped with comprehensive UN sanctions after the formation of the world body on October 24, 1945.
You see, the British, after Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965, could not stomach the prospect of losing a valuable colony that offered both a market and source of critical raw materials for its industry.
It, therefore, sponsored a series of UN resolutions that culminated in a comprehensive global sanctions regime in 1968, which outlawed trade and diplomatic relations with the Smith regime.
So preponderant were the sanctions that they even banned trade in Rhodesian asbestos, iron ore, chrome, pig iron, sugar, tobacco, copper, meat and meat products, arms, ammunition, military equipment, motor vehicles, and oil and oil products, as well as funds transfers to Rhodesia.
Wilson was so convinced of the potency of UN measures that he predicted Smith’s regime would collapse in months, if not weeks.
He had every reason to be optimistic.
At the time, Rhodesia’s economy was highly exposed to international trade, as exports accounted for approximately half of its gross national income, with tobacco alone accounting for 30 percent.
Turning off the spigots was naturally expected to be catastrophic.
But, as the world soon discovered, the allure of Zimbabwe’s wealth was too much to resist, as economic interests ultimately trumped over pretences of principle and morality.
Although the embargo was at the behest of the UK, two British firms — Shell and BP — provided succour to Smith through the UDI period by providing him with oil and oil products through South Africa and Mozambique, which was under the colonial influence of the Portuguese.
SA and Portugal were two countries that had voted against the UN resolutions on sanctions.
In order to ensure deniability for directly contravening the embargo, the two British companies, through their SA subsidiaries, would offload the product to a South African intermediary, Freight Services, which then sold to GENTA, the Rhodesian procuring agent.
It is, therefore, unsurprising that a commission of inquiry established by British Prime Minister James Callaghan, who succeeded Wilson, to investigate the violations concluded in 1978 that “Shell and BP had been supplying Rhodesia with oil for most of the period since the unilateral declaration of independence”.
BP and Shell also even had an arrangement with French oil company Total to compensate it for oil it would have supplied to Rhodesia in order to escape censure.
Who can also forget how the British behemoth Lonrho, which had in excess of 40 companies in Rhodesia, including David Whitehead and Shamva Gold Mine, also used Mozambique as a front to export minerals from Zimbabwe?
The minerals were, in fact, affixed with certificates of origin that purported they had been mined in Mozambique.
But of all the sanctions violators, France was probably the worst.
Its companies flooded the local market such that about half of all cars on the road during the UDI period were manufactured by either Renault or Peugeot.
And most revealingly, to a very large extent, French companies scandalously armed the Rhodesian security forces through armoured vehicles that were supplied by Panhard, and the Alouette helicopters that were used by the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS) and the notorious Selous Scouts to reconnoitre and lay siege on our liberation fighters.
These helicopters, some of which were downed by comrades, were manufactured in France by a state-owned company called Sud-Aviation (SNIAS) and then transported to Rhodesia by cargo airlines operated by French line UTA.
In addition, the French also supplied the Rhodesian Forces with the Mirage F1 planes and Maxtra rocket launchers.
You might not have heard of Jack Malloch — who had links with the Rhodesian SAS and was also suspected of working for America’s CIA and the French Secret Service — but this chap was really a piece of work.
In close liaison with Omar Bongo, the ex-president of former French colony Gabon, Malloch was to establish Trans-Africa Airline in the West African country in 1964, which subsequently mutated into Affretair and later Air Gabon.
In its various shape and forms, it became a pivotal logistical entity to transport goods, such as beef and tobacco, among others, to and from Rhodesia by purporting that they were from Gabon.
In one instance, Gabon actually became one of the leading suppliers of beef when it did not produce any. Kikikiki.
But perhaps the most egregious flagrant disregard for the embargo was the multi-nation effort by both European and American companies to finance the expansion of the Rhodesian Iron and Steel Company (which became Ziscosteel after independence) and keep the world supplied with steel.
The conspiracy only came to light in 1974, after a whistleblower, Kenneth McIntosh, made revelations of the plot.
Well, there were so many shenanigans behind the scenes, some of which involved influential individuals who served as Smith’s sanctions busters, that the Bishop would need the whole day to expose.
All this is a tale that shows the pretentiousness and disingenuity of those countries that usually want to posture as champions of democracy, morality and human rights.
We, however, know them for what they truly are — hypocrites!
Proverbs 26:24-28 reads: “Enemies disguise themselves with their lips, but in their hearts they harbour deceit. Though their speech is charming, do not believe them, for seven abominations fill their hearts. Their malice may be concealed by deception, but their wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. Whoever digs a pit will fall into it; if someone rolls a stone, it will roll back on them. A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin.”
Moving ahead
So, the next time the brain-dead Smith-was-better brigade tells you that it was the sheer ingenuity of the Rhodesian regime that helped it overcome UN sanctions, you just have to sympathise with their breathtaking ignorance and stupidity.
But, again, all this just shows that the national interest supersedes all other considerations.
Our economic power will define our political heft.
Over the past five years, under President ED, we have learnt to reorganise ourselves internally and leverage on our coveted resources in order to chart our re-emergence as a key player in global trade.
That way, we can engage and bargain with the world from a position of strength.
The stronger we become, the more they will respect us.
And, as long as they need our minerals and resources, they cannot do without us.
Achieving national food security, with another record wheat harvest on the horizon, is helping to restore our pride as a people and shedding the tag of victimhood.
Our bountiful lithium resources, as confirmed by yet another new discovery in Goromonzi last week, are increasingly strategically positioning us as a key player in the green energy revolution.
This will have far-reaching implications on both our politics and economics going forward.
And the billion-dollar steel plant in Manhize will be the backbone of our accelerated industrialisation and modernisation drive.
That we are among the fastest-growing economies in the region, despite being encumbered by sanctions, is in itself a huge sign of our imminent success.
It will not be easy, but we will overcome.
Bishop out!
