Sunday, December 17, 2017

Another Timely SB Moyo Intervention
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Richard Runyararo Mahomva
Zimbabwe Sunday Mail

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Dr Sibusiso B. Moyo must be commended for expeditiously pronouncing Zimbabwe’s foreign policy and situating its principles within the context of Operation Restore Legacy.

The pronouncement rebuts calls by the opposition for continued hostilities between Zimbabwe and the West.

This follows the much-criticised MDC Alliance’s anti-Zimbabwe propaganda trip to the United States to seek strategic “opposition global repositioning”.

Tendai Biti, Nelson Chamisa and opposition activist Dewa Mavhinga tell us their treacherous mission was merely to attract Western mediation in Zimbabwe’s “political crisis”.

Crisis? What crisis?

MDC’s conduct has widely been viewed as an open villain agenda to undermine President Mnangagwa’s Government as it pursues a new trajectory of political pluralism and economic revival.

What the MDC Alliance has done is discount the reality of unfolding political progress to the outside world.
This is the same old opposition anti-narrative of soiling Zimbabwe.

Instead of reforming, MDC-T remains bent on disparaging the country as being a captured space lacking the culture of “free and fair” elections.

However, it is pleasing that Dr Moyo dispelled this misguided neo-liberal misgiving of Zimbabwe’s alienation from the global community of democrats.

He exposed the MDC Alliance’s anecdotal deconstruction of Zimbabwe’s political landscape by stating that the political transition was sponsored by citizens yearning political reform.

“The advent of the new dispensation in our country, Zimbabwe, was realised at the inauguration of HE President ED Mnangagwa. This new era was achieved by our people, at home and abroad, who demanded change for the better.

“Street manifestations, which were joyous and peaceful, were constructed by all our citizens in their colourful diversity without regard to political affiliation.”

The solidarity of Zimbabweans at home and abroad on November 18, 2017 attested to coalescing and demonstrated the collective political direction Zimbabweans had taken.

Therefore, November 18 outmatched the pretentious mantra of the opposition being the sole liberal interlocutor for democratising the country.

From the outset, MDC-T fell short of understanding November 18’s philosophical mobilisation gravitas which emanated from the historical interconnectedness of the gun and politics.

In that regard, Operation Restore Legacy indented an indelible statement of cordial civil-military relations.
The same was also pronounced during agrarian reforms at the turn of the millennium. Further, Command Agriculture excelled under the stewardship of Air Marshal (Retired) Perrance Shiri, a liberation war hero and now Land, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister.

It is undisputed that war veterans play a key role in preserving the national memory; simultaneously being points of reference for consolidating liberation gains.

Operation Restore Legacy and the people’s triumph pushed the opposition against the wall and an alternative truth. And this alternative truth has merely been aimed at negating Zimbabwe’s efforts towards constructive engagement with the West, principally America.

The MDC Alliance’s trip ignored Dr Moyo’s diplomatic brief with Ambassador Harry Thomas Jnr, Washington’s top man in Harare.

Addressing Heads of Missions accredited to Zimbabwe in the capital last week, Dr Moyo further stated that beyond the odds of opposition demonisation, Zimbabwe will reinvigorate its global engagement.

“I have already begun serious and focused dialogue with key constituent countries of the West, amongst them our erstwhile coloniser, the United Kingdom, United States of America, Germany and others, with the objective of normalising our relations,” he said.

In the same context, Dr Moyo declared Zimbabwe’s commitment to mutually transactive international relations, also making it clear that developing such relations did not equal compromising national economic development.

This declaration speaks to Operation Restore Legacy’s exhortation to transcend asymmetrical multilateral interactions that subjugate national interests to external domination.

Dr Moyo’s position thwarts potential subjection to linear political and economic dictates.

Through this stance, Zimbabwe has opened its doors to better international relations. This is because the legacy under restoration embodies our informed nationalist defence of collective African interests in global dialogue and policy-making.

Therefore, the Zanu-PF Government must continue to inspire Africa as a leading example of practically carving the notion of post-colonial power matrices.

That said, past hostilities must not destroy Zimbabwe’s present and future diplomatic architecture.
Richard Mahomva is an independent researcher and a literature aficionado interested in the architecture of governance in Africa and political theory. He wrote this article for The Sunday Mail

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