EU Ambassador Del’Arricia denounced

Zimbabwe Social Democrats denounce EU Ambassador Del’Arricia denial of leadership crisis and chaos in Zimbabwe.

Press Release Wednesday 18 June 2014.

On a panel discussion in Zimbabwe the EU Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Aldo Del’Arricia said there was no leadership crisis or chaos in Zimbabwe.

“If we had a leadership crisis there would be chaos. We still have a leadership, we still have a leader who manages to keep at bay and under control these forces that are very much contradictory,” said Ambassador Aldo Del’Arricia.

The Zimbabwe Social Democrats (ZSD) denounce the Ambassador’s statement as a denial of the truth to justify the EU’s continued re-engagement agenda with the Mu- gabe regime and promised reward from the regime of EU access to the country’s di- amonds.

These are some of contradictory forces Mugabe has faced and failed “to keep at bay and under control”:

a) The one thing that has keep Mugabe and Zanu PF united and in power is the political patronage system that has allowed Mugabe to reward party loyalists with jobs and looted wealth. This has been the greatest force that has driven Mugabe throughout his 34 years in government. But the downside of political patronage, the contradictory force, is that it has resulted in mismanagement and corruption and criminal waste of human and material resources.

Zimbabwe is in this economic mess precisely because Mugabe has failed to move with the times and accept that his stay in power should depend, not on political patronage, but his ability to deliver what the nation want and the free democratic will of the electorate. His reliance of patronage has allowed mis- management and corruption to grow and spread like cancer and now the na- tional economic is dying because of them.

The nation will never ever recover until these cancerous tumours now the siz- es of tennis-balls are removed!

b) Zimbabwe has held elections for the last 34 years in fulfilment of the constitu- tional requirement that the nation should hold regular elections. Mugabe has always wanted Zimbabwe to be a one-party state like China or North Korea but has failed to get the constitution changed. He has instead created a de facto one party state in which multi-party elections are held but the only re- sult allowed is a Zanu PF victory. Elections about electing either to stay with the same leaders/ government or to have they replaced. To therefore have elections in which change is not an option is an oxymoron!

 By denying democratic evolutional change Mugabe has per se chosen revolu- tionary and chaotic change because change is nature and no dictator can re- sist change for long.

c)  Mugabe needs his indigenisation policy now more than ever because his cro- nies, who were given the former white farms have failed to earn a living from the farms and they are back demanding more loot. But as long as the policy remains no foreign investor will set foot on Zimbabwe soil – not whilst the threat of being forced to take on a local partner – a parasitic tick the size of a monkey – remains.

d) ZimAsset has failed to raise the necessary funds not even the Chinese Muga- be was cock-sure would contribute have contributed a dollar for reasons a), b) and c) above.

“Zim-Asset is just a blueprint,” Ambassador Aldo argues. “It’s work in pro- gress and I think that the Government and particularly the Minister of Finance knows very well that the work is not completed and they are calling on the African Development Bank in particular, in order to provide technical assis- tance.”

Who is the Ambassador kidding? The regime has had a year already and the begging bowl still remains mockingly empty. This is supposed to be a five- year plan and Vice President Mujuru has already admitted the plan will achieve nothing in five years and that the nation will have to wait “30 or 40 years”!

Of course there is a very serious leadership crisis in Zimbabwe in that Mugabe has faced these opposing forces – all his own making – all these years and instead of the right thing has been kicking the can down the road. His bad decisions are the root causes all the nation’s problems. He is not offering a way out of the mess but will not give up power because it is not in the DNA of tyrants to give up power.

This nation is facing a simple choice, since Mugabe is incapable of change he must go. He is the one who has dragged this nation to the very gates of this hell-on-earth, it would folly to let him take the nation any further.

It is all very well for economist Dr Moses Chundu to say the regime change agenda was “an old, tired script overtaken by time and events”. The truth is the change that Mugabe has resisted and thought he would never ever have to face has caught up with him finally. The only matter to be settled now is whether it is peaceful change or chaotic change triggered by an outbreak of disease or by street rioting or worse!

It seem people like Ambassador Aldo Del’Arricia will only accept there is a crisis in

Zimbabwe when hundreds of thousands of people are dying of diarrhoea or cholera or some such diseases; the fact that every major city and town has had no running clean water for decades now is not enough to constitute a crisis of leadership. They would want to see rioting and fighting like in Egypt and Syria first to say there is crisis in Zimbabwe; the 85% unemployment rates and all the other negative economic measures are not enough.

Zimbabwe is subject to the same laws of thermodynamic and basic economic as every other nation. It is therefore nonsense that the Zimbabwe economy can somehow defy all the economic laws and common sense and recovery and even thrive regardless of the mismanagement, corruption, etc.

The sheer hypocrisy of the EU is really intolerable! The EU is forcing Greece to implement economic reforms necessary to get that country’s economy back on track and yet the EU’s policy on Zimbabwe is to encourage the mismanagement and corruption that has destroyed this nation to continue! The EU has its eyes on Zimbabwe’s diamonds and is glossing over everything the Mugabe government has done and is doing as long as it gets the diamonds.

The people of Zimbabwe have suffering the consequence of this Zanu PF dictatorship for 34 years; they cannot endure no more. No nation or regional grouping, regardless of its economic and technological prowess and dominance, has the right to belittle other people’s suffering much less to deny them the chance to end their suffering for selfish gain.

Conclusion

Mugabe has managed to stay in power for 34 years because he used the nation’s resources using political patronage to reward his Zanu PF cronies who helped him stay in power. The system has worked in that he has stayed in power for 34 years but the down side of it was that resulted in mismanagement and corruption the cancerous tumours now threatening to destroy the national economy. It is clear Mugabe does not want to end his patronage

system and lose power but it is equally clear the system must go and the cancerous tumour removed to save the national economy and the nation.

The nation has allowed Mugabe to have his way for the last 34 years now it is time for him to go! We at the ZSD are advocating for peaceful change but the window of such change will close soon. The EU’s re-engagement overtures are not helping because it is only encouraging Mugabe to drag his feet thinking he can somehow still avoid regime change.