October 11, 2007 - March 3, 2008
Zanu-PF must rectify, relaunch revolution
Posted: Monday, March 3, 2008
By Reason Wafawarova
March 03, 2008
THE harmonised elections set for the 29th of this March offer, on the one hand, a massive challenge to Zimbabwe's agrarian revolution – as there are apparent danger signs on the path of the revolution – and, on the other hand, offer the Government an opportunity to carry out an honest revision, rectification and relaunching of the revolution for the ultimate victory that lies in the total economic emancipation of the poor masses of Zimbabwe.
The three Rs are a direct borrowing by this writer from the current strategy adopted by President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela where "revision, rectification and relaunch" of the Bolivarian revolution has been his call – all in the wake of threats to the Venezuelan revolution – threats that have striking similarities with those faced by Zimbabwe's agrarian revolution.
Since December 2, when President Chavez's proposed constitutional reforms were thwarted by a referendum defeat, the US-backed Venezuelan opposition, together with the entire US imperialism machinery – have each seen the defeat as the green light to push forward their plans to destabilise Chavez's government.
This is reminiscent of the momentum gained by British imperialism and the Western-backed Zimbabwean opposition MDC in 2000 when a similar draft constitution proposal was defeated in a referendum. For Zimbabwe, the MDC leadership went to the extent of appointing some people for diplomatic postings as they prematurely wrote off the ruling party as dead and buried before the general election. Of course, the referendum defeat only awakened the revolutionary Zanu-PF into action as they embarked on massive restructuring of the party and also on that memorable land redistribution programme. The ruling party rose up like the giant of the pre-independence era and went on to win the parliamentary election that year, the presidential election in 2002 and another parliamentary election in 2005 – each time rendering apparent weakening effects on the disintegrating opposition.
The Bolivarian revolution – as the process of change led by socialist President Hugo Chavez is known – has got growing internal problems, largely coming from a strengthening of the rightwing of the Chavista movement calling itself the "endogenous right". These are the people within Chavez's own Chavista movement who are advocating reforms to the Bolivarian revolution – reforms that advocate a re-establishment of links with capitalism.
This rightwing group within the Chavista movement has become the most serious threat to the Bolivarian revolution – far more dangerous than the US-backed right wing opposition.
It is apparent that Zimbabwe's agrarian revolution is facing similar threats from a similar group of rightwing reformists whose loudest manifestation has been Simba Makoni of the independent presidential candidate fame, or is it infamy?
These reformists in Venezuela want a Chavista revolution without socialism, in other words without Chavez - they want an anti-capitalist revolution that does not break with capitalism. In Zimbabwe the internal rightwing within Zanu-PF want a land revolution that pleases capitalism – a land reform programme that does not break with imperialism. They want an agrarian reform programme without the masses – one without the pro-peasant Robert Mugabe – a revolution applauded by imperialism. This is what we hear Makoni preaching at his Press conferences. It is what Morgan Tsvangirai was struggling to put across at Sakubva Stadium when he launched his party's election manifesto.
While the 2000 draft constitution for Zimbabwe sought to redistribute white-occupied arable land, Chavez's constitutional reforms sought to institutionalise greater popular power and to increase restrictions on capitalists to the benefit of the working people of Venezuela.
Just like was the case with Zimbabwe in 2000, the capitalist-owned private media responded by launching a campaign based on lies and disinformation aimed at confusing the common man in Venezuela.
The damaging negative media campaign was, for both Zimbabwe and Venezuela – reinforced by economic sabotage – contributing if not leading to shortages of basic goods such as milk for Venezuela, fuel, foodstuffs, water, electricity and cash for Zimbabwe.
The Western-backed opposition in Venezuela was able to stoke the discontent that still exists among the
over such problems as corruption and bureaucratism. The discontent was whipped up to the extent that nearly three million people who voted for Chavez in the 2006 presidential election abstained in the referendum, handing the opposition its first electoral victory since Chavez came to power in 1998.
The Western-backed opposition in Zimbabwe is clearly trying to emulate their brothers in treachery in Venezuela by stoking the discontent that exists among the urban poor over problems such as corruption, inflation, food shortages, erratic power supplies and water problems. These are the problems upon which the MDC has based its campaign for the harmonised elections. Tsvangirai is of the opinion that whipping up the emotions of these poor urbanites is good politics that can earn him an election victory.
Imperialist offensive
The uninvited and unwelcome lecture on free and fair elections by US Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee – a lecture arrogantly delivered to Zimbabweans at the end of February – was just an attempt to build up on the hardships of the country for the benefit of imperial domination.
In Venezuela, there are similar efforts where a renewed US offensive has been unleashed with the aim of isolating Chavez internationally, and also to undermine the process of Latin American integration spearheaded by Venezuela. These are similar efforts being made by the US and Britain in the attempt to set up Sadc and other African countries against Zimbabwe.
A key part of this strategy has been to fuel tension between the targeted country and its neighbours – the way it has worked with Chad and Sudan in the Darfur crisis and also the way it's working with Colombia and Venezuela over the issue of the Colombian civil conflict involving the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – Colombia's largest leftwing guerrilla group and the pro-America Colombian government.
The US keeps sending its officials like Admiral Michael Mullen, Pentagon's joint chief of staff; and John Walters, the US director of National Drug Control; to Colombia on missions to make baseless claims that Hugo Chavez materially supports FARC.
John Walters has gone further to accuse Chavez as "a major facilitator of the international drug trade" an accusation that serves as a sharp reminder to what the US did with Manuel Noriega of Panama in 1989.
South Africa could long have played Colombia on Zimbabwe had it not been for President Mbeki's pan-Africanist resilience. The major reason Tsvangirai and his Western backers are livid with South Africa's policy of quiet diplomacy is the failure of Western efforts to fan the flames of conflict between South Africa and Zimbabwe. Of course, they will always claim loudly that they are dead worried about the welfare of Zimbabweans – never mind how ludicrous it ever sounds.
For Zimbabwe, the most serious imperialist attack has been the illegal economic sanctions that were mobilised by Britain in retaliation to the reclamation of white-held land by the masses of Zimbabweans. These sanctions have come via ZIDERA for the US, the blocking of credit lines for the IMF and the World Bank and a general embargo against Zimbabwe for the Commonwealth and the EU.
For Venezuela, similar measures have been put in place as court orders have been obtained by ExxonMobil, backed by the US State Department, to freeze US$12 billion worth of assets of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, in both British and Dutch courts – a move Chavez has described as an "economic war".
ExxonMobil is retaliating after Chavez's government nationalised the Orinoco oil belt where the multinational company had invested heavily. PDVSA is the major financer to Venezuela's social projects and the broader aim is to cripple these projects and send a warning to other Latin American countries that might be considering resource nationalisation. The warning is simple - imperialism will fight back.
Destabilisation
The known extra-parliamentary destabilisation by the US-led Western alliance usually involves the stepping up of economic sabotage by the capitalists – a style reminiscent of the sabotage suffered by the leftwing Chilean government of Salvador Allende in 1973. The sabotage was a precursor to the US-backed military coup by General Augusto Pinochet later that year.
This campaign involves the hoarding, speculation and smuggling of food, contributing to shortages. Of course, this is always combined with a virulent media campaign aimed at fuelling discontent.
The opposition in Zimbabwe and Venezuela is capitalising on the discontent within the urban population and they are both focused on networking to spread perfidious rumours meant to mobilise the people against the respective incumbent governments.
Eva Golinger of Venezuela recently revealed that the networking for the spread of rumours is funded by Usaid, a US government-funded organisation.
In Zimbabwe, this rumour machine is funded through a whole spectrum of civic organisations and a growing number of online publications – some of them with a strict editorial policy of publishing anything but the truth.
In the wake of this challenge, Presidents Mugabe and Chavez have called for greater unity within their respective revolutions.
Divisions
It would appear both the Zanu-PF-led Zimbabwe agrarian revolution and the Venezuelan Bolivarian revolution are facing the challenge of divisions involving pro-capitalist economic blocs – for Venezuela there is an element of individuals with important military influence being part of the problem. For Zimbabwe, the face of this pro-capitalist bloc has been Makoni, a man who claims to have powerful backing within the ranks of the Zimbabwean revolution. He has, however, continuously failed to substantiate his claims - although the opposition rumour machine has so far significantly benefited from the speculation created by Makoni's claims.
For both Venezuela and Zimbabwe, there is the element of a more radical left, strong among the grassroots as well as among some major elements within the State – an element that wants to deepen the process of empowerment and to overcome corruption and bureaucratism – them being the two major impediments holding back the advance of the revolution.
The reclamation of land by the masses of Zimbabwe was a major victory for the empowerment of poor people just like the agrarian and nationalisation projects have been for Venezuela. However, problems such as sanctions-induced suffering, a divided workers' movement, a divided ideological focus as well as a growing gap between rhetoric and reality – all have meant that these problems have only been exacerbated to the advantage of the imperialists and their teams of lap-dog politicians in both Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
This has also meant that the rightwing element within each of the two countries' revolutions has somewhat gained momentum to the detriment of the revolution.
In Venezuela they called for a "Yes" vote during the day yet they spent each night discouraging voting for the radical constitutional reforms that threatened their material interests. In Zimbabwe, some of them openly castigate Makoni as a renegade sellout by day yet they are spending each night encouraging people to sympathise with the dissident former Politiburo member.
This is why the revolution is calling for a comprehensive revision, rectification and relaunching. There are danger signs ahead and this is the only way to pre-empt the imperialist assaults lying ahead.
Class Struggle
In Venezuela the endogenous right is attempting to take over the Chavista party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) just like Zimbabwe's Makoni and Kudzai Mbudzi were initially claiming that their project was about "changing the bus driver in order to ensure the safety of passengers".
Such divisions reflect the class struggles within the revolutionary process. There is an element of conflict between the left and the right within the revolution - not the traditional right as is found in the MDC and the opposition in Venezuela but a revolutionary "rightwing".
In each revolution there is always an attraction of those who certainly fight imperialism for standing in their way towards aspired riches yet they definitely do not fight for national liberation, that is, for the cause of poor people.
These are people who vainly believe that breaking imperialism or US domination can assist economic development within a capitalist framework. They would rather create state capitalism where they, by virtue of holding political office, become the new owners of capital and the new exploiters of the masses.
Needless to say, these people have to contend with the revolutionary element of radicals, for whom nothing short of a thoroughgoing social revolution will solve the needs of the oppressed majority.
The problem with this local class of capitalists is that they reinforce the imperialist cause – in the process pushing the revolution further left and thereby creating more challenges and widening the gap between rhetoric and reality – in the process giving momentum to imperialist forces.
This is the homework for the 4 000 delegates who received instructions on how to sell Zanu-PF's manifesto last Friday. The reason President Mugabe reiterated the importance of admitting to failures and not promising unachievable goals to the electorate is precisely to deal with this gap between rhetoric and reality. This is part of the revision, rectification and relaunching of the revolution that is needed.
In this relaunch there is need for integrity, honesty and commitment. There is need to decisively deal with corruption, also a big problem in Venezuela. There is need to get rid of all counter-revolutionaries and to rid the revolution of the capitalist element. There is need to transfer all power back to the people, not the Simba Makoni way which says "Simba kuvanhu" as in Simba his name but in the real sense of the term where people are organised to monitor social projects and create their own sense of accountability.
A people's revolution cannot be stolen or killed but it can be delayed and March 29 is the day for all the revolutionary people of the Republic of Zimbabwe to come forward in defence of the revolution. This is no time to listen to the baiting voices from the right. Zimbabwe cannot be given away for a paltry US$10 billion which Tsvangirai baselessly claims is adequate to solve all the country's problems.
It is homeland or death for Zimbabweans. Together we will overcome.
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk
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Spielberg: Chauvinist in humanitarian drag
Posted: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
By Stephen Gowans
February 13, 2008
http://gowans.blogspot.com
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg has withdrawn as artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing because China has failed to pressure Sudan to end the war in Darfur.
China is developing oil fields in the embattled region of Sudan and Spielberg wants Beijing to use its clout to end the insurgency in the west of the country.
Arguing that "Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility" for the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, Spielberg blames China for failing to do "more to end the continuing human suffering there." (1)
"China's economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change," Spielberg says. (2)
But while Spielberg wants China to use its influence in Khartoum, he has released no statements, of which I'm aware, to press Washington to use its influence to end the larger humanitarian catastrophes in Somalia and Iraq, both of which are directly attributable to the actions of his own country, and therefore should be well within the grasp of the US government to end.
China's ability to end the Darfur conflict, however, is a far more uncertain matter.
Three of the five rebel groups fighting Sudanese forces in Darfur are unwilling to negotiate a peace, according to the UN's special envoy to Darfur, Jan Eliasson. (3) This makes it difficult for Khartoum, let alone China, to bring an end to the conflict, unless ending the conflict means Khartoum capitulating and handing Darfur and its oil assets to the rebels and their Western backers. This, of course, would suit strategists in the US State Department, to say nothing of the US oil industry.
By comparison, ending the much larger humanitarian catastrophes in Somalia (with 850,000 displaced, Somalia has been called Africa's largest and most ignored catastrophe) and Iraq (four million refugees and hundreds of thousands dead as a result of the US invasion) is directly within the capability of Washington. (4)
The US simply has to order Ethiopia, which it directed to illegally invade Somalia in December 2006, to withdraw. (5) If the Ethiopians balk, cutting off the rich flow of military aid Washington rewards the Meles regime with, will exert needed pressure. (6)
As regards the tragedy of Iraq, there can be no greater ameliorative act than immediate withdrawal of foreign troops. Withdrawal should occasion no fear of touching off a full-scale civil war. The Pentagon's own research shows that Iraqis attribute sectarian tensions to the US military presence and ardently wish to see the Americans leave. (7) If a civil war were to ensue, it could hardly be worse than the suffering the US continues to visit upon Iraq in lost lives, mangled bodies, rampant disease, hunger and homelessness - far in excess of the tragedy in Darfur.
If China's ties to the government of Sudan provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change, doesn't Spielberg's visibility, and his status as a US citizen, provide him with the opportunity and obligation to press for change where his own government has created far greater human suffering?
In the fall of 2002, Spielberg said he "could not not support" the Bush administration's policies on Iraq (8). Today, he seeks to embarrass China over Sudan, another oil-rich country Washington seeks regime change in. And as far a Spielberg is concerned, the US-authored humanitarian catastrophes in Somalia and Iraq are best ignored. Are these the actions of a humanitarian, or of a chauvinist whose concern for the suffering of others stops at the door of, and indeed caters to, US ruling class interests?
NOTES:
(1) New York Times, February 13, 2008.
(2) Ibid.
(3) New York Times, February 8, 2008.
(4) Displacement of Somalis, Washington Post, November 14, 2007; Iraqi refugees, The Independent (UK), July 30, 2007. There are a number of estimates of deaths in Iraq due to the US invasion: The Iraqi Body Count, 47,668; World Health Organization, 151,000; Johns Hopkins, 600,000; British polling firm ORB, 1.2 million (mid-range estimates.)
(5) US General John Abizaid visited the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, in November, 2006. Ethiopia invaded Somalia the next month. "The US provided key intelligence from spy satellites…CIA agents traveled with the Ethiopian troops, helping direct operations…US forces have carried out at least four attacks inside the country in the past 12 months." The Independent (UK), February 9, 2008.
(6) Stephen Gowans, "Looking for Evil in all the Wrong Places," www.gowans.wordpress.com, November 20, 2007, http://gowans.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/looking-for-evil-in-all-the-wrong-places/
(7) Washington Post, December 19, 2007.
(8) In September 2002, Spielberg pledged support for the gathering US war on Iraq. "Film director Spielberg lines up with Bush war drive," WSWS, October 3, 2002, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/spie-o03.shtml
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Zimbabwe 2007: Year MDC saw the African light
Posted: Saturday, December 29, 2007
By Reason Wafawarova
December 29, 2007
NOW that the year 2007 is coming to an end and inflation is not at 1,5 million percent, Zanu-PF is still intact, Zimbabwean soldiers are still in the barracks and not at State House and Munhumutapa Building and the Government of Zimbabwe is still going strong it may be necessary to look at some of the political predictions and events of the year that may pass for the highlights of the year.
The year 2007 began with the suspicious "attack" on Lovemore Madhuku’s residence on January 1 that many neutral observers believe was a self-inflicted and convenient sympathy-hunting antic meant to hoodwink gullible Western donors as well as to attract international attention.
Two days later, Morgan Tsvangirai, the faction leader of one of the two fragments of the MDC capitalised on the Madhuku incident in his New Year address and claimed that the "attack" was a sign that President Mugabe and Zanu-PF were "on the verge of collapse". In the same address, Tsvangirai also claimed, authoritatively, that there was irreparable disenchantment within Zanu-PF and he even invited the so-called reformists to join his "democratic forces".
Arthur Mutambara weighed in with his own New Year message in which he bragged that he was going to lead a "defiance campaign" that would see laws being disregarded. Tsvangirai and members of the so-called Save Zimbabwe Coalition joined in the campaign for defiance.
This led to the terrible cruising for a bruising when some of those who chose to defy the law went on a collision course with the police in Highfield, Harare and as history now records the opposition activists ended up inviting the full wrath of the law on that fateful March 11. Before March 11 there were a number of interesting developments that showed that the opposition was either acting on faulty intelligence or plain naiveté. There was a belief that members of the police force would sympathise with the violent revolters, for example, and Tsvangirai even invited the police to join the "march".
The events of March 11 turned out to be the turning point where the MDC began to take African lessons down the throat, as events would show. While the West found good politics in displaying the bruises of those who front-lined the defiance campaign particularly the pictures of Tsvangirai, Africa through Sadc, decided to look at what had caused the bruises in the first place or put analytically, to look beyond the bruises and burns on both sides of the collision.
Sadc sought to tackle the issue at its ExtraOrdinary Summit held at the end of March and the prediction within the MDC and the Western circles was that President Mugabe was going to be condemned by fellow Heads of States at the Summit and that Africa through Sadc, was going to stand by the MDC.
The 14 Heads of State and Government held their closed-door session and came out to meet a legion of journalists ready to "scoop on Mugabe’s downfall". Jakaya Kikwete, the Tanzanian President and then Sadc chairman delivered a communiqué with resolutions that left a bitter taste in the mouths of MDC activists and Western journalists present.
He said Sadc noted that Zimbabwe had carried out free and fair elections in 2000 and 2002 and therefore fully believed that President Mugabe and his Government was the legitimate choice by the people of Zimbabwe – that Britain had an obligation to honour its Lancaster House commitments, that sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the Western alliance had to be lifted and that Zanu-PF and the MDC should mediate under the auspices of Sadc.
Britain immediately announced its disapproval of the stance taken by Sadc and Tendai Biti charged that Sadc was playing "ping pong with the people of Zimbabwe". Mutambara inferred that Sadc was a "club of dictators" and the US administration expressed dismay at the failure by Sadc to play to the Western bidding while the BBC marvelled at the sight of President Mugabe coming from the summit "with a spring in his step".
Then came Christopher Dell’s departure from Zimbabwe on a lower-level posting to Afghanistan in June, well coinciding with the departure of Tony Blair from No. 10 Downing Street.
These two men had a commission to see the demise of the Zimbabwean Government – a commission deriving its roots from the legacy of Western "supremacy" as well as from the mandates of imperialism as enforced by corporate democracy. Blair was going to leave his MDC political project at the mercy of these African natives who in his eyes were so mean and primitive that they seemed to okay images of terrible bruises and to be going along with a "ruthless dictator". Not least – Blair was going to suffer regime change ahead of President Mugabe and there was no sign or hope that the millions of pounds he had poured into the MDC project would yield any positive result.
As for Dell, it was a combination of shame, humiliation and self-cursing for a complete failure of a Milosovech replay on a turf he had thought to be an easy stroll in the park. He could not believe that the natives could not be stirred into an uprising and he had to make face saving predictions to the effect that inflation would be 1,5 million percent by year-end and that "the regime cannot survive."
Many will remember that Dell’s predictions were immediately followed by a sharp rise in commodity prices and that the price madness had to be arrested by a price blitz from the Government – that resulting in the current commodity shortages.
It was back to the African forum in July when all African leaders gathered for the 9th Ordinary Session of the AU in Accra, Ghana. The MDC still thought there was something fundamentally wrong with Sadc and they sent a delegation led by Thokozani Khupe to impress upon the African leaders that Zimbabwe was under a "ruthless dictatorship".
Not only were the African leaders clearly not interested in Khupe’s presence at the summit – but the Ghanaians as well as their Press also demanded to know from Khupe and her colleagues – why such a revolutionary as President Mugabe is, could suddenly just turn into the monster Khupe was preaching. They also demanded to know why her party was so much liked by the West and why they were receiving western funding and why they were opposed to the land reform programme.
Meanwhile, President Mugabe was addressing multitudes and was being honoured as a successor to the Kwame Nkrumah legacy of Pan-Africanism.
For the second time Africa was speaking to the MDC and telling them that it was the African way or the high way – and no midway measures.
In August, Sadc was once again meeting in Lusaka, Zambia for its 27th Summit, and again the MDC dispatched the battle-weary Khupe to try another demonisation campaign against the Government of Zimbabwe – this time with the support of hired protesters. Most of the hired thugs were deported at the Zimbabwe-Zambia border post while those who sneaked in had to make do with humiliating booing from the Zambian public as well as the Zambian political leaders from both sides of the divide.
The message was the same. Africa did not take kindly to the treacherous identity of the MDC.
This continued show of solidarity with Zimbabwe by African leaders was clearly not going down well in the Western circles and immediately after the Lusaka Summit something had to be done. In came Australia’s Alexander Downer with his enormous victory over eight Zimbabwean university students who were studying in Australia at the time. Downer, the then Foreign Minister reckoned that these youngsters had a case to answer in all that was happening since they happened to be born to Zimbabwean politicians and senior officials whose policies differed from the Australian government’s perspective.
During this time Downer, personally invited Tsvangirai to Australia and Tsvangirai enthusiastically thanked Downer and the Australian government for the isolation of Zimbabwe and pleaded for more isolation and more sanctions, only to be restrained by Downer who had to tell him that the measures in place then were adequate.
There was an announcement about funding of "democratic forces" in Zimbabwe to the tune of 18 million Australian dollars and while addressing invited guests at the Lowly Institute in Sydney Alexander Downer told Tsvangirai that "we definitely want to see the back of Mr Mugabe".
It is ironic that from Sydney, Tsvangirai went straight for a weaker target and showed the world the back of a poor woman by the name Lucia Matibenga, much to the surprise of Downer – whose own back was to be seen by President Mugabe as the Howard government was dismissed by the Australian electorate in an election in November.
Anyway, on September 18, 2007 Zimbabwe witnessed the first fruit of the talks between Zanu-PF and the MDC. The two parties co-sponsored Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 18) Act, which harmonised elections for Zimbabwe beginning 2008.
There was apparent disquiet from Western quarters with Tsvangirai rushing to Washington to explain issues but there was nowhere to rush in order to pacify marauding voices from Zinasu, NCA, Woza and other pro-MDC civic organisations. Madhuku literally went mad and accused the MDC of "treachery" and many political hangers-on of the MDC complained bitterly about being left out of the talks.
Britain could not understand the MDC move of moving in unison with Zanu-PF and Gordon Brown made the biggest mistake of his political life on the 21st of September when he chose to reinforce his resentment for what was happening by declaring that he would boycott the EU-Africa Summit in Portugal if President Mugabe was invited. It was game on about who would be watching the other’s empty chair.
President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, the Sadc chair, immediately declared that Sadc would boycott the Summit if President Mugabe was not invited, and when the Ghanaian foreign minister, whose country chaired the AU, announced that the AU position was that all African leaders were to be invited that made it minus 53 countries or NO summit.
Faced with this scenario, and a history of a Blair boycott in 2000 and a cancellation of the Summit in 2003, Europe was divided; with German, Portugal and other countries insisting that the Summit had to go ahead according to the wish of the African leaders. That left the unelected, Blair-appointed Gordon Brown with egg in the face.
Of course the Summit did materialise on December 8/9 and President Mugabe was right there watching a little lady of the African colour sitting in Brown’s chair and clearly overwhelmed by events. Attempts by the MDC to build up Brown’s case at the Summit through anti-Zimbabwe demonstrations backfired when pro-Zimbabwe protesters countered their hired protesters.
On October 30, Tsvangirai sent Khupe to preside over what is now known as the "restaurant congress" at which one Theresa Makone was "elected" to replace the ousted Lucia Matibenga. Civic groups, MDC senior officials and the private media went berserk after this and on November 7, Nelson Chamisa ranted against the media blitz claiming that there was no fall out in the MDC and accused everyone of being delusional.
On November 30, the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association organised the Million Men and Women March in support of President Mugabe’s candidature in March 2008 and the crowd that turned up shocked the MDC the most. Zanu-PF’s Extraordinary Congress followed the March and and again the opposition was shocked by the unanimous endorsement of President Mugabe as the ruling party’s candidate in the harmonised elections in March 2008.
All the predictions of pandemonium and fireworks from perceived factions within Zanu-PF were just not there at the Congress and there was no sign of a political party coming out of Zanu-PF as had been predicted throughout the year.
On December 18, amendments Bills for the Broadcasting Services Act, the Public Order and Security Act and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act were all fast-tracked through the House of Assembly – again co-sponsored by both the MDC and Zanu-PF and the same voices of descend are crying foul.
This writer has chronicled these events in light of the new orientation the events have given to the MDC. While some argue and say the MDC just did not do its work in creating synergies in Africa, this writer asserts that it is the MDC ideology, or is it lack of it, that actually alienated the MDC from the African polity.
No government can be comfortable with a foreign funded and foreign directed opposition party, even if the party was just next-door. If the MDC were standing for African values and not doing such treacherous things as calling for sanctions against their own country they barely needed to mobilise friends in Africa – they would just get them. Is it not surprising that even other opposition parties in other African countries like Zambia have a problem with the MDC?
Now that election 2008 is around the corner and the Government of Zimbabwe has not collapsed it is time for the MDC to evaluate itself and not to blame the Constitution, food distribution, chiefs and so on and so forth for its defeat.
A clearly disintegrating opposition cannot keep blaming outside factors for its lack of organisational skills and now that the African language has been spoken loud and clear it is time to go back to the drawing board for the MDC and an introduction of an ideology might be the starting point. Abandoning the imperial agenda might be second and selling alternative policies in place of vilification might be third. That way we can start talking of movement for democratic change.
Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk
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Africa must help Zimbabwe stave off neo-colonialists
Posted: Monday, December 24, 2007
Daily Trust (Abuja)
COLUMN
December 16, 2007
FOR seven years now, the British government has sustained a campaign against President Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
It describes his country as corrupt and non-democratic. It considers him a brutal dictator who must be voted out of power. In its estimation, he is too old; Zimbabweans deserve a democratic government, human rights, regular meals and a stable currency.
This is also the mindset of the British media on the matter. You cannot surpass the BBC or the Economist in this propaganda.
These foot soldiers of neo-imperial Britain have trekked miles to sell their campaign of calumny against (Cde) Mugabe. For example, the Economist of March 15, 2007 raised this alarm for the umpteenth time: "Once the bread-basket of southern Africa and one of the continent's wealthiest countries, Zimbabwe is now a basket-case and suffers a severe shortage of food.
"It is also the world's fastest-shrinking peacetime economy, with unemployment now standing at 80 percent. Its inflation rate is the world's highest: currently 1 730 percent, although the IMF thinks that figure could rise to over 4 000 percent by year's end.
"From infant mortality to life below the poverty line, the country's unhappiest trendlines run remorselessly upwards. To stifle dissent and quash opposition, Zimbabwe has been turned into a police state where elections are routinely rigged."
Two weeks later, on the 29 March, the tireless Economist said: "Zimbabwe's despotic leader, a man of puzzlingly different identities, is a past master at holding on." Certainly, when it comes to their interest, even the "civilised" will abandon etiquettes and embrace insults.
In its war against (Cde) Mugabe, Britain has succeeded in conscripting other European states.
Jose Barroso, the European Commission President, was reported by the BBC as telling representatives of over 80 EU and African countries that "Africa and Europe should be able to discuss human rights and governance in a true spirit of partnership... Frankly, we hope that those who fought for independence and freedom in their countries now can also accept this freedom for their own citizens."
Birds of the same feather, you will say. The occasion was a joint meeting to reinvent African dependence on Europe, now that China is stealing the show.
Yes. Let us speak frankly, Mr Barroso. What good has Europe in its suitcase that it did not offer for over 200 years now? Africans know the answer very well: nothing, but further exploitation.
And this is the crux of the matter when it comes to Zimbabwe. It is not Zimbabwe. It is not (Cde) Mugabe either. It is a long standing phenomenon of exploitation. Simple.
(Cde) Mugabe has understood this long ago. With seven degrees, he is not unlettered even by British standards.
He has read the history of his country since when Cecil Rhodes stepped his foot on his land.
Even the BBC could not hide telling us the fraud and pittance at which the British miner acquired the land from its ruler, Lobengula.
In a recent report, it said Cecil "obtained exclusive mining rights from the Ndebele king, Lobengula, in return for £100 a month, 1 000 rifles, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, and a riverboat."
Rhodes later claimed, in a typical colonial manner, that the deal included land. More settlers poured in the 1890s.
The Crown could not be left behind. It joined the loot by appropriating the entire land of Southern Rhodesia in 1918.
So (Cde) Mugabe was right when he demanded that land compensation due to white farmers should be paid by the British government. It caused the problem in the first instance, he rightly insists. It granted the settlers self government in 1923.
This was followed by a wild grab following the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, with Africans forcefully ejected out of the land they lived on for centuries. It is this robbery that is the basis of the crisis in Zimbabwe, not democracy or human rights.
The result of that grab is described in Wikepedia: "Zimbabwean whites, although making up less than 1 percent of the population, owned more than 70 percent of the arable land, including most of the best land.
However, in many cases this land was more fertile because it was titled, resulting in incentives for commercial farmers to create reservoirs, irrigate, and otherwise tend the soil.
Communal lands, with no property rights, were characterised by slash and burn agriculture, resulting in a tragedy of the commons."
This is the epitome of greed that is characteristic of British colonial practice. Yet, in spite of the robbery, it has the temerity to call Zimbabwe corrupt. Robbery is the worst form of corruption.
Therefore, Zimbabwe is not the problem as Germany's Markel put it. It is Britain.
The sins it committed in Africa will continue to haunt it. The problem in Zimbabwe is not (Cde) Mugabe. It is the injustice in land distribution which the British government is fighting hard to perpetuate in the manner poverty is perpetuated among South African black majority.
(Cde) Mugabe has refused to allow Zimbabwe to be like today's South Africa.
The British government reneged on its promise under the Lancaster Agreement of 1979. Out of the pledge of £630 million, Britain actually paid only £17 million, using cronyism as an excuse.
Lancaster, hinged on "willing seller, willing buyer principle" was one of those cleverly contrived colonial agreements which were impregnated with failure in the interest of the masters. So what Britain gave with right hand, it took away with the left.
Knowing that Zimbabwe would not have the funds to settle white farmers, it abandoned the agreement in middle of the river. Twelve years after Lancaster, less than half of the 160 000 families were settled. "Mr. Robert," it told (Cde) Mugabe, "you are on your own." The line was drawn, said the old Mr. Robert.
And (Cde) Mugabe proved a true son of Africa. I am proud of him. Ten years after Lancaster, he passed a new legislation, the Land Acquisition Act of 1992, in which he removed the "willing seller willing buyer" clause of fraud and gave government the power to acquire land compulsorily. Mu je zuwa.
The white farmers cried foul.
Wait, you will cry tears, (Cde) Mugabe silently replied. Five years later he published 1,471 farmlands that were penciled down for compulsory "purchase." The following year, (Cde) Mugabe published "the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme Phase II, which envisaged the compulsory purchase over five years of 50 000 km' from the 112 000 km' owned by commercial farmers (both black and white), public corporations, churches, non-governmental organisations and multi-national companies."
As usual donors made pledges at a conference on the programme in Harare, which, as usual, they did not redeem.
Now (Cde) Mugabe went for his last option: compulsory acquisition of land without compensation. However, a gang, composed of academics, unionists, white farmers and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), defeated a constitutional reform in the parliament that would have given him that mandate in 2000. I like the drama that followed.
The review in Wikipedia continued: "A few days later, the pro-Mugabe War Veterans Association organised like-minded people to march on white-owned farmlands, initially with drums, song and dance . . . A total of 110 000 km' of land was seized."
The British government should endure its own pill. As the white settlers gladly acquired the fertile land of Zimbabwe yesterday, the blacks have gladly retrieved it today. This is not a racial war, I must quickly add. It is simply balancing the equation of justice. (Cde) Mugabe cannot spend ten years in prison and fight another decade of guerilla war for nothing. He fought it to recapture the lands of Zimbabwe from the whites. He refused to be an indolent puppet.
Understandably, we should not blame Britain either for its support to white farmers. Blood, they say, is thicker than water. It is protecting the interest of its race and Crown – something it is good at.
The propaganda will therefore continue. In addition, some Africans, claiming to be the opposition, have been recruited as mercenaries. Britain is giving them all the support it can afford to defeat (Cde) Mugabe such that democracy will return and Zimbabwean economy will boom once more in the hands of its white farmers and multinationals. What a dream!
But Africa is never short of betrayers. They were there during the slave trade.
They are here today, as Abubakar Ladan said: "A cikinmu akwai wasu ‘yan iska/ Burinsu a karkasa Africa/ Su sayar da kasa eka-eka/ Su barmu a rabe cikin bukka/ Abadan ba a haka Afrika.(Among us there are rascals, whose interest is to divide Africa, to sell its land acre by acre, leaving us hiding in huts/ it will never be done (again) in Africa)."
(Cde) Mugabe will not budge either. He understands that there is an organic link between him and the African soil.
"Nothing frightens me," he told the Economist, "I make a stand and stand on principle here where I was born, here where I grew up, here where I fought and here where I shall die."
Africa understands the Zimbabwean game very well. That is why it sees (Cde) Mugabe as a hero. When the European Union barred (Cde) Mugabe from attending the "Lisbon café", other African leaders said to hell with the talks.
The Europeans acquiesced, though British Prime Minister failed to turn up. Oho dai.
At the 10th anniversary of South African independence in 2004, (Cde) Mugabe received "a deafening applause," according to the Economist. Britain and its allies could not hide their surprise that, despite the elaborate propaganda, the guy is the most popular leader in Africa.
The magazine reported Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister as saying: "I cannot figure out why he is being applauded when he has destroyed his country."
It is a matter of choice, Mr. Gareth. Possession is better than skill, as Abubakar Ladan said: Ai samu ya fi iyawa, shi/ Kwado bai mallaki do dukushi/ A ruwa aka sanshi makomarshi/ Nan ne zai samu abincin shi/ Yayi wasanni da nishadinshi.
It seems I have dwelled so much on the history and politics of modern Rhodesia. We are undoubtedly unhappy that fellow Africans are living in hardship there, as a result of British machinations.
Showing solidarity with (Cde) Mugabe is good, but Africa must do better. Zimbabweans deserve more. Our policy must not be restricted to politics. It must include economics too.
Africa can greatly help the situation by coming to the aid of Zimbabwe. (Cde) Mugabe has fought gallantly all his life. Despite the poor economy, he insists on educating his people. The literacy level in Zimbabwe is the highest in Africa: 85%! It is time we come to his aid and we have the resources to do so. If we must pay any compensation, it must not be more than the cost of the "1 000 rifles, 10 000 rounds of ammunition, and a riverboat" with which Mr. Rhodes bought the land of Zimbabwe in the 1880s. In fact, we must not pay any compensation. The lease has expired. Or we can argue that Lebengula agreed to the transaction under duress. Shi ke nan.
Instead, let us focus on equipping Zimbabweans with the resources they need to till its lands mechanically as Britain helped its white farmers. How much does it take? If we had resolved to do so since 1979, the problem would have been over by now.
A country like Nigeria was spending a million dollars in Liberia everyday for many years, just because it pleased the Americans.
It recently built a billion dollar stadium, squandered over $7 billion on roads, $8 billion on failed electricity, etc. A country that can afford these and has presently over $50billion in reserve can also be prompted by the African spirit of solidarity to spend a million dollars a day in Zimbabwe. Certainly. Certainly. Yar'adua, please listen. Just what sense does it make when Nigeria says Africa is the cornerstone of our Foreign policy when Zimbabweans are left to suffer in despair?
More so, Nigeria is not the only country that can do that without feeling the slightest pinch. Libya is there, wanting to become the leader of Africa.
To achieve his dream, Gaddafi must listen to al-Mutanabbi: the loyalty of free people is earned by generosity. Both Nigeria and Libya helped (Cde) Mugabe when he was a guerilla fighter. They should help him as a President. The war is not over. Let our leaders rise to the occasion. The wolf – Britain – that once lurch our backyard has eaten our ancestors and devoured our land. We cannot leave it to devour our Shona and Ndebele brothers.
It wants to install its puppet as it did in other parts of Africa. Giving the white farmers of Zimbabwe lands in Nigeria as their agent, Obasanjo, did is a slap on the face of Africa.
Nigerians should send them packing too. They cannot be bad for Zimbabwe and good for us.
The crown, if it has any sympathy for the white farmers, should recall them to England and distribute the royal property it usurped from peasants during the feudal past.
I am convinced that (Cde) Mugabe has fought gallantly. His defeat in the hands of imperialists, may God forbid, will be our defeat. We must come to his aid. Just as we successfully waded off British propaganda against (Cde) Mugabe, we must generously help Zimbabwe financially out of its present state of despair. – Daily Trust (Abuja).
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Zimbabwe: President raps 'gang of four'
Posted: Monday, December 10, 2007
From Itai Musengeyi in LISBON, Portuga
December 10, 2007
The Herald
President Mugabe yesterday castigated Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark as the "gang of four" for speaking on behalf of Britain while Europe's division over Zimbabwe was once again exposed at the EU-Africa Summit.
African leaders stood by Zimbabwe saying Europe was uninformed on the situation in the country.
In his response to the four countries' criticism of Zimbabwe, Cde Mugabe described them as "the gang of four which did not speak their own minds, but the mind of (British Prime Minister Gordon) Brown".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel led the attack on Zimbabwe when the summit opened on Saturday.
Reliable sources said Ms Merkel was given the burden to speak on behalf of the absent Mr Brown, who stayed away in protest against Cde Mugabe's presence.
She even requested South African President Thabo Mbeki to inform President Mugabe that she "shall be attacking Zimbabwe because her constituency" demands that, sources said.
Ms Merkel was also said to have asked Mr Mbeki to request President Mugabe not to be "hard-hitting" in his response to her comments.
But President Mugabe told the summit that the four were bidding for Britain although they did not have any problem with Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe also took the position that it also had a constituency which demands that it responds accordingly, sources said.
Europe's division over the Zimbabwe issue once again came to the fore at the summit as those countries in northern Europe attacked Zimbabwe while Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Belgium, Austria, Romania and Finland did not mention Zimbabwe.
Finland was the only Nordic country that refrained from attacking Zimbabwe.
This confirmed northern Europe as the hardliners while the southerners have a different approach on Zimbabwe.
Since the start of the bilateral dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain over the land issue, northern Europe has taken sides with Britain while southern Europe has kept an open mind.
President Mbeki, who is mediating in talks between Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC, requested to be given the floor when he finished his prepared speech to respond to Ms Merkel's utterances.
He told her that "I am the mediator on Zimbabwe" and as such was well informed on the situation that was being discussed.
Mr Mbeki said the death of the son of Cde Patrick Chinamasa, one of the Zanu-PF negotiators, had delayed the signing of an agreement between the two parties.
In his intervention on the debate on peace and security, President Mugabe said Africa had already taken necessary steps to put up the required infrastructure.
"We know what the challenges are, what the strategies should be, and what the solutions should involve. Help in marshalling resources is what we need. Meetings such as this should do less of telling Africa what it already knows, and more of addressing this question of resources," Cde Mugabe said.
He disagreed with suggestions that the second EU-Africa Summit could not be held because of Zimbabwe.
"Many have regretted the failure to host this meeting on time, and some from the EU side have said the issue was Zimbabwe. I beg to differ. The problem was arrogance from the EU side.
"There were no preconditions from Zimbabwe, or Africa, for the holding of this meeting. Yet those who today talk rhetorically of equality, partnership and mutual respect would impose their will on Africa so very blatantly. And all that was done on trumped-up charges against Zimbabwe. Unbiased observers have commented very favourably on the state of democracy, respect for human rights, and rule of law in Zimbabwe.
"Why then the demonisation from Europe? Because Zimbabwe dared to repossess its land, which had been stolen by the colonialists at the point of the gun. Our fight is therefore with the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom. Zimbabwe certainly has no quarrel with the four European countries that made hostile interventions against Zimbabwe yesterday (Saturday).
"The fiction they parade is either the result of British propaganda or perhaps a misguided sense of racial solidarity with the white farmers in my country," said Cde Mugabe.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who was in Zimbabwe two weeks ago, said Ms Merkel was speaking from an uninformed position.
He said Africa had spoken with one voice and got Zimbabwe to attend the summit but the Europeans had failed to convince Britain to come to the meeting.
African leaders refused to be lectured on human rights, governance, trade and peace issues by their European counterparts and flatly rejected being hurried into signing economic partnership agreements.
"I don't think we are here to receive lectures from you (European leaders). We are here as friends seeking to work together," said Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
He added: "Colonialism is intrinsically negative and Africa still suffers from it."
President Wade criticised European leaders for trying to pressure African countries into signing new trade deals saying China's approach was winning more friends.
"Today it is very clear that Europe is close to losing the battle of competition in Africa," he said.
AU commission president Mr Alpha Konare warned Europe to "avoid playing certain African regions off against each other".
"It's important we avoid patterns of thinking that belong to a different era. No one will make us believe we don't have the right to protect our economic fabric," he said.
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Zimbabwe: More than just a million march
Posted: Friday, November 30, 2007
By Caesar Zvayi
November 30, 2007
The Herald
ON Sunday January 27 1980, Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe made a triumphant return to Zimbabwe, five years after he crossed into Mozambique on April 4 1975 having spent 11 years in the Rhodesian regime's prisons.
Cde Mugabe and other cadres were welcomed by a crowd estimated at 1,6 million by the Zanu-PF information and publicity department, 200 000 by the BBC, 150 000 by the Rhodesian police, and 1 million – with a safety margin of 25 percent – by people who said they arrived at the figure by enlarging aerial photographs and calculating crowd density.
Whatever the final figure, a crowd never before seen in the history of this country welcomed Cde Mugabe at Zimbabwe Grounds. It was by far the largest crowd to welcome any of the nationalist leaders who were to contest the general election set for March 1980. Even Abel Muzorewa's so-called Huruyadzo rally, where people were bribed with beer and food over three days to attend, paled in comparison to the multitudes that welcomed Gushungo on that day.
Zimbabwe Grounds was filled to capacity, and the man who had led the onslaught against the Smith regime, the man the people had come to see did not disappoint. His message was powerful; Zimbabwe had arrived and never again was it to go back into settler hands, directly or by proxy.
Cde Mugabe, whose address was predominantly in the vernacular, laid the framework for the policy of reconciliation he was to enunciate after the elections as he appealed to white Rhodesians, in their native English, to stay and help build a Zimbabwe grounded on national unity.
He spoke passionately about how hunger for land was the "deepest of all grievances among our people" saying the new Government would not seize land from anyone who had use for it but would certainly acquire land that was lying unused while indigenous black people remained landless.
"Farmers who are able to be productive and prove useful to society will find us co-operative," BBC quoted him as saying.
The central themes of his message on that day are the same motifs that have run through his speeches over the years. Themes we have heard time and again, themes immortalised in the historic policy of reconciliation, themes immortalised in his constant refrain, "Zimbabwe will never be a colony again", themes enshrined in his insistence that Zimbabweans have a right to all their resources down to the ants and reptiles, themes critical of western subversion.
On that day, Cde Mugabe blasted British duplicity as the government of Margaret Thatcher was amenable to the lackeys that had joined Smith in the Internal Settlement, and averse to the real nationalists who had slogged it out in bases in Mozambique and Zambia, and the Zimbabwean countryside to bring the Rhodesian regime to its false knees, ko vainyepaka kuti havana mabvi (they claimed they had no knees).
Cde Mugabe castigated Britain, accusing British governor Lord Soames of manipulating the political situation against Zanu-PF.
He warned: "Take note therefore that as we move into assembly points, we have not done so as cowards, it is not an act of surrender but mere compliance with an agreement. And equally take note that as we have moved into assembly points, we can move out of those assembly points."
The turnout at Zimbabwe Grounds, which even the British grudgingly acknowledged was the largest for any of the leaders who were to contest the election in March, gave the world a foretaste of what was to come at election time as Cde Mugabe and Zanu-PF swept to power on a landslide that left all other competitors deflated.
Despite the machinations of the British, people's power prevailed, and the people chose the leaders they wanted. The British proxy Muzorewa, despite the binges his handlers bankrolled at Zimbabwe Grounds, and the three helicopters they had availed for his campaign, managed a paltry three seats, one for each helicopter.
Today, 27 years after that historic gathering at Zimbabwe Grounds, the men and women Cde Mugabe led in and from Mozambique, the people who were at the frontline, have organised the mother of all marches; one million men and women are to convene at Zimbabwe Grounds today to express solidarity with their leader whom they anointed during the liberation struggle, and again before the whole world in March 1980, and every five years thereafter.
Even those who were not in the trenches but who supported the struggle in various ways will also be there along with those born-free because of the sacrifices of the living and fallen heroes of this great nation.
Patriotic Zimbabweans have flocked to Harare from all 10 provinces by bus, train, private transport and some on foot to be at Zimbabwe Grounds, the same way they gathered 27 years ago. Today's march is a culmination of the huge solidarity marches held in all 10 provinces.
Today's march and gathering is like a throwback to January 1980 because the setting and circumstances are the same. The British are at it again, funding a proxy opposition in an attempt to torpedo the people's revolution.
Zimbabwe is four months away from a historic harmonised election, again set for March, and the contestants are the same, the people versus the British proxies. And just like in 1980, the British are up to their usual games, trying to manipulate the political situation in Zimbabwe for self-aggrandisement.
Today's march is not just a procession; it is a powerful statement about the success of the peoples' revolution. Today is not just about expressing solidarity with President Mugabe; it is about reaffirming commitment to the ideals of the struggle, all of which he embodies in their entirety.
This march is not just about expressing confidence in President Mugabe's candidature for March 2008; it is about making a statement about those elections. Today is not about silencing errant voices within Zanu-PF, it is about defending the values of the revolution in which over 50 000 precious lives were lost at the hands of a racist settler regime, while tens of thousands of survivors were needlessly maimed by the uncouth Rhodesian army.
Today's march is not a partisan procession by the Zimbabwe National War Veterans' Association, it is a national statement, and is for everyone who believes in the Zimbabwean dream, that of a progressive, self-determining country.
Just like the historic welcome rally at Zimbabwe Grounds 27 years ago that provided a foretaste of what the country's first democratic election was to bring, today's gathering is an election before the election. It gives a foretaste of what is to come in March next year, when a united Zanu-PF takes on a splintered MDC torn by factions and fractions.
The timing of the march is providential, coming as it does just a week before the EU-Africa Summit convenes in Lisbon, Portugal; a gathering that British prime minister Gordon Brown will boycott claiming that President Mugabe and Zanu-PF are "repressing a popular opposition party", the MDC.
This march should send a clear message to all who have been swayed by British propaganda, it should send the message that the votes tallied during every election are not ghost votes but are cast by Zimbabweans determined to defend the gains of the revolution.
This is not to say the British and Americans do not know this, for they only make such claims to justify their subversive activities. Even established journalists like the Briton-turned-Zimbabwean, Peta Thorncroft now openly acknowledge that Zanu-PF has massive support.
In a recent interview with one Violet Gonda of the pirate radio station SW Radio Africa on November 13, Thorncroft had this to say about Zanu-PF in response to a question on whether the MDC was the party people thought it was:
"I wonder if we ever knew what it (the MDC) was. We just accepted it, didn't we? I wasn't there in 2000, I went to one of its rallies in 2000 and I came in July 2001 and I think I just accepted that the MDC had been cheated at the elections and that this was a party that had the majority support in the country and it was only long afterwards that I discovered that in fact of course Zanu-PF had enormous support in certain rural parts of the country.
"I first saw that demonstrated to me in the March elections of 2005, I was actually astonished by that and it is in my copy. I then saw it again demonstrated in the Budiriro by-election when 4 000 people continued to vote for Zanu-PF and it was quite a peaceful by election.
"They were just as short of fuel, water and electricity as all the other people in Budiriro. And I think that I realised that I hadn't taken into consideration that Zanu-PF was an old established party, which despite its appalling lack of democracy and its top-down style of doing business – because of the liberation struggle and the propaganda it's been able to feed everyone – it does genuinely have support.
"And that the MDC as the farm workers disappeared and as the farmers disappeared a great chunk of its support went with it. I think that was important and I think that we didn't see it and we didn't sort of realise it at the time, I didn't realise it at the time . . . "
Thorncroft then gave a precise analysis of why the MDC doesn't have the support Zanu-PF has, from its open linkage to the west, how its leaders campaign in western capitals and not among Zimbabweans, how its pro-west stance had alienated it from the ordinary Zimbabwean in particular, and African in general.
In short she accounted for why all the MDC's attempts at mass actions and mass stayaways have flopped over the years, and by extension why Zanu-PF has continued to rout the opposition at the polls.
Take this dear reader, coming straight from Thorncroft's British mouth: "When the MDC started in 2000, what a pity that they were addressing people in Sandton mostly white people in Sandton north of Johannesburg instead of being in Dar es Salaam or Ghana or Abuja. They failed to make contact with Africa for so long, they were in London, we've just seen it again, Morgan Tsvangirai's just been in America.
"Why isn't he in Cairo? Maybe he needs financial support and he can't get it outside of America or the UK and the same would go for Mutambara. They have not done enough in Africa . . . "
And this: "Where are they (MDC) in Mashonaland West, Central – the three Mashonaland provinces? And I go on and on about this and I was there just a few weeks ago, driving there with a very good cover and nobody knew I was a journalist and I was able to speak to people and they were very open and chatty with me. I mean the MDC just hasn't tried to go into most of those places. And will they ever or are they going to just remain an urban party you know an urban party in Harare, some in Manicaland . . . "
There you have it, dear reader, straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. The MDC has no connection with Zimbabwe in particular or Africa in general, but is highly connected to the white west. Any wonder their attempted mass actions have always been flops? Any wonder they always lose elections? As for Zanu-PF, the opposite is true, this is a Zimbabwean and African revolutionary party, which is why today's march should reiterate that message for the whole world to see and hear.
The revolution is alive, very much alive.
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Zimbabwe: President in talks with Wade
Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2007
By Itai Musengeyi
November 29, 2007
The Herald
SENEGALESE President Abdoulaye Wade yesterday proposed a committee of five African leaders to mediate over strained relations between Zimbabwe and Britain.
Speaking to journalists at State House in Harare after holding talks with President Mugabe, Mr Wade said one of the five leaders should be South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Mr Mbeki is already brokering talks between Government and the opposition MDC after being mandated by Sadc in March this year.
Significant progress has been made in the talks and President Mbeki was in Harare last week to brief President Mugabe and MDC faction leaders Professor Arthur Mutambara and Mr Morgan Tsvangirai on how the dialogue was progressing.
"I come to Zimbabwe to meet my brother (President) Mugabe because I think that in Africa we should help each other. You know that this country has some problems with the British and I think all African countries should help Zimbabwe.
"I think the problem should be an African problem and involve all African countries," said Mr Wade.
He, however, said President Mbeki had done a commendable job in trying to resolve the Zimbabwean issue but should not be left to shoulder the responsibility alone.
The Senegalese leader said he was glad Zanu-PF and the MDC were engaged in dialogue and had co-sponsored Constitutional Amendment Number 18 in Parliament in preparation for next year's elections.
"I am happy to know that they (Zanu-PF and MDC) are discussing. I am very happy, I can only encourage them," said Mr Wade, adding that he wished to meet the MDC.
Mr Wade stressed that the visit was his own initiative, but indicated that he had been in touch with the British ambassador to Senegal over the differences between London and Harare and that he would be phoning Whitehall authorities either "today or tomorrow" about his visit to Zimbabwe.
"Let me say that I was not sent by anybody (or) any country. I am just an African friend. We wish that the African Union sets up a committee of five among which (President) Mbeki should be involved in the mediation between Britain and Zimbabwe. We Africans must be the facilitators. My concern is to involve African states without negating the goodwill done so far."
Mr Wade said the visit gave him an opportunity to understand the situation in Zimbabwe.
He said some describe the state of affairs as catastrophic but he observed that the situation was just like in any other African country with similar problems such as power cuts, which Senegal also experiences.
Also responding to questions from journalists, President Mugabe said Mr Wade's initiative was welcome but that it was unfortunate the visit was short because Government would have facilitated for him to meet the different groups of Zimbabwean society and visit places to understand the country.
"He is an African brother. It's a family issue, he is very welcome. I would have rather received him over a longer stay so that we could show him a bit of the country," said Cde Mugabe.
He said Mr Wade wanted to be informed about Zimbabwe and he had done that during their talks, which lasted about two hours.
Cde Mugabe said he chronicled Zimbabwe's history, part of which Mr Wade already knew.
"Where we differ with the British, I told him. We don't fear talking to the British, but it is the other side that fears talking to us. We don't know how they want to resolve the problem if there is no dialogue. With (former British prime minister) Margaret Thatcher, ideologically we were never one, but we talked," said President Mugabe.
Mr Wade and his delegation flew in yesterday morning for a two-day official visit and were met at Harare International Airport by President Mugabe, ministers, diplomats, service chiefs and senior Government officials.
Last night President Mugabe hosted a dinner for Mr Wade at the Rainbow Towers.
Today the Senegalese leader is expected to visit the National Heroes Acre before he returns home.
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Invading Zimbabwe a non-starter
Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2007
November 29, 2007
The Herald
EDITOR — Reports that former British prime minister Tony Blair contemplated invading Zimbabwe and that the plan is still on the table were shocking.
Why would Britain, of all countries, want to attack Zimbabwe, its former colony?
Zimbabwe is ready to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
What is wrong with the British? So by dispossessing a mere 4 000 white farmers, who owned and controlled vast swathes of our land and distributing it to our people is enough justification to invade Zimbabwe?
Do Blair and Gordon Brown know who owns Zimbabwe? Who are the indigenous people of Zimbabwe?
Are they of British blood?
Zimbabwe cannot be a present-day Australia where the indigenous Aborigines were dispossessed of their land by British criminals. Today, the Aborigines suffer under the yoke of oppression and racism by these British criminals. The same situation obtains in New Zealand where the Maoris were dispossessed of their motherland by the same criminals.
Today, not many speak about these injustices. No one today speaks about helping these oppressed people, to turn the tables to repossess their land. The United Nations is mum. The undemocratic Security Council, which should be in the forefront of speaking against these injustices, has the oppressors among its permanent members.
The Anglo-Saxons can veto any discussion of these injustices.
So Blair and Brown, invading Zimbabwe is a non-starter. If the British feel the interests of their kith and kin are under threat, why don't they airlift their nationals from our country? What are they doing in Zimbabwe if they can't stand the heat? I repeat: Zimbabwe is prepared for any invasion. Where would Britain launch that attack from? Which African country in Southern Africa or far afield would allow its territory to be used as a launch pad by imperialists to attack its brothers and sisters? What would be the reaction of the African Union? Would Africa stand aloof while one of its own is under attack from a white imperialist?
Attempting to attack Zimbabwe would be the biggest mistake the British can ever make? Would Britain be able to extinguish the conflagration when it ignites?
Britain should ask its ally, the United States, what happened in 1992 when they attempted to "restore hope" in Somalia.
Zimbabwe did not take or ask for an inch of Britain to deserve an invasion. We did not even dare attack the Malvinas Islands. We just took our land; we did not wrong anyone.
Zimbabwe cannot be bullied by threats of an invasion; it can never by cowed by owls pretending to have horns. The land reform programme is irreversible, and it will benefit generations to come. The sanctions the European Union imposed will not take our eyes off the ball. We are prevailing and victory is in sight. The British are fearful now that since the land issue has succeeded in Zimbabwe, then South Africa, Namibia and other African countries are going to follow suit and their interests would be in tatters. So the best way, they think, is to stop Zimbabwe in its tracks to dissuade any would-be followers.
Brown, get this: Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.
Campion Mereki.
Highfield
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Zimbabwe: Dr Livingstone, I presume?
Posted: Wednesday, November 7, 2007
By Navaya ole Ndaskoi
Arusha, Tanzania
November 4, 2007
DR. DAVID Livingstone, that icon of capitalism, Christianity and British Empire, pillaged his way to Africa without any visa. He contributed to the ordeal 'Scramble for Africa.' He had the stomach to name the falls at River Zambezi after the English Queen, Victoria. In his Missionary travels and researches in South Africa published in 1857 he wrote a weird story of 'savages [stupid!] capering around boiling pots of human flesh.'
Exactly 150 years down the time road, Philip Parham, British High Commissioner to Tanzania, writes as if to excel the 19th Century Bible caveman. "If we are to help the people of Zimbabwe, we must diagnose their country's problems accurately and honestly," he starts off in Business Times of September 21, 2007 page 11.
Surely, when I saw the putrid piece I did not believe my eyes. The very High Commissioner goes on, "The UK has provided more that [sic!] # [sic!] 500m in bilateral support for development in Zimbabwe since independence." What?
If he cannot type £ or even ask the PR Officer or a Secretary at the High Commission to help him type can this man really lecture us on Zimbabwe? And this is the best man the Browns of this world sent to represent Brits in Tanzania and, by extension, Zimbabwe!
"The UK itself contributed #3 million of this had been spent by 1988. The Zimbabwean government did not use the remaining #3 million," Philip press on. Dear reader, did you understand what he said? Well, I do not know about you just now, but I am doing my best to calm down! We are dealing with a confused High Commissioner here.
Since not even the Zimbabwean High Commission in Dar es Salaam responded, perhaps Philip must have been thinking Christmas has come his way two months earlier. Poor Philip Parham. He must blame his parents. If he had been born in 1813 and died in 1873 like David Livingstone, he would have received a knighthood. Arise Sir Philip.
This is 2007! Neither Philip nor the West can help Zimbabwe anything with this unbelievable display of arrogance and paternalism. He cannot even lecture on democracy.
There is no democracy in Britain, the very country Philip represents. Undemocratic Kings and Queens of the dark ages still head the British State in the twenty first century. And as if that is not undemocratic enough, unelected Prime Ministers heads the British Government! You simply need to be lucky as a leader of the majority party to become British Prime Minister. Brits have no right to directly vote for their Prime Minister.
Two, Zimbabweans can survive without help from the Parhams. Millions of years before the poverty driven Rhodesians shot their way into Zimbabwe, Africans were living. If the "wider donor community" would do Zimbabweans a favor and drop their percentage, Zimbabwe would be fine. Absolutely fine! This should not be hard to comprehend.
William Blum, author of Rogue State, will help me take you to the UN during the days when Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed 'Iron Lady' by the Soviet Defense Ministry's newspaper (the Red Star), became Prime Minister. We know that Africans in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe survive without Brits and the West generally.
Do you want evidence? Blum is your tour guide to the corridors of the United Nations. He recalls, "January 24 1979, Resolution 33/183M. To end all military and nuclear collaboration with apartheid South Africa. Voting: 114 to 3 (US, France and UK voted against). December 12, 1979: Resolution 34/93D. Strengthening arms embargo against apartheid South Africa. Voting: 132 to 3 (US, France and UK voted against)."
Blum will tell you also that on December 12, 1979 Resolution 34/931 was put on the table. Assistance to the oppressed people like Nelson Mandela and others of South Africa and their liberation movement. Voting 134 to 3 (US, France and UK voted against).
On December 11, 1980 Resolution 35/119. Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples [Zimbabwe got independence in 1980]. Voting: 134 to 3 (US, France and UK voted against).
The UN once again wanted to assist South Africans. Britain and its allies refused, according to Blum. On December 16, 1980 Resolution 25/206J. Assistance to the oppressed people of South Africa and their liberation movement. Voting 137 to 3 (US, France and UK voted against). December 5, 1984, Resolution 34/42. Condemns support of South Africa in its Namibian and other policies. Voting: 121 to 2 (US and UK voted against). As the voting went on at the UN, the 'pink' minority was killing Africans.
Honestly, when I read the piece, I got the impression that Philip was a picnic school boy before Zimbabwean independence in 1980, Namibian independence in 1990 and the defeat of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. Just imagine the UK and the West speaking for Zimbabweans now. It is like an axe-murderer who suddenly gets the compassion of St. Francis and the mercy of Mother Teresa and become an arrowhead of the firestorm set 'to help the people of Zimbabwe.' It simply shows the capacity for hypocrisy.
Zimbabweans can 'diagnose their country's problems accurately.' They fairly know their central problem, landlessness. That is why they had to fight to iron out the 'pink' minority Government headed by Dictator Ian Smith, supported and armed to the teeth by the UK, the US and the West. Zimbabweans refused to be tenants in their country.
They do not sit idle and wait for the Parhams, the Bushes, the Blairs and all the Browns of this world to preach human rights and democracy to them. When the predatory thieves from the United Kingdom invaded Zimbabwe in the 1890s and grabbed the best land, the Chauke, the Mahenye, the Chitsa, the Shona, the Ndebele, the Tsvovani and other Zimbabweans did not wait for Philip Parham to lecture them on land as a human right.
They fought manly against this criminal occupation. The British cannibals won only because of the superior gun. The unfortunate leaders of the Zimbabwean forces of 1890s were hanged from treetops, just like the unarmed old man, Saddam Hussein of Iraq in 2006. The settlers of British ancestry hanged Zimbabweans for resisting the seizure of their land. That was how the British took land and 'undermined the rule of law.'
In Roman-Dutch Law, from which English Law springs, if you inherit a stolen property you belong to the gallows! I mean you are also a thief. Rhodesians of the 1890s launched an armed robbery of land in Zimbabwe and passed it down to the current 'pink' settler generation. Zimbabweans know this. They do not need the Human Rights Watches, the Red Crosses, the BBCs, the VOAs, the CNNs, the all the Economists for this.
According to Philip Parham, 'The Lancaster House agreement contained no financial commitment on land reform.' It contained pal, even if that was not written down! Kelebert Nkomani, Zimbabwe High Commissioner to Kenya, agues: 'The UK's commitment to funding the transfer of land from the minority white commercial farmers to landless black majority was part and parcel of the Lancaster House agreement.'
Philip is not finished. He blames some commentators, who cite a letter written by Clair Short, then UK Secretary of State for International Development to the Zimbabwean Government on November 5, 2005. He argued, 'With selective quotes, they claim incorrectly that Clair Short was ruling out further UK assistance for land reform.'
For readers to see and judge that poisonous letter for themselves, I challenge the British High Commission to publish the letter in full. Is space a problem? Her Majesty Kingdom can at least afford a page after centuries of plundering. That is for sure.
In the meantime, New African, the best selling pan-African magazine, which I am proud to contribute articles to, has been publishing from time to time that rancid letter. Readers can trace it on page 52 of the February 2003 issue. The short sighted Ms Short wrote myopically, 'I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests.'
If that is not 'ruling out further UK assistance for land reform' in Zimbabwe, I am sorry Philip. I cannot help you! David Hasluck, a man who does not count Robert Mugabe among his friends, was director of Zimbabwe's 'pink' Commercial Farmers Union for 18 long years. He might help. He knows fairly that that letter ignited the current crisis.
In an interview with Baffour Ankomah, New African editor, who have immeasurably influenced my world view, Hasluck said that 'Clair Short knows that there was a land issue at Lancaster House, how can she write a letter like that and expect to go forward?'
Come on Philip Parham. Does Zimbabweans really need your crocodile tears?
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South Africa will not betray Zimbabwe
Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2007
By Reason Wafawarova
November 06, 2007
SINCE the British government began attempting to strengthen the cause of its MDC political project in 1999, South Africa, more than any other country, has been saddled with the task of "doing something in Zimbabwe."
The Western coalition has repeatedly tried to draw South Africa into its corner for the fight against President Mugabe and the most frequently asked question in all Western propaganda talk shows has been: Why is President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa dragging his feet over Zimbabwe?
This writer has once again been challenged by a few readers to comment on the role of South Africa in solving the challenges facing Zimbabwe. The short answer to this task is that South Africa is just doing fine leading the ongoing dialogue between Zanu-PF and the MDC.
It is what South Africa has not done, is not doing and will not do about the situation in Zimbabwe that has made the West and their insidious lackeys in the MDC express the chagrin of a ditched spouse. South Africa has not condemned President Mugabe, has not placed an embargo on Zimbabwe, has not condemned the policies of Zanu-PF and its Government; and for Morgan Tsvangirai, has not cut off power and fuel lines to Zimbabwe. Doing all these things would make the western alliance's day, as it considers such decisive and swift, not "the feet dragging diplomacy" President Mbeki has been following.
What the ever-blundering Western politicians do not seem to realise is that by attempting to drag President Mbeki to their side, all they do is drag the South African masses into the debate. It is amazing that these western politicians are so short-sighted that they cannot foresee the dire consequences of a South African mass beginning, as they have already begun, to ask about their own place in the sun in post-apartheid South Africa.
President Mbeki is on record as saying, "There are those who would like to do certain things in Zimbabwe and they want us to do those things for them. That, we will not do. Zimbabwe is not a province of South Africa."
In the West, Tony Blair is the author and founder of the Western fight "for democracy" in Zimbabwe and he had to leave the ring with a bloodied nose in June this year and his chosen successor, Gordon Brown has already taken a humiliating battering in response to his uncalculated punches in the air. The most humiliating miss has of course been the attempt to bar President Mugabe from attending the EU-Africa Summit scheduled for Portugal in December, an attempt that has left Brown with the shame of a primary school kid.
The Sadc initiative on dialogue is far less than the least of what Blair would have wanted done on Zimbabwe and Brown is just as stranded as can be expected of an unelected Prime Minister, waking up with un-mandated power just thrust upon him; as William Shakespeare would put it.
In South Africa, the Western voice has been dutifully fronted by Tony Leon, the opposition Democratic Alliance face, that man who commands an amazing delusion that he can wedge "a fight for democracy" in Zimbabwe from within the walls of the South African parliament. Tony Leon's idea of democracy involve things like championing the ouster of Winnie Mandela from parliament and the demand for the harshest of sentences to deter crime in South Africa, while conspicuously being the tightest mouth zipper over racially motivated murders of black South Africans by post-apartheid whites.
In Zimbabwe, the Western voice has been dutifully represented by the white element in the MDC, the likes of David Coltart, Eddie Cross and Roy Bennet, while Morgan Tsvangirai has dutifully played the loud cry-baby in order to dupe outsiders that he is the unfortunate victim of a ruthless dictatorship. He has had willing allies from the likes of the disgraced bishop, Pius Ncube and Lovemore Madhuku.
President Mbeki – unlike the likes of Tony Leon, Tsvangirai and many of the Western charlatans, does appear to have a genuine concern and deep care for the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe. He has resolutely refused to subscribe to the ruthless philosophy that says making the people of Zimbabwe suffer should be construed as a way of helping them.
This is the philosophy that has made Tsvangirai look a stooge before the rest of Africa while his party now ranks among one of the saddest jokes in post independent Africa. The Zambians and the Ghanaians just showed the MDC exactly what they think about them and Thokozani Khupe would love to quickly forget her misadventures to these two countries this year.
What makes it easy for the United States to drag its allies into Iraq and to bomb the civilians of Iraq in the name of democracy is that the US in particular, and the` West in general, cares nothing about the welfare of people of colour such as Iraqis. On the other hand, President Mbeki cannot comprehend any form of democracy that requires the sanctioning and suffering of the people of Zimbabwe. The difference between President Mbeki and George W. Bush is that Mbeki would never ever bomb or deliberately starve the people of Zimbabwe for whatever cause while Bush will create whatever excuse he can in order to bomb any people whose resources his country's corporations covert.
President Mbeki can be showered with 10 BBC stories a night on alleged lack of democracy in Zimbabwe but that will never make him forget that there was no democracy in Zimbabwe before the coming of majority rule in 1980. He, like many of us do, knows that this democracy may be imperfect but it is the only democracy Zimbabwe has ever had and it came at a cost of tens of thousands of Zimbabwean lives as well as the lives of other Africans from Southern Africa.
This is the price the West wants to explain away as part of forgotten history but Africa will not easily let go of the prize of independence. Many of the MDC supporters will be the first to testify what it means to try to coerce Africa into giving away the liberation legacy. They have learnt that it is mission impossible as the current solidarity in smarting with Gordon Brown, whose empty threats over Lisbon have just made him a world-class clown; can easily reveal.
One can almost hear the loud comforting words from the MDC supporters, particularly those in the UK – "Oh don't worry Mr Brown, this dictator will one day die." Is this the last that a hopeless man can ever say?
President Mbeki and the generality of the ANC are quite clear that what is at stake in Zimbabwe is much more than democracy and the economic plight of the Zimbabweans. As for democracy, they are well aware that allegations of rigging elections levelled against Zanu-PF are not proven and for that they dismiss the subsequent sanctions by the EU, Commonwealth and the United States as illegal.
In fact the South African observer mission pronounced the 2002 presidential elections free and fair. On allegations of violence, the SA observer mission disagreed with the assertion that the MDC was a victim of one-sided, state-sponsored violence. The mission produced several reports that accused members of the opposition of intimidation of voters plus one damning report that implicated a youth gang from the opposition in attacks on a convoy of international observers in Kwekwe.
It is against this backdrop that the Western propaganda drive has had no takers among many in the ANC and certainly not with President Mbeki. He knows too well what kind of a party the MDC is and he knows just too well what the West mean when they claim to be after democracy in Zimbabwe. This clarity of mind has led President Mbeki to travel the road that has culminated in the current Sadc initiative – an initiative quite stunning to the West, but vitally essential and acceptable to the African community in general and to all progressive Zimbabweans in particular.
Tsvangirai has in the past expressed anger at President Mbeki, clearly on behalf of his disgruntled Western masters. Him and his MDC have variously labelled President Mbeki a dishonest broker, a liar, weak in leadership and failing "to restore democracy" in Zimbabwe.
Those who are accusing President Mbeki of relishing the status quo in Zimbabwe "for purposes of benefiting from the crisis" are clearly taking a mindless approach to his position.
It is naïve if not plain stupid to assume that a shrinking economy next door can be preferable to a thriving one, just because economic sense would tell that an economically strong neighbour is a better trading partner than a weaker one. South Africa is Zimbabwe's biggest trading partner in Africa and vice versa and it benefits neither country if one of the economies went on the decline.
If Zimbabwe is losing skilled manpower it is all because of the challenges brought about by the illegal sanctions imposed by the Western alliance and it has nothing to do with South Africa "dragging its feet on Zimbabwe" or enjoying poaching the skills of Zimbabweans. In fact if the truth were to be told, South Africa would have just worsened the situation if they had chosen to play the Western bidding on Zimbabwe.
One can imagine the consequences if South Africa had cut off fuel and power supplies as requested by Tsvangirai. The suffering of the ordinary person would worsen and so would be the brain drain. If indeed South Africa can be better off with such a scenario then one would wonder why they just did not join the West in sanctioning Zimbabwe – all for purposes of "benefiting more from the crisis".
The argument that President Mbeki enjoys the crisis in Zimbabwe is just ludicrous and the fact that it is raised from the MDC quarters is not at all surprising. This is the same MDC that says the only valid election results are those where its own candidates win. It is the same MDC that keeps telling the electorate that it will not participate in elections and then wonder why its supporters do not appear on the voters' role.
They do not register because their party keeps saying they wont be participating and the MDC cannot figure this out, opting to adopt the worn out claim that says it's all to do with Tobaiwa Mudede's supernatural rigging ways.
Well, it is the same MDC that thinks sanctions can cause an uprising and a change of government, isn't it?
Now that President Mbeki has taught pro-Tsvangirai MDC secretary general Tendayi Biti and pro-Arthur Mutambara faction secretary general Professor Welshman Ncube how to be Africans, one hopes the MDC will use the Mbeki-led initiative to mutate into an acceptable and responsible political party.
Those who are crying for a combative Western-driven South Africa must come home to themselves and understand that Africa is a continent for black people and the time for puppet politics long ended with the likes of Moise Tshombe, Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese Seko.
It is time we Zimbabweans together with our South African brothers, indeed with the rest of Africa, show these Westerners that Africa can run its own affairs without their supervision. After all they are only our former oppressors and colonisers and we really have nothing to admire from them. Africa was liberated from Western domination and the idea was never that we liberate ourselves from the West in order to allow ourselves to be ruled by the West.
Let the British tell Zimbabweans what we got for our forgiveness. What was our reward for not prosecuting Ian Smith for Chimoio and Nyadzonia? What did we get for allowing white farmers continuity on the lands stolen from our forefathers? What did we get for our policy of reconciliation at independence?
Equally, what was Nelson Mandela's reward for not prosecuting the butchers of Soweto? What did he get for allowing multinational corporations free reign in his country? What did the blacks of South Africa get for their forgiveness?
Surely suspicious Nobel Peace Prizes, knighthoods and statues among ruthless slave traders and colonisers cannot count for Africa's reward for all the goodwill we have shown in dealing with our former oppressors.
South Africa has the largest concentration of whites in Africa and the reconciliation experiment has not yielded any meaningful success for the ordinary black person and we do not want South Africa to turn out to be a lost opportunity for those currently enjoying its wealth at the expense of others. They should ask Claire Short and those who thought Zimbabwe's land issue could be explained away by simply refusing to wear the black armband of history.
This writer continues to wish well those involved in the Mbeki-led dialogue and we hope the long promised African solution has now dawned.
Together we will overcome.
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk
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Condemn sanctions on Zimbabwe
Posted: Thursday, November 1, 2007
The Herald
Dr John Sentamu The Archbishop of York England Re: Appeal to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe I am writing in my personal capacity, in response to your radio interview which came over the BBC last night (September 16 2007) in which you vehemently attacked, and condemned President Mugabe's rule and called him a racist and compared him with Idi Amin.
You heaped all the blame on President Mugabe, not so much on his Government, for inflation, for alleged mass starvation, for mass migration of people, for lack or scarcity of essential common commodities, for harassing the members of the opposition, for the abuse of human rights, and for lack of Press freedom, etc.
You went on to call upon the British and others to do something in order to restore democracy, the rule of law and prevent starvation, and suggested further sanctions as one of the ways to bring about change.
Your radio interview distressed me considerably because you jumped onto the bandwagon of groups of people and media who condemn President Mugabe for the appalling situation now obtaining in Zimbabwe without trying to understand what went wrong.
I, however, sympathise with you and I am equally concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe, but I cannot excuse you for siding with all and sundry who stage-managed the destruction of Zimbabwe.
Now here is the basic information:
Zimbabwe is a large country; it covers 390 757 square kilometres; it is about 1½ times the size of Uganda with a population of 12 million, or about half that of Uganda, 80 percent of whom are Shona, 14 percent are Ndebele, 1 percent are European and the rest are natives of different tribes (The World Almanac, 2006:850).
The current situation has its origin in the unequal ownership of land. At the time of independence in 1980, the Europeans, 1 percent of the population, owned 87 percent of the land, and the Africans, who made up 99 percent of the population, lived on 13 percent of the land.
In 1988, I was Uganda's High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, and while attending the annual agricultural show in Bulawayo, sitting next to the late Dr Herbert Ushewokunze and Dr Stan Mudenge, I asked them why there were no Africans taking part in the show. The two ministers relayed my question to Mr Robert Mugabe, who, by then, was Prime Minister.
I was seated about two or three places from Mr Mugabe. He went on to explain to me that the Africans could not participate in the exhibition because they had nothing to show, they owned no business, no farms and the majority survived by working as porters on the settlers' farms and on small land holdings on which they could not farm or practice animal husbandry.
Mr Mugabe told me that the land issue had been raised at Lancaster House when the independence terms were being discussed and it had been agreed that the question of land redistribution could be discussed after a period of 10 years after independence and Mr Mugabe assured me that he intended to raise the issue in 1990 and, sure and certain, that is what he did.
As soon as Mr Mugabe called for a serious discussion regarding the redistribution of land, the European settlers went wild! Mr Mugabe was rubbished, condemned and called a racist and despotic dictator who did not care for the welfare of his people. The more he called for something to be done so that the African people could get some piece of land which they could call their own, the louder the condemnation became.
It is regrettable that Archbishop Desmond Tutu, like you, would have preferred President Mugabe kept quiet!
The settlers owned large expanses of land, owned ranches and estates on which they grew maize, sugarcane, beans, rice, wheat. They raised cattle, pigs, sheep, and horses. They were the only ones who owned butcheries, banks, textiles, factories, bakeries, and beer factories. They owned petrol stations, beer bars, bookstores. They were the accountants, lawyers, doctors, and garage owners. They were the senior personnel in every government department as well as in every private business. The Africans were porters, gatekeepers, cooks, drivers, and worked in mines, and owned nothing.
Now, Sir, consider this: The more Robert Mugabe intensified his land acquisition efforts, the more bitter the settlers and their media became and began to dismantle their manufacturing plants, they stopped to grow any more food, remember Europeans grew maize and processed it, but did not eat it, it constituted the staple diet for nearly all Africans; and so by not growing this crop, shortage of maize meal was certain (Editor's note – actually the bulk of maize came from communal farmers as white farmers grew mainly cash and industrial crops).
Now, I would like to know from those who condemn Mr Mugabe, including Archbishop Tutu, to let us know what Mugabe could have done. Could he be advised to leave the land question; so that his 12 million Africans remained on 13 percent of their ancestral land in order to earn endless praises as a foresighted democratic, non-racial leader, an example for all African despots to emulate? Should he have resigned in order to make way for the MDC leadership and the Roman Catholic bishop for Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, to take over whom the settlers and the Press considered more efficient, capable and understanding than the Mugabe administration?
By calling for further sanctions, Dr Sentamu, you are demanding the intensification of the suffering of the African people and I would like to point out that for all I know, sanctions seem not to work and would like to know where, on the African continent or elsewhere, have they been able to bring about a more beneficial political system?
Finally, I would like to suggest that instead of calling for further sanctions (on Zimbabwe), you should:
♦ Advise the anti-Mugabe groups to understand the origin of problems in Zimbabwe.
♦ Advise the British and their friends to avoid blaming Mr Mugabe as the cause of the problem, but as an unfortunate leader who found himself in a situation to settle the problem he did not create.
♦ Instead of calling for sanctions, you should call upon the international community to come to the rescue of Zimbabwe by stepping in to arrange the redistribution of land by compensating the aggrieved settlers.
♦ You and Archbishop Tutu should lead a campaign for the international community to get essential supplies of maize meal, sugar and medicine and to send health works to assist in the rehabilitation effort. Mr Mugabe and his Government deserve our empathy and sympathy, but not condemnation.
♦ I seriously request you and Archbishop Tutu to appeal to the African Union leaders, it would be the most grotesque sin we all would be committing to approve, leave alone, or impose sanctions on Zimbabwe.
♦ The African Union should come to the rescue of Zimbabwe, sanctions must be avoided.
I feel a little bit unsettled that President Mugabe has had no outright support from his African colleagues with the exception of Mr Kenneth Kaunda and South African President Thabo Mbeki and a few others. These and others are being accused of being unable to remove Mr Mugabe from power, but the reason is that they understand a bit more of what led to the present situation, and that makes them less likely to condemn the Zimbabwe leadership.
I am, Sir,
Professor Mwene Mushanga
PO Box 46
Kabwohe, Bushenyi
Uganda.
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Zambia, Zimbabwe federation can defeat Western influence
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007
By Allan S Mulenga
October 16, 2007
The Herald
In April 1980, Zambia's founding president Dr Kenneth Kaunda made a stunning proposal on strengthening the economic power of Zambia and Zimbabwe following the latter's attainment of political independence on April 18 of that year.
Dr Kaunda proposed a federation of Zambia and Zimbabwe. This was stunning because Dr Kaunda had, as a matter of fact, proposed to be the federal foreign minister with President Mugabe as president.
This was unprecedented in Africa and would by today have countered the west's attempted siege on Zimbabwe.
Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi were from 1953 to 1963 a federation with the capital at Salisbury, now Harare with Great Britain pulling the strings from Lancaster House. The Federation's resources were channelled to Salisbury and London to be enjoyed by the white minority. When Independent Zambia and Malawi broke the back of the federation, Ian Douglas Smith then Rhodesian prime minister made his Unilateral Declaration of Independence on November 11 1965, isolating his minority regime from Britain and to an extent the rest of the world, save for apartheid South Africa.
In revisiting Dr Kaunda's proposal during an interview with a foreign correspondent in Lusaka, one must look at the history and the current situation existing in the sub region vis-à-vis western powers, particularly the USA and Britain.
The cause of the current problems in Zimbabwe is that the Government of Zimbabwe under Zanu-PF and President Mugabe reclaimed, without compensation, land from the descendants of Rhodesian settlers who had, in the 18th century kicked out indigenous Zimbabweans from prime land and kept it for themselves and their descendants.
On the eve of Zimbabwe's independence, the stakeholders in the then Zimbabwe-Rhodesia including the liberation movements, Zanla and Zipra, held discussions mediated by Britain at Lancaster House agreeing, among other things, that Britain would compensate white commercial farmers once time came to empower indigenous Zimbabweans.
In November 1997, November 5 to be specific, Britain abrogated its promises and President Mugabe had to act to fulfil his pledge to give people the land so many had died for, and as soon as that happened the British government of Tony Blair joined by their American cousins ran amok accusing President Mugabe of human rights abuses and initiated sanctions that have been choking Zimbabwe.
Suffice to say the Zimbabwean opposition backed by some western governments and economic refugees in the Diaspora have created an untenable international situation for the survival of Zimbabwe.
There is need to revisit Dr Kaunda's foresight into today's political and economic situation.
When it comes to wisdom, even though I have an advanced western education, I am a Kaundaist at heart and will never apologise to anyone.
Dr Kaunda, at the inception of Zimbabwe's independence foresaw the loss of many qualified exiles that had become Zambian residents from journalists, nurses, security personnel to doctors and civil servants who left a big vacuum in Zambia as they trekked back to rebuild Zimbabwe. Had anyone then decided to take that challenging proposal, I doubt if at all the prevailing economic situation would have been as it is today. I might add too that a federated Zambia and Zimbabwe would have been a power block to reckon with because:
There would have been a continuity of a well-groomed civil service in both countries.
There would have been enough land to go between the native peoples and the descendants of white settlers. A lot of whites who lost their land in Zimbabwe have settled in the Zambian Mkushi farming block.
There would have been a very healthy and competitive political spirit in the federation, judging by the good parliamentary democracy existing in both countries today.
The points above would have negated the hostility exhibited by big brother Britain and United States. In numbers we have strength and that is what the federation would have brought and can still bring. Vast natural resources exist in Zambia and Zimbabwe that would satisfy all the citizens without recourse to big brothers.
The spirit of unity in Sadc and to a greater extent the African Union that has been shown by men like Presidents Levy Mwanawasa, and Thabo Mbeki to stand by Zimbabwe internationally should any international power try to divide us by refusing to invite President Mugabe to the forthcoming EU-Africa summit, goes a long way in showing how as one common people, Zambians and Zimbabweans can form a perfect union that takes them out of the prevailing economic malaise.
President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, now remain the more serious and mature party politically in an envisaged federal government and thus, the onus remains on them to spearhead the formation of the federation as proposed by Dr Kaunda years ago.
The benefits would be immense and would render big brother's tactics against Zimbabwe impotent. A new regional power in the mould of South Africa would emerge and there is no telling the growth of opportunity in all areas that would benefit the people and Africa in particular.
Let us take up the challenge and form the Federation of Zambia and Zimbabwe now, posterity will hold us in high esteem!
Dr Allan S. Mulenga, is a Zambian and holder of a PhD in theology and social counselling. He is a political commentator who works for a Zambian health journal as a business development manager.
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Zimbabwe: It's the land, stupid!
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2007
By Nathaniel Manheru
October 13, 2007
The Herald
Three pieces — seemingly small and unimportant — came through the media this week. One relates to eleven white farmers who appeared before the magistrate in Chegutu, facing criminal charges for failing to vacate properties acquired by the State for purposes of resettling the landless.
The farmers lost the case with costs, with the magistrate, Tinashe Ndokera, agreeing with the prosecutor that the farmers merely sought to frustrate land reforms by abusing court processes.
It was a judgement which more than settling the matter, also carried a rebuke. Expectedly, the farmers are angry and traduce the ruling as "a farce". The farmers told both the BBC and Al Jazeera that they mean to fight on, including putting their lives on the line to keep the land.
A BBC/CNN in borrowed robes
Al Jazeera reporter, one Haru Mutasa, surprising still expected the minister responsible for lands to waste his breath addressing worn-out arguments from these farmers whose defence had been rejected by the courts anyway.
This absurd expectation, apart from betraying the location of the sympathies of the station she reports for, and possibly her own sympathies too, amounted to turning Al Jazeera into a superior court, an appellate court with powers of judicial review.
I have dismissed Al Jazeera as the BBC and CNN in borrowed Arab robes, to capture the rather disconcerting editorial discrepancy between the original, pro-Third World Arab Al Jazeera on the one hand, and this Caucasian medley which uses a branding subterfuge to push and defend white interests, on the other.
Mutasa tried to build emotion and empathy for the convicted white farmers by showing off their well-fed animals, contrasted by their faces made haggard by the dim prospects which land justice would soon bring and deliver. She did not find time to give her viewers a comparable and certainly compelling predicament of Zimbabwe's black landless who have had to endure the same predicament for generations.
And in their country too! Surely she was here enough (with Mighty Movies) in 2000 and beyond, to know that the debate on land reforms has evolved to stages where no one — I repeat no one in their right mind — is interested in revisiting arguments which justify the whole programme for the benefit of anyone, least of all that of white farmers who must know better. Until recently, they stood out as uninterrupted beneficiaries of African landlessness, most poignantly represented by the Tangwena people who survived just on the other side of Haru's birthplace.
The white squatters are the evil part of the colonial piece, and no amount of haggardness can ever lift them from their status as villains of this great injustice suffered by generations of Africans. Clearly, the girl seeks to come into the story too late, hoping she can breathe new life into cadaverous claims. In that futile effort, she looks quite hackneyed, strange and misplaced.
To SADC with cynicism
The second piece related to three equally defiant farmers who are in the courts in Rusape facing exactly the same charges. The third referred to a white farmer who has decided to take his case to the Sadc Tribunal, charging that Zimbabwe's land reforms are an exercise in racism and cronyism, and are pushing out people with the competence to work the land.
Interestingly, this particular white man has been on the land from time of birth, and certainly after 1980 when SADCC, precursor to the current Sadc, was formed.
At no point did he think of taking himself to a similar tribunal to raise the racism argument against the all-white colonial land reform programme which kept all Africans on the margins for so long. So much about human rights and racism.
Rhodesia's media A-Team
But something else happened. Rhodesia's indefatigable media A-Team is back in the country to mind this particular story of white struggle. Led by Peta Thornycroft, they have been running up and down, court to court, to ensure the world is roused once more to the "harrowing" plight of the vestigial white tribe left and lost in "Mugabiland".
It is a pleasure to watch their nimble footworks, and how they attempt to pull the entire media fraternity with them. Why a simple and straightforward case in the magistrates' court in small Chegutu proved to have a better appeal than a whole Vice-President opening an international Travel Expo, is something so hard to fathom. What is at stake which makes tourism and its fabulous receipts a drab in comparison? Why would Al Jazeera, itself an Arab channel, worry more about a handful of remnant, sunburnt, racist and law-breaking Rhodesian farmers, and not an Expo so overwhelmingly patronised by Arab buyers? But then again, what's in a name?
Against better sense, world sympathies
There is so much at stake, made worse by the fact that President Mugabe keeps moving on to new "outrages", from the point of view of white British interests here.
Between September and now, Brown has taken telling direct hits from the Zimbabwean leader. He faces a fractured EU he cannot look up to for salvation. If anything, the EU seems to be throwing more dust into Britain's already weeping eyes.
The latest admission by Brussels that the EU was narrow and vindictively British in its rush to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe before exhausting provisions and channels for dialogues can only spell further embarrassment for Brown.
Indeed it can only signal a regional bloc quite fed up with shoring up an unreasonable member's brittle policy of spite, against better sense and world sympathy. The hungry eastern dragon that continues to rumble in the background, eyeing all manner of resources, can only motivate greater rebellion within the European bloc.
Quite a brown headache
Much more happened. Germany will attend Portugal. France is seeking justification to attend through the dutiful Senegalese president Wade who thinks he can do better than Mbeki in bringing about a resolution of an impasse which has already been unclocked. In Shona we call it bravely slaying the dead and cold, muchekadzafa.
In the end France will attend, which means EU's two out of three most powerful economies will be in Lisbon. That isolates Brown, making his absence completely immaterial. Of course Sarkozy is under tremendous pressure from Britain to abscond so the EU, through its attendance register does not validate Mugabe's argument that this is a bilateral dispute. Quite a brown headache!
Stitching and stretching
But Mugabe continues to move on. His Indigenisation Bill is as good as done, only awaiting his assent. Judging by the most recent debate in the House of Lords, the British whose defence of white interests in respect of land was severely breached, are having to stitch and stretch the same tattered defence to cover another assault further up. It cannot be worse.
The Lords want to know what Her Majesty's Government is doing to protect British commercial interests threatened by "Mugabi". Malloch-Brown, himself a Rhodesian, was quite humble and modest: pretty precious little, beyond praying that Mugabe is restrained by Mbeki. Mugabe cannot be made to quack in his boots, he told the hoary lords.
Malloch-Brown gave a very sober response, itself quite a departure from the bellicosity of the supposedly suave House of Lords. Britain seems to be enjoying a blast of realism. Britain is worried about its mining interests; worried about its interests in the financial sector. That means we can now talk as equals, the colonial power having realised the futility of haughty condescension over a country it dismisses as a minor. Besides, the McKinnon charm has not delivered, with Mugabe turning away in contemptuous disgust from an enticement he was supposed to gobble hook, line and sinker.
Lost indeed
Increasingly, insistently, the argument is paring down to its bare essentials. More than anything else, it is about Britain's economic interests planted here by colonial history. More than anything else, it is about Zimbabwe's sovereign rights, won back through tears, blood and struggle. What gives in: a foreigner who seeks retention of colonial rights or an indigene who defends a birthright?
The futile fight by the farmers is an attempt to retain a smokescreen against blazing rays of a sun creeping towards midday. So is the coverage, led by Thornycroft. So are the noises from NGOs and elements within the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC.
Yes, so indeed is the case with strange studies and analysis on how Malawi conquered hunger, accompanied by an equally strange downgrading of Zimbabwe on the index of MDGs. It is to give Brown a face, indeed to impute decency to Britain's lost cause. Lost indeed! And as the challenges against the British stiffen, they are likely to come clean and bold, to tell the EU "it's land, stupid"!
Commotion in the anteroom
I painted a scenario for you, gentle reader. I am referring to the Mbeki mediation which by the way is going on very well, too well in fact. I indicated Biti would have difficulties in selling the outcome to his constituency. Thank God, Tsvangirai saw sense and decided against leading the axis against the agreement. He would have been finished much earlier. He still faces a certain death politically, albeit one punctuated by spurts of reprieve, here and there. Of course that position on the talks spawned its own problems, causing commotion in his faction's anteroom.
He is working hard to pacify his constituency. In the meantime, let us focus on revealing indiscretions. The Herald reports that Lucia Matibenga has been fired. The pirate American Studio 7 says she has not been dismissed. Kwinjeh confirms in a rather vulgar obituary that indeed Lucia is dead and forgotten, blaming it all on MDC's inability to break free "from Zanu (PF) culture" of using women, not rewarding them for their hardly sutured sacrifices. She bares her thighs to prove she still nurses weeping wounds that her male hierarchy cannot see.
Third Force
The article goes further. It celebrates women like Sekai Holland and Priscillah Misihairambwi who have been in the trenches for the rights of this important half of humanity which nature long decided to bear with a delightful breach. So far, all sounds okay. Until one realises Kwinjeh is threatening to resign, and is seeking new pedestals for Third Force unity, across factions. Watch this one. Yet another revealing indiscretion.
Tsvangirai is in the US, on a universities lecture circuit. In one interview he urges the world to help Zimbabwe with humanitarian assistance, and stops. No reference to sanctions in a country which pioneered illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe, and thus which deserves greater thanks than those criminals who lead Down Under whom he thanked so fulsomely.
Why? Equally, he is at pains to indicate he is not meeting State Department officials. That might be true; that might be false. But this is the new image he seeks to found and dress himself with.
Not quite the same as saying remove sanctions. But equally not quite the same as saying please cut electricity, fuel, etc, etc.
Telling England from within its belly
Fortuitously, some Michelle Gavin of the influential American Council on Foreign Relations warns the British and Western interests, including business interests, against the bigoted ABM — Anyone But Mugabe campaign. She makes the warning at Chatham, London, itself the hatchery for British policy against Zimbabwe in early 2000. Maybe this means nothing, but no harm in pointing out something. Yet, yet another goof.
Sekai Holland tells New Zealanders MDC will not hesitate to pull out of talks if Zanu (PF) does not stop harassing its members. She sees harassment from far-away New Zealand, the harassment we on the ground cannot see. Biti reacts with remarkable promptitude. He says MDC will not desert the talks, asserting instead his side will pursue talks to the logic end. Again unimportant? I don't know. Maybe insignificant farts from a distend belly.
Like-Minded Donor Group?
But maybe greater accent should be placed on the urbane stratum of the groomed high and might. I am referring to diplomatic circles. Again, recall my previous pieces. Even in that usually phlegmatic world, things have been suggesting a revealing hubbub. With the idea of a special envoy of the UN Secretary General for humanitarian affairs visiting Zimbabwe flatly rejected and thus abandoned; with the idea of an EU human rights envoy palsied and dead on conception and, with Mbeki having successfully fire-walled inter-party talks, this suave world of dignified, officially sanctioned espionage appear buttoned up, feeling smothered.
Led by the Swedish ambassador, the so-called donor nations, legitimised by the seemingly lost UNDP, have been seeking ways of boring to the nub of influence. It has not been easy, one attempt after another; one Trojan horse after another. From the old days of the seemingly all-country Rainbow initiative, through to Fishmongers, matters have mutated to what the tireless but misdirected Ray-lander terms Like-Minded Donor Group (LMDG)!
Amazing how grown-ups give us unsolicited humour in broad daylight. Happily the African, Asian and Arab groups have seen through this threadbare subterfuge, stoutly rebuffing any overtures.
That they are a group, no one contests. That these countries are like-minded, again no one doubts. That they are donors, we all surely know. But grouped against, or for what? But like-minded on what, or against what? Donors to whom, to what?
These are the questions to which we have abundant answers. It is just that they take us for infantile fools before whom carrots are dangled for obvious concessions. The Swedish guy writes complaining there is no information sharing on the ongoing talks. I am sure he wrote on behalf of the group. Why does he expect us to place them in that position of privilege? Merely in the hope of donations?
It is clear the guy is so far away from understanding this country. The grovelling for a farthing he sees in the opposition is quite far from the defining national psyche of this country. Let him get that. We all know that these so-called donor nations which we know as "sanction nations" have been hoping that Sadc would approach them for funding of Zimbabwe's recovery. Let them re-read the Dar communiqué to know what it enjoins Sadc to do.
Weeping Hussein
My learned classmate came to my office the other day for a chuckle. The Financial Gazette had just published a story which reminded both of us of the sitcom "Liar, Liar". Of course those who know it would recall "Liar Liar" is a prostitution of "Lawyer, Lawyer". Here was a lawyer incurably given to bald lies, including turning his villain clients into victims.
Back to the article. Its main focus was a concentrated attack on George Charamba, Secretary for Information and Publicity. We zeroed in on a supposed line of attack against Charamba, namely that he "sings hopelessly out of tune for his supper". We both wondered whose supper must he sing for in order not to be "hopelessly out of tune"? Surely he is an employee of a Zanu (PF) Government? Is he not employed to defend Government interests?
Who sings for his supper? An employee of a Zanu (PF) Government going about his lawful duties of defending that establishment on the one hand, or a lawyer who is not the Attorney General or an officer of the AG, volunteering his services to Zanu (PF) and its Government, on the other, as he claims? After all, surely the fact that he represented Zanu (PF) right up to the highest level is precisely why he faces the opposing action which he does.
Indeed precisely why his begging letter to the Party hierarchy only last week, suggests a personality acutely wishing to be held in good stead by the Party.
Indeed a personality so remarkably different from the bravado he projects through inane placements in once-a-week newspapers over a matter which shall be decided in the courts. Or does he fear Charamba's singing may turn out to be his weeping? Surely time will tell. Icho!
nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
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'Black' Cherokees fight for heritage
Posted: Friday, October 12, 2007
By Lois Hatton
A group of Americans who are not fully black or fully Indian are fighting for the survival of their identity, culture, history and economic future. Life for these black Indians can be difficult, no matter their tribal affiliation.
Lynn Hart, a black Yankton Sioux, says he regularly experiences racism. "When I go to the reservation, people see me as black. When I walk among blacks, they see me as Indian." But black Cherokees, commonly called Cherokee Freedmen, have recently been dealt a crueler blow.
In March, Cherokee tribal members voted to remove members who had African-American heritage — a total of 2,800 people. Why now? Money seems to be a motivating factor. Members receive health care, education and housing benefits. Each also has voting rights in tribal elections. But more important, each member has a stake in growing casino revenue.
Full Article : blogs.usatoday.com
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UK stance over Zimbabwe rapped
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007
AFP-Herald Reporter
October 11, 2007
The Herald
PORTUGAL yesterday said it respects Africa's position that President Mugabe should attend the European Union-Africa Summit while the EU says Britain's stance on Zimbabwe was against European interests.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Mr Luis Amado said Cde Mugabe could attend the EU-Africa summit if that is what African nations want.
Despite Zimbabwe's problems, no country "can be pushed aside from dialogue and from the development of long-term strategic relations between the EU and the continent," Mr Amado, whose country is current EU president, said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he may boycott the planned summit if Cde Mugabe is present.
But Mr Amado said the summit — scheduled for December 8-9 in Lisbon — at the end of Portugal's six-month presidency, could not be run by special cases.
President Mugabe would be there "if such is the will of Africa," he added.
Mr Amado was speaking from Pretoria, South Africa, where he was part of an EU delegation.
On Tuesday, South Africa's ambassador to the European Union, Anil Sooklal, warned against setting preconditions for the summit.
"African leaders won't attend a watered-down summit," said Sooklal.
"It must be a summit of equals. No one should lay down preconditions. Let us meet and discuss everything of interest — even the difficult issues — with everyone present," said the ambassador.
On Monday, European Commission chief Mr Jose Manuel Barroso said the summit should not be derailed by the stand-off between Britain and Zimbabwe.
Mr Brown's position was "not fair, nor right" and was against European interests, he added.
Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said all African leaders, including President Mugabe, should attend the summit.
Speaking during a visit to South Africa, the German Chancellor said the summit was an opportunity for dialogue where answers should be provided for concerns raised.
There has been no EU-Africa summit for seven years, partly due to divisions over whether President Mugabe should be allowed to attend.
The Mozambican Government has said it will not attend the summit if Cde Mugabe was not invited.
Mozambican Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Eduardo Koloma said the participation of his country in the summit set for December in Portugal depends on the unconditional attendance of President Mugabe.
The assertion resembles the recent one from Sadc chairman, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who reiterated that his country would not attend in the event of President Mugabe's exclusion.
Africa has maintained that the summit should involve leaders from the continent and invitations should not be selective.
The EU — at the instigation of Britain — has imposed illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabwe, which have hurt the economy and ordinary Zimbabweans. — AFP-Herald Reporter.
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