Mind the logs in your eyes first, Sirs

Statements by the US and Canadian embassies to Zimbabwe on recent violent demonstrations by the opposition betray clear hostility towards the Government of Zimbabwe, and a sinister partiality for, and even instigation to, the opposition. Both embassies are not here to involve themselves in the domestic affairs of Zimbabwe, let alone to interfere with, or take sides in local politics. Not even to give themselves an imperious role of judging our politics here.Zimbabwe is a sovereign State which is equal to any other in the world, including the US and Canada, whatever illusions ambassadors of those two countries here may harbour in their minds.

Beyond diplomatic relations as regulated by the Vienna Convention, there is nothing else that gives governments of those two countries or their emissaries here any special claim to our politics, or a judgmental role on occurrences here. Their statements last week were not only unacceptably repugnant, but vainly suggested their governments play father figure to a sovereign state, as if Zimbabwe is under some kind of joint US-Canadian trustee- ship.

For the record, Zimbabwe gained its Independence in 1980 following a national liberation struggle which never enjoyed an iota of support from the West. Thereafter, it became a sovereign State which is equal to any other in the world, and which is free to pursue its own national policies as espoused by its democratically elected sitting Government. It takes no orders from any foreign state – big or small, far or near – in the pursuit of its politics, policies and decisions.

The US government, with more than a decade of a raft of punitive measures it took to unilaterally sanction Zimbabwe, is the least qualified to lecture Zimbabwe on welfare issues relating to Zimbabwean citizens. Through those illegal sanctions, the US government has undermined the Zimbabwean economy, thereby bringing untold suffering to the people of Zimbabwe. The US thus should never be allowed to blame the Zimbabwe Government for effects of its spiteful policies here. The least the US ambassador here can do is to keep his mouth shut, instead of compounding the crimes of his government against the people of Zimbabwe by parading false piety.

The Zimbabwean Constitution is exactly that: the supreme law by and for Zimbabweans. It is a fact that Western governments, including both governments of the US and Canada, did not support the constitution-making process when it was underway. In fact, they were hostile to it. Today they cannot remind us of provisions of the same law they opposed only yesterday. Or stand as watchdogs over its daily observance here.

In any case, before both ambassadors issue their condescendingly sick statements on local politics, and on the upholding of human rights here, let them pause a while to examine their home environments where rights of men and women of colour, and rights of indigenous populations, are daily wantonly trampled upon by their own governments, with absolutely no recourse to countless vic- tims.

Is it not a fact that hardly a month ago, more and more African-African Americans were shot and killed in cold blood by the US police? When will their ambassador here – himself an African-African American – write home to remind his own government on the need to uphold the rights of fellow blacks back home? Or resign in protest to vindicate his claim to commitment to human rights? Such rank hypocrisy is not only sickening but, for the American ambassador, amounts to complicity with his government in a war against his own kind.

Let not those with logs in their eyes seek to cure imaginary specks in African eyes.

Dr Christopher C. Mushohwe (MP) is Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services.