Opinion / Letters
Open letter to the French Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Laurent Delahousse
08 Jul 2014 at 15:13hrs | Views
Dear Ambassador
"We want to come back to Zimbabwe. We are happy that President Robert Mugabe has tried to initiate a safe and sustainable environment for the investors. That is precisely what the government of Zimbabwe is doing at the moment," you said in Mutare recently.
We in the Zimbabwe Social Democrats would like to express our great disappointment with statement above because it is not true. Mugabe has not created a "safe and sustainable environment for investors" but the exact opposite.
Investors have been asking for the scraping of the regime's indigenisation law which forces foreign investors to sell a percentage of the shares to a local partner. Everyone knows the local partner will be a Zanu PF loyalist who be nothing more than a blood sucking parasite.
How can an environment full of parasite by "safe" for investors? One of the root causes of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is the rampant corruption and looting. The regime has failed to address this cancer because Mugabe and his inner circle are themselves the chief beneficiaries of the system.
How can Mugabe tell those below him to stop the looting when he can hold a $5 million wedding for his daughter and lives in $20 million columned hall "Blue Roof" mansion all paid for from looted wealth? His cronies are only playing catch-up with him.
How can an economic that is so wasteful of the nation's human and material resources be called a "sustainable" one?
The French government's overtures to re-engage this Mugabe regime on the basis of falsehoods is not hastening the tyrant's departure but encouraging him to stay.
The people of Zimbabwe too want to live in freedom, liberty and fraternity, denied them by this Zanu PF dictatorship; the same basic human aspirations as contained in the French "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" of 1793! Mugabe has never had a "road to Damascus" moment to make anyone believe he now believes in and value justice and rule of law.
There is no doubt that the French government has not been so easily bamboozled into believing that he has. It is out of economic consideration pure and simple that French are reaching out to embrace the tyrant.
France wants a piece of the action in Zimbabwe's diamond industry and has put the issues of human right and good governance to one side.
After Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections, thanks to the incompetence of MDC who failed to implement the reforms, we in the Zimbabwe Social Democrats have vowed to bring democratic change in Zimbabwe and end this the tragic human misery this Zanu PF dictatorship has brought to the nation.
We intend to deliver the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country to all Zimbabweans as a matter of cause regardless of the French government's attempts to prop up this Zanu PF tyrannical regime.
We call upon the French government to reconsider its policy to re-engagement this Mugabe dictatorship and partner those fighting for justice, human dignity and meaningful democratic change in Zimbabwe. Yours faithfully
Wilbert Mukori Secretary General Zimbabwe Social Democrats
zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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