By Valerie Karimakwenda MDC Alliance Youth Assembly UK and Ireland Organising Secretary
Zimbabwe, a perpetual slave nation…
The Chinese are the new colonial masters, having replaced the colonial masters of British origin, who became illegal colonial sectors.
While theoretically the country is classified as independent, practically, it is now a satellite of China. This is largely a consequence of Zanu pf entanglements with the sadistic communist party of China, which is also the motivation behind Zanu pf futile one-party state aspirations, punctuated by a sadistic, criminal party and paralyzed or failing state conflation.
It comes as no surprise then when the Chinese treat Zimbabwe, their satellite country the way they do. Because of the mentioned entanglements, chiefly based on mediocre military aid to so called theoretical liberation army of ZANLA. Mediocre it is because the military aid did not climax with any material military objectives, given the negotiations with the metropole Britain, and the imposition of the Lancaster constitution. It is this mediocrity of military aid poured by China to Zanu pf as part of its cold war posturing which saw Zanu pf being entangled with China.
It thus can be objectively argued that Zanu pf was and is a pawn of China, as the latter gained a sphere of influence, rich in strategic resources that China needs for latency. This makes China the metropole, and Zimbabwe, the client state. It gives the Chinese a status of being overlords who are above the law. They can violate the cultural heritage of the country by destroying graves, heritage sites for instance just so they can unsustainably extract and exploit strategic resources like coal, gold, chrome or platinum.
The people are massively displaced so that the resources mongering China can be accommodated, without compensation nor proper redress in courts of law which should be guided by the supreme law but are now captured by private interests which seek to benefit from Chinese exploitation of the country and the natives.
The people are exploited by subjection to slave labor conditions. Their labor is not recognized as it is not salaried, especially at market rates.
There are no safety standards, are overworked as well. There is nowhere they can turn to for redress, the courts are dependent on Zanu pf benevolence which in turn is dependent on the Chinese for protection from an onslaught of international sanctions. The Chinese are able to do this through their veto power in the United Nations Security Council.
The onslaught of international sanctions would force Zanu pf to reform, an existential threat on its own. Reforms would ensure that Zimbabwe is a democratic society that parasitic countries like China cannot exploit.
Reforms would mean a tranquil opposition transition into power, with transparency and accountability dominant, which would make it hard for China to exploit either the natives or the natives’ strategic resources, for a pittance.
This is a scenario that China is deterring by providing sovereignty threatening loans for unnecessary infrastructure such as the parliament when the countries desperately need critical infrastructure, particularly in health sector.
By having the Chinese as a bulwark against international sanctions, Zanu pf is assured it can primitively accumulate, destructively, without any reckoning. Should the people rise, they can be killed, and China will be the knight in shining armor who will save Zimbabwe for the former’s ulterior motive. This is thus China’s passport to abuse Zimbabwe…
