Prominent journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has advised President Emmerson Mnangagwa to observe the rule of law after United States declined funding Zimbabwe’s arrears clearance.

Addressing the issue, Chin’ono said Mnangagwa’s government will not be able to convince the Americans by offering to pay white farmers without tackling the issue of human rights and the Rule of Law.

He said:

That is not it, and it won’t happen like that if you have been listening to the Americans. They care more about the human rights issues of jailing opponents like Job Sikhala and Jacob Ngarivhume on baseless charges than the white farmer payment issue. President Mnangagwa can pay all the white farmers today, and his problems will still remain, as an international pariah, until he addresses the issue of human rights and Rule of Law.

ZANUPF created its own propaganda narrative that it is under sanctions because of the land issue, it then believed its propaganda hook liner and sinker, and now thinks that if it pays white farmers, all is forgiven by America. The Americans have said on many occasions that for them, it is human rights and the Rule of Law that will fix their bilateral problem with Zimbabwe.

Mnangagwa’s advisors are misleading him and telling him to go for the land issue first by paying over US$3 billion to the white farmers hoping that America will shift its positions. For the record I will repeat this again, paying for land without implementing human rights reforms and bringing constitutionalism will not change anything! Human Rights and Rule of Law don’t require a penny, America will never move a muscle as long as you have political prisoners in jail, or you refuse to implement political reforms like aligning the Laws to the constitution. Forget it!!! Mnangagwa’s hardliners will then say as then always do, “…to hell with America.” Well it is Zimbabwe that needs financial assistance and not America.

Those advising President Mnangagwa to pay for land hoping the bilateral problem will go away because some of them are lending institutions that hope to make money, some are lawyers who hope to get commissions from the land deal, they are lying to you Mr President. What you need to do doesn’t need money, release political prisoners, implementation constitutional reforms aligning the country’s laws to the ten year old constitution, STOP corruption by implementing parastatal reforms, let the central bank be independent. You see, all that doesn’t need money! You can pay the farmers, this tweet will still be there to remind you that we have you the right advice and you chose the wrong advice.

No genuine political and economic reforms, no change! As former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano said, your failure to do these simply things has damaged the region’s economic prospects. As a reminder, the man tasked to deal with Zimbabwe’s debt restructuring by Mnangagwa came to Zimbabwe and said the same things I have been saying for the past 5 years regarding this issue.

Mnangagwa asked the AFDB President, Akinwumi Adesina@akin_adesina to help Zim with debt clearance. Adesina said Zimbabwe will have to work on, and I am quoting him verbatim; “…freedom of speech, human rights protection, implementation of laws in line with the constitution and implementation of the Motlanthe report.” In his speech in Harare in the presence of Mnangagwa and the former President Chissano of Mozambique, the AFDB president said that the issue of addressing the sanctions demands must be dealt with too.

Akinwumi Adesina said; “The economic reforms working group would allow us to make progress on exchange rate reforms and quasi-fiscal operations of the Reserve Bank, reforms of State-Owned Enterprises and a staff monitored program (SMP) by the International Monetary Fund.” All these are the issues written into America’s demands in their sanctions law on Zimbabwe.