With a glaringly obvious paradoxical effect, sanctions have interfered with the importation of essential radio components, yet have oddly not hindered the collaborations between the U.S. government’s agency, NASA, and the renowned American automobile giant, Ford. Certain sectors of the populace, including marginalized rural inhabitants and other demographics such as the unemployed and substance-abusing youths, have been fed a deceptive narrative.

Serving as the bane of the ordinary citizens, the political party ZANU PF is renowned for its parasitic and plundering tendencies, and its record of neglecting the welfare of the people. It has mastered the art of oppressing citizens while mutilating the supreme law of the land. Their propaganda, which portrays the sanctions as illegal, has been swallowed whole by these vulnerable demographics. Ironically, these sanctions, intended to compel the evidently failing party to democratize and implement much-needed political reforms, have been linked to hindering the importation of radio parts.

In a striking contradiction, however, the sanctions haven’t impacted the cooperation between the U.S. governmental agency, NASA, and Ford, an American private company. This anomaly was highlighted during the ZANU PF’s anti-sanctions day last month. The event did not shed light on the party’s dealings with these American entities, involved in the deployment of the not-so-useful ZIMSTAT-1 space vehicle and the procurement of high-end vehicles. These newly-acquired vehicles are a tool of pride and a sign of status for the party’s members, driven through their poverty-stricken constituencies.

These seemingly unperturbed collaborations between the oppressive ZANU PF and the U.S. government and its private companies clearly underscore the former’s lack of sincerity and drive to modernize and develop the country. It’s apparent that ZANU PF prefers to use sanctions as a scapegoat for their intentional failure to foster development and modernization. Furthermore, they exploit these sanctions to unlawfully enrich themselves through the plundering and looting of fiscal and non-renewable resources. Resources that should have otherwise been channeled towards the welfare of the oppressed people.

The radio parts, if imported, could have proven beneficial for the citizenry. However, sanctions were conveniently used as an excuse to justify this failure. Meanwhile, the high-end cars from Ford and the collaboration with NASA served the interests of ZANU PF’s members, hence the lack of any interference from sanctions.

The paradox of sanctions reveals the deep-rooted corruption and insincerity of the ZANU PF. While they propagate a narrative blaming sanctions for the lack of progress, their selective collaborations with American entities reveal a different story. One where sanctions serve as a veil behind which they plunder and oppress the very citizens they purport to represent.