arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

This follows another rejection by the European Union to impose sanctions
against Zimbabwe a day before the Commonwealth meeting.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that Britain's rabid hatred for
Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF Government and President Mugabe has gone beyond
reason. The Tony Blair government is now so blinded with hate that it cannot see
that it is fighting a losing battle.

For over four years now Britain has failed to depose the Zimbabwean
Govern-ment from power despite predicting that this would happen before July
1998. The Labour government has used everything in its arsenal to try and remove
President Mugabe from office, including the creation of the MDC. But it has
all come to naught.

Tony Blair has gone to the extent of changing several of his foreign office
ministers with the hope of coming up with one who will manage to do the
impossible. He has gone beyond his own borders to rope in the Australians, New
Zealanders, Americans, Canadians and a few others in his diabolical campaign
against poor little Zimbabwe.

He even tried to arm-twist some African leaders to side with him in this
fight and his efforts were rebuffed, with SADC solidly standing by Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately for Britain, good has triumphed over evil despite the former
colonial master's military, economic, political and whatever might it
wields. It is a typical David versus Goliath scenario and Britain will not win this
war because Zimbabwe is right.

Despite being humiliated by the Commonwealth in his own backyard, British
foreign secretary Jack Straw had the temerity to say the outcome of the CMAG -
meeting was not what they hoped for but more than what they expected.
Whatever that means.

The British Press on Thursday said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's failure to
have Zimbabwe expelled from the Commonwealth was a diplomatic defeat for
Britain and a potential moral victory for President Mugabe.
Straw's campaign to convince a meeting on Wednesday of the Commonwealth
Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to suspend Zimbabwe failed after being
opposed by Botswana, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Malaysia.

Canada, Australia and Barbados backed the British initiative, but the
decisions of the CMAG - the organisation's democracy and human rights
watchdog - need to be carried by consensus.

The Times newspaper quoted Straw as saying: "This is not the result I
wanted", while the Independent said the foreign minister admitted being
disappointed in achieving "'less than we had hoped but more than we
expected'".

After the day-long meeting in London, the eight Commonwealth foreign
ministers expressed "deep concern" over President Mugabe's alleged crackdown
on political opponents ahead of the March presidential elections. In order to save
their master's face, the Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer was quick
to say the meeting came out with a good package.

However, the New Zealanders, who have been too keen to be seen as good boys
by former colonial master Britain have taken up the mantle and threatened to
impose their own sanctions.

Zimbabwe should face "smart sanctions" and be expelled from the
Commonwealth, Foreign Minister Phil Goff said Thursday. A decision by Commonwealth
foreign ministers to send observers to oversee Zimbabwe's election rather than suspend
its membership from the organisation, was disappointing, he said.

Goff welcomed the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group's call for President
Mugabe to end the violence and breaches of human rights in his country, but
said the group had not gone far enough.
"Sooner or later there has to be more than words. Action has got to be taken
against a Commonwealth member that is violating basic principles of the
Commonwealth," Goff said.
"New Zealand has a firm view Zimbabwe should be suspended and also has the
view in common with the European Union that smart sanctions should be
imposed on the political elite."

That would include a ban on travel and a freeze on assets and a "selective
ban of goods that could be used for repression," Goff said. However, analysts dismissed
this as nothing new but recycled rhetoric by a country desperately trying to please the
Queen's government.

On Thursday, Denmark even went further and announced that it was cutting
non-existent aid to Zimbabwe. Denmark has decided to end aid to Zimbabwe, Malawi
and Eritrea, and to reduce aid to Uganda, because it "does not want to maintain dictators in
power", the foreign ministry said yesterday. The decision was included in the draft budget for
2002 presented by Finance Minister Thor Pedersen on Tuesday, which slashed the aid Denmark
will pay to developing countries by 201 million euros.
The Danish government cut its aid to Zimbabwe two years ago but has been
saying this at almost every opportunity for cheap political mileage.

What this four-year campaign, which started in 1997 following the
designation of over 1 000 white-owned farms by the Zimbabwean Government for
redistribution to landless blacks, has done is to damage the country's
economy, destabilise its political processes and created animosity between
Britain and its former colony.

Britain is solely responsible for whatever economic mess this country is in
today because they created and nurtured the conditions that led to the
haemorrhaging of the business and industrial sectors in Zimbabwe.

The rejection by the Commonwealth foreign ministers has also dealt a major
blow to Britain's surrogates, the opposition MDC, whose leader Morgan
Tsvangirai is still campaigning for sanctions to be imposed on his own
people.