Zanu-PF tells West to 'Shut up'

ZANU-PF has told Western countries, especially Britain and United States, "to shut up" and stop pontificating about democracy and human rights, adding that Britain and the US's hands were historically dirty. Party acting spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa said Western countries could not lecture Zimbabwe on democracy when they were responsible for denying the people of Zimbabwe their freedom.

"Zanu-PF takes strong exception to being lectured on issues of human rights by citizens of countries which perpetrated the brutalities accompanying the Atlantic African Slave Trade and colonial conquest of Africa, and who refuse to render apologies or pay reparations," Chinamasa said.

Zimbabwe is under international spotlight over human rights violations, closing of the democratic space and clamping down on opposition political parties, resulting in the imposition of sanctions against top government figures.

Chinamasa said this was a form of slavery and bullying by the Western powers, which were also yet to come clean on their role on slavery.

"As a consequence of seeking to redress the brutalities that occurred in the colonisation of Zimbabwe, accompanied by dispossession of our land and brutal confiscation of livestock by colonialists, the country has suffered 20 years of naked bullying, economic isolation and severe sanctions regime by the former colonial powers now acting in concert as economic and political powers in support of what they allege are rights of 4 500 white former farmers," he said.

The British have since dismissed the letter brandished by Chinamasa at his Press conference as fake photoshop replete with errors, but Zanu-PF insists it was genuine.

Zanu-PF also demanded that all Western countries which were involved in colonialism and slavery should pay compensation and offer apologies to those that they wronged.
Chinamasa said instead the British found it worthwhile to compensate the slave owners instead of the slaves.

"That at the time of abolition of the Atlantic African slave trade the British through the British Parliament approved and paid 20 million pounds to slave owners already rich through the labour of the slaves," he said.

Despite Chinamasa's utterances, the Zanu-PF-led government is pursuing re-engagement with the West after being left in the cold over alleged human rights violation.

Chinamasa said sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe were unjustified and should be removed because there were an extension of slavery and colonialism.