Mnangagwa embarrassed Zimbabwe and himself at COP26

4^th December 2021

By Shangoni WaHamisi

It came as no surprise to the average person when Mnangagwa and his delegation of more than 100 to the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow embarrassed themselves and were further embarrassed by the demonstrators who sought to tell the world what sort of person he is.

The core business of COP26 was to deliver on the commitments made at COP25 in Madrid in December 2019. It was to get the nations of the world to come up with tangible commitments and deadlines by which they would have met certain targets pertaining to air pollution.

The issue of tackling Climate Change is entails sacrifices and tough choices in order to ensure that there is a world for future generations.

Mnangagwa’s government seems to be heading the opposite direction. Not only has it awarded dubious contracts to the Chinese who have gone on to destroy the environment through irresponsible mining and other activities but it has presided over unprecedented levels of land degradation mainly by the activities of miners, both small scale and large scale.

He has also revived the highly pollutive old trains of the 60’s and introduced them back into the mainstream transport infrastructure.

The water reticulation systems in all cities and towns are on their knees due to neglect and so are sewer systems, leading to the proliferation and prevalence of unhygienic conditions around the country. Electricity outage for sustained periods is the order of the day, leaving the majority of the poor population with no choice but to resort to the use of firewood which, in essence, means more air pollution as well as deforestation.

All this is underpinned by the diversion of public funds to private pockets through corruption which has become a hallmark of Mnangagwa’s tenure. Add to this a whole host of bad policies.

Mnangagwa has created an ecosystem of corruption at the apex of which he sits. Almost all his government’s policies are designed to benefit Mnangagwa, his family, cronies and opportunist ZANU-PF crooks.

Despite all the rhetoric, it is quite clear that Mnangagwa and ZANU-PF are out of their depth and are utterly clueless as to how to turn around Zimbabwe’s fortunes. They just do not know how to behave both at home and in the international arena. They are a shame to the nation.

Their attendance at COP26 in Glasgow was just another episode of their shamelessness hypocrisy. They were more of climate tourists than delegates and their behaviour before and during the summit confirms that. It was all about boozing, partying and grandstanding.

They were hoping to get some funding from the United Nations budget for climate change tackling initiatives, but it was not to be. Just as well they went back to Zimbabwe empty handed. The money would have ended up in their personal accounts anyway.

Faced with an indomitable crowd of determined activists armed with irrefutable records of their atrocious history and an expanse of social media platforms, Mnangagwa and his entourage as well as his local (ZANU-PF UK) stooges (UK) came a cropper.

They were beaten hands down at the demonstrations as well as on all the media “live” panels they dared to participate in. Typically they then started to resort to verbal and physical abuse to the extent of arranging the vandalizing of activists’ property and compiling a list of all the activists that attended the Glasgow demonstrations and some prominent names who were not even there at the COP26 demonstrations in Glasgow.

Glasgow will always haunt them.

About the author;-

Shangoni WaHamisi is a pen name for UK based Zimbabwean human rights activist and Spokesperson for Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) Zimbabwe. Shangoni WaHamisi can be contacted by email on Shangoni.wahamisi@yaho.co.uk