The #GoldMafia documentary is a perfect example of the failure of reengagement. While our government takes reengagement seriously, the West who they are reengaging with are not serious about it. Instead, they are paying institutions like Al Jazeera and Sentry to create documentaries and reports to undermine the image of the Zimbabwean government, as they did with Gaddafi.
They are sending Fadzai Mahere and Hopewell to the same capitals that our government is reengaging with, to sully the image of our country.
Since the Gold Mafia was released, the nation has stopped selling gold, we scared away our biggest gold investors by believing the allegations made by our enemies, and as a result, our currency has lost 50% of its value in just two months.
The reengagement strategy was naive to believe that they were reengaging with bonafide actors. It also did not scenario plan for sabotage from the same people who killed Gaddafi while reengaging with him.
Institutions like ZASM and other pro-Zimbabwean activists had to undertake reputation management to clean up the fall out created by the same bad-faith actors that our government is reengaging with so blindly.
The only wins coming to the country at the moment are due to the pressure coming from ZASM’s court case. It is restoring corresponding banking relationships, securing the government loans and restoring confidence in our financial system, despite the falling currency which will stabilize soon on the back of these successes.
Meanwhile, the content we created on the #GoldRush has gone a long way to rebutting the lies manufactured by Gold Mafia. It is beginning to draw foreign investment into gold mining as everyone wants to be a part of this gold rush in Zimbabwe.
Since Wodemaya came to Zimbabwe, the country has received over 1.3 million views from his amazing videos of our tourist destinations. This has shifted perceptions on the country and seen our Tourism Minister winning an award in Germany recently.
ZASM itself has generated over 3 million views on documentaries and interviews on Zimbabwean sanctions, on various social media platforms in the last 12 months. All this is fixing the image of Zimbabwe, garnering support from our anti-sanctions fight from countries like South Africa and debunking the notion that we are a failed state.
The West now has to get Fadzai and Hopewell on more jets to try and portray Zimbabwe as the failed state they once made it out to be. But it is too late - we are winning the sentiment war, despite reengaging the enemy scoring own goals.
The whole point I am making here is that things have changed for Zimbabwe, not because of reengagement, BUT because of creative new strategies being deployed to fight imperialism and sanctions, by patriotic Zimbabweans.
Those who promote reengagement must now begin to acknowledge this reality and stop trying to sabotage anyone and everyone who are achieving better results, outside government.
It’s not a competition, it’s a nation building exercise and our successes are your successes and those of the nation too. We are after fixing Zimbabwe for our children and your children. We are not after your jobs and I will keep writing these pieces until we stop seeing daggers in our back for our successes.
By Rutendo Bereza Matinyarare, Chairman of ZASM.
![Reflecting on Mugabe's leadership with Rutendo Matinyerere[via torchbrowser.com]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bc543e_1f43fc03f32c421a886bfe7e89765b34f002.jpg/v1/fill/w_960,h_540,enc_auto/file.jpeg)
![State of Zimbabwe economy under sanctions- Rutendo Matinyarare[via torchbrowser.com]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bc543e_9f02c3d9ed0d478f9fc73604d04dc3a9f002.jpg/v1/fill/w_960,h_540,enc_auto/file.jpeg)
Well written Rutendo.
Imperialists will always try to get one over you. They even double cross each other in the name of world domination.