May 12, 2007 - June 18, 2007
Out of Africa: The stolen prince
Posted: Monday, June 18, 2007
Ethiopia is demanding the remains of an emperor's son who was captured and sent to Britain to be educated as a gentleman
By Cahal Milmo and Emily Duggan
independent.co.uk
Published: 18 June 2007
Amid the gothic splendour of St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle there is a little-noticed brass plaque. Erected in memory of Prince Alemayehu Tewodros, it reads: "I was a stranger and ye took me in."
The memorial plate and the skeletal remains that lie behind it are the only concrete traces of the tragic and extraordinary tale of a seven-year-old boy who became embroiled in what many believe was the greatest orgy of looting conducted in the name of the British Empire.
The child prince, the son of the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II, who has a claimed bloodline stretching back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, was captured in April 1868 by the British Army, which conquered the ancient citadel of Magdala.
Alemayehu, a royal orphan, was transported to England to be educated as a gentleman. Along with him came so many looted treasures, including religious artefacts and 350 manuscripts, that it reportedly took 15 elephants and 200 mules to carry them from Magdala to the nearest sea port. The prince died barely a decade later of pleurisy and a broken heart, some 4,000 miles from his homeland, in Leeds. Among his mourners was Queen Victoria herself.
While the life of Alemayehu ranks as little more than a colonial-era curiosity in Britain, the events of 139 years ago are still keenly felt as an injustice in Ethiopia. The country, where European visitors are proudly reminded that it was never occupied for more than two years by a colonial power, has conducted a decades-long campaign for the return of the treasures. It recently celebrated the return of a 70ft obelisk from Italy.
These sentiments were resurrected two weeks ago when the country's President, Wolde-Giorgis Girma, formally wrote to the Queen asking for the remains of Prince Alemayehu to be exhumed and returned to Ethiopia for burial in time for the country celebrating its millennium in September. Ethiopia operates according to the Ethiopic calendar, which runs seven years behind the Western Julian calendar and marks the new year in September. The year 2000 will therefore arrive on 12 September 2007.
The campaign was further underlined yesterday when a nine-year-old schoolboy of Ethiopian origin delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for the restitution of the Magdala artefacts, which are spread throughout institutions such as the British Library and British Museum and include six illuminated manuscripts held in the royal library at Windsor.
Gabriel Kassayie, who collected more than 100 signatures among his classmates at a primary school in Hampstead, north London, said: "I wanted to do something. I learned how the artefacts were stolen from my country and how attempts to get them back were prevented. I wanted to do this for my ancestors."
Campaigners in Ethiopia argue that the epitaph to the prince in St George's Chapel is laden with irony: Alemayehu was not so much taken in as spirited away. Although Queen Victoria took a personal interest in Alemayehu's upbringing (reputedly paying his fees for Rugby School), they argue he was just as much of a "war trophy" as the gold crowns and altar pieces seized by the army of Sir Robert Napier, sent by the monarch to crush Emperor Tewodros in 1868.
Mulugeta Aserate, a second cousin of Ethiopia's last emperor, Haile Selassie, and a senior figure on the organising committee of the millennium celebrations, said the return of the remains for burial in a monastery in the northern city of Gondar would remove a blight on relations with Britain. He told The Independent: "The prince was a prisoner of war. Our relations with Britain are good and warm but the episode of Prince Alemayehu represents a dark side of that relationship.
"His return would be a cause for celebration here and what better time for it than this very African millennium of ours? He died in a foreign land but Alemayehu's name has not been forgotten in Ethiopia." It is a further irony that the capture of the prince has its roots in an ill-fated attempt by his father to foster strong relations with Britain. In the late 1860s, the Christian emperor had sought the help of Britain in trying to protect Ethiopia from the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.
When his entreaties went ignored and he imprisoned the British diplomatic mission, Napier inflicted a crushing defeat against his army on 10 April 1868 at Magdala, a fortified mountaintop in central Ethiopia.
Tewodros freed the prisoners and sent the British general a gift of cattle to be slaughtered for Easter Sunday two days' later. When Napier replied with thanks, offering a safe conduct for Tewodros and his family, the emperor angrily rejected the overture and vowed never to be taken alive. After heavy bombardment, Tewodros committed suicide on Easter Monday, leaving the British to loot the palaces and churches and capture his young heir.
The American journalist Henry Morton Stanley who witnessed the aftermath of the battle, describe how the plunder covered "the whole surface of the rocky citadel, the slopes of the hill and the entire road to the [British] camp two miles off".
The British insisted it had been the dying wish of Emperor Tewodros that his son and his mother, Queen Terunesh, be looked after by the victorious power.
Whatever the truth of this, the leaders of the expedition recognised the usefulness of the prince as a potential pawn in its efforts to expand British dominion in east Africa to Abyssinia, as Ethiopia was then known.
When Queen Terunesh died a month later on the journey from Magdala to the Red Sea, a British officer, Captain Tristram Speedy, was appointed as the guardian of the young boy.
Speedy, who was 6ft 6in and sported a bushy red beard, was a veteran of British campaigns from India to New Zealand. Speedy, a speaker of Amharic, the Ethiopian language, dismissed the prince's tutor, Alaqa Zenneb, before beginning the sea voyage to Britain and it seems he rapidly formed a close bond with his new charge. In his journal, he described how a terrified Alemayehu refused to leave his side, day or night.
Speedy wrote: "The distressing alarm that then seized him rendered him so timid that for the following three months no persuasion could induce him to sleep out of my arms, so great was his terror that if he happened to wake and find me asleep, he would wake me and earnestly beg me to remain awake until he should fall asleep, and it was only by continued care and tenderness that he is gradually losing his timidity."
There is no evidence that such comforting by the "gentle giant" officer was anything other than paternal. But it is fitting proof of how the Victorian empire builders saw their obligations towards a young boy considered a near divinity in Ethiopia.
Once in England, the heir of the King Solomon, shown in early photographs with the braided hair and elaborate costume of Abyssinian royalty, began his conversion into an English gentleman. He left the care of Speedy and his wife in 1871 and was sent to live with Dr Thomas Jex-Blake, the headmaster of Cheltenham College, who later was appointed to the same post at Rugby School.
Later pictures of the teenage prince, who was patronisingly recorded on his voyage to Britain as not having "the faintest notion" what to do with a knife and fork and had to be shown how to put marmalade on his toast, show him dressed in a tweed suit reading a heavy tome. Evidence suggests the photos were showing Alemayehu as something which he was not. Speedy recorded "he had no interest in his books and had an utter dislike for anything in that line" while his tutors at Rugby stated baldly: "Progress in study he will never make." Instead, the prince was dispatched to Sandhurst Military Academy. He was no happier there. Despite frequently expressing a desire to return to Ethiopia, the government refused all his requests.
Dr Mandefro Belayneh, an Ethiopian academic researching the life of Alemayehu, said: "He didn't have any friends or family to call on. There were letters coming from Abyssinia from his grandmother ... and all the letters said, 'When are you coming back? Your people are expecting you'. But I suspect these letters were never shown to him."
The prince died in October 1879. His funeral was held in St George's Chapel.
Buckingham Palace yesterday declined to comment on the request from President Girma. Ethiopian sources suggested that although the request was being considered favourably, there were potential problems with identifying the remains.
But arguably, the official verdict on Britain's role in the life of Prince Alemayehu was delivered long ago. After his death, Queen Victoria wrote in her diary: "It is too sad. All alone in a strange country, without a single person or relative belonging to him. His was no happy life."
Reprinted from:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2669850.ece
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Zimbabwe: Mbeki hails Govt, MDC attitude
Posted: Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Herald
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki yesterday said he had been encouraged by the attitude of Zimbabwe's Government and the opposition since being tasked by Sadc to mediate their differences, as Russia threw its weight behind the Sadc initiative to assist Zimbabwe revive its economy.
"We . . . are encouraged in this regard by the positive attitude evinced by the protagonists in that country," Mr Mbeki told Members of Parliament in Cape Town during debate on the presidency's annual budget.
The parties, Mr Mbeki said, "do recognise that the people of Zimbabwe expect of them nothing less than concrete action to extricate them from the difficulties they face currently".
Mr Mbeki was asked in March by fellow Sadc leaders at an extraordinary summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to mediate between the Government and the MDC ahead of elections next year.
His team has been in touch with both sides but he has yet to meet directly with either President Mugabe or MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on the issue.
President Mbeki reiterated yesterday that "we intend to move with speed in executing this mandate".
On Monday President Mugabe once again reached out to the MDC to work with the Government on matters of national interest.
Acknowledging the presence of MDC Senators and Members of the House of Assembly at the commissioning of agricultural equipment in Harare, Cde Mugabe said such events should unite the Government and the opposition despite their political differences.
"It's a national event . . . that realisation is important that there must be occasions when we must be together. After all, we eat together. Nyaya yekudya inyaya yedu tese, hapana asingararame nekudya. Kana toita politics dzekutukana tinenge taguta," the President said to applause by guests.
Leading MDC officials were among the first beneficiaries of the farm mechanisation programme, who will get tractors, planters and combine harvesters, among other equipment, bought by the Reserve Bank.
Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono said the programme cuts across the political and social divide.
"Feeding the country may not be left to one region, political party, gender or business community, but is a shared responsibility," said Dr Gono.
President Mugabe has repeatedly urged the opposition to be nationalistic, homegrown and to join forces with the Government to defend Zimbabwe's sovereignty and independence.
In Harare, outgoing Russian Ambassador Mr Oleg Scherbak yesterday said his country was confident the Sadc initiative would see Zimbabwe overcome its problems.
Mr Scherbak said Zimbabwe was going through a challenging time in its post-colonial history.
"We believe the country will surmount all its current difficulties and in the end things will mend. That is why we welcome the latest Sadc initiative on Zimbabwe as a comprehensive package," he said at a function to mark the Russian national day.
The ambassador said his country would continue to advance a constructive international agenda and was convinced that the best way to settle critical situations was about engagement in dialogue and not about isolation of any country.
Russia foreign policy priorities, he said, were to focus much on Africa.
"Today we see African countries vigorously joining the global process and by that vindicating once again that exclusive zones of influence which have become a thing of the past. A broad field of constructive action is opened here for Russia and its business community," he said.
Mr Scherbak said his country's stable economic growth had enabled it to contribute to concerted efforts at the international community and bilateral level to support sustainable development of Africa.
By the end of this year, he said, Russia would have cancelled some US$500 million of poor African countries' debts.
The total amount of Africa's debts written off by Russia in recent years would come to US$11,8 billion.
Mr Scherbak said he was confident that the time-tested co-operation between Russia and Africa would continue to grow since all necessary prerequisites for this were already in place.
"At present there is every reason to assess the relationship between Russia and Zimbabwe on the same lines. There is no doubt about their good future," he said.
Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Cde Reuben Marumahoko commended the relations between the two countries. He said the ties were premised on a solid foundation in the spirit of true friendship and co-operation dating back from the days of the liberation struggle.
Cde Marumahoko said Zimbabwe attached great importance to the partnership with Russia, emphasising the need to broaden the bilateral co-operation in the economic, technical and cultural fields.
"Zimbabwe appreciates the efforts by the Russian government to enrich our human resources base through the award of annual scholarships for study in Russia. Many Zimbabweans from both the public and private sectors have benefited immensely from these scholarships," he said.
However, Cde Marumahoko noted that the strong political ties that bound the two countries had not fully translated into the economic sphere as demonstrated by the low volume of trade between them. — AFP/Herald Reporters.
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Mourning Peerless Film Giant Ousmane Sembene
Posted: Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Ousmane Sembene who died this past weekend was a rare breed of African artist--of the emerging days of African independence that used creative restorative images and cinematic language rooted in African culture for the social and mental liberation of African people.
The grandmaster of African film died at the age of 84 in Dakar, Senegal, Saturday. He was one of the last few surviving giants of pioneers of African cinema who chronicled the lives of the dispossessed, exposed the inequalities of wealth and power in postcolonial Africa.
Full Article : blackstarnews.com
Critic of Africa's dependency on aid dies
Senegal's leading film maker and author Ousmane Sembène, who was a staunch critic of Africans taking aid from the West, is dead.
His films and books often touched on issues of colonialism and Western racism but his subject always focused on what Africans need to do for themselves.
"The one theme running through all his work was that Africans need to stand up and take responsibility for their actions," Gnilan Ndiaye an authority on Senegalese culture told IRIN on Monday.
Full Article : irinnews.org
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Zimbabwe: President reaches out to MDC
Posted: Tuesday, June 12, 2007
By Itai Musengeyi and Fortious Nhambura
June 12, 2007
The Herald
LEADING MDC officials were yesterday among the first beneficiaries of the farm mechanisation programme as President Mugabe once again reached out to the opposition to work with Government on matters of national interest.
Acknowledging the presence of MDC Senators and Members of the House Assembly at the commissioning of the agricultural equipment, Cde Mugabe said such events should unite Government and the opposition despite their political differences.
"It's a national event ... that realisation is important that there must be occasions when we must be together. After all, we eat together. Nyaya yekudya inyaya yedu tese, hapana asingararame nekudya. Kana toita politics dzekutukana tinenge taguta," the President said to applause by guests.
Some of the MDC officials present at the ceremony were Pumula-Luveve Senator Mr Fanuel Bayayi, Lobengula-Magwegwe Senator Mr Thabiso Ndlovu, Bulawayo-Nkulumane Senator Ms Rittah Ndlovu and Umzingwane Member of the House of Assembly Ms Nomalanga Khumalo.
The four MDC MPs were all beneficiaries together with Government ministers, war veterans, youths, women, business executives, senior civil servants, service chiefs, white farmers and university farms.
Leading opposition figures who are beneficiaries are faction leader Professor Arthur Mutambara, who is farming in Chimanimani District, his deputy Mr Gibson Sibanda (Bulilima) and their secretary general Professor Welshman Ncube (Umguza), deputy leader of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction Ms Thokozani Khupe (Matobo), the opposition chief whip in Parliament Mr Innocent Gonese (Mutare District), Mr Giles Mutsekwa (Mutare), Mr Joel Gabbuza (Binga), Mr Blessing Chebundo (Kwekwe), Mr Job Sikhala (Seke), Mr Tapiwa Mashakada (Mazowe), Masvingo executive mayor Mr Alois Chaimiti (Masvingo) and Mr Rensen Gasela (Gweru District).
Other MDC legislators who benefited were Mr Tongai Matutu, Mr Njabuliso Mguni, Mr Jealous Sansole, Senator Sinampande H. Madolo, Senator Greenfield Nyoni, Ms Editor Matamisa and Mr Lovemore Moyo.
Also on the list of notable beneficiaries were Mr Edgar Tekere, Dr Ibbo Mandaza, former Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Mr Kumbirai Katsande, current CZI president Mr Callistus Jokonya, Delta chief executive Mr Joe Mutizwa, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president Mrs Marah Hativagone, former Commercial Farmers' Union president Mr Doug Taylor-Freeme (Makonde District), Dr Robbie Mupawose and Mr Timothy Chiganze.
Institutions of higher learning that benefited were Solusi University, National University of Science and Technology, Bindura University of Science Education and Midlands State University.
The following white farmers also benefited: Mr Paul Dollar (Mazowe), Mr Chris Hougood (Seke), Mr Jeremy Vaughan (Kwekwe), Mr Dawie Joubert (Chipinge), Mr Oliver Hendrick (Mwenezi), Mr A.S.J. Rosenfels (Umguza), Mr Bistol Kerwood (Beitbridge) and Mr Burger Naude, who is believed to be Indian.
Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono said the programme cuts across the political and social divide.
"Feeding the country may not be left to one region, political party, gender or business community, but is a shared responsibility," said Dr Gono.
Cde Mugabe said prominent in Government's preferred way of allocating resources was the elimination of corruption, favouritism and discrimination of whatever nature.
President Mugabe has repeatedly urged the opposition to be nationalistic, homegrown and to join forces with Government to defend Zimbabwe's sovereignty and independence.
At the burial of the late Vice President Cde Simon Muzenda in 2003, Cde Mugabe hailed the MDC officials who joined thousands of Zimbabweans to bury the national hero at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.
"So kushamwari dzedu dzeMDC dziri pano tinovati aiwa you are also Zimbabweans. Sadza ratinodya rakafanana, tinodya matumbu embudzi akamonwa tinoada zvikuru," Cde Mugabe said then.
He told the mourners that Zanu-PF and MDC were "sons of the soil and they should behave like sons of the soil".
The President's remarks therefore came true yesterday when a coterie of MDC officials was among beneficiaries of the mechanisation programme, which is a phase of the land reform programme.
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Diamonds: Africa must get lion's share
Posted: Tuesday, May 29, 2007
By Isdore Guvamombe
The Herald
May 29, 2007
RECENTLY, diamond producing countries, mainly in Sadc, met in Luanda, Angola, under the auspices of the newly-formed African Diamond Producers' Association (Adpa) to establish a policy that should see the countries become masters and shapers of their own economic destiny on the world diamond market.
The diamond is regarded as the world's strongest mineral used both for industrial and commercial purposes and it continues to fetch high prices on the world market.
According to De Beers, the world diamond industry is currently valued at US$10 billion, with Africa producing 60 percent of the world's diamonds.
This is why Africa must be the main factor in influencing the prices.
There is no doubt that, years after gaining political independence, Sadc countries are mindful of the need to end the foreign stranglehold on the precious stone by introducing effective strategies and policies that are aimed at devolving sovereignty and recovering lost revenue for each member state.
As many as 12 African diamond producing countries, mainly in Southern Africa, formed the association, that is headquartered in Luanda, Angola, to influence the world diamond market.
Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, Central Africa Republic and South Africa have sent a clear message that the time has come for them to influence the marketing and pricing of their mineral product.
They now need the lion's share.
The countries have also sought knowledge and co-operation of the Kimberly process.
This is a clear sign that Africa is rising from the ashes of mineral exploitation to self-determination against monopolistic Eurocentric companies like De Beers, Anglo-American and Rio Tinto.
Since colonial times, the Anglo-Saxons, through De Beers and Rio Tinto have, like moles, dug an array of tunnels through African soils for diamonds, mostly for the benefit of their kith and kin in Europe.
Ironically Africa, which produces about 60 percent of the world's diamonds, has been receiving crumbs from the periphery of the market yet the mineral was being extracted from its soil using Africans as cheap labour.
The move to control diamond trade by African countries should be taken seriously by all governments on the continent as a major step towards fair deals and fair trade, that is mutually beneficial.
African countries must insist on benefiting through local cutting and polishing of diamonds and jewellery production to generate more employment for the people.
African countries are certainly moving fast to become masters of their own economic destiny and fair play companies from Russia, China and others from the Far East should also be given a chance to clinch deals with diamond producing companies in Africa in general and Sadc in particular. This will broaden the market.
Since the Zimbabwean diamond fields are expected to produce 15,5 million tonnes of diamonds, it is worthwhile trying new partnerships with the Chinese and Russians, who also have vast experience in diamond mining and processing.
This would effectively end the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the mineral's exploitation, as other investors would have to buy a huge stake in order to get real value and fair price.
It is true that Africa has predominantly remained as a source of raw material while countries that add value to the precious stones have significantly benefited and this has been to our detriment.
This is why there is now serious need to understand that if the local industries are transformed from being mere primary producers into full-fledged industries, there are a lot of benefits that will accrue from that.
In terms of fighting colonialism and defending political sovereignty Africans have, since the 1960s stood the test of time, in most cases cuddling together against the predatory instincts of American and British political hawks.
Of course, sell-outs have been noticed here and there but Africa will never be a colony again, politically, yet economically the journey is still too long.
Signs are clear that the time has now come for Africa to end western countries' hegemony on its important resources, especially the land and diamonds.
The host country Angola's Minister of Mines Mr Victor Kasongo summed up the intentions of the African countries.
"It is an African initiative trying to ensure that there is value addition to our resources with the support from our members in Southern Africa.
"We have to amend our laws to enable the governments to realise this. Benefaction is the key priority," he said.
Andre' Action Diakite' Jackson of DRC chairs Adpa with a secretariat headed by Edgar Diogo de Cavalho Santos, the former secretary general from Angola.
Unless Adpa is taken seriously and its principles implemented, the negative trade balance that has existed since colonial times will persist through the systematic plunder of resources for the benefit of other countries.
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West's degrees conferred on leaders not sincere
Posted: Monday, May 28, 2007
EDITOR — Cde George Charamba's response in The Herald (April 25 2007) to calls from some quarters that want American and British universities to revoke President Mugabe's honorary degrees was spot on — the President does not suffer from a crisis of academic achievement.
I would like to add my voice as well.
Africans in general and Zimbabweans in particular must know that the honours, degrees, medals, and so forth conferred on African leaders, past or present, by the West, were never sincere.
They are meant to flatter our leaders so that they can work to further Western interests at the expense of the majority of Africans.
Just look at how they praise past and present African leaders who have done virtually nothing to empower indigenous black people but whose "success" is rated by how well they maintain the status quo of minority white privileges.
I am glad that we Zimbabweans have opted to die on our feet than live on our knees. We must never fear sanctions!
We must stand firm in our fight for self-reliance. Just look at how the Chinese and Koreans have done it.
All that we need are sacrifices across the board.
Godwin Hatitye
Harare
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When the bully cries foul...
Posted: Friday, May 25, 2007
By Peter Mavunga
The Herald
May 25, 2007
I HAVE just been reading Rian Malan's article in the Spectator (May 19 2007) titled "Shame on the white liberals and black Africans who cheer on Mugabe."
It is another instalment of the anti-Mugabe brigade that deliberately chooses to misrepresent the facts about the problems in Zimbabwe.
To them, Zimbabwe's problems are a consequence of President Mugabe's "misrule" fullstop.
It is about "dictatorship and human rights abuses". Above all, it is about an African leader who has no support in his country but who is trying to hang on to power by crushing his opponents.
So says Malan, writing from Johannesburg.
What bugs him is that African diplomats at the UN in New York should support Zimbabwe. Malan is "appalled" that Zimbabwe is put in charge of Sustainable Development by the UN and says this is symptomatic of the way in which President Mugabe is indulged by foolish do-gooders from New York to South Africa.
He may accuse others of indulging the President but he seems to be guilty of the same thing himself.
Malan says he had gone to Johannesburg to participate in the inaugural Franschhoek Literary Festival but his thoughts were with Ian Pearson, UK Environment Minister (poor thing) who "was attempting to explain to African diplomats that one could not appoint a malignant regime like Zimbabwe to the chairmanship of anything, let alone a committee on development."
He seemed so sorry for the UK Minister to have the task of explaining this to these "unthinking" people. Malan concedes the African bloc did not like this at all. And when Cde Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe's UN ambassador, said he thought the Minister's lecture was: "an insult to our intelligence," he seemed surprised that others agreed, "with Pearson going down in flames", as he put it.
Malan gets too big for his boots very quickly. He says he stood shoulder to shoulder with the UK Minister in this "righteous" fight. Yes, his is a righteous fight against evil, the evil of a regime that dares to challenge its former colonial master.
Malan's "righteous fight" was at a posh dinner in Johannesburg attended, he says, by such "grandees as Bevil Rudd, grandson of Rhodes's right-hand man" and others. There, for standing shoulder to shoulder with the UK Minister in New York in this "righteous fight", he says he was shouted down as "pathetic" by an eminent white liberal.
Such white liberals and black Africans he says should be ashamed of themselves for cheering on President Mugabe. I don't know about white liberals but I write as a black African who knows the effect of white racism in Rhodesia where I grew up. It is a bit rich for Malan to be lecturing us on who to cheer and who not to cheer.
Malan says he first saw President Mugabe in the flesh in Johannesburg in 2002 at the UN Earth Summit. While both Colin Powell, US Defence Secretary and Tony Blair, UK Prime Minister were booed and jeered, Cde Mugabe was greeted with a tumultuous standing ovation.
"I wrote it off as a passing fad," says Malan and hoped that black power fantasies would soon wear off once the folly of Mugabe's 'ethnic cleansing of white farmers' began to take effect".
This is what righteous Malan thinks of an ovation acknowledging the man who led the war to restore dignity to an oppressed people. Passing fad, he calls it.
He was nevertheless surprised that although by 2004 the Zimbabwean economy was in "free-fall", the President was more popular than ever but then he qualifies this by saying this popularity was not in Zimbabwe but in many African capitals and at President Mbeki's swearing-in ceremony.
He says it was clear by then the fast-track land reform programme had not reversed President Mugabe's unpopularity at home and he had "already taken to bludgeoning black opponents and rigging elections in order to stay in power.
He goes on: "His black supporters didn't care. Mugabe was giving the whites hell. Mugabe was therefore a hero. 'Mugabe is speaking for black people worldwide,'" he quotes Harry Mashabela as saying.
Malan of course, does not even attempt to explore why President Mugabe, while giving whites hell, was receiving standing ovations.
Might it be true that self-respecting Africans, because of their experience at the hands of colonials have a different mindset that the likes of Malan cannot begin to understand even if they tried?
Malan does not understand why when Western members of the Commonwealth moved to expel Zimbabwe, South Africa helped to block them.
He says South Africa also thwarted attempts to place his "atrocities on the agenda at the UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights Committee," but he does not attempt to understand why. Neither does he want to know why President Mugabe's popularity appears to increase to rock star proportions world wide, as he puts it.
He makes a passing comment on "the wounds of history" though, but then goes on to brush it aside by expressing he hoped a time would soon come when "Mugabe's militant fans realised their behaviour was restoring the reputation of Ian Smith, "who prophesised that Rhodesia would be 'buggered' if the blacks took over."
Of course, there are different kinds of reputation and it depends on the point of view of who is speaking.
No doubt Malan has nostalgic fond memories of Rhodesia under Smith. What I have are memories of Smith the human rights abuser. Memories of a man whose Rhodesia project was about protecting the privileges of the few white settlers on the burning backs of black Africans.
For was it not only on November 24 1977 that Smith, faced with an increasingly bitter guerrilla war, for the very first time announced publicly that he was abandoning his opposition to universal suffrage?
Until then his stance, which he sincerely believed in, was that Africans were second class citizens. This is what the restoration of Smith's reputation means to a self-respecting African.
Rhodesia was a regime of violence and racial injustice as observed by David Caute in his fascinating book: "Under the Skin".
He reported the case of Wilfred and Darryl Collett, father and son, who had taken their black foreman, Mac Maduma from Mphoengs police station after the African had admitted stealing their money but had promised to pay it back.
"Arriving back at Ingwesi Ranch, Plumtree," wrote Coate, "the Colletts stripped him naked, secured him to a block and tackle by handcuffs, had him hoisted from the ground and given twelve strokes."
He goes on: "When the case came to court in February 1978, the magistrate told the two whites that they were guilty of a form of terrorism and fined the 70-year-old father R$500 with a three-month prison sentence conditionally suspended; the son got ten months in gaol, of which six months were conditionally suspended.
"But Chief Justice Hector Macdonald didn't like to see a white man gaoled for beating a black one; in April the Appeal Court set aside Darryl Collett's prison sentence and reduced the verdict from 'assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm' to 'common assault.'"
Caute also cites another case widely reported in the Press in March 1977. Basil Rowlands, was a white farmer, "who kicked a 65 year-old labourer to death, and later pleaded that the man was not correctly planting maize pips along a furrow."
According to Caute, an erudite historian and journalist, V. J. Kock, the Magistrate at Salisbury Regional Court commented that "although the consequences had been unfortunate he did not consider the assault a serious one". Rowlands was sentenced to a fine of R$300 or two months in jail. (This episode is reported by Denis Hills in his book, Rebel People.)"
This was Smith's Rhodesia and this was the kind of "justice" that he meted out to black people.
So when Malan says President Mugabe's militant supporters in New York and Africa had better realise that "their behaviour was restoring the reputation of Ian Smith" it is clear he is talking gibberish.
But Malan would probably say he was comparing Smith and Mugabe in their economic management. He says by January this year, Smith was utterly vindicated. "Eight out of 10 Zimbabweans were jobless and those who had work were screwed anyway, because inflation was 2 200 percent and they couldn't afford anything."
Malan would also say he was talking about President Mugabe's repression against his political opponents.
For he indeed expresses "righteous indignation at the violence in Zimbabwe".
These are issues David Gazi explores carefully in his book: Racism and the Land Question — A Colonial Legacy. He finds inter party violence in Zimbabwe between Zanu-PF and ZUM youths.
He observes that on March 24 1990, for instance, "there were running battles between Zanu and ZUM youths after a car belonging to Vice-President Muzenda had been set alight."
He goes on: "Kombayi's shops were ransacked and looted by Zanu youths and several ZUM youths were injured in the factional fighting. One of Kombayi's trucks was commandeered to take the injured ZUM youths to hospital," he says.
The violence was considerable and Kombayi's injuries "necessitated his removal to the specialist Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, North London, England where he was hospitalised for 200 days at a cost of nearly £100 000."
Gazi cites this incident that occurred back in 1990 to make the point that such violence did not elicit the kind of hysteria that has characterised the West's support for another opposition party in Zimbabwe, the MDC.
There were no calls from Western "democracies" for punitive measures to be taken against Zimbabwe despite the heavy-handed manner in Pwhich the state agency, the CIO, by its own admission, had dealt with the national Organising Secretary of ZUM who was due to stand in elections against the Zanu candidate, Vice-President Muzenda.
This and other attacks on opposition party members took place three years after the conclusion of the Fifth Brigade forays into Matabeleland — time enough, says Gazi, for all those whose consciences were pricked by these events to have made their displeasure known.
But no, it took another decade before the West and the new opposition party in Zimbabwe voiced their concerns about political violence in Zimbabwe.
So the question is: why did all the people, who now claim outrage at violence against the opposition, not protest on ZUM's behalf when it was under attack? Why did ZUM not receive Western support?
Gazi speculates that perhaps it is because the violence was being committed on both sides and the West felt it inappropriate to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state! If so, what has changed now?
There are many instances where the MDC has carried out acts of violence against Government supporters and it has received much support from the West — why?
For an answer, Gazi suggests we look elsewhere as to why the West never actively supported ZUM while it did support the MDC.
He says: "From the outset Edgar Tekere, the ZUM leader, had shown himself willing to ignite the powder keg of Zimbabwe's politics — the land issue."
Tekere was sympathetic to the very first land reclamations that took place more than 20 years ago in Matabeleland and Manicaland (Headlands occupations of 1981). This was at a time when the new black government's policy on the land question was one of appeasement.
Also at the time of the attacks on ZUM, President Mugabe had agreed to the introduction of ESAP, one of the cornerstones of the New World Order and forerunner to the introduction of globalisation in Africa.
In the eyes of the West, Zanu-PF was pro-West and the West did not wish to interfere in the internal affairs of a friendly, sovereign state.
Gazi says these events demonstrated that Western democracies do not usually intervene in an African country over questions of democracy or the rule of law, they do so when they sense an opportunity for regime change in favour of a more accommodating candidate.
And they moved in with a vengeance – propaganda, sanctions and all - against Zimbabwe once President Mugabe took a stance on the land question a decade later. The poor showing of Zimbabwe's economy ought to be seen in this context rather than President Mugabe's alleged misrule.
Yet the West will always claim and use its powerful influence to create this impression in a fashion similar to what goes on between a bully and his victim. The bully attacks the victim telling him to shut up and say nothing about his injuries or else more will follow.
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Zimbabwe gets top Comesa post
Posted: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
From Itai Musengeyi in NAIROBI, Kenya
The Herald
May 23, 2007
ZIMBABWE was yesterday elected vice chairman of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa at the start of the trading bloc's 12th summit of heads of state and government here, in another show of confidence in Harare's leadership in regional and international fora.
Zimbabwe will host the 13th summit next year while President Mugabe will deputise host President Mwai Kibaki, who assumed the chairmanship of the Comesa Authority yesterday until the 2008 meeting.
Mr Kibaki took over from President Omar Ismail Guelleh of Djibouti, who now becomes the rapporteur, succeeding Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
The election of Zimbabwe as vice chair of Comesa – Africa's largest trading bloc – comes on the back of its selection to lead the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Economic Development and the executive board of the African Development Bank.
Environment and Tourism Minister Cde Francis Nhema will chair the UN Commission for the next year while the Secretary for Economic Development, Mr Andrew Bvumbe, will be one of the 14 executive directors of the ADB for the next three years based in Tunis, Tunisia.
Speaking to Zimbabwean journalists, Foreign Affairs Minister Cde Simbarashe Mumbengegwi said Zimbabwe was elected into the bureau after offering itself for selection and was chosen as per the rules and procedures of Comesa.
He said Zimbabwe was chosen because it was a long-standing and important member of the trading bloc.
Cde Mumbengegwi said no amount of demonisation by Western countries – which are on a relentless campaign to isolate Zimbabwe – would influence decisions in bodies like Comesa.
"This is a decision of Comesa," he said.
The two-day summit is reviewing regional integration, implementation of ongoing projects and programmes and assessing progress on decisions made at the Djibouti meeting last year.
"The annual Comesa summit is a forum through which we express our solidarity to the regional cause as well as provide political guidance to the ongoing integration process," said President Kibaki in his welcoming remarks at the opening ceremony.
Mr Kibaki said the summit should build on past achievements to propel Comesa to greater heights of integration.
He urged the grouping to intensify dialogue with other regional groups to deepen integration.
"As we collectively position ourselves towards deepening our regional integration, it is imperative that we also intensify our dialogue with other regional economic communities, notably the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community.
"This is of critical importance to all of us by virtue of the prevailing need to harmonise projects and programmes under these regional organisations and also in recognition of the ongoing negotiations with the European Union and the World Trade Organisation," said the Kenyan leader.
Mr Guelleh said Comesa had replaced the EU as the largest market for goods from member states of the trading bloc.
He said this should be strengthened and proposed the establishment of a taskforce to spearhead joint projects among member states.
The summit will address consolidation of the free trade area, progress on Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations with the European Union and the peace and security situation in the bloc, as stability is crucial to trade and investment.
It will explore possibilities of putting in place the customs unions by 2008 and promote regional trade and investment.
Comesa is moving towards transforming the free trade area into a customs union by next year, characterised by deeper integration and the merger of customs territories into a single customs territory.
Under the arrangement, countries would eliminate tariffs and other restrictive regulations on trade to create a more conducive trade environment.
The bloc was founded in 1994 when it replaced the Preferential Trade Area that had been in existence since 1981.
President Mugabe is expected to address the summit today.
He arrived here on Monday night and was met at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Kenya Mr Kelebert Nkomani, Cde Mumbengegwi, Industry and International Trade Minister Cde Obert Mpofu and Transport and Communications Minister Cde Chris Mushohwe, who were already here to attend ministerial meetings.
Mr Kibaki was last night expected to host a state banquet for the seven leaders in attendance and other dignitaries.
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Zimbabwe to Head Important UN Commission
Posted: Thursday, May 17, 2007
Zimbabwe's rise at the UN
By William M. Reilly, africanpath.com
May 15, 2007
"...Zimbabwe has been elected to chairmanship of the U.N. Commission for Sustainable Development.
The question remains: why?
The way it works in most of these unwelcome situations is there are regional groupings in the world organization that put up candidates, and nations in those grouping tend to stick with them. Some are pre-committed to support.
In the latest instance, it was Africa's turn to put up a candidate for the post and the group put up Harare's Francis Nhema, minister of environment and tourism of Zimbabwe. He was the candidate endorsed by the African States Group to serve as the chairman of the commission's 16th session next year.
Africa follows a rotation system for submitting candidates and it was Zimbabwe's turn. In a secret ballot late Friday night, Nhema was elected 26-21, with 3 abstentions."
www.africanpath.com/printFriendly.cfm?blogEntryID=755
Chinese ambassador congratulates Zimbabwe on being chosen to lead UN commission
Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Yuan Nansheng on Wednesday sent a letter to Zimbabwean Minister of Environment and Tourism Francis Nhema to congratulate that he was elected chairman of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.
"On behalf of the Chinese government and people, I wish to extend our sincere congratulations to you on the occasion of your election as chairman of UN's commission on Sustainable Development, " Yuan said in the letter to Nhema.
He also expressed his hope that the friendly relations and cooperation between the Chinese and Zimbabwean governments in international affairs develop steadily.
Nhema won an approval to head the UN body in charge of promoting economic progress and environmental protection at the closing of the body's 15th session in New York on Friday.
The voting result by secret ballots was 26 to 21 with three abstentions. Fifty of the 53 commission members voted.
The UN African caucus last month nominated the Zimbabwean minister for the post.
The chair traditionally rotates among regions of the world and it was Africa's turn this year. African countries chose Zimbabwe as its candidate for the one-year tenure and the government in turn nominated Nhema for the post.
The commission was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1992 to ensure effective followup of the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in June of that year and implementation of key environmental and development agreements.
Zimbabwe took over from Qatar and is expected to bring various critical environmental issues to the fore during its tenure.
Source: Xinhua
Reprinted from:
http://english.people.com.cn/200705/16/eng20070516_375207.html
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No Summit Without Zimbabwe, Says AU
Posted: Thursday, May 17, 2007
By Caesar Zvayi
May 16, 2007
The Herald
THE African Union has flexed its muscles and told the European Union in no uncertain terms that it has no right to determine which Africans it will deal with at the forthcoming EU-Africa Summit scheduled for Lisbon, Portugal, in December.
Ghanaian Foreign Minister Mr Nana Akufo-Addo -- whose country holds the AU chairmanship -- told journalists after his meeting with EU officials in Belgium yesterday that if there was a summit, Zimbabwe would attend represented either by the President or any of his representatives.
"We can't have a situation where people pick and choose what Africans they will deal with if they try to deal with Africa on a continental basis. It is a summit and if it's a summit, Zimbabwe comes at the level of its leader or somebody in a representative capacity," Mr Akufo-Addo was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
Mr Akufo-Addo said the AU stood by Sadc's position to have South African President Thabo Mbeki mediate any political problems in Zimbabwe, and his sentiments were echoed by EU foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana, who said the EU was also supportive of Mr Mbeki's efforts.
At their extraordinary summit held in Tanzania at the end of March, Sadc heads of state and government came up with a historic resolution on Zimbabwe. They expressed solidarity with the Government and people of Zimbabwe, called for the lifting of the illegal Western sanctions, and urged Britain to honour its obligations to fund land reforms.
On the political front, Sadc mandated Mr Mbeki to facilitate dialogue between the Government and the opposition, while on the economic side, it pledged a rescue package to mitigate the effects of the embargo.
The AU position puts paid to claims in certain sections of the Western media that President Mugabe had divided the continent ahead of the EU-Africa summit that, ironically, has been postponed several times since 2003 as Africa refused to balk to Western pressure to hold the summit minus Zimbabwe.
The noise over the President's attendance comes in the wake of the raft of sanctions -- including a travel ban on top Government and ruling party officials -- the EU imposed on Zimbabwe after it was dragged into to the bilateral dispute between Harare and London by outgoing British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair.
EU officials hope to use the inaugural summit to forge closer links with Africa as they feel China, which has strengthened its synergies with the continent through the China-Africa summit, is upstaging them.
Portugal, which assumes the EU presidency in July, reportedly made it clear that it wants the summit to succeed this year, and was not likely to bow to pressure from any quarter to bar Zimbabwe. Portuguese Foreign Minister Mr Luis Amado said closer economic and political co-operation with Africa was central to the success of his country's presidency.
Last week, Mr Blair -- who has been sobered after being pressured into an early retirement over his domestic and foreign policy mistakes -- was quoted in his country's Sunday Express newspaper as saying he would not oppose Cde Mugabe's attendance.
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Nigerian charade exposes West's double standards
Posted: Wednesday, May 16, 2007
By Mukanya Makwira
May 16, 2007
The Herald
OUTGOING Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo must be a very worried man as he ponders how to extricate himself from the mess he presided over.
The man who, like the proverbial cat, had managed to live nine lives due to his cunning ability to reinvent himself, must be cursing himself over the turn of events in the "democracy" under his stewardship.
The recent "elections" in Nigerian, apart from the shambolic way in which they were held, also exposed the West's naked hypocrisy in the extent to which they can lower the bar in order to suit their ends.
Let it be emphasised that Africa does not need outsiders to authenticate its elections. Even as he awakened from his slumber, the embattled Obasanjo acknowledged that elections cannot be judged using the European barometer.
This exposed his folly for playing to the Western gallery at the height of Zimbabwe's land reform programme. Those who tried to knock some sense into his head must have appeared like fools, but now as the sun sets on Obasanjo's tenure, he is undoubtedly seeing the light.
For how could the West dignify a process which Obasanjo himself grudgingly condemned?
Like the average African who has become accustomed to Nollyhood through exposure to Nigerian movies, the recent Nigerian elections could have passed for the Tom and Jerry rumblings, minus the violence, of course.
It was in Nigeria, albeit with the complicity of the West, that an election was openly rigged, disenfranchising millions of voters amid widespread violence.
One of the key contestants, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, was only given the green light to contest with only 72 hours left before the elections. Thus, he was literally given three days to sell his candidature to over 60 million voters, a feat that could easily have got him into the Guinness Book of Records had he won.
After facing an unexpected revolt from his inner circle in his bid to bend the rules to run for a third term, Obasanjo opted to settle scores with his deputy by sabotaging his bid to succeed him.
Obasanjo threw away all democratic etiquette to throw spanners into the opposition campaign, and ensuring in the process that his hand-picked successor, the little known Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, held sway.
With vast oil resources at his disposal and with his country being a major exporter of this much-needed resource to the Western world, who could raise a finger at the goings-on?
Talk is cheap, the bespectacled leader can today testify. Who can forget his globetrotting ostensibly on Commonwealth business (read British service) as Zimbabwe was facing increasing Western pressure in the wake of the land reform programme?
It was during Obasanjo's tenure as chair of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that punitive sanctions were imposed on Zimbabwe amid allegations that our elections had not been free and fair.
What had not been clear to him was that to the West, as the Nigerian case exemplifies, free and fair elections can only be said to have taken place provided Western interests are secured.
The British sought a reversal of the land reform programme, hence their explosive anger when their puppet Morgan Tsvangirai lost.
To the West, the concept of free and fair elections is interpreted within the context of safeguarding their interests in former colonies. With the prevailing global political climate having moved away from colonialism, the West has sought to promote neo-colonial thinking across the world in order to maintain influence over developing world resources.
Thus, Nigerians had to vote with their blood, over 200 perishing, the elections still being applauded for reflecting the wishes of the people. Which people, the dead or European masters, one might ask?
The so-called policemen of the world will not shy away from validating any political outcome that would install their proteges in power. What concerns them is the smooth flow of British Petroleum, Shell and Exxon oilfields from the Niger Delta. They have sometimes in history gone on to support undemocratic means of unseating legitimately elected governments in order to satisfy their resource exploitation agenda.
Take, for example, the issue of Venezuela. In 2002, the United States of America and its allies shamelessly supported a botched-up coup against the sitting government of Hugo Chavez.
Credibility of an election to the West lies in its outcome, never mind the process. If their surrogate wins, by whatever means, there is no rigging. Has anybody ever wondered the silence of these "champions of democracy" whenever the opposition won some constituencies?
The opposition has participated in the elections which have seen them having a foothold in virtually all the urban centres under the very electoral regulations which have been said to be defective by our detractors.
So nauseating was the Nigerian process and outcome that even senior political figures within the ruling party could not stomach it. The Senate president, a ruling People's Democratic Party member, publicly disowned the process, a stance that got him a rebuke and threats of imprisonment from the government.
The Nigerian elections probably made modern history by becoming the first to be held under classroom regulations where pieces of paper, no serial numbers and all were used to elect class monitors. The only difference was that the monitor being chosen this time was for a class of about 120 million citizens.
In what could be seen as largely an afterthought, probably instigated by the refusal of the majority of world leaders to authenticate the poll, the European Union issued a thinly-veiled statement on the election process. The statement expressed disappointment with the conduct of the elections, but true to their intentions, went on to embrace the president-elect so that they could help the country to "overcome post-election difficulties".
To them, that millions were not given the chance to vote was immaterial. With oil prices on the surge following the bold move by Chavez to nationalise Venezuelan oilfields, I bet they would not have minded even if the Nigerians had voted for a donkey. What would happen to the petrodollars from the oil sales would be another issue all together.
The Nigerian embassies in Western capitals must be very busy indeed at the moment. Their various leaders are probably jostling for the limited tickets for the inauguration of the new president. They are very much interested in establishing themselves with the new leader so not as to escape the oil benefits.
They would want to witness the first civilian transfer of power in Nigeria on the day Obasanjo is going to hand over a blood-soaked baton stick to his successor.
The transition would be a "feat" achieved at the cost of 200 lives.
Who says the military were worse transgressors? Talk of double standards.
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Zimbabwe: Howard's decision disgusting
Posted: Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Herald
DISGUSTING is the only word we can find to describe the decision by Australian prime minister John Howard to bar his country's cricket team from touring Zimbabwe.
The reasons he gave to justify his actions – alleged human rights abuses and the deteriorating economic situation in Zimbabwe that he claims would endanger his team – do not fool anyone especially in light of Zimbabwe's successful hosting of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair and the Harare International Festival of the Arts.
We all know how atrocious Australia's human rights record is to be fooled by Howard's pretensions that he is a stickler for these noble values.
One only has to look at what the Australian forces are doing in Iraq to know that the Howard administration is a stranger to human rights and democracy.
The real reason for Howard's strong-arm tactics is that he, along with his allies, has invested a lot in propaganda campaigns to cast Zimbabwe as a lawless country where visitors are mauled on arrival. Now those lies would have been exposed had the Australian XI toured and managed to play all their three matches without incident.
More so, being world champions, the team would have attracted a lot of international media attention with disastrous consequences for the propaganda campaign.
This is why Howard is prepared to fork out US$2million in fines to the International Cricket Council so that he can prevent the world from knowing the truth about Zimbabwe.
To him it's just another cheque to the propaganda campaign.
It is no coincidence that the US State Department also released a travel warning at almost the same time that Howard was making his scandalous allegations against Zimbabwe.
In the travel warning, the State Department warned American citizens of alleged security concerns in Zimbabwe; which travel warning it said, would be in place until the end of July this year.
What is more, the Australian foreign ministry also revealed that it was increasing its funding to opposition groups in Zimbabwe with the foreign minister, Alexander Downer, saying his government had released A$4 million over and above the A$6 million which was disbursed last month.
Another A$12 million would be made available in the 2007-2008 financial year.
Downer clearly admitted that the money would go towards sponsoring opposition activities, and we all saw what opposition groups did with the funding in February when they hired hoodlums to wreak havoc to justify allegations of anarchy in Zimbabwe.
The ban and the funding are closely related with the one used to justify the other.
This is why Howard's politicisation of cricket should be condemned by all progressive people the world over.
Apart from exposing the myth that Western sanctions are targeted at top Government officials, Howard's actions expose the desperation gripping the regime change circles, all the more reason why the Government should remain resolute.
Victory is certain.
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Egyptians, not Greeks were true fathers of medicine
Posted: Monday, May 14, 2007
by Staff Writers
Manchester, UK (SPX) May 11, 2007
Source: University of Manchester
Scientists examining documents dating back 3,500 years say they have found proof that the origins of modern medicine lie in ancient Egypt and not with Hippocrates and the Greeks.
The research team from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at The University of Manchester discovered the evidence in medical papyri written in 1,500BC – 1,000 years before Hippocrates was born.
"Classical scholars have always considered the ancient Greeks, particularly Hippocrates, as being the fathers of medicine but our findings suggest that the ancient Egyptians were practising a credible form of pharmacy and medicine much earlier," said Dr Jackie Campbell.
"When we compared the ancient remedies against modern pharmaceutical protocols and standards, we found the prescriptions in the ancient documents not only compared with pharmaceutical preparations of today but that many of the remedies had therapeutic merit."
The medical documents, which were first discovered in the mid-19th century, showed that ancient Egyptian physicians treated wounds with honey, resins and metals known to be antimicrobial.
The team also discovered prescriptions for laxatives of castor oil and colocynth and bulk laxatives of figs and bran. Other references show that colic was treated with hyoscyamus, which is still used today, and that cumin and coriander were used as intestinal carminatives.
Further evidence showed that musculo-skeletal disorders were treated with rubefacients to stimulate blood flow and poultices to warm and soothe. They used celery and saffron for rheumatism, which are currently topics of pharmaceutical research, and pomegranate was used to eradicate tapeworms, a remedy that remained in clinical use until 50 years ago.
"Many of the ancient remedies we discovered survived into the 20th century and, indeed, some remain in use today, albeit that the active component is now produced synthetically," said Dr Campbell.
"Other ingredients endure and acacia is still used in cough remedies while aloes forms a basis to soothe and heal skin conditions."
Fellow researcher Dr Ryan Metcalfe is now developing genetic techniques to investigate the medicinal plants of ancient Egypt. He has designed his research to determine which modern species the ancient botanical samples are most related to.
"This may allow us to determine a likely point of origin for the plant while providing additional evidence for the trade routes, purposeful cultivation, trade centres or places of treatment," said Dr Metcalfe.
"The work is inextricably linked to state-of-the-art chemical analyses used by my colleague Judith Seath, who specialises in the essential oils and resins used by the ancient Egyptians."
Professor Rosalie David, Director of the KNH Centre, said: "These results are very significant and show that the ancient Egyptians were practising a credible form of pharmacy long before the Greeks.
"Our research is continuing on a genetic, chemical and comparative basis to compare the medicinal plants of ancient Egypt with modern species and to investigate similarities between the traditional remedies of North Africa with the remedies used by their ancestors of 1,500 BC."
Reprinted from:
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/uom-eng050907.php
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Mbeki a Scapegoat for MDC Failures
Posted: Saturday, May 12, 2007
New Zimbabwe (London)
Posted to the web 11 May 2007
allafrica.com
By Dr. Sehlare Makgetlaneng
MORE and more people are facing the brutal reality that the effective national response to Zimbabwe's socio-political and economic problems is the key starting point in the resolution of these problems.
Central to this national task is the reality that Zimbabweans under the leadership of their political parties and civil society organisations must organise themselves to have dialogue among themselves to find means to resolve their country's problems. This is the case despite their different and antagonistic socio-political and economic interests.
Any political party which is in practice committed to the resolution of the national problems must struggle to bring together the people of its country to discuss strategies and tactics essential for the resolution of the national question. If the people of a particular country through their political parties have failed to execute this national task, they should not blame people of other countries. They should blame themselves and their individual and organisational leaders.
The political parties of Zimbabwe have failed to execute this task. The leading opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has failed to execute this task. It has attributed this failure to the programme of action embarked upon by the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front to entrench itself in power. It has reduced this programme of action to President Robert Mugabe.
The key reason behind this failure is the lack of serious well-organised opposition to the present political governance in the country. As a result of this failure, the MDC and its internal and external supporters have blamed political leaders of Africa for what they regard as their failure to resolve Zimbabwe's problems as if it is not the task of the people of Zimbabwe under the leadership of the MDC to resolve the Zimbabwean problems.
This is their means to hide the profound and unique practical and theoretical weakness of the MDC. The task of African political leaders and the people of other African countries through their organisations is to support Zimbabweans in their efforts to resolve their national problems.
While the MDC has sustained the politics of opposition in Zimbabwe, few people are convinced that it is capable to take care of the political administration of the society or to govern. There is an emerging popular position that it has failed to oppose the ruling party. Its practical and theoretical weakness has been intensified by its division into two organised factions under the leadership of Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara. They are referred to as MDC Tsvangirai and MDC Mutambara.
The two MDCs' lack of leadership and ideas appropriate even to challenge the ruling party, not to mention to mobilise Zimbabweans into action and to articulate strategies and tactics to convince Zimbabweans that one of them is capable to govern the country and to lead its reconstruction and development programme, is unique and frightening. They are disorganised and divided to pose any serious, well-organised threat to the ruling party. Despite their unity which is their opposition to Mugabe, they have individually and collectively failed to formulate appropriate strategy and tactics to exert pressure upon the ruling party to see the structural and fundamental need to have a serious dialogue with them.
The failure of Zimbabweans to organise themselves, to have dialogue among themselves and to find means to resolve their country's problems has led the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to appoint President Thabo Mbeki to facilitate dialogue between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition party.
Far from being the victory of the MDC, this development has further marginalised the MDC by demonstrating that it has been so far incapable of impelling the ruling party to see a need for a serious dialogue with it. The ruling party has not been weakened by this development. Far from regionalising the Zimbabwean conflict, it has re-affirmed that the Zimbabwean crisis is the national question to be resolved by Zimbabweans. It has re-affirmed the position of African leaders that Zimbabweans, not external actors, must solve their own national problem.
This development has led some of those who maintain that the task of resolving Zimbabwe's problems is primarily that of African leaders, not of the people of Zimbabwe, to abandon their position which is obviously incorrect. This incorrect position has its fundamentalist supporters in the former frontline state of the settler colonial rule in Southern Africa, the former settler colonial South Africa. It is articulated in the Southern African national newspapers.
The Weekender, published in Johannesburg, in its 21-22 April 2007 editorial maintains that it is the task of president Mbeki to solve Zimbabwe's problems. Questioning his intentions as the facilitator of dialogue between the ruling party and the opposition of Zimbabwe, The Weekender maintains that Mbeki "will not bring back 4-million escapees" or "4-million Zimbabweans" who represent "a third of the country's population" who have "fled their country of birth to set up home everywhere, from the obvious places such as" the United Kingdom and South Africa, to "the less likely locations of Taiwan, Eastern Europe and the Far East."
It continues, pointing out that Mbeki "cannot reverse Zimbabwe's brain drain and its inexorable economic slide, nor stem the rot of its institutions of governance. He can do nothing about the social ills that have resulted from Zimbabwe's meltdown, such as unemployment and worsening HIV/AIDS burden."
This position of The Weekender is as if Mbeki is the president of Zimbabwe or as if Zimbabwe is a province of South Africa. The point is that Zimbabweans' problems which we are told that Mbeki cannot solve are obviously problems to be solved by Zimbabweans, not by Mbeki.
President Mbeki has become a target of some European South Africans. Some of these European South Africans are against Africans of South Africa. They claim to be for Africans of Zimbabwe. This is interesting aspect of the position of a considerable number of European South Africans. They are against Africans of South Africa and claim to be for their brothers and sisters of other African countries.
David Bullard of Sunday Times, another national newspaper published in Johannesburg, had a published piece, 'Offer Zimbabweans dignity - and visas", on April 22, 2007. He maintains that various newspapers articles have "described how highly qualified Zimbabweans are having to eke out a living as security guards or waiters. Desperately as they are, they run the risk of being exploited because they are not legal citizens and there's no chance of them filing an official complaint."
This is the problem faced by Zimbabweans, not only in South Africa but also in other countries throughout the world. It is the problem faced by Africans of other African countries and by those who are not Africans throughout the world. David Bullard argues as if this is the problem faced only by Zimbabweans only in South Africa. Bullard's position is the same position of regarding South Africa as one block which is unjust and the rest of Africa as another block which is just. It is the same position which isolates South Africa from the rest of the continent in terms of contributing towards the solution to problems faced by the continent or some African countries such as Zimbabwe. This can best be understood if we take into account Bullard's position that the South African "government's stand on Zimbabwe is an international disgrace, particularly for a party that fought for racial equality and justice."
Which political party in Africa which is either now or was in the past the ruling party which fought for racial inequality and injustice? The ruling parties of the colonial Africa, not of post-colonial Africa, fought for racial inequality and injustice.
Bullard maintains the position that it is the responsibility of South Africa to solve Zimbabwe's problems. If South Africa does not make serious efforts to solve Zimbabwe's problems, these problems "are bound to get worse." He argues that it is because the South African government has refused to solve Zimbabwe's problems that these problems are going to increase. Maintaining that quiet diplomacy "loosely translated," means "we can't be bothered to do anything and, besides, we're hoping the problem just goes away," he concludes that the problem "hasn't and, thanks to the ANC government's spinelessness, things are bound to get worse."
Bullard concludes his article by appealing to President Mbeki to "offer Zimbabweans dignity - and visas." In his words: "So please Mr Mbeki, stop being a pipe-smoking intellectual for once and set up a fast-tracking system to legalise these unfortunate [Zimbabwean] people. Having betrayed them for so long it's the least we can do."
President Mbeki of South Africa has betrayed the masses of the people of Zimbabwe by not solving their national problems? Really?
This is the same problem of not critically viewing the Movement for Democratic Change. Mbeki has been used as a means to avoid the issue of confronting the internal dynamics of the MDC particularly its weaknesses and failure to constitute itself as a viable opposition political party practically threatening to assume state political power.
It is a tragedy of Zimbabwean politics of opposition that as the leading opposition party, the MDC continues regarding such individuals as its supporters - individuals who support the interests of their fellow Europeans in Zimbabwe and throughout the world. It should not oppose in theory what it supports in practice that the resolution to Zimbabwe's socio-political and economic problems is not within itself, the MDC Tsvangirai or the MDC Mutambara, but within the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front.
Dr Sehlare Makgetlaneng is the Head of Southern Africa and SADC programme at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria, South Africa
Reprinted from:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200705110672.html
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Zimbabwe will overcome: Ambassador
Posted: Saturday, May 12, 2007
The Herald
TANZANIA has been at the centre of efforts to mediate the dispute between Harare and London with President Mugabe choosing former Tanzanian president Mr Benjamin Mkapa as mediator. At the end of March Sadc heads of state and government met in Tanzania to discuss the peace and security situation in the region, and at the end of the extra-ordinary summit they came up with a historic resolution on Zimbabwe. In their communiqué, Sadc leaders reaffirmed their solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe and the legitimacy of President Mugabe, condemned the illegal Western sanctions and urged Britain to honour its colonial obligations, among other things. The Herald caught up with Tanzanian Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Adadi Rajabu – whose country chairs the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security – to discuss this and other things.
QUESTION: Ambassador your country recently celebrated its 43rd Union Anniversary, 43 years since the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar on April 26 1964, some of our readers may not know, can you briefly tell them what necessitated the union and what the situation was like before Tanzania came into being?
ANSWER: Tanganyika got its independence from Britain on December 9 1961 under the leadership of Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere while in Zanzibar, the people's revolution against sultanate took place on January 12 1964 under the leadership of Mzee Abeid Amani Karume. After the formation of the new Afro-Shirazi party government of the People's Republic of Zanzibar, the Tanganyika and Zanzibar leaders met to discuss Union between the two countries with a view to restore, both officially and constitutionally, the fraternity and unity which had existed between the peoples of the two counties before the colonial era. The countries then united on April 26, 1964.
Q: How different was Tanganyika from Zanzibar?
A: In fact there was no difference between Tanganyika and Zanzibar before the Union due to the fact that the two countries were under colonial rule before their respective independence dates and they share issues of common interest.
Q: We have seen so many African countries torn apart by divisions and conflicts, what is the secret behind Tanzania's success in this regard?
A: The union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar was a union of the people, created by the people, under the leadership of Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere and Mzee Abeid A. Karume, for the people. We share a common culture, language, customs and political conviction. The Union Government came into begin after the two Presidents had signed the Union Treaty.
Q: Your country recently hosted an Extra-Ordinary Summit on the Peace and Security situation in the region, and came up with historic resolutions, how did you receive the resolution on Zimbabwe?
A: The resolutions by the Extra-ordinary Sadc summit on Peace and Security Situation in the region were a positive move by the region to handle its matters, issues of concern by the region should be addressed by the region itself.
Q: How much movement has there been since the Summit to address the problems in the three countries that were reported on, DRC, Lesotho and Zimbabwe?
A: As you are aware that for the case of Zimbabwe we have seen the visit of Sadc Executive Secretary who was tasked to deal with economic challenges. On political matters we know that President Thabo Mbeki will also be on the ground soon. I have not received any developments on the DRC and Lesotho.
Q: Harare and London are barely on talking terms, and the latter even ignored the initiative proposed by President Mugabe to have your former president Mr Benjamin Mkapa mediate in the dispute, will that be resuscitated in the context of Dar Es Salaam?
A: At the moment let's give time, and support the Sadc initiatives, however, this does not mean to put aside the proposal by President Mugabe to have our former President Benjamin Mkapa mediate in the dispute between Harare and London.
Q: Zimbabwe says there is a bilateral dispute, while the British government says the dispute lies between Zimbabwe and the world, how do you think Sadc should get around the problem?
A: It is a fact that there is a sour relationship between Harare and London that started during the Land Reform Programme, disputes are always resolved by bring the conflicting parties to the negotiating table.
Q: Sadc also pledged a rescue package to mitigate the effects of the sanctions, what do you think such a package should entail?
A: The Sadc Executive Secretary after visiting and having extensive consultations with relevant authorities in Zimbabwe will come up with advice on how Sadc can come in with assistance. However, the regional leaders appealed for the lifting of all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Q: How do you evaluate the socio-economic situation in the country, the prospects for improvement?
A: The current economic situation in Zimbabwe is very challenging. It is a matter of time; Zimbabweans will overcome these difficulties. Zimbabweans should regard it as a challenge to all of them.
Q: Integral to the problems in the three countries discussed in Dar Es Salaam is the problem of irresponsible opposition parties, how do you think that can be solved?
A: All opposition parties and Zimbabweans in general should follow the laws and regulations of the country, failure to that, the law will take its course.
Q: You chair the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security; how far has the proposed Mutual Defence Pact moved?
A: Most of Member States have not ratified the mutual Defence Pact.
Q: At the Summit in Lesotho, Sadc Heads of State and Government expressed concern over the region's reliance on external funding for developmental projects, in light of peace and security challenges what is your comment on that and what can be done to curb it?
A: Reliance on external funding for development projects will definitely compromise peace and security in the region. Member States should pull up their socks by increasing their contributions to the regional block which will enable it to fund its projects.
Q: The extent of bilateral relations?
A: Zimbabwe/Tanzania bilateral relations should put more emphasis on Trade and Economic Co-operation through holding permanent joint commission meetings, we have to improve our peoples' standards of living by promoting trade. We have had warm and cordial political relations for years, this must now reflect on business links between the two countries.
Feedback: caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw
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