News / National
London should engage Mugabe, says FT
13 Sep 2013 at 04:48hrs | Views
THE United Kingdom should engage President Mugabe and Zanu-PF or risk losing relevance in southern Africa's most strategic country, a leading British paper, The Financial Times has said.
In an opinion piece titled, "Emboldened by economic recovery, Africa has a new voice", Michael Holman the paper's former Africa editor said it was time that the West set aside old scores and took a fresh look at Zimbabwe.
The FT piece comes on the back of deep divisions in the European Union over the continued existence of the bloc's sanctions regime with Belgium - the seat of the EU - calling for the lifting of sanctions on diamond companies in the wake of the widely endorsed harmonised elections.
The FT piece is reproduced in full elsewhere in this issue. Political and social analysts yesterday said the intriguing issue was that most of these positive comments telling the correct Zimbabwean story to the world were now coming from Westerners.
"And as the prime mover in a strategy that has failed to deliver after a decade of trying, Britain should take the lead in an effort to break the deadlock and recover its influence in a country at the strategic heart of southern Africa.
"Unpalatable though it is, President Robert Mugabe has emerged from his country's recent election with more than his domestic power consolidated and the opposition in disarray. He has been welcomed back into the African fold by the very leaders the West had been hoping would denounce the conduct of July's election – (Mr) Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, and (General) Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's former president and head of the African Union group of election observers," reads the article in part.
Midlands State University lecturer Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said it was intriguing that most of these positive comments about Zimbabwe's elections and the success of the land reform programme was now coming from some British writers.
"The British Government did not conduct opinion polls among the British citizens to determine their attitude about Zimbabwe. The people have been fed with biased information about Zimbabwe for a long time. It is high time that the British government should start saying what the British citizens think about Zimbabwe and its people," he said.
Dr Mhiripiri said it was unfortunate that most of the information the British Government had been using to make some decisions about Zimbabwe was coming from individuals who had skewed views about the country.
He said some British writers came to Zimbabwe and conducted research over the past 10 years on the land reform, adding they witnessed a dramatic transformation of the life of Zimbabweans.
Dr Charity Manyeruke of the University of Zimbabwe concurred saying the Westerners were now realising that there was no way they could fight against the will of the people.
"The British have seen light that you cannot fight against a people's cause and win. You can try to use sanctions, the regime change through the NGOs and at the end if the people speak, nothing will change," she said.
In an opinion piece titled, "Emboldened by economic recovery, Africa has a new voice", Michael Holman the paper's former Africa editor said it was time that the West set aside old scores and took a fresh look at Zimbabwe.
The FT piece comes on the back of deep divisions in the European Union over the continued existence of the bloc's sanctions regime with Belgium - the seat of the EU - calling for the lifting of sanctions on diamond companies in the wake of the widely endorsed harmonised elections.
The FT piece is reproduced in full elsewhere in this issue. Political and social analysts yesterday said the intriguing issue was that most of these positive comments telling the correct Zimbabwean story to the world were now coming from Westerners.
"And as the prime mover in a strategy that has failed to deliver after a decade of trying, Britain should take the lead in an effort to break the deadlock and recover its influence in a country at the strategic heart of southern Africa.
"Unpalatable though it is, President Robert Mugabe has emerged from his country's recent election with more than his domestic power consolidated and the opposition in disarray. He has been welcomed back into the African fold by the very leaders the West had been hoping would denounce the conduct of July's election – (Mr) Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, and (General) Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's former president and head of the African Union group of election observers," reads the article in part.
Midlands State University lecturer Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said it was intriguing that most of these positive comments about Zimbabwe's elections and the success of the land reform programme was now coming from some British writers.
"The British Government did not conduct opinion polls among the British citizens to determine their attitude about Zimbabwe. The people have been fed with biased information about Zimbabwe for a long time. It is high time that the British government should start saying what the British citizens think about Zimbabwe and its people," he said.
Dr Mhiripiri said it was unfortunate that most of the information the British Government had been using to make some decisions about Zimbabwe was coming from individuals who had skewed views about the country.
He said some British writers came to Zimbabwe and conducted research over the past 10 years on the land reform, adding they witnessed a dramatic transformation of the life of Zimbabweans.
Dr Charity Manyeruke of the University of Zimbabwe concurred saying the Westerners were now realising that there was no way they could fight against the will of the people.
"The British have seen light that you cannot fight against a people's cause and win. You can try to use sanctions, the regime change through the NGOs and at the end if the people speak, nothing will change," she said.
Source - herald
