Chamisa: Illusions of democracy, statesmanship

LAST week CCC leader Mr Nelson Chamisa was pontificating about the sovereignty of Ukraine, railing against the Russian special mission into its neighbour as a travesty that trampled on international statutes.

The irony was not lost on this politician because he once called for foreign nations to do the same in Zimbabwe.

Yes, in 2008, Mr Chamisa, who now preaches sovereignty with dreams of grandeur pedestalled on the false illusion of statesmanship and statecraft, was in favour of the invasion of Zimbabwe by Western countries.

Is this a Damascene moment for the sabre-rattling opposition leader who has a penchant for violence? Or simply yet another faux pas from an aspiring leader who has learnt nothing from history?

Sometimes it is better not to speak at all for the internet has indelible footprints which, in the case of Mr Chamisa, are at odds with what he purportedly stands for now, that is, if he stands for anything at all.

In 2009 asked by the then American Ambassador Mr James McGee on what concrete action the US and the international community could take on Zimbabwe, Mr Chamisa responded: "Military intervention to remove the regime, indictments of Mugabe and other Zanu-PF officials in international courts, sanctioning of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe."

Fast forward to February 24, 2022, Chamisa was at pains to preach a doctrine of non-intervention, "We subscribe to and support the principles of territorial sovereignty, equality of states, non-intervention, and state consent.

"In this regard, it is absolutely vital to respect and honour the sovereignty of every nation-state regardless of size or any other factor".

Do sovereignty, equality, and non-intervention only matter when it is a foreign prospect, in faraway lands, but is substituted when it applies to home for the sake of power?

Of course, cowardly sanctions are a favoured tool by Western countries and their fawning pawns to arm-twist dissenting voices into submission, and effect regime change, but Zimbabwe has over the two decades under Zanu-PF plodded on, scarred, but not scared as it initiated programmes that resonated with the people, hence returning popular support.

Of course, any suffering of Zimbabwe would make the West and its sponsored midgets happy, especially as the nation hurtles towards the watershed 2023 elections, Chamisa and his handlers dream of an angry mass that would in protest vote out Zanu-PF from power, and install a puppet regime in Harare, but that is a pipe-dream incapable of vindication.

But why is Mr Chamisa conveniently raising the principle of inviolability of the sovereignty of nation-states now when just over a decade ago he was calling for the invasion of Zimbabwe, is this yet another demonstration that the opposition party is a vacuous movement, short of principle and substance and long on form, threats, and fantasies which seeks to live in the lap of Western exceptionalism.

While any act of war is condemnable, it should be said what is good for the goose should be good for the gander, and the conduct of Western nations, particularly the US when dealing with other nations is usually condescending and dripping with unilateralism.

One may ask Mr Chamisa, who feigns democracy, is democracy only democracy when it is prescribed by Western nations.

Is international peace under threat because America and its Western allies through their powerful mediums of communication, like the BBC, CCN and Sky News, purveyor that lopsided and oft biased message to the world?

In a game of thrones, truth is the first casualty and that has been barred by the western media, which has used its powerful media, including social media platforms such as Twitter to amplify the anti-Russia rhetoric while at the same time suppressing divergent views.

One need just search for Russia Today, a pro-Kremlin news source to find out that it has been frozen by the West, this has also played out on social media platforms such as Twitter.

Closer to home, and acting just like their benefactors, the pseudo democrats in the opposition have been on a covert warpath instigating social media platforms to ban those opposed to their views.

Like the US and its allies, the opposition in the country abhors divergent views and will use its connections with Uncle Tom to shut down voices deemed strident and unpalatable to them.

Where was the opposition when Western nations invaded Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq leaving a trail of destruction? Why didn't they say a word?

Take the example of Iraq, where the US invaded in 2003 ostensibly because the Baghdad regime had weapons of mass destruction, (non were found) it is estimated that between 184 382 and 207 156 civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the US by the West through October 2019.

The violent deaths of Iraqi civilians have occurred through aerial bombing, shelling, gunshots, suicide attacks, and fires started by bombing. Many civilians have also been injured, something that is yet again regrettably replaying in Ukraine.

As was aptly stated by former US presidential aspirant Mr Bernie Sanders recently said "it is hypocritical for the United States to insist that we do not accept the principle of "spheres of influence", a principle that a Russia that has become encircled by hostile nations seeks to enforce.

Defending Russian actions, Mr Sanders further said, "For the last 200 years our country has operated under the Monroe Doctrine, embracing the premise that as the dominant power in the western hemisphere, the United States has the right to intervene against any country that might threaten our alleged interests.

"Under this doctrine we have undermined and overthrown at least a dozen governments. In 1962 we came to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union in response to the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from our shore, which the Kennedy administration saw as an unacceptable threat to our national security".

Mr Chamisa should know that history has an uncanny way of repeating itself and what is unravelling in Eastern Europe is really nothing new but a post-Cold War battle between Russia and the US for a reconfiguration of geopolitics.

Does Mr Chamisa know that the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has so far banned three television stations or is it that the two are birds of a feather after the former banned state media organisations from covering his frenzied yet usually sterile rallies.

Indeed, similarities are usually inevitable when the subjects are both pawns of Western nations and Mr Zelenskiy, who was, before ascending to his country's highest office, a comedian, has proved to the world what happens when the comical and infantile assume the levers of power.

If Mr Chamisa cared a little about blacks and blackness he would condemn the conduct of Ukrainians who are denying blacks buses on the basis of their skin pigmentation, but from him, the "baas" hasn't sent a cue and there is apparently nothing to say.

Only if he was his own man, there would have been tons of things to say but he isn't and won't.

Now that the robes of democracy are off, there is no fooling the world that the violent prone opposition leader is a democrat, not even a pseudo democrat, especially when one remembers that his CCC is neither a coalition of the masses but rather a kitchen project where Chamisa leads a people who blindly follow him, hopefully not to his political grave.