20 Ways In Which Sanctions Have Ruined Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is in trouble. Fortunately for Zimbabweans, Zimbabwe’s rulers (yes, rulers not governors) through the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Ltd always remind us who exactly is to blame.

This has aroused my own sense of patriotism and national duty, so I shall also contribute to the ever-growing record of things we can blame on the imperialistic machinations of the hegemonic Western powers through their dastardly regime change agenda.

Let me tell you a few things “illegal Western sanctions” have done to Zimbabwe. Let he who has ears to hear, etc.

1. It was sanctions which forced Gideon Gono to raid Foreign Currency Accounts, just nje. And then forced everyone to go “Who, me?” when people were still crying for their cash.

2. Remember that trunk of diamonds confiscated from ACR that disappeared from the Reserve Bank, reportedly taken away by armed police at the behest of Mines Minister Obert Mpofu? Sanctions did that.

3. Harare airport road took 15 years and billions of dollars because of Western sanctions. The company which got the contract without going to tender, Augur Investments, once shared an address with one of Minister Ignatius Chombo’s companies. Sanctions did all that.

4. ALL those people reportedly abducted, tortured and murdered by ZANU-PF, especially victims belonging to the MDC party were because of Western sanctions.

5. Sanctions forced Joice Mujuru, until recently the Vice President of the Republic, to claim 55% disability and receive Z$389 472 from the War Victims’ Compensation Fund.

6. When then-Mayor of Chinhoyi Faber Chidarikire was stopped with a human head in his car? Sanctions.

7. Best was when we voted but didn’t have election results and Thabo Bloody Mbeki said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe. The results were finally announced two months after the vote. TWO MONTHS. Damn you, sanctions.

8. Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko lived in the Rainbow Towers Hotel for 587 days because of these goddamn illegal sanctions. People protested, and got beaten for it by sanctions, obviously.

9. And it was sanctions that made Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, contest an election “runoff” by himself after MDC quit because ZANU-PF was killing people.

10. In mitigation, sanctions didn’t prevent former Mines and Transport Minister Obert Mpofu from owning much of Victoria Falls and Bulawayo. But I guess it’s sanctions now trying to pull him down.

11. Dr David Parirenyatwa, Zimbabwe’s esteemed Minister of Health took an advance of USD100,000 from the public service medical aid for his private medical practice because of … SANCTIONS.

12. Remember those food riots of January 1998? Yeah, that was all sanctions .

13. Sanctions murdered over 20,000 people of mostly Ndebele origin in Matabeleland and parts of Midlands in the 1980s, in what is generally known as Gukurahundi.

14. It was sanctions that built Gracelands allegedly using the National Housing Fund.

15. Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya were murdered using a petrol bomb, not by one Joseph Mwale of ZANU-PF, oh no, but by Western sanctions.

16. Longcheng Plaza was built on a protected wetland because the illegal sanctions wouldn’t lose jobs “just to protect 23 trees and some frogs” which is just the behaviour you’d expect from sanctions, not the likes of Karikoga Kaseke.

17. Convicted fraudsters like Sir Nickwell and such are looting State funds and become stars and heroes because of illegal sanctions.

18. In the most comical example of Western interference in Zimbabwe’s sovereign affairs, sanctions have instituted a de facto ban on … wait for it … our own national flag.

19. Damn sanctions swallowed the first Land Audit, completely buried the second Land Audit, the Civil Service Audit and various commission reports.

20. Bicyclegate.

See, this is a very short list. There are far more dastardly things that sanctions have done to Zimbabwe, and it would take a whole year of non-stop typing to list them all.

For now let us all, as patriotic and peace-loving Zimbabweans, continue to resist the efforts of those trying to destabilise and lead our beloved nation into ruin.

Pamberi neZimbabwe.

Pasi nevapambepfumi.