By Stephen Gowans
June 25, 2008
This is a war between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries; between nationalists and quislings; between Zimbabwean patriots and the US and Britain.
Should an election be carried out when a country is under sanctions and it has been made clear to the electorate that the sanctions will be lifted only if the opposition party is elected? Should a political party which is the creation of, and is funded by, hostile foreign forces, and whose program is to unlatch the door from within to provide free entry to foreign powers to establish a neo-colonial rule, be allowed to freely operate? Should the leaders of an opposition movement that takes money from hostile foreign powers and who have made plain their intention to unseat the government by any means available, be charged with treason? These are the questions that now face (have long faced) the embattled government of Zimbabwe, and which it has answered in its own way, and which other governments, at other times, have answered in theirs.
The American revolutionaries, Thomas Jefferson among them, answered similar questions through harsh repression of the monarchists who threatened to reverse the gains of the American Revolution. There were 600,000 to 700,000 Tories, loyal to the king and hostile to the revolutionaries, who stood as a threat to the revolution. To neutralize the threat, the new government denied the Tories any platform from which to organize a counter-revolution. They were forbidden to own a press, to teach, to mount a pulpit. The professions were closed to them. They were denied the right to vote and hold political office. The property of wealthy Tories was confiscated. Many loyalists were beaten, others jailed without trial. Some were summarily executed. And 100,000 were driven into exile. Hundreds of thousands of people were denied advocacy rights, rights to property, and suffrage rights, in order to enlarge the liberties of a larger number of people who had been oppressed. [1]
Zimbabwe, too, is a revolutionary society. Through armed struggle, Zimbabweans, like Americans before them, had thrown off the yoke of British colonialism. Rhodesian apartheid was smashed. Patterns of land ownership were democratized. Over 300,000 previously landless families were given land once owned by a mere 4,000 farmers, mainly of British stock, mostly descendents of settlers who had taken the land by force. In other African countries, land reform has been promised, but little has been achieved. In Namibia, the government began expropriating a handful of white owned farms in 2004 under pressure from landless peasants, but progress has been glacially slow. In South Africa, blacks own just four percent of the farmland. The ANC government promised that almost one-third of arable land would be redistributed by 2000, but the target has been pushed back to 2015, and no one believes it will be reached. The problem is, African countries, impoverished by colonialism, and held down by neo-colonialism, haven’t the money to buy the land needed for redistribution. And the European countries that once colonized Africa, are unwilling to help out, except on terms that will see democratization of land ownership pushed off into a misty future, and only on terms that will guarantee the continued domination of Africa by the West. Britain promised to fund Zimbabwe’s land redistribution program, if liberation fighters laid down their arms and accepted a political settlement. Britain, under Tony Blair, reneged, finding excuses to wriggle out of commitments made by the Thatcher government. And so Zimbabwe’s government acted to reverse the legacy of colonialism, expropriating land without compensation (but for improvements made by the former owner.) Compensation, Zimbabwe’s government declared with unassailable justification, would have to be paid by Britain.
In recent years, the government has taken steps to democratize the country further. Legislation has been formulated to mandate that majority ownership of the country’s mines and enterprises be placed in the hands of the indigenous black majority. The goal is to have Zimbabweans achieve real independence, not simply the independence of having their own flag, but of owning their land and resources. As a Canadian prime minister once said of his own country, once you lose control of the economic levers, you lose sovereignty. Zimbabwe isn’t trying to hang onto control of its economic levers, but to gain control of them for the first time. Jabulani Sibanda, the leader of the association of former guerrillas who fought for the country’s liberation, explains:
“Our country was taken away in 1890. We fought a protracted struggle to recover it and the process is still on. We gained political independence in 1980, got our land after 2000, but we have not yet reclaimed our minerals and natural resources. The fight for freedom is still on until everything is recovered for the people.” [2]
The revolutionary government’s program has met with fierce opposition – from the tiny elite of land owners who had monopolized the country’s best land; from former colonial oppressor Britain, whose capitalists largely controlled the economy; from the United States, whose demand that it be granted an open door everywhere has been defied by Zimbabwe’s tariff restrictions, investment performance requirements, government ownership of business enterprises and economic indigenization policies; and from countries that don’t want Zimbabwe’s land democratization serving as an inspiration to oppressed indigenous peoples under their control. The tiny former land-owning elite wants its former privileges restored; British capital wants its investments in Zimbabwe protected; US capital wants Zimbabwe’s doors flung open to investment and exports; and Germany seeks to torpedo Zimbabwe’s land reforms to guard against inspiring “other states in Southern Africa, including Namibia, where the heirs of German colonialists would be affected.” [3]
The Mugabe government’s rejecting the IMF’s program of neo-liberal restructuring in the late 1990s, after complying initially and discovering the economy was being ruined; its dispatch of troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help the young government of Laurent Kabila defend itself against a US and British-backed invasion by Uganda and Rwanda; and its refusal to safeguard property rights in its pursuit of land democratization and economic independence, have made it anathema to the former Rhodesian agrarian elite, and in the West, to the corporate lawyers, investment bankers and hereditary capitalist families who dominate the foreign policies of the US, Britain and their allies. Mugabe’s status as persona non grata in the West (and anti-imperialist hero in Africa) can be understood in an anecdote. When Mugabe became prime minister in 1980, former leader of the Rhodesian state, Ian Smith, offered to help the tyro leader. “Mugabe was delighted to accept his help and the two men worked happily together for some time, until one day Mugabe announced plans for sweeping nationalization.” From that point forward, Smith never talked to Mugabe. [4]
Overthrowing the Revolution
The British, the US and the former Rhodesians have used two instruments to try to overthrow Zimbabwe’s revolution: The opposition party Movement for Democratic Change, and civil society. The MDC was founded in September 1999 in response to Harare announcing it would expropriate Rhodesian farms for redistribution to landless black families. The party was initially bankrolled by the British government’s Westminster Foundation for Democracy and other European governments, including Germany, through the Social Democratic Party’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Ebert having been the party leader who conspired with German police officials to have Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht murdered, to smother an emerging socialist revolution in Germany in 1918.) Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who had been elevated from his position as secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions to champion the West’s counter-revolutionary agenda within Zimbabwe, acknowledged in February 2002 that the MDC was financed by European governments and corporations, which funneled money through British political consultants, BSMG. [5] Today, the government of Zimbabwe charges NGOs with acting as conduits through which Western governments pass money to the opposition party.
The MDC’s orientation is decidedly toward people and forces of European origin. British journalist Peta Thornycroft, hardly a Mugabe supporter, lamented in an interview on Western government-sponsored short wave radio SW Africa that:
‘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 (leader of an alternative MDC faction, Arthur) Mutambara. They have not done enough in Africa. [6]
A look at the MDC’s program quickly reveals why the party’s leaders spend most of their time traipsing to Western capitals calling for sanctions and gathering advice on how to overthrow the Mugabe government. First, the MDC is opposed to Zimbabwe’s land democratization program. Defeating the government’s plans to expropriate the land of the former Rhodesian elite was one of the main impetuses for the party’s formation. Right through to the 2002 election campaign the party insisted on returning farms to the expropriated Rhodesian settlers. [7]
The MDC and Land Reform
These days Tsvangirai equivocates on land reform, recognizing that speaking too openly about reversing the land democratization program, or taxing black Zimbabweans to compensate expropriated Rhodesian settlers for land the Rhodesians and other British settlers took by force, is detrimental to his party’s success. But there’s no mistaking that the land redistribution program’s life would be cut short by a MDC victory. “The government of Zimbabwe,” wrote Tsvangirai, in a March 23, 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, “must be committed to protecting persons and property rights.” This means “compensation for those who lost their possessions in an unjust way,” i.e., compensation for the expropriated Rhodesians. Zimbabwe’s program of expropriating land without compensation, he concluded, is just not on: it “scares away investors, domestic and international.” [8] This is the same reasoning the main backer of Tsvangirai’s party, the British government, used to justify backing out of its commitment to fund land redistribution. The British government was reneging on its earlier promise, said then secretary of state for international development Claire Short in a letter to Zimbabwe’s minister of agriculture and lands, Kumbirai Kangai, because of the damage Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform proposals would do to investor confidence. Lurking none too deftly behind Tsvangirai’s and London’s solicitude over impaired investor confidence are the interests of foreign investors themselves. The Mugabe government’s program is to wrest control of the country’s land, resources and economy from the hands of foreign investors and Rhodesian settlers; the program of the MDC and its backers is to put it back. That’s no surprise, considering the MDC was founded by Europe, backed by the Rhodesians, and bankrolled by capitalist governments and enterprises that have an interest in protecting their existing investments in the country and opening up opportunities for new ones.
Civil Society
There is a countless number of Western NGOs that either operate in Zimbabwe or operate outside the country with a focus on Zimbabwe. While the Western media invariably refer to them as independent, they are anything but. Almost all are funded by Western governments, wealthy individuals, and corporations. Some NGOs say that while they take money from Western sources, they’re not influenced by them. This is probably true, to a point. Funders don’t dangle funding as a bribe, so much as select organizations that can be counted on to behave in useful ways of their own volition. Of course, it may be true that some organizations recognize that handsome grants are available for organizations with certain orientations, and adapt accordingly. But for the most part, civil society groups that advance the overseas agendas of Western governments and corporations, whether they know it or not, and not necessarily in a direct fashion, find that funding finds them.
Western governments fund dozens of NGOs to discredit the government in Harare, alienate it of popular support, and mobilize mass resistance under the guise of promoting democracy and human rights. Their real purpose is to bring down the government and its nationalist policies. The idea that Britain, which, as colonial oppressor, denied blacks suffrage and dispossessed them of their land, is promoting rights and democracy in Zimbabwe is laughable. The same can be said of Canada. The Canadian government doles out grants to NGOs through an organization called Rights and Democracy. Rights and Democracy is currently funding the anti-Zanu-PF Media Institute of Southern Africa, along with the US government and a CIA-linked right wing US think tank. While sanctimoniously parading about on the world stage as a champion of rights and democracy, Canada denied its own aboriginal people suffrage up to 1960. For a century, it enforced an assimilation policy that tore 150,000 aboriginal children from their homes and placed them in residential schools where their language and culture were banned. Canadian citizens like to think their own country is a model of moral rectitude, but are blind to the country’s deplorable record in the treatment of its own aboriginal people; it’s denial of the liberty and property rights of Canadian citizens of Japanese heritage during WWII; and in recent years, its complicity in overthrowing the Haitian government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and participation in the occupation of Afghanistan. As for the United States, its violations of the rights of people throughout the world have become so frequent and far-reaching that only the deaf, dumb or insane would believe the US government has the slightest interest in promoting democracy and human rights anywhere.
Consider, then, the record of the West’s self-proclaimed promoters of democracy and human rights against this: the reason there’s universal suffrage in Zimbabwe and equality rights for blacks, is because the same forces (that are being routinely decried by Western governments and their NGO extensions) fought for, bled for, and died for the principle of universal suffrage. “We taught them the principle of one man, one vote which did not exist” under the British, Zimbabwe’s president points out. “Democracy,” he adds, “also means self-rule, not rule by outsiders.” [9]
Regime Change Agenda
The charge that the West is supporting civil society groups in Zimbabwe to bring down the government isn’t paranoid speculation or the demagogic raving of a government trying to cling to power by mobilizing anti-imperialist sentiment. It’s a matter of public record. The US government has admitted that “it wants to see President Robert Mugabe removed from power and that it is working with the Zimbabwean opposition…trade unions, pro-democracy groups and human rights organizations…to bring about a change of administration.” [10] Additionally, in an April 5, 2007 report, the US Department of State revealed that it had:
— “Sponsored public events that presented economic and social analyses discrediting the government’s excuse for its failed policies” (i.e, absolving US and EU sanctions for undermining the country’s economy);
— “Sponsored…and supported…several township newspapers” and worked to expand the listener base of Voice of America’s Studio 7 radio station. (The State Department had been distributing short-wave radios to Zimbabweans to facilitate the project of Zimbabwean public opinion being shaped from abroad by Washington’s propagandists).
Last year, the US State Department set aside US$30 million for these activities. [11] Earlier this year, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the UK had increased its funding for civil society organizations operating in Zimbabwe from US$5 million to US$6.5 million. [12] Dozens of other governments, corporations and capitalist foundations shower civil society groups with money, training and support to set up and run “independent” media to attack the government, “independent” election monitoring groups to discredit the outcome of elections Zanu-PF wins, and underground groups which seek to make the country ungovernable through civil disobedience campaigns. One such group is Zvakwana, “an underground movement that aims to resist – and eventually undermine” the Zanu-PF government. “With a second, closely related group called Sokwanele, Zvakwana’s members specialize in anonymous acts of civil disobedience.” [13] Both groups, along with Zubr in Belarus and Ukraine’s Pora, whose names, in English, mean ‘enough’, “take their inspiration from Otpor, the movement that played a major role in ousting Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia.” [14] One Sokwanele member is “a white conservative businessman expressing a passion for freedom, tradition, polite manners and the British royals,” [15] hardly a black-clad anarchist motivated by a philosophical opposition to “authoritarian rule,” but revealing of what lies beneath the thin veneer of radicalism that characterizes so many civil society opposition groups in Zimbabwe. In the aforementioned April 5, 2007 US State Department report, Washington revealed that it had “supported workshops to develop youth leadership skills necessary to confront social injustice through non-violent strategies,” the kinds of skills members of Zvakwana and Sokwanele are equipped with to destabilize Zimbabwe.
In addition to funding received from the US and Britain, Zimbabwe’s civil society groups also receive money from the German, Australian and Canadian governments, the Ford Foundation, Freedom House, the Albert Einstein Institution, the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, Liberal International, the Mott Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers, South African Breweries, and billionaire financier George Soros’ Open Society Institute. All of these funding sources, including the governments, are dominated by Western capitalist ruling classes. It would be truly naïve to believe, for example, that the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict and Freedom House, both headed by Peter Ackerman, member of the US ruling class Council on Foreign Relations, a New York investment banker and former right hand man to Michael Milken of junk bond fame, is lavishing money and training on civil society groups in Zimbabwe out of humanitarian concern. According to Noam Chomksy and Edward Herman, Freedom House has ties to the CIA, “and has long served as a virtual propaganda arm of the (US) government and international right wing.” [16]
Political lucre doesn’t come from Western sources alone. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation awards a prize yearly for “achievement in African leadership” to a sub-Saharan African leader who has left office in the previous three years. The prize is worth $500,000 per year for the first 10 years and $200,000 per year thereafter – in other words, cash for life. Ibrahim, a Sudanese billionaire who founded Celtel International, a cellphone service that operates in 15 African countries, established the award to “encourage African leaders to govern well,” something, apparently, Ibrahim believes African leaders don’t do now and need to be encouraged to do. What Ibrahim means by govern well is clear in who was selected as the first (and so far only) winner: Mozambique’s former president Joaquim Chissano. He received the prize for overseeing Mozambique’s “transition from Marxism to a free market economy.” [17] While there may seem to be nothing particularly amiss in this, imagine billionaire speculator George Soros establishing a foundation to bribe US and British politicians with cash for life to “govern well.” It wouldn’t elude many of us that Soros’ definition of “govern well” would almost certainly align to a tee with his own interests, and that any politician eager to live a comfortable life after politics would be keen to keep Soros’ interests in mind. Under these conditions there would be no question of democracy prevailing; we would be living in a plutocracy, in which those with great wealth could dangle the carrot of a cash award for life to get their way. As it happens, this kind of thing is happening now in Western democracies (that is, plutocracies.) Handsomely paid positions as corporate lobbyists, corporate executives and members of corporate boards await Western politicians who play their cards right. There are Mo Ibrahims all over, who go by the names Ford, GM, Exxon, General Electric, Lockheed-Martin, Microsoft, IBM and so on.
Threat to US Foreign policy
Why does the government of the US consider Zimbabwe to pose “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States”? The answer says as much about the foreign policy of the United States as it does about Zimbabwe. The goal of US foreign policy is to provide profit-making opportunities to US investors and corporations. This is accomplished by pressuring, cajoling, bribing, blackmailing, threatening, subverting, destabilizing and where possible, using violence, to get foreign countries to lower or remove tariff barriers, lift restrictions on foreign investment, deny preferential treatment to domestic investors, allow repatriation of profits, and provide the US military access to the country. The right of the US military to operate on foreign soil is necessary to provide Washington with local muscle to protect US investments, ensure unimpeded access to strategic raw materials (oil, importantly), and to keep doors open to continued US economic penetration. It is also necessary to have forward operating bases from which to threaten countries whose governments aren’t open to US exports and investments.
The Zanu-PF government’s policies have run afoul of US foreign policy goals in a number of ways. In 1998, “Zimbabwe – along with Angola and Namibia – was mandated by the (Southern African Development Community, a regional grouping of countries) to intervene in Congo to save a fellow SADC member country from an invasion by Uganda and Rwanda,” which were acting as proxies of the United States and Britain. [18] Both countries wanted to bring down the young government of Laurent Kabila, fearing Kabila was turning into another Patrice Lumumba, the nationalist Congolese leader whose assassination the CIA had arranged in the 1960s. Zimbabwe’s intervention, as part of the SADC contingent, foiled the Anglo-American’s plans, and earned Mugabe the enmity of ruling circles in the West.
The Zanu-PF government’s record with the IMF also threatened US foreign policy goals. From 1991 to 1995, Mugabe’s government implemented a program of structural adjustment prescribed by the IMF as a condition of receiving balance of payment support and the restructuring of its international loans. The program required the government to cut its spending deeply, fire tens of thousands of civil servants, and slash social programs. Zimbabwe’s efforts to nurture infant industries were to be abandoned. Instead, the country’s doors were to be opened to foreign investment. Harare would radically reduce taxes and forbear from any measure designed to give domestic investors a leg up on foreign competitors. The US, Germany, Japan and South Korea had become capitalist powerhouses by adopting the protectionist and import substitution policies the IMF was forbidding. The effect of the IMF program was devastating. Manufacturing employment tumbled nine percent between 1991 and 1996, while wages dropped 26 percent. Public sector employment plunged 23 percent and public sector wages plummeted 40 percent. [19] In contrast to the frequent news stories today on Zimbabwe’s fragile economy, attributed disingenuously to “Mugabe’s disastrous land policies”, the Western press barely noticed the devastation the IMF’s disastrous economic policies brought to Zimbabwe in the 1990s. By 1996, the Mugabe government was starting to back away from the IMF prescriptions. By 1998, it was in open revolt, imposing new tariffs to protect infant industries and providing incentives to black Zimbabwean investors as part of an affirmative action program to encourage African ownership of the economy. These policies were diametrically opposed, not only to the IMF’s program of structural adjustment, but to the goals of US foreign policy. By 1999, the break was complete. The IMF refused to extend loans to Zimbabwe. By February, 2001, Zimbabwe was in arrears to the Bretton Woods institution. Ten months later, the US introduced the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery, a dagger through the heart of Zimbabwe’s economy. “Zimbabwe,” says Mugabe, “is not a friend of the IMF and is unlikely to be its friend in the future.” [20]
Zanu-PF’s willingness to ignore the hallowed status of private property by expropriating the land of the former Rhodesians to democratize the country’s pattern of land ownership also ran afoul of US foreign policy goals. Because US foreign policy seeks to protect US ownership abroad, any program that promotes expropriation as a means of advancing democratic goals must be considered hostile. Kenyan author Mukoma Wa Nguyi invites us to think of Zimbabwe “as Africa’s Cuba. Like Cuba, Zimbabwe is not a… military threat to the US and Britain. Like Cuba, in Latin America, Zimbabwe’s crime is leading by example to show that land can be redistributed – an independence with content. If Zimbabwe succeeds, it becomes an example to African people that indeed freedom and independence can have the content of national liberation. Like Cuba, Zimbabwe is to be isolated, and if possible, a new government that is friendly to the agenda of the West is to be installed.” [21]
The Comprador Party
If Zanu-PF is willing to offend Western corporate and Rhodesian settler interests to advance the welfare of the majority of Zimbabweans, the MDC is its perfect foil. Rather than offending Western interests, the MDC seeks to accommodate them, treating the interests of foreign investors and imperialist governments as synonymous with those of the Zimbabwean majority. A MDC government would never tolerate the pursuit in Zimbabwe of the protectionist and nationalist economic programs the US used to build its own industry. The MDC’s goals, in the words of its leader, are to “encourage foreign investment” and “bring (Zimbabwe’s) abundant farmland back into health.” [22] “It is up to each of us,” Tsvangirai told a gathering of newly elected MDC parliamentarians, “to say Zimbabwe is open for business.” [23]
Encouraging foreign investment means going along with Western demands for neo-liberal restructuring. “The key to turning around Zimbabwe’s economy…is the political will needed to implement the market reforms, the IMF and others, including the United States, have been recommending for the past few years,” lectured the former US ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell. This means “a free-market economy and security of property to investment and economic growth.” [24]
Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has developed an economic program for Zimbabwe to be rolled out if Western regime change efforts succeed. Brown says his recovery package will include measures to:
(1) help Zimbabwe restart and stabilize its economy;
(2) restructure and reduce its debt;
(3) support fair land reform. [25]
What Brown is really saying is that:
(1) Sanctions will be lifted, and the resultant economic recovery will be attributed to the MDC’s neo-liberal policies.
(2) Zimbabwe will resume the structural adjustment program Mugabe’s government rejected in the late 90s.
(3) Either land reform will be reversed or black Zimbabweans will be forced to compensate white farmers whose land was expropriated.
The reality that Brown has developed an economic program for Zimbabwe speaks volumes about who will be in charge if the MDC comes to power – not Zimbabweans, not the MDC, and not Tsvangirai, but London and Washington.
Not surprisingly, MDC economic policy is perfectly simpatico with the prescriptions of its masters. Eddie Cross, formerly vice-chairman of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, who became a MDC spokesman, explained the party’s economic plans for Zimbabwe, in advance of 2000 elections.
“We are going to fast track privatization. All 50 government parastatals will be privatized within a two-year time-frame, but we are going to go beyond that. We are going to privatize many of the functions of government. We are going to privatize the central statistical office. We are going to privatize virtually the entire school delivery system. And you know, we have looked at the numbers and we think we can get government employment down from about 300,000 at the present time to about 75,000 in five years.” [26]
Of course, the intended beneficiaries of such a program aren’t Zimbabweans, but foreign investors.
The MDC’s role as agent of Western influence in Zimbabwe doesn’t stop at promoting economic policies that cater to foreign investors. The MDC has also been active in turning the screws on Zimbabwe to undermine the economy and create disaffection and misery in order to alienate Zanu-PF of its popular support. Arguing that foreign firms are propping up the government, the MDC has actively discouraged investment. For example, Tsvangirai tried to discourage a deal between Chinese investors and the South African company Implats, that would see a US$100 million platinum refinery set up in Zimbabwe, warning that a MDC government might not honor the deal. [27] The MDC leader, true to form, was following in the footsteps of his political masters in Washington. The United States has pressed China and other countries to refrain from investing in Zimbabwe “at a time when the international community (is) trying to isolate the African state.” [28] Washington complains that “China’s growing political and commercial influence in resource-rich African nations” [29] is sabotaging its efforts to ruin Zimbabwe’s economy. More damning is the MDC’s participation in the drafting of the principal piece of US legislation aimed at torpedoing the Zimbabwean economy: The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act. Passed in 2001, the act instructs “the United States executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against-
(1) any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or
(2) any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.” [30]
The effect of the act is to cut off all development assistance to Zimbabwe, disable lines of credit, and prevent the World Bank and International Monetary Fund from providing development assistance and balance of payment support. [31] Any African country subjected to this punishment would very soon find itself in straitened circumstances. When the legislation was ratified, US president George W. Bush said, “I hope the provisions of this important legislation will support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful democratic change, achieve economic growth, and restore the rule of law.” [32] Since effecting peaceful democratic change means, in Washington’s parlance, ousting the Zanu-PF government, and since restoring the rule of law equates, in Washingtonian terms, to forbidding the expropriation of white farm land without compensation, what Bush was really saying was that he hoped the legislation would help overthrow the government and put an end to fast-track land reform. The legislation “was co-drafted by one of the opposition MDC’s white parliamentarians in Zimbabwe, which was then introduced as a Bill in the US Congress on 8 March 2001 by the Republican senator, William Frist. The Bill was co-sponsored by the Republican rightwing senator, Jesse Helms, and the Democratic senators Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Russell Feingold.” Helms, a notorious racist, had a penchant for legislation aimed at undermining countries seeking to achieve substantive democracy. “He co-authored the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which tightened the blockade on Cuba.” [33]
The Distorting Lens of the Western Media
Western reporting on Zimbabwe occurs within a framework of implicit assumptions. The assumptions act as a lens through which facts are organized, understood and distorted. Columnist and associate editor for the British newspaper The Guardian, Seamus Milne, points out that British journalists see Zimbabwe through a lens that casts the president as a barbarous despot. “The British media,” he writes, “have long since largely abandoned any attempt at impartiality in its reporting of Zimbabwe, the common assumption being that Mugabe is a murderous dictator at the head of a uniquely wicked regime.” [34] If you began with these assumptions, ordinary events are interpreted within the framework the assumptions define. An egregious example is offered in how a perfectly legitimate exercise was construed and presented by Western reporters as a diabolical exercise. Zanu-PF held campaign workshops to explain what the government had achieved since independence and what it was doing to address the country’s economic crisis. The intention, according to Zimbabwe’s Information and Publicity Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, was to “educate the people on the illegal sanctions as some of them were duped to vote for the MDC in the March elections.” [35] But that’s not how the British newspaper, The Independent, saw it. “The Zimbabwean army and police,” its reporter wrote, “have been accused of setting up torture camps and organizing ‘re-education meetings’ involving unspeakable cruelty where voters are beaten and mutilated in the hope of achieving victory for President Robert Mugabe in the second round of the presidential election.” [36] Begin with the assumption that Mugabe is a murderous dictator at the head of a uniquely wicked regime and campaign workshops become re-education meetings and torture camps. Note that The Independent’s reporter relied on an accusation, not on corroborated facts, and that the identity of the accuser was never revealed. The story has absolutely no evidentiary value, but considerable propaganda value. The chances of many people reading the story with a skeptical eye and picking out its weaknesses are slim. What’s more likely to happen is that readers will regard the accusation as plausible because it fits with the preconceived model of Mugabe as a murderous dictator and his government as uniquely wicked. How do we know the accuser wasn’t a fellow journalist repeating gossip overheard on the street, or at MDC headquarters? How do we know the accusation wasn’t made by the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, or any one of scores of representatives of Western-funded NGOs, whose role is to discredit the Zimbabwe government? McGee is a veritable treasure trove of half-truths, innuendo, and misinformation. And yet the Western media, particularly those based in the US, have a habit of treating McGee as an impeccable source, seemingly blind to the reality that the US government is hostile to Zimbabwe’s land democratization and economic indigenization programs, that it has an interest in spinning news to discredit Harare, and that its officials have an extensive track record in lying to justify the plunder of other people’s countries. To paraphrase Caesar Zvayi, if George Bush can lie hundreds of times about Iraq, what’s to stop him (or McGee or the NGOs on the US payroll) from lying about Zimbabwe? That the Western media pass on accusations made by interested parties without so much as revealing the interest can either be regarded as shocking naiveté or a sign of the propaganda role Western media play on behalf of the corporate class that owns them. If the US and British governments and Western media are against the democratization and economic indigenization programs of Zanu-PF, it’s because they’re dominated by a capitalist ruling class whose interests are against those of the Zimbabwean majority.
It is typical of Western reporting to attribute the actions of the Zanu-PF government to the personal characteristics of its leader: his alleged hunger for power for power’s-sake; demagogy; incompetence in matters related to economic management; and brutality. The government’s actions, by contrast, are never attributed to the circumstances, the conditions in which the government is forced to maneuver, or to the demands of survival in the face of the West’s predatory pressures. This isn’t unique to Zimbabwe; every leader the West wants to overthrow is vilified as a “strongman,” “dictator,” “thug,” “war criminal,” “murderer,” or “warlord” and sometimes all of these things. All of the leader’s actions are to be understood as originating in the leader’s deeply flawed character. If Iran is building a uranium enrichment capability, it’s not because it seeks an independent source of fuel for a budding civilian nuclear energy program, but because the country’s president is to be understood as a raving anti-Semite who seeks to acquire nuclear weapons to carry out Hitler’s final solution by wiping Israel off the face of the map. The same reduction of international affairs to a moral struggle between the West and what always turns out to be a nationalist, socialist or communist country headed by a leader whose actions are invariably traced by Western reporters to the leader’s evil psychology applies equally to Zimbabwe. If the Mugabe government has banned political rallies, it is not because the rallies have been used by the opposition as an occasion to firebomb police stations, but because the president has an unquenchable thirst for power and will brook no opposition. If opposition activists have been arrested, it’s not because they’ve committed crimes, but because the leader is repressive and dictatorial. If Morgan Tsvangirai is beaten by police, it’s not because he tried to break through police lines, but because the leader is a brutal dictator and ordered Tsvangirai’s beating because that’s what brutal dictators do. If an opposition leader is arrested and charged with treason, it’s not because there is evidence of treason, but because the president is gagging the opposition to cling to power because it is in the nature of dictators to do so. If the economy falls into crisis, it’s not because the West has cut off the country’s access to credit, but because of the leader’s incompetence. If agricultural production drops, it’s not due to the drought, electricity shortages and rising fuel costs that have bedeviled other countries in the region, but because the leader is too stupid to recognize his land reform policies are disastrous.
A New York Times story published three days before the March 29 elections shows how Western governments and mass media cooperate with civil society agents on the ground to shape public opinion. The aim of the March 26, 2008 article, titled “Hope and Fear for Zimbabwe Vote,” was to discredit the elections that Zanu-PF seemed at the time likely to win.
Harare had barred election monitors from the US and EU, but allowed observers from Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, South Africa and the SADC to monitor the vote. The Western media pointed to the decision to bar Western observers as indirect evidence of vote rigging. After all, if Zimbabwe had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t it admit observers from Europe and the US? At the same time, Western reporters suggested that Zimbabwe was only allowing observers from friendly countries because they could be counted on to bless the election results. By the same logic, one would have expected that a negative evaluation from observers representing unfriendly countries would be just as automatic and foreordained, especially considering the official policy of the US and EU is to replace the current government with one friendly to Western business interests. Indeed, it is this fear that had led Harare to ban Western monitors.
With Western observers unable to monitor the elections directly, governments in North America and Europe found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. How could they declare the vote fraudulent, if they hadn’t observed it? To get around this difficulty, the US, Britain and other Western countries provided grants to Zimbabweans on the ground to monitor the vote. These Zimbabweans, part of civil society, declared themselves to be independent “non-governmental” observers, and prepared to render a foreordained verdict that the election was rigged. Cooperating in the deception, the Western media amplified their voices as “independent” experts on the ground. The US Congress’s National Endowment for Democracy – an organization that does overtly what the CIA used to do covertly – provided grants to the Zimbabwe Election Support Network “to train and organize 240 long-term elections observers throughout Zimbabwe.” The NED is also connected to the Media Monitoring Project through the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which it funds, and the Media Institute of Southern Africa, which is funded by Britain’s NED equivalent, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Canada’s Rights and Democracy. The Media Monitoring Project calls itself independent, but is connected to the US and British governments, and to billionaire speculator George Soros’ Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.
When the New York Times needed Zimbabweans to comment on the upcoming election, its reporters turned to representatives of these two NGOs. Noel Kututwa, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, told the newspaper that his group would be using “sampling techniques to assess the accuracy of the results announced nationally.” Yet, Mr. Kututwa also told the newspaper that, “We will not have a free and fair election.” If Kututwa had already decided the election would be unfair and coerced, why was he bothering to assess its accuracy? Andrew Moyse, a regular commentator on Studio 7, an anti-Mugabe radio station sponsored by the US government’s propaganda arm, Voice of America, was quoted in the same article. “Even if Mugabe only gets one vote,” Mr. Moyse opined, “the tabulated results are in the box and he has won.”
Moyse, on top of acting as a US mouthpiece on Voice of America, heads up the Media Monitoring Project. While part of the NGO election observer team the US and EU were relying on to ostensibly assess the fairness of the vote, he had already decided the vote was rigged. Kutatwa and Moyse were the only experts the New York Times cited in its story on the upcoming elections. Yet both represented NGOs funded by hostile governments whose official policy is to replace Robert Mugabe and his government’s land reform and economic indigenization policies. Both presented themselves as independent, though they could hardly be independent of their sources of foreign government and foundation funding. Both declared in advance of the election that the vote would be coerced and unfair and that the tabulated results were already in the box. Their foreordained conclusions – which turned out to be wildly inaccurate – happened to be the same conclusions their sponsors in the US and Britain were looking for, to obtain the consent of a confused public to intervene vigorously in Zimbabwe’s affairs. This is emblematic of the symbiotic collaboration of media, Western governments, and NGOs on the ground. Western governments, corporations and wealthy individuals fund NGOs to discredit the Zanu-PF government, and the Western media present the same NGOs as independent actors, and provide them a platform to present their views. Meanwhile, the Western media marginalize the Zanu-PF government and its supporters on the ground, denying them a platform to present their side. To publics in the West, the only story heard is the story told by the MDC and its civil society allies, who reinforce, as a matter of strategy, the view that Mugabe is a murderous dictator at the head of a uniquely wicked regime. The MDC, civil society, the Western media, the British and US governments, and imperialist think tanks and foundations, are all interlocked. All of these sources, then, tell the same story.
Safeguarding the Revolution
After the revolutionary war, would the Americans who led and carried out the revolution have allowed loyalists to band together to seek public office in elections with a program of restoring the monarchy? We’ve already seen that the answer is no. When the Nazis were ousted in Germany, was the Nazi party allowed to reconstitute itself to seek the return of the Third Reich through electoral means? No. Countries that have gone through revolutionary change are careful, if the revolution is to survive, to deny those who have been overthrown an opportunity to recover their privileged positions. That often means denying former exploiters and their partisans opportunities to band together to contest elections, or constitutionally prescribing a desired form of government and prohibiting a return to the old. The US revolutionaries did both; they repressed the loyalists and declared a republic, which, as a corollary, forbade a return to monarchy. Even if every American voter decided that George Bush should become king, the US constitution forbids it, no matter what the majority wants. The gun (that is, the violence employed by the American revolutionaries to free themselves from the oppression of the British crown) is more powerful than the pen (Americans can’t vote the monarchy back in.)
In Zimbabwe, the former colonial oppressor, Britain, has been working with its allies to restore its former privileges through civil society and the MDC. Britain doesn’t seek a return to an overt colonialism, complete with a British viceroy and British troops garrisoned throughout the country, but to a neo-colonialism, in which the local government acts in the place of a viceroy, safeguarding and nurturing British investments and looking after Western interests under the rubric of managing the economy soundly. Britain, then, wants the MDC, for the MDC is British rule by proxy. Many Zimbabweans, however, are vehemently opposed to selling out their revolution to a party that was founded and is financed by a country to which they were once enslaved.
Western media propaganda presents Zimbabwe as a pyramidal society, in which an elite at the apex, comprising Mugabe, his ministers and the heads of the security services, brutally rule over the vast majority of Zimbabweans at the base who long for the MDC to deliver them from a dictatorship. A fairer description is that Zimbabwe is a society in which both sides command considerable popular support, but where Zanu-PF has an edge. This may sound incredible to anyone looking at Zimbabwe through the distorting lens of the Western media, but let Munyaradzi Gwisai, leader of the International Socialist Organization in Zimbabwe, a fierce opponent of the Mugabe government, set matters straight.
“There is no doubt about it – the regime is rooted among the population with a solid social base. Despite the catastrophic economic collapse, Zanu-PF still won more popular votes in parliament than the MDC in the March 29 parliamentary elections. Mugabe might have lost on the streets, but if you count the actual votes, his party won more than the MDC in elections to the House of Assembly and Senate. Zanu-PF won an absolute majority of votes in five of the country’s 10 provinces, plus a simple majority in another province. By contrast, the MDC won two provinces with an absolute majority and two with a simple majority. But because we use first past the post, not proportional representation, Zanu-PF’s votes were not translated into a majority in parliament. It was only Mugabe himself, in the presidential election, who did worse in terms of the popular vote.” [37]
Those in the thrall of Western propaganda will dismiss strong support for Zanu-PF in the March 29 elections as a consequence of electoral fraud, not genuine popular backing. But it would be a very inept government that rigged the election and lost control of the assembly and had to face a run-off in the presidential race. No, Mugabe’s support runs deep.
“According to a poll of 1,200 Zimbabweans published in August (2004) by South African and American researchers, the level of public trust in Mr. Mugabe’s leadership” more than doubled from 1999, “to 46 percent – even as the economy” was severely weakened by Western sanctions. [38] Significantly, it was over this period that the government launched its fast track land reform program. Notwithstanding Western news reports that Mugabe’s supporters are limited to his “cronies”, Zimbabweans participated in a million man and woman march last December, where marchers “proclaimed that Washington, Downing Street and Wall Street (had) no right to remove Mugabe.” [39]
Elsewhere in Africa, Zimbabwe’s president is enormously popular. As recently as August 2004, Mugabe was voted at number three in the New Africa magazine’s poll of 100 Greatest Africans, behind Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah. [40] The Los Angeles Times, no fan of the Zimbabwean president, acknowledges that “Mugabe is so popular on the continent…that he is feted and cheered wherever he goes.” [41] That was evident last summer when, much to the chagrin of Western reporters, who had been assuring their readers that Mugabe was being called to a meeting of SADC to be dressed down, that “Mr. Mugabe arrived at the meeting to a fusillade of cheers and applause from attendees that…overwhelmed the polite welcomes of the other heads of states.” [42] A European Union-African Union summit planned for 2003 was aborted after African leaders refused to show up in solidarity with a Mugabe who had been banned by the Europeans for promoting the interests of Zimbabweans, not Europeans. The summit went ahead in 2007, but only after African leaders threatened once again to boycott the meeting if Mugabe was barred. With China doing deals with African countries, the Europeans were reluctant to sacrifice trade and investment opportunities, and laid aside their misgivings about attending a meeting at which Mugabe would be present. That is, all except British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He stayed home in protest. German leader Angela Merkel did attend, but thought it necessary to scold Mugabe to distance herself from him. Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade sprang to Mugabe’s defense, dismissing Merkel’s vituperative comments as untrue and accusing the German leader of being misinformed. [43]
Opposition’s Failed Attempts at Insurrection
Mugabe’s popularity, and that of the movement for Zimbabwean empowerment he leads, explains Zanu-PF’s strong showing in elections and why the opposition’s numerous efforts at seizing power by general strike and insurrection have failed. Civil society organizations and MDC leaders have called for insurrectionary activity many times. In 2000, Morgan Tsvangirai called on Mugabe to step down peacefully or face violence. “If you don’t want to go peacefully,” the new opposition leader warned, “we will remove you violently.” [44] Arthur Mutambara, a robotics professor and former consultant with McKinsey & Company and leader of an alternative wing of the MDC, declared in 2006 that he was “going to remove Robert Mugabe, I promise you, with every tool at my disposal.” Asked to clarify what he meant, he replied, “We’re not going to rule out or in anything – the sky’s the limit.” [45] Three days before the March 29 elections, Tendai Biti, secretary general of Tsvangirai’s MDC faction, warned of Kenya-style post electoral violence if Mugabe won. [46] In the US, where United States Code, Section 2385, “prohibits anyone from advocating abetting, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States by force or violence,” opposition leaders like Tsvangirai, Mutambara and Biti would be charged with treason (Biti has been.)
Leaders of civil society organizations which receive Western funding have been no less diffident about threatening to overthrow the government violently. Last summer, the then Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, said he thought it was “justified for Britain to raid Zimbabwe and remove Mugabe. We should do it ourselves but there’s too much fear. I’m ready to lead the people, guns blazing, but the people are not ready.” [47] Ncube complained bitterly that Zimbabweans were cowards, unwilling to take up arms against the government. This was a strange complaint to make against a people who waged a guerilla war for over a decade to achieve independence. Zimbabweans’ unwillingness to follow Ncube, guns blazing, had nothing to do with cowardice, and everything to do with the absence of popular support for Ncube’s position.
Recently, the International Socialist Organization, one of the founding members of the MDC along with the British government, argued in its newspaper that “the crisis was not going to be resolved through elections, but through mass action.” ISO – Zimbabwe leader Munyaradzi Gwisai “said that the way forward for the Movement for Democratic Change and civil society was to create a united front and mobilize against the regime.” [48] The ISO makes the curious argument that Zimbabweans should take to the streets to bring the MDC to power, recognizing the MDC to be a comprador party (one the ISO helped found). A comprador party, in the febrile reasoning of the ISO, is preferable to Zanu-PF. Gwisai’s offices were visited by the police, touching off howls of outrage over Mugabe’s “repressions” from the ISO’s Trotskyite brethren around the world. Followers of Trotsky are forever siding with reactionaries against revolutionaries, the revolutionaries invariably failing to live up to a Trotskyite ideal. If they can’t have their ideal, they’ll settle for imperialism. While Gwisai wasn’t arrested, Wellington Chibebe, general secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, was. He too had urged Zimbabweans to take to the streets to bring down the government.
Some opponents of Mugabe’s government go further. An organization called the Zimbabwe Resistance Movement promises to take up arms against the Zanu-PF government if “the poodles who run the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission,” fail to declare Tsvangirai the victor of the presidential run-off election. [49] The Western media have been silent on this form of oppositional intimidation and threats of violence.
The opposition has also tried other means to clear the way for its rise to power. In April, 2007 it called a general strike, as part of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign. The strike fizzled, accomplishing nothing more than showing the opposition’s program of seizing power extra-constitutionally had no popular support. The campaign “was a joint effort of the opposition, church groups and civil society… As a body…it (did) not…have widespread grassroots support,” reported the Toronto newspaper, The Globe and Mail. [50] While depicted in the Western media as a peaceful campaign of prayer meetings, the campaign was predicated on violence. MDC activists carried out a series of fire bombings of buses and police stations, events the Western press was slow to acknowledge. A May 2 2007 Human Rights Watch report finally acknowledged that there had been a series of gasoline bombings, but questioned whether the MDC was really responsible. By this point, as far as Western publics knew, peaceful protests had been brutally suppressed by a uniquely wicked government. To keep matters under control, the government banned political gatherings. The opposition defied the ban, calling their rallies “prayer meetings.” It was a result of this defiance that Arthur Mutambara was arrested, and Morgan Tsvangirai roughed up by police when he tried to force his way through police lines to demand Mutambara’s release. The MDC took full advantage of the event to play up to the Western media, claiming Tsvangirai had been beaten up as part of a program of political repression, rather than as a response to his tussling with the police. As the Cuban ambassador to Zimbabwe explained, “What happened in Zimbabwe of course is similar to what groups based in Florida have done in Cuba. They put many bombs in some hotels in Cuba. They were trying to…generate political instability in Cuba, so I see the same pattern in Zimbabwe.” [51]
Making the Economy Scream
While quislings work from within the country to make it ungovernable, pressure is applied from without. Western governments say they’ve imposed only targeted sanctions aimed at key members of the government, nothing to undermine the economy and hurt ordinary Zimbabweans, but as we’ve already seen, the US Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act has far-reaching economic implications. On top of this, other, informal, sanctions do their part to make the economy scream. As Robert Mugabe explains:
The British and their allies “influence other countries to cut their economic ties with us…the soft loans, grants and investments that were coming our way, started decreasing and in some cases practically petering out. Then the signals to the rest of the world that Zimbabwe is under sanctions, that rings bells and countries that would want to invest in Zimbabwe are being very cautious. And we are being dragged through the mud every day on CNN, BBC, Sky News, and they are saying to these potential investors ‘your investments will not be safe in Zimbabwe, the British farmers have lost their land, and your investments will go the same way.'” [52]
In March 2002, Canada withdrew all direct funding to the government of Zimbabwe. [53] In 2005, the IT department at Zimbabwe’s Africa University discovered that Microsoft had been instructed by the US Treasury Department to refrain from doing business with the university. [54] Western companies refuse to supply spare parts to Zimbabwe’s national railway company, even though there are no official trade sanctions in place. [55] Britain and its allies are now planning to escalate the pressure. Plans have been made to press South Africa to cut off electricity to Zimbabwe if the MDC doesn’t come to power. Pressure will also be applied on countries surrounding Zimbabwe to mount an economic blockade. [56] The point of sanctions is to starve the people of Zimbabwe into revolting against the government to clear the way for the rise of the MDC and control, by proxy, from London and Washington. Apply enough pressure and eventually the people will cry uncle (or so goes the theory.) You can’t say Zanu-PF wasn’t forewarned. Stanley Mudenge, the former foreign minister of Zimbabwe, said Robin Cook, then British foreign secretary, once pulled him aside at a meeting and said: “Stan, you must get rid of Bob (Mugabe)…If you don’t get rid of Bob, what will hit you will make your people stone you in the streets.” [57]
Harare’s Options
Those who condemn the actions of the Zanu-PF government in defending their revolution have an obligation to say what they would do. Usually, they skirt the issue, saying there is no revolution, or that there was one once, but that it was long ago corrupted by cronyism. Their simple answer is to dump Mugabe, and start over again – a course of action that would inevitably see a return to the neo-liberal restructuring of the 1990s, a dismantling of land reforms, and a neo-colonial tyranny. Not surprisingly, people who make this argument find favor with imperialist governments and ruling class foundations and are often rewarded by them for appearing to be radical while actually serving imperialist goals.
Throughout history, reformers and revolutionaries have been accused of being self-aggrandizing demagogues manipulating their followers with populist rhetoric to cling to power to enjoy its many perks. [58] But as one writer in the British anti-imperialist journal Lalkar pointed out, “The government of Zimbabwe could very easily abandon its militant policies aimed at protecting Zimbabwe’s independence and building its collective wealth – no doubt its ministers would be rewarded amply by the likes of the World Bank and the IMF.” [59] If Mugabe is really using all means at his disposable to hang on to power simply to enjoy its perks, he has chosen the least certain and most difficult way of going about it. Lay this argument aside as the specious drivel of those who want to bury their heads in the sand to avoid confronting tough questions. What would you do in these circumstances?
In retaliation for democratizing patterns of land ownership, distributing land previously owned by 4,000 farmers, mainly of British stock, to 300,000 previously landless families, Britain has “mobilized her friends and allies in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand to impose illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabwe. They have cut off all development assistance, disabled lines of credit, prevented the Bretton Woods institutions from providing financial assistance, and ordered private companies in the United States not to do business with Zimbabwe.” [60] They have done this to cripple Zimbabwe’s economy to alienate the revolutionary government of its popular support. For years, they have done this. Soni Rajan, employed by the British government to investigate land reform in Zimbabwe, told author Heidi Holland:
“It was absolutely clear…that Labour’s strategy was to accelerate Mugabe’s unpopularity by failing to provide him with funding for land redistribution. They thought if they didn’t give him the money for land reform, his people in the rural areas would start to turn against him. That was their position; they want him out and they were going to do whatever they could to hasten his demise.” [61]
The main political opposition party, the MDC, is the creation of the Rhodesian Commercial Farmers’ Union, the British government and the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, whose patrons are former British foreign secretaries Douglas Hurd, Geoffrey Howe, Malcolm Rifkind and whose chair is Lord Renwick of Clifton, who has collected a string of board memberships in southern African corporations. The party’s funding comes from European governments and corporations, and its raison d’etre is to reverse every measure the Zanu-PF government has taken to invest Zimbabwean independence with real meaning. Civil society organizations are funded by governments whose official policy is one of regime change in Zimbabwe. The US, Britain and the Netherlands finance pirate radio stations and newspapers, which the Western media disingenuously call “independent”, to poison public opinion against the Mugabe government and its land democratization and economic indigenization programs. It’s impossible to hold free and fair elections, because the interference by Western powers is massive, a point acknowledge by Mugabe opponent Munyaradzi Gwisai. [62]
Guns Trump “Xs”
Zimbabweans who fought for the country’s independence and democratization of land ownership are not prepared to give up the gains of their revolution simply because a majority of Zimbabweans marked an “X” for a party of quislings. There are two reasons for their steadfastness in defense of their revolution: First, Americans can’t vote the monarchy back in, or return, through the ballot box, to the status quo ante of British colonial domination. The US revolutionaries recognized that some gains are senior to others, freedom from foreign domination being one of them. Americans would never allow a majority vote to place the country once again under British rule. Nor will Zimbabwe’s patriots allow the same to happen to their country. Second, no election in Zimbabwe can be free and fair, so long as the country is under sanctions and the main opposition party and civil society organizations are agents of hostile foreign governments. The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Justice has called on the government “to consider the possibility of declaring a state of emergency,” pointing out correctly that “Zimbabwe is at war with foreign elements using local puppets.” [63] Western governments would do – and have done – no less under similar circumstances. Patriots writing to the state-owned newspaper, The Herald, urge the government to take a stronger line. “The electoral environment is heavily tilted in favour of the (MDC) because of the economic sanctions,” wrote one Herald reader. “If it was up to me there should be no elections until the sanctions are scrapped. If we don’t defend our independence and sovereignty, then we are doomed to become hewers of wood and drawers of water. I stand ready to take up arms to defend my sovereignty if need be.” [64] The heads of the police and army have let it be known that they won’t “salute sell-outs and agents of the West” [65] – and nor should they. And veterans of the war for national liberation have told Mugabe that they can never accept that their country, won through the barrel of the gun, should be taken merely by an ‘X’ made by a ballpoint pen.” [66] Mugabe recounted that the war veterans had told him “if this country goes back into white hands just because we have used a pen, we will return to the bush to fight.” The former guerilla leader added, “I’m even prepared to join the fight. We can’t allow the British to dominate us through their puppets.” [67] Zimbabwe, as patriots have said many times, will never be a colony again. Even if it means returning to arms.
NOTES:
1. Herbert Aptheker, “The Nature of Democracy, Freedom and Revolution,” International Publishers, New York, 2001.
2. Herald (Zimbabwe) April 2, 2008.
3. “No Better Opportunity,” German Foreign Policy.Com, March 26, 2007. http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56059
4. Times (London), November 25, 2007.
5. Rob Gowland, “Zimbabwe: The struggle for land, the struggle for independence,” Communist Party of Australia. http://www.cpa.org.au/booklets/zimbabwe.pdf
6. Herald (Zimbabwe) May 29, 2008.
7. Guardian (UK), March 3, 2008.
8. Wall Street Journal, quoted in Herald (Zimbabwe) March 23, 2008.
9. Talkzimbabwe.com, June 19, 2008.
10. Guardian (UK), August 22, 2002.
11. Herald (Zimbabwe) May 29, 2008.
12. Herald (Zimbabwe), February 22, 2008.
13. New York Times, March 27, 2005.
14. Ibid.
15. Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2005.
16. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, “Manufacturing Consent,” Pantheon Books, 1988, p. 28.
17. The Independent (UK), October 22, 2007; New York Times, October 23, 3007.
18. New African, June 2008.
19. Antonia Juhasz, “The Tragic Tale of the IMF in Zimbabwe,” Daily Mirror of Zimbabwe, March 7, 2004.
20. Herald (Zimbabwe) September 13, 2005.
21. Herald (Zimbabwe) August 12, 2005.
22. Morgan Tsvangirai, “Zimbabwe’s Razor Edge,” Guardian (UK) April 7, 2008.
23. Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 31, 2008.
24. Response to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Monetary Policy Statement,” Ambassador Christopher Dell, February 7, 2007.
25. The Independent (UK), September 20, 2007.
26. John Wright, “Victims of the West,” Morning Star (UK), December 18, 2007.
27. Herald (Zimbabwe), July 6, 2005.
28. AFP, July 29, 2005.
29 Ibid.
30. US Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001.
31. Herald (Zimbabwe) June 4, 2008.
32. “President Signs Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, December 21, 2001. www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/200111221-15.html
33. www.pslweb.org, October 17, 2006.
34. Guardian (UK), April 17, 2008. Milne is also clear on who’s responsible for the conflict in Zimbabwe. In an April 17, 2008 column in The Guardian, he wrote, “Britain refused to act against a white racist coup, triggering a bloody 15-year liberation war, and then imposed racial parliamentary quotas and a 10-year moratorium on land reform at independence. The subsequent failure by Britain and the US to finance land buyouts as expected, along with the impact of IMF programs, laid the ground for the current impasse.”
35. Herald (Zimbabwe), June 11, 2008.
36. The Independent (UK), June 9, 2008.
37. Weekly Worker, 726, June 19, 2008 http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/726/forced.html
38. New York Times, December 24, 2004.
39. Workers World (US), December 12, 2007.
40. Proletarian (UK) April-May 2007.
41. Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2007.
42. New York Times, August 17, 2007.
43. New York Times, December 9, 2007.
44. BBC, September 30, 2000.
45. Times Online, March 5, 2006.
46. Herald (Zimbabwe), March 27, 2008.
47. Sunday Times (UK), July 1, 2007.
48. Weekly Worker, 726, June 19, 2008 http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/726/forced.html
49. The Zimbabwe Times, May 31, 2008.
50. Globe and Mail (Toronto) March 22, 2007.
51. Herald (Zimbabwe) April 15, 2007.
52. New African, May 2008.
53. Herald (Zimbabwe), October 18, 2007.
54. Herald (Zimbabwe), January 28, 2008.
55. Herald (Zimbabwe), January 11, 2008.
56. Guardian (UK), June 16, 2008.
57. New African, May 2008.
58. See, for example, Michael Parenti, “The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History Ancient Rome,” The New Press, 2003.
59. Lalkar, May-June, 2008. http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/may2008/zim.php
60. Address of Robert Mugabe to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization, June 3, 2008.
61. New African, May 2008.
62. Weekly Worker, 726, June 19, 2008 http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/726/forced.html
63. TalkZimbabwe.com, May 15, 2008.
64. Letter to the Herald (Zimbabwe), May 6, 2008.
65. Guardian (UK), March 15, 2008.
66. Herald (Zimbabwe), June 20, 2008.
67. The Independent (UK), June 14, 2008.
Reproduced from:
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/zimbabwe-at-war/
The question asked by Stephen Gowans in the second paragraph of his piece impeaches any enunciations that Zimbabweans prefers the golly wog opposition leader to Mugabe. The people of Zimbabwe are being presented with coercive bread and butter ultimitaions to condition their electoral behaviour. This represent an example of moden day slavery and imperialism in the worse way, and would be intolerable in any other ethnic or political theatre but one where the drive is to restore that which what was stolen from Africans.
The US, the UK, and all of those nations and individuals who spent an eternity of tepid reaction to the apartheid structures in Southern Africa have no moral or ethical standing to wag fingers of indignation at Zimbabwe. Where else in this world, is it considered irrationale to reverse the unlawful distribution of land that had 4000 people in one group controlling 90 plus percent of the viable agricultural area in a nation where they represent less than ten percent of the population. Many who today cite these land reforms as the reason why Mugabe should go would be screaming blue murder if the disparities were closer to their cultural homes. “Do so no like so” is the most fashionable pursuit for those engaged in disingenuous analysis.
From Patrice Lumumba to Kwame Nkrumah, the trail of Western conspiracy to refuse Africans dominance over resources in lands they have inhabited since the dawn of man is as wide as the Atlantic and Pacific oceans combined. And the tool being used against Mugabe and Zimbabwe today is no different than that which was used againt NKrumah and Lumumba. To wit, an ambitious blackman prepared to sell his soul and nation for thirty pieces of silver. Nkrumah warned that quote, “[b][i]A State in the grip of neo-colonialism is not master of its own destiny. It is this factor which makes neo-colonialism such a serious threat to world peace[/i][/b], end quote. Zimbabwe’s destiny has been hijacked by an assemblage of powers, avaricious and greedy as all get out, and obsessed with the thought that black people might be propelled into the position their and their kind was from by virtue of ownership and controll over resources these imperialistc mindsets had been covetting for centuries.
Linda, your point is noted re the “Mark Thatchers and their cohorts” of the world that are well prepared to destroy Africa as they attempt to be modern-day Francis Drakes and Pizzarios, for corporate bosses. There jobs are however made very easy you might agree by some of the shameful political figures that purport to be leaders in some of the respective countries. I believe that I finally recognize why Europeans were able enslave and divide the African continent to the extent it was able to do, and no where else. Today it is so easy to control and manipulate some of these clowns, while keeping a lascivious eye on the ultimate prize-namely their underground resources.
Child soldiers and other abuses are the norm, in Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Liberia. With the exception of Uganda these countries are all rich in vital resources such as oil, uranium, and diamonds. The small arms industry is a very lucrative business for the USA, former USSR and her satellite Eastern European states, and China. Guess what is used to purchase the weapons by the respective African leaders that took a sacred oath to look out for their respected people’s interest? Yes, the vital resources. 1.http://www.state.gov/s/inr/rls/fs/2001/4004.htm
2. http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=13824#relatedlinks
It is obvious that most of us share some outrage about these perennial problems that continue to exist in parts of Africa. One side however , believe that all the blame should lie with outsiders, while others like myself believe that that both sides share some culpability.
It is time for some of us to do more than lip service and start something for the struggle. Start new ‘think thanks’ that can be a useful resource for leaders, and policy makers in dire need for solutions. By past the traditional media entity and use the technology for good use to reach the people. It is obvious that we soon may have to crash some of these traditional NGO’s that are at times part of the problems as many have been know to abuse their privileged position and can be another extension of government , and business enterprises that help pay the piper .
While we are at it let’s “take the mold out of our own eyes…”- if you get my drift. When are we going to also get passionate about land reform in sweet T&T? We also have prime agricultural lands here that except for the quirk of history are mostly in the hands of one particular group while another was left to struggle with the unworkable useless remnants massa decided to discard centuries ago, along with the rudimentary skills obtained in the sugar cane fields during slavery. Any talk of rectifying that British anomaly I observed ,now that the state controlled sugar industry is dead, is greeted with anger and selfish condemnations by even our esteem leaders and their privileged kids that fed at the ‘ proverbial trough’ like a piglet for years until the life has gone .
It is always fun to get behind the mask of a people and lay bare what is inside their soul as they try to confront issues. Crimes, terrorism, genocide, suicide, poverty, power sharing, and injustice are just a few social problems we are dealing with today. Another common legacy of British colonialism and slavery was to ensure that we have political power, but not genuine representation via leaders that consistently look out for all of us. I am an optimist.
The pressure to relinquish or reverse the indigenization program in Zimbabwe can only be resisted successfully if other surrounding African countries, particularly South Africa engage a program to realistically return the land to the indigenous folks over there. There seems to be a cowardice or fear to do so among the African folks. There needs to be regional solidarity on this issue. Of course, if the land is redistributed to the rightful heirs – the black African – and they are not monitored and supported in producing with it, that can be a problem, but it is still no excuse to return the land back to the minority European. After all, how long did the Europeans have the land and infrastructure support from the colonial powers to practice on the land and develop the commercial farming expertise. The indigenous people of southern Africa will need time to realign themselves to the land – after all, it was a colonial strategy to remove them from the land to work as servants for the white farmers on that very same land, but never as the owner. The indigenous people were purposely alienated and distanced from the land, oriented towards other types of careers in the towns or just as mindless workers. They need time to restructure their existence.
The problem is will the west leave them alone and let them do it. NO!! They want the resources and valuables over there.
“For it is clear that the well-being and safety of the Zimbabwean people are furthest from the mind of this ruthless tyrant who has presided over the destruction of one of Africa’s most prosperous economies and who has trampled on the democracy he and others so valiantly fought for and won almost three decades ago.
To give you an idea of the mess that Mr Mugabe has made of his country, news reports at the weekend told us that last Monday the Zimbabwean dollar had fallen to nine billion to the US dollar; on Tuesday it plunged to 12 billion; and on Wednesday it fell even further to 15 billion to the US dollar.
Inflation, we were also informed, is in the range of 165,000 per cent. Yet Mr Mugabe clings to power, and, like so many other so-called leaders lost in delusions of self-importance, has told us that he was appointed by God to rule.”
This was taken from Today’s Jamaica Observer Editorial, and provides a commentary of the plight that ordinary Zimbabweans face….and judging from this, and other news (albeit from the imperialist media)coming out of Zimbabwe, it isn’t over yet!
History and geopolitics are undoubtedly major factors that have contributed to the predicament that Zimbabweans find themselves today. However, like Neil mentions, blame should not simply be assigned to foreign governments and international media in a carte blanche manner…poor governance and incomplete policy-creation on the part of Mr. Mugabe and his Goverment over the decades have undoubtedly contributed to today’s situation.
They must somehow be brought to accept some measure of accountability for the mess, instead of simply using history and disdain of the UK and US, as means of absolving themselves!
If this can not be done through free and fair elections, what other avenues are there?
“The indigenous people of southern Africa will need time to realign themselves to the land – after all, it was a colonial strategy to remove them from the land to work as servants for the white farmers on that very same land, but never as the owner.”
This is an extremely valid point, and its poor implementation has undoubtedly precipitated the downfall of the Zimbabwean economy. This well-intentioned land reform was introduced to correct historic immoralities and return valuable land to the indigenous Zimbabwean, BUT what kind of planning was put into the process to ensure that farmers had the required support and resources to promote the critical maintainance of the country’s economy?
Noble intentions aside, who really is to blame for the crumpled state of Zimbabwe’s economy, the well-being of its people and almost non-existent quality of life?
This comment from Newsday says it all.
If Robert Mugabe were a white man, condemnation of his recent actions would be well-nigh universal. But because he is a black African, there are still many people, including persons right here in Trinidad and Tobago, who deny that he is a dictator who has brought death and deprivation to the people of Zimbabwe.
The apologists for Mugabe even go so far as to claim that the Western media is exaggerating, or falsifying, the claims of violence against the opposition. But Mugabe himself banned international media corporations, including the highly-respected BBC, from operating in Zimbabwe. And it has been the habit of dictators throughout modern history to censor the media simply because they know that their actions will not stand up to moral scrutiny.
Another absurd argument from pro-Mugabe spokespersons is that the former colonial powers have turned against Mugabe because of his actions in seizing the land of white farmers in Zimbabwe. This perspective reveals an ignorance, or denial, of relatively recent history.
When Mugabe came to power 28 years ago he did so by overthrowing white rule. The country’s name was then changed to Zimbabwe from Rhodesia – the latter name coined after the African country’s effective conqueror Cecil Rhodes. Yet this turnabout did not prevent Mugabe from being the darling of the Commonwealth, and he was feted even in European countries.
Another dimension to this argument is that Mugabe is only being criticised because of his righting a historical wrong by giving back to black Africans the lands taken from them under colonial rule. But this manoeuvre would fool no one who wasn’t wearing ideological blinkers. Mugabe’s decision was a cynical ploy to win over votes and maintain the military support without which he would have long been thrown out of office. The land he seized did not go to Zimbabweans competent to run them, but to his supporters, who have ruined the once-productive lands so that the country, once a major agricultural exporter, now has to import food and depend on aid. Thus, even if Mugabe was sincere in taking the landholdings, those who think this to be justified are essentially saying that righting history is more important than feeding people.
Beyond all this, however, is the simple fact that the people of Zimbabwe do not want Robert Mugabe as their president. Even his apologists cannot deny this, since the first presidential election saw him winning fewer votes – and this, it must be noted, in a rigged election – than Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Yet the only reason this is known that Mugabe and his henchmen haven’t kept up with the times – the results were posted outside polling booths, allowing people to photograph the results with digital cameras.
In former times, the results would have been changed long before being collated. So Mugabe has now held a presidential election which his own countrymen, and the whole world, know was a sham. Thus, he now effectively rules Zimbabwe by coup. Unfortunately, the former colonial powers will take only token action against him, such as Britain stripping him of his knighthood, while the African Union, especially South African president Thabo Mbeki, has proven a broken reed. The only silver lining on the black cloud of Robert Mugabe is that he is an old man and, having ruined Zimbabwe’s economy, he will soon not be able to bribe the militias which keep him in power. What a pity that he will be remembered for the infamy of his last days rather than the glory of his former triumphs.
Lloyd says it all here:
Worried over Robert Mugabe vs. the Western World’s Press?
By Lloyd Whitefield Butler, Jr.
Jun 22, 2008
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire commenting on 18th century media spinmiesters. Abolitionist Reverend Matlack wrote: “What absurdities will not men defend! If the Gospel will tolerate slavery [apartheid and colonialism], what will it not authorize?
SHOULD you be worrying about 84 year old Robert Gabriel Mugabe, duly elected President of the Republic of Zimbabwe returning Zimbabwe land to Zimbabweans in national security mode? Should the world be worrying about a US, EU, Britain backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) run-off election to un-declare its government’s Declaration of Independence and to abolish its Constitution and return illegally seized land to white farmers?
Should the World Press worry about Tendai Biti, Secretary General of the Movement for Democratic Change, who said the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) must “play the midwifery role” in easing President Robert Mugabe from power in the aftermath of the March 29 election?
Don’t worry that Secretary Tandai Biti said to Zimbabwe government authorities: ‘If diplomacy fails, “the next thing is a war,” Mr. Biti also told reporters after a news conference. “It’s not an option to us, but one day some [person] is going to say, ‘This is the only solution.’ SADC must act now before rivers of dead people start to flow, as they did in Rwanda.”
Don’t worry that officially ‘…MDC insists Tsvangirai won outright the first time.’ ‘We decided to participate in the run-off to give the people of Zimbabwe a second chance to kick out the dictatorship. We have now declared a zero vote for Robert Mugabe,” Khupe told supporters.
Don’t worry about MDC-T Deputy President Thokozani Khupe’s statement that ‘We need to give Mugabe a final blow. On June 27 we will be having a ZANU-PF funeral. We are going to make sure we bury them so that they will not resurrect again.’
Don’t worry about whether world affairs are spinning out of control? No, worry about Sir Robert Gabriel Mugabe returning colonial apartheid seized land back to landless Zimbabweans who were murdered and forced off their land by a British apartheid colonial invasion.
Don’t worry that “the United States put the IMF and the World Bank in charge of the Third World debt problem and essentially instructed them to do two things: keep the debtor countries paying something so that official defaults could be avoided and squeeze as much money out of them as possible. The two semimoribund institutions accepted their new role with alacrity, delighted to act as collection agencies for banks that had made bad loans. Thus were born the World Bank’s “structural adjustments loans” and the IMF’s “structural adjustment programs.”
In America don’t worry that “Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.”
Don’t worry that “Half of world’s child deaths occur in Africa – “The State of Africa’s Children 2008,” was launched on May 28 at the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development. The facts are shocking. Although Africa accounts for only 22 percent of births globally, half of the 10 million child deaths annually occur on the continent.”
That “Bankers savaged by credit crunch – The great credit crisis, which has cost the world’s largest banks billions since last summer, hit a new low on April Fools’ Day when UBS made another £9bn of writedowns. The losses, mainly incurred through the US sub-prime mortgage market, cost chairman Marcel Ospel his job. UBS is the biggest victim so far, having lost more than £18bn.”
That “The crisis took a dramatic twist on March 16 when Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns was sold to JP Morgan Chase for an initial knockdown price of $2 a share, or a total of $236m. The news triggered turmoil on global stock markets and a sharp decline in the US dollar while gold and oil prices soared. Shareholder protests later forced JP Morgan to increase its offer to $10 a share.”
Just worry about President Mugabe returning Zimbabwe land back to Zimbabweans.
Don’t worry “That corporations have taken the spotlight as latter-day English-speaking conquistadores–Magellans of technology, Cortéses of consumer goods, and Pizarros of entertainment–reflected in the cosmopolitanizing of their profits, a cousinship to earlier Dutch and then British cosmopolitanizing of investment.”
Don’t worry about the “Plan to Fingerprint Foreigners Exiting U.S. Is Opposed – The airline industry and embassies of 34 countries, including the members of the European Union, are urging the U.S. government to withdraw a plan that would require airlines and cruise lines to collect digital fingerprints of all foreigners before they depart the United States, starting in August 2009.”
In America “This year, 24 foreign carriers and about eight U.S. carriers have halted operations, gone out of business or sought bankruptcy protection. The carriers stand to lose $6.1 billion this year if the price of oil remains at $135 a barrel, Bisignani said in a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.”
Just worry about Zimbabwe! How dare an African give colonial land back to Africans. Rubbish!
Don’t worry about “Security fears over food and fuel crisis – Western countries have upgraded the food and fuel crisis into a national security concern as they fear record high energy and agriculture commodity costs are destabilizing key developing regions of the world.”
Don’t worry about America “Borrowing $2 billion to $3 billion a day from other countries to maintain the world’s highest standard of living, based on conspicuous consumption, in an age of growing world shortages, while fighting two wars whose costs will soon ring up a $1 trillion tab, is tantamount to living on borrowed time.”
That “Activists turn to Blackwater over Darfur – Mia Farrow, the actress and activist, has asked Blackwater, the US private security company active in Iraq, for help in Darfur after becoming frustrated by the stalled deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force.
Ms. Farrow said she had approached Erik Prince, founder and owner of Blackwater, to discuss whether a military role was either feasible or desirable.”
That “Rich countries have so far given only one-seventh of the extra aid they promised to Africa three years ago, with France particularly off-track, according to a report.”
Don’t worry about “World Bank backs contentious director – Colin Bruce, the World Bank country director at the centre of a storm of controversy during Kenya’s post-election crisis, has been named as director of operations and strategy for Africa. – Officials said the appointment was not technically a promotion but it allowed Mr. Bruce to influence funding decisions for the continent as a whole.”
Worry about Zimbabwe!
Don’t worry about “3 in 10 Americans admit to racial bias”
That a “Corruption probe halts Iraqi rebuilding – U.S.-funded reconstruction of city suspended as mayor, police chief are investigated in oil scam.”
Don’t worry about “U.S. lawmakers want Mandela off terrorism list – Bill has support from Justice Dept.; awaits approval from Senate” as of Sunday, June 22, 2008
That “More than 100 barges idled on Mississippi – One operator estimates his losses at $25,000 a day, and that could grow”
That “According to a report released Tuesday, the CIA’s actions in blocking the investigators’ access to Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah were “unwarranted” and “hampered” an investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General into the FBI’s knowledge of abuse by CIA and U.S. military interrogators.”
Worry about Mugabe returning Zimbabwe land to Zimbabweans.
Don’t worry about “Mohammed ElBaradei, the United Nations’ top nuclear weapons official, says a military strike on Iran would turn the Mideast into a “ball of fire.”
That the “The Federal Highway Administration said Thursday it estimates that Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer miles on public roads in April. That’s a decline of 1.8% compared to April 2007 and is the sixth consecutive month that drivers have cut back.”
Don’t worry about:
“Afghan security forces knew Taliban militants were planning an offensive near the southern city of Kandahar last week but were distracted by a mass prison break”
“American beef imports to South Korea will not resume anytime soon after a new import deal with the United States failed to quell South Koreans’ concerns about mad cow disease and their policy grievances”
“NATO general calls for 6000 more troops in Afghanistan”
“Nigerian president declares war on militants in the Niger Delta – The presidency said militant activities were undermining efforts aimed at addressing the huge developmental challenges in the oil rich Niger Delta region.”
“[US] Presidential Lies and Deceptions – When spin crosses the line, the credibility gap is hard to repair”
“OIL SUMMIT: Nigeria Oil Output At Lowest In 25 Yrs -Official”
“Former Cuban president Fidel Castro has lambasted the European Union’s decision to lift diplomatic sanctions against Cuba but imposed tough human rights conditions, calling the move an “enormous hypocrisy.”
Worry about Sir Robert Mugabe returning land to landless Zimbabweans.
Don’t worry about “Guns blight US energy choices – The United States, noted for losing low-skilled jobs to developing countries, has ceded the ground to Europe and Japan in higher-level manufacturing, notably in the sustainable-energy sector. That flows from the Pentagon draining engineering, scientific and business talent that could otherwise develop technologies that would help the country avoid economic and environmental collapse.”
Don’t worry that the “US in military misstep over African oil – The impact in Africa will likely be the same as in Iraq: perpetual occupation, instability, and growing anti-Americanism.”
Don’t worry that “In recognition of “the emerging strategic importance of Africa”, President George W Bush in February 2007 ordered the creation of AFRICOM, the US Africa Command. AFRICOM centralizes all authority for the US military operating in the African region under one command structure. While fighting terrorism in Africa is the primary reason given for the establishment of AFRICOM, oil appears to be the more pressing motivator. – “the key aspect of which is the US military’s transformation into a global oil protection force”.
Don’t worry about “The Bush administration has increasingly turned to the Department of Defense to ensure more stable governments in Africa that are supportive of both the US government and US (and US-affiliated) oil corporations and to guarantee an amenable (some would argue, subdued) populace.”
Worried about Zimbabwe returning its million year old land sovereignty back to its landless citizens means everything to the World Press Media while the rest of the world means nothing.
Coming to the Final Rounds of Sir Robert Mugabe versus the Western Press it appears the Forces of Nature has interrupted and is presently warning everybody on Earth that crimes against humanity is criminal but crimes against nature is catastrophic.
Today’s escalation in natural calamities are Nature’s way, in high definition, of cleansing and decontaminating itself from the abuse and toxic effects of Western Civilization. It is time to get Back to African Nature Time back to Zulu Time. Greenwich Time appears to have run its course.
Wake up African Press!
A few of the posters are putting forward some very valid and logical points re the Zimbabwe issue. One is the need for regional actions and condemnations. At the same time, we can understand the reality that most of the close border leaders are confronted with themselves. Each African nation depended on neighbors during times of independent or other struggles. The refugee matter has always been an issue. In addition many of the leaders have dirty hands themselves and have utilized similar tactics over time. To give up power can mean removal of the protective umbrella and possible accountability for past wrongs.
Post conflict reconstruction Paradox I call it. How do you make an uncaring or rather busy world focus on all of Africa starting today with Zimbabwe?
The fact is that every respected political figureor thinker that attempted to return and do some thing is discouraged. Hopefully that would change soon. World recognized Nigerian economist and World bank pres- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala have some excellent ideas that might shift the debate on Africa as to responsibility. She incidentally was unceremoniously kicked out of office by another of these Stone Age leaders because of her fervent stance on corruption.
So how do you therefore help the desperate Africans out of this quagmire? The AU cannot do it, European and the US cannot be trusted based on every account listed , Expat are discouraged, and non – tribal clans abused. No Peace & security, no development. It’s that simple.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14812/south_africas_worldview.html?breadcrumb=%2Fregion%2F208%2Fafrica_union
2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/01/gender.uk
3http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ngozi_okonjo
_iweala_on_aid_versus_trade.html
4http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ngozi_okonjo
_iweala_on_doing_business_in_africa.html
Neal Noray said:
Yes the region should condemn the actions of the Western powers in bankrolling terrorism in Zimbabwe. They should stand firm behind Zimbabwe.
As Stephen Gowans said:
We have the US and other European governments sponsoring terrorism in Zimbabwe.
As Stephen further stated:
Neal Noray said:
Why should they forget that? They are aware of the US and UK actions and the reasons for them. They know that they are trying to overthrow the government in Zimbabwe for having the courage to do what most of them are gutless to do.
Neal Noray said:
What similar tactics are you speaking about here? You are commenting as if the US and European generated propaganda against the Zimbabwe government constitutes evidence. We do know that many considered the elections in Kenya to be rigged and thousands were killed until the US pushed for an accommodation between the government and the opposition that are both pro US agenda. We know that hundreds were killed in Nigeria’s election that many also said was rigged, and worst of all Ethiopia where Meles stole the election, locked up many Opposition members, his troops killed over thirty unarmed protestors and invaded Somalia on behalf of London and Washington. The election violence and death toll were more than ten times that of Zimbabwe, but Meles still receives funding from the US and UK.
The US and Europe have exposed themselves, and their governments are terrorists who feel they can get away with their brutal actions because of a generally ignorant and racist population.
Motes and Beams: child soldiers are a fact of life in any war outside the European-North American world. When next you see a child holding a rifle taller than himself, and he is African, ask yourself what is under the ground on which he is standing, for which the west would kill. that rifle represents a year’s wages, at the level of an adult. so why does he have one? Teach him to hate, teach hip t kill, then mop up and reconquest. same reason why young thugs in TnT have guns and no work, and this despite blimp, helicopters, swift patrol boats and shiprider agreements.
The situation in both countries are the same, as in Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and now Iran, where today it was reported that the US is stirring up unrest, preparatory to Israel launching an attack on Iran
(second attempt to post this. Yes my system is enabled. Its got a lot of power, but there is interference).
I certainly admire and can sense the passion from Heru and Linda. There views are generally on point. It should be noted for the record that I am in agreement with the majority of what they’ve said with respect to the motives of Europe , USA and let’s throw in a few emerging industrial giants in Asia -in need of oil to service expanding industries and their massive population – for good measure. I particularly like the fact that both can show the show some parallels in our neck of the woods T&T and a few other Caribbean islands.
As I have said before, the astute among us do not necessarily need rehashing of all the ills that are affecting countries like these from the global south. We understand that 40 years of ideological Cold War divisions made Africa the play thing for powers via proxy wars etc. We know what happened to Mobutu Sese Seko, and Kabilia when they were no longer useful. Let me hear some attempts at solutions. With particular reference to Africa provide some semblance of a way forward for a continent that in the sixties fed itself and the world and today imports some $20 Billion per year in food. Let me hear what can be done for a continent that $148 Billion per year is lost through corruption. Say a word on Capital flight which amounts to some $80 Billion per year from the continent. Finally, 204 African heads of states were in power in Africa since 1964. http://www.american.edu/cas/econ/faculty/ayittey.htm
I dare you to name your top twenty that stands out as a model leader that Africans can be proud of, had left his country in a better state than he met it, or who will risk walking among his people without personal close protection- for fear of whatever consequences might befall him, due to disgust by his rule.
I look forward to the day when the EU would get a substantive rival, what about the ACP countries can that work? Perhaps that’s the way forward. As we might be in a better position than the clueless AU to do something for our women and children like finally eliminate barbarism described as culture in the form of ‘genital mutilation’. How can a continent expect to rise if it treats its women like perpetual footcloth is beyond me? The Chinese got rid of foot binding for women years ago- care to guess why they are the fasting rising nation in the world beside India?
What exactly does Dr. Muhammad Yunus’ and his microlending revolution aimed at empowering Bangladesh women understand, that African leaders cannot? What is so ironic, to me is the fact that there are women who can sit in their air condition apartments in Boston and wherever with their computers and special toys at the bedside, and defend these African miscreants that are described as leaders. At the same time they take a little hiccup in good old T&T – where a free media, rule of law, and solid AG stewardship prevails, and compare it with Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Almost Sacrilegious indeed, this defamation of my wonderful country! But hey, they might be right, and I am the out of touch, naïve and the sentimental one. Hmmmm?
P.S. Ms. L do not worry about those foolish theocrats in Iran , they’ll get the message soon, Libya came on board , North Korea is following , Israel is dead serious about being the sole nuclear power in that region, and oil prices are still rising. The Crawford kid doesn’t want that on his legacy. Remember Somalia? Two days before the inaugural balloons fell, General Powell followed instruction and sucked ‘his slickness Clinton’ into that quagmire.
http://www.freeafrica.org/index.htm
Tsvangirai’s tactics criticised by party insiders
By Thomas Ndlovu
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
There is growing dissatisfaction in the ranks of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) over an apparent lack of a strategy by the party leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, for confronting the Mugabe regime.
Senior party officials have said Mr Tsvangirai’s leadership flaws and “tactical miscalculations” are in danger of giving Robert Mugabe a lifeline and prolonging the crisis. Senior MDC officials expressed disquiet over his persistent failure to offer a clear direction.
“We haven’t got a clear road map to end the Mugabe dictatorship other than just crying to regional leaders for their intervention,” said one official.
“In the rough and tumble of African politics, nothing has ever been achieved by being a cry baby,” said another associate of Mr Tsvangirai. “You ought to get your act together and do what we all know needs to be done in this continent to achieve power … You confront your rival head on,” the associate added.
Since pulling out of the presidential run-off, Mr Tsvangirai has been moving in and out of the Dutch embassy to address the press, but without offering a clear direction to his supporters over his party’s next course of action. The decision to boycott the presidential run-off was taken without consultation, some officials revealed.
“In all probability, we would have all supported the decision to boycott the poll if he had consulted us … What we would have insisted on, however, would have been a clear strategy about what to do next after the boycott. As things stand now, there is no clarity on the way forward other than crying for [the South African President, Thabo] Mbeki’s ever-elusive help,” said a leader of one civic group.
“Even the decision to seek refuge in the Dutch embassy itself exemplifies his unwise thinking, since this will only strengthen the perception created by Mugabe that Morgan is in cahoots with Western powers,” a party official said.
Internal critics of Mr Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist, say they are unwilling to speak out for fear of being sidelined. Several of those contacted by The Independent complained the party’s decision-making processes did not allow for open debate.
Mr Tsvangirai has been criticised by Zimbabwean bloggers for pulling out of the run-off election: “You [Tsvangirai] are slowly letting the people of Zimbabwe down. You should not be the one under pressure, that is for Mugabe. But you are falling into his trap and playing his game,” a blogger called Chinja wrote on http://www.sokwanele.com.
One party official said: “He [Mr Tsvangirai] ought to inspire his supporters to take to the streets [in civil disobedience]. His problem is that he is too cautious. The masses are on his side, but they will only do so if he leads them into that kind of action. They will not take to the streets if they know their leader is in Dutch comfort.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/tsvangirais-tactics-criticised-by-party-insiders-857660.html
So now Kea that you’ve taken a lot of time to repeat to us what a few yuppie bloggers outside of the frontline have said, why not spend a bit more time and let us know exactly what you think should be done. Is martyrdom a good cause? The opposition leader have suffered enough severe beatings from the supporters of this misguided senile lunatic won’t you agree? The ball is now in the corner of the gutless cowards within the AU like Mbeki whose only reason for fearing to attack Mugabe is to protect his own skin. In case you did not learn from most of the comments that were put forth since on the subject in defense of Mugabe , the land problem in South Africa is just as precarious or even worst because of the disparity between whites and blacks and exorbitant wealth at stake. This old fool Mugabe has achieved something of a cult status among a few around Africa. Mbeki is fearful of riling up his own disgruntled base that has yet to see any positive results or returns from the rule of the entire ANC since they took office. As such he would not try to stand up against him in any fashion. Tsvangirai is correct in taking his case directly to the AU and let them confront the issue. Failure to take action will prove once and for all how deceptive and useless the entire bunch are, as they prefer to pass the buck as they have repeatedly done on Rwanda, Congo, and Sudan and hope that rescue come from the same Europeans that they purport to despise.
Can you remember when the power hungry corrupt Muslim generals killed Saro-Wiwa? It was the European led Commonwealth that had to take action by suspension of Nigeria .If these clowns can work as one body, as well as one voice and stand behind each other the ungrateful white South African would have no choice but to recognize that ‘you must share a wing , with the man that gave you the entire chicken’. Walking in like a high school bully and confiscating property is ludicrous and would only antagonize the entire world body that might only be tolerant with blacks oppressing each other. I am not sure how many on this board have seen Southern Africa .Whites have no intention of leaving that region any time soon , especially in South Africa, as it can rival any major country in the world in terms of development. Southern Africa requires new leaders willing to lead in the interest of all- paying particular attention to past ills.
Mandala could afford to travel the world and collect his accolades and awards as he has obviously washed his hands of the entire problem. It is left to the politicians in Pretoria to lead in that regard as they put legislations in place and use the power at their disposal to rectify past wrongs. Don’t they have the majority? The same applies in Zimbabwe. If all Zimbabweans were involved in the liberation struggle, and thirty years later the only political leader suddenly decides to do something to maintain power, but compounded the problem by giving the country’s sole assets only to his own illiterate tribal supporters, then resistance are to be expected. To have countless partisan supporters utilize the freedom and privilege they possess, by using the internet to defend such behaviors – when we are absolutely certain they’ll feel differently had it been them or any of their own, is beyond reason.
Finally it is the Africans that must police themselves and tell tyrants this despicable behavior would not be tolerated. European has not allowed it in their back yard for quite some time and Africans should follow suite. Genocide and ethnic divisions have no place in a society in the 21st century. To justify the behavior, by saying that understandably evil, racist Europeans did it to you for centuries is even more preposterous. I have said it before Africans across the Diaspora need to sit down in much the same way that Jews the world over had done and demand compensations for past atrocities. Start with Europeans, American, and yes ARABS, who without free slave labor and resources would have to great society to boast about. I do not care if it occurred a million years ago.
It disgust me , every time I hear some privileged group whose ancestors never bore the brunt of slavery , attempt to dismiss history as just another anomaly that should be forgotten while they try to upgrade their phantom ills . Africa today is suffering obviously because ‘it has lost its best minds through slavery’. I make no apology for that statement. No other ethnic group or races have ever received so little at the end of human atrocities and degradation. It has been done before, and would be repeated again, only because they cannot understand the benefits of unity as a people wherever they exist. Like Jews feel about themselves globally, the murder and mayhem of any African should bring outrage by all irrespective of who is doing it. This debate is not about some buffoon call Mugabe. He should be placed in his rocking chair ,in his billion dollar Harare Grace Mansion be cuddled by his overprice wife- ‘the first shopper’ , as he await the decision of the new government and as the Justice department contemplate when to file charges -and how many countless bank accounts to retrieve from Europe- for years of abuses to the nation. This is about dignity of a lost people, and a partially destroyed continent in dire need of direction and sound leadership that are willing and able to lift them out of the abyss of shame and despair to that of respectability. In the process, all Africans and people the world over can rejoice.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/shopper.1156.html
The agony of Zimbabwe
By George Alleyne
Wednesday, June 25 2008
There can be no justfication for the reported excesses and acts of violence allegedly committed by some members and/or agents of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF Party in the Party’s attempts to hold on to power. Additionally, it is unfortunate that Mugabe’s earlier fight for the political freedom and economic advancement of Zimbabwe should now be scarred.
But while I understand his fears of what he clearly perceives to be an attempt to return Zimbabwe to an Ian Smith type rule, nonetheless I have reservations about his Government’s and Party’s reported actions. I still believe, however, that Mugabe was right in his Government’s retaking of Zimbabwe’s arable land which had been forcibly seized by white settlers following on one-sided Land Ordinances by the colonial administration of then Southern Rhodesia. Jeffrey Herbst in his “State Politics in Zimbabwe”, published in 1990 by the University of California Press, has stated, emphatically, that these Land Ordinances “guaranteed white economic domination and black poverty during the 90-year colonial period”.
So unjust was the system that Carl K Eicher tells us in his “Zimbabwe’s Maize-based Green Revolution: Preconditions for Replication. World Development”, that when Independence was secured for Zimbabwe in 1980, some half of the country’s best agricultural land was under the control of 5,000 settler farms, and the remainder in the possession of 700,000 Zimbabwean farmers! I have said this before, but it needs retelling.
In an earlier British controlled Southern Rhodesia, as in other areas of colonised Africa, “dominant expatriate interests” got the colonial administration to “block the development of a fully capitalist system in order to create a structure of servile dependency which would maximise monopoly interests”. E A Brett: “Colonialism and Underdevelopment in East Africa: The Politics of Economic Change”, published in London in 1973 by Heinemann. The result was that “the great mass of (African) peasantry (was) consigned irrevocably to the bottom”.
In turn, Walter Rodney would point out on Page 229 of his famous work, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, that East African financial institutions – banks and insurance companies – were employed to protect “colonial expatriate interests” and cut short the development of “African economic power”. Rodney cited, for example, The Credit to Natives (Restriction) Ordinance, 1931. Nevertheless, the blatant racial discrimination against Zimbabweans and other colonised Africans did not cease with their gaining political Independence. When Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, insisted on ending the racially motivated imbalance of history and restore to indigenous Zimbabweans the arable land that had been arbitrarily seized by white settler farmers there was an immediate European economic backlash.
The United Kingdom, for example, slashed its imports from Zimbabwe and today imports a scant two to two and a half percent of Zimbabwean products. Had it not been for South Africa, which accounts for more than half of Zimbabwe’s exports, and the Congo, which accounts for a shade above six percent, Zimbabwe would not have been to pay for imports of needed goods and services, including medicines. Zimbabwe is still being punished, economically, and not for the governing Party’s treatment of the Opposition, but for its struggles for Independence and, above all, for restoring the country’s arable land to indigenous Zimbabweans.
Its main exports – tobacco, horticulture, gold, nickel and ferro alloys – clearly do not provide enough foreign exchange to pay for the machinery, vehicular spares, chemicals and food it desperately needs. Let us, for the record, examine the Gross Domestic Product of some former African colonies, along wih Zimbabwe, in relation to the size of their populations and appreciate that the attitude of the West to them is rooted in making them pay the penalty for being politically independent. Kenya with a population of approximately 32 million has a Gross Domestic Product of some US$13.8 billion; Zimbabwe – 13 million, US$17.8 billion; Zambia – 12.9 million, US$4.5 billion; Chad – 9 million, US$2.8 million; Uganda – 26 million, US$6.4 million; Malawi – 12 million, 1.9 million; Mozambique – 19 million, US$4.5 million and Guinea-Bissau – 1.51 million, US$0.21 billion!.
I introduce a factor which has had the effect of retarding the economic progress of all too many Third World countries, including Zimbabwe, and even our own Trinidad and Tobago – the Law of the First Price.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/commentary/0,81352.html
Hello Neal Noray, I guess this is the billion dollar Harare Grace Mansion you speak of ent? Do you remember when Ms. Mugabe went to France to buy all dem nice ting fuh she Palace?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article555089.ece
There is only one problem… This house belongs to an Indian Actor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OceOYQwxiI&feature=related
I am glad George Alleyne produced “facts” to show Zimbabwe’s economic situation”: Its exports Tobacco, horticulture, and gold. Nothing there that people really need. Smoking is down worldwide, and when economic times get hard, people cut back on ordering flowers.I am lucky to own a few good gold pieces of jewelry, but they sit in a bank, and I cannot eat that.
No wonder Zimbabweans are starving-none of their main exports can be turned around to feed their people.In that, they are like TNT, but worse off. We use our oil money to buy a “giood lifestyle” for the higher ups and better offs, and the people who used to live in the box containers that cars (CKD) came in, are hardly better off.
When Europeans acquire(d) land in their colonial possessions, it was to grow products for their own businesses.It was never about feeding the natives. Thus the west coast of Africa grew peanuts and cocoa beans as well as coffee. The coffees came bck in brand names the people could not afford, nor could they afford the expensive chocolate.
Every Africn leader, therfore, who re-acquires European farms, is making a basic decision about feeding his own people. The tropics are productive places, like TnT could be, but we grow tobacco which no one eats,and long again for the growing of sugar cane while the nation is dying of diabetes and it complications.
I think it was Forbes Burnham who said A man is a Man when he can grow his own food. Unfortunately, the food import bills of most of Britain’s former colonies makes them boys, stuck in growing things no one eats, while importing vitamins to remediate brain death from lack of proper food.
This Zimbabwean Crisis it the same as the Haitian crisis that has gone on since HAiti declared independence in 1792.
Colonies of exploitation become the enemies of Europe when they dare to lift their heads and think for themselves. Collective isolation of them by the Europeans we are taught to worship leaves them repressive and resentful; especially when they think the opposition is selling out the national patrimony.
The African Union’s mediated and power sharing solution deserves chance, but the West also have to call of their dogs, and cease gun sales to “rebel”groups throughout the continent.
Well, the west is NOT calling off their dogs. The German government has required the company that supplies the paper on which Zimbabwean currency is printed, not to supply any more paper. This strkes at the heart of the large-eyed, under fed children who break our hearts. What does the German government have against children? Any boycott harms the most vulnerable. MArtha Gelhorn, writing in 1992, said the Germans have a loose gene somewhere, the compassion gene.
We who are African originated people in the west, as well as in Africa,must begin to respond to this further threat.
Germany sells us high priced carsMercedes Benz and BMW’s. Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, had a fleet of 24, most of which was garaged in France. They sell us Vw’s and Merck drugs, among others. We need to stop buying their products. Its bad enough that BMW and Volkswagen were kept in busiiness during WW11 by using slave labour- the Jews frm the concentration camp, now they are holier than thou.
Buy Saab cars, made in sweden, or Volvos instead. No german chocolates or Bavarian beer, no Octoberfest.
This is what was feared- the German attitude- when our Soca Warriors went to rural Germany. It did not mterialize then, too many were watching. Do something today. Put your money where your heart is.
Hit back at those who would not let the AU succeed, because they have their jackboot on Zimbabwe’s neck.
Interesting and relevant Video. Poor Whites – South Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFj0HdW2iDs
‘The Mouse dream dreams that will terrify the Cat.’
Ms. L ,Which is easier, to cease gun sales where exorbitant profits can accrue for the sellers ,or leaders resisting the temptation of purchasing so that they can open schools, hospitals ,and invest in infrastructure that markets can see the new, excellent, needed crops you alluded to ?
Forbes Burnham, is this guy really worth quoting? (St Peter would not allow him in heaven over his role beyond talk for black people. Can you remember of Jonestown & Dr. Rodney?) Rest in Peace to one of the most respected historians and thinkers in the Caribbean and the world – Dr W Rodney. Sorry but your ideological leanings contributed to your downfall. It would be however interesting to know how illustrious bodies like the CIA decides who more of a threat is. Chedi Jeagan and his American wife were confessed Marxist, Burnham his one time associate likewise was a socialist and certainly Dr. Rodney .How come one got eliminated while the other three got to shape Guyana even to the next/ present Generation? OK one was the lesser of two evils and the other had a very ultra -convenient marriage .Thanks for this refreshing diversion.
Trinidad situation is compounded by the fact that political change might not occur in the foreseeable future for obvious reasons as unfortunately the 1986 experiment was seen by some as a backward step by a few. Remind them that a characteristic of this Westminster British system that is so adored , is that the PM is ‘first amongst equal,’ and is free to include who ever he wishes into his cabinet , irrespective of how he was able inveigle power. It is for him in that case to recognize that having only two seats placed him in a weak position. This is somewhat akin to the madness that passes for democracy in Israel every two to three years. Ah, this phenomenon of old wine in new / old bottles can catch up with you eventually, one must agree!
So get use to your blimp in the sky, and British cops dominating our Police service, replication of Moussard failed security strategies, and efforts aimed at getting corrupt US ex police heads to be the COP. There just however might be hope for our state security however. It came in the admonition of an international renowned Trinidadian Muslim scholar. http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,81548.html
He incidentally suggested Woodford Square floggings for kidnappers and other criminals. The country might just take him up on that wonderful progressive suggestion that worked so well for the Taliban and 15th century Saudi Wahabis Arabs. I feel for you Shanice Ramcharan as you could well be the fist test case for kidnapping your dear innocent friend, Avita Bissondath. Do you see how too much education especially from the wrong places can be a dangerous thing? And to believe that this guy represented our country’s Foreign Service for years. Let’s follow the crazy doctrines of Pakistan- a country that murders Opposition leaders, is the biggest impediment to ending terrorism in Asia, have no public transport or notable public primary schools, cannot feed its millions, and yet is locked in a nuclear arms race with India. With citizens like these who need enemies. As for ideas for the economy, you might have to pack your bags for good old T& T so as to be a part of the solution.
In the land of the Wahabbi’s which I have visited, there is routine exploitation of foreign workers from India, PAkistan, and The Phillipines. Some of the exploitative employers chase their workers away instead of paying them. A Nigerian “doctor” was recently arrested for performing abortions, in the land of “virginity until Marriage”. It is a fact that if five business people are dining in a restaurant, two women and three men, they must eat in the family section, but if the two women leave before the men, then the men have to finish their meal in the men’s section.
There are floors in stores barred to men, where women can buy the sexiest, skimpiest women’s lngerie. now why would devout Muslims in the land that protects the holy places need these things?
We do not need that sort of nonsensical interpretation of purity and goodness in TnT. If we could have accessed the drunk driving statistics for this country, it would cause you to wonder how come? The visa application says the penalty for alcohol consunption is death, yet drunk driving accidents occur? and rapes of children, and murders of employees by employers, and vice versa?
Save our little dual rocks in the Caribbean from Wahabbism.
Extreme religious fervour, ragardless of which faith professes it, is essentially a backward step, trying to force everyone to toe someone else’s line of goodness. The sharia law of Northern Nigeria has brought death and misery to all of the northern provinces. It is equally bad in the southern provinces where Christianity prevails. So, religion is NOT the issue. You cannot legislate the heart of man.
As chair of the academic advisory committee of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, I feel obliged to correct some misinformation in Stephen Gowans’ article:
1) ICNC has never funded civil society groups in Zimbabwe or any other country, a practice which is specifically prohibited according to ICNC’s bylaws.
2) ICNC has never been involved in the training of civil society groups. A few Zimbabweans involved in the pro-democracy struggle have attended seminars which have been sponsored by ICNC — along with participants from such countries as Egypt, Palestine, West Papua, Burma, Western Sahara and other countries — but the content of which has been restricted to generic information regarding the history and dynamics of strategic nonviolent action.
3) Given that members of scores of democratic opposition groups struggling against repressive regimes backed by the United States have also attended ICNC seminars, it is totally false to charge that the decision by ICNC to also include Zimbabweans has imperialistic motivations.
4) Peter Ackerman is not a New York investment banker nor is he the “former right hand man to Michael Milken.” He was one of the co-founders of ICNC, but he is not the “head” of ICNC and has distanced himself from its operational decisions since becoming head of Freedom House.
5) There is no coordination between ICNC and Freedom House and many of us associated with ICNC personally disagree with those Freedom House activities which appear designed to support U.S. imperialism.
6) Noam Chomsky, who is quoted in the article assereting Freedom House’s links to U.S. government agencies and U.S. foreign policy objectives, has also come to the defense of ICNC against such false charges as those contained in this article.
I do not give a damn about the intentions of so called “do gooders” whose consclence and sympathy for the oppressed in Africa only surface when the so called oppressor is black. This does not mean that I support the black idiots who contribute and coalate with others to pillage and rape Africa and Africans. But Africans always have to be weary of those who urge us on to get rid of our bad so their bda can take over and do the same thing.
The opposition leader of Zimbabwe is either utterly naive, or utterly corrupt. He would have to be to consider the same people control ninety plus percent of the arable land while his country men existed on shyte as allies for his cause of bringing greater democracy to Zimbabwe. That is what is ludicrous about those Africans and African descendants who would coalate with the Zimbabwean equivalent of the KKK to wage war against their brothers and sisters. Give me a break.
I believe Bob marley summarized the whole situation very lucidly in the lyrics quote:
(b) Ambush In The Night lyrics
(Ooh-wee, ooh-wee, ooh-wa!)
See them fighting for power (ooh-wee, ooh-wee, ooh-wa!),
But they know not the hour (ooh-wee, ooh-wee, ooh-wa!),;
So they bribing with their guns, spare-parts and money,
Trying to belittle our
Integrity now.
They say what we know
Is just what they teach us;
And we’re so ignorant
‘Cause every time they can reach us (shoobe, doo-wa)
Through political strategy (shoo-be, doo-wa);
They keep us hungry (shoobe, doo-wa),
And when you gonna get some food (shoobe, doo-wa),
Your brother got to be your enemy, we-e-ell!
Ambush in the night,
All guns aiming at me;
Ambush in the night,
They opened fire on me now.
Ambush in the night,
Protected by His Majesty.
Ooh-wee, ooh-wee. Ooh-wa-ooh!
(Ooh-wee) Ooh-wee, ooh-wee (ooh-wa), Ooh-wa!
Ooh-wee, ooh-wee, ooh wa-ooh!
Ooh-wee, ooh-wee, ooh wa-ah!
Well, what we know
Is not what they tell us;
We’re not ignorant, I mean it,
And they just cannot touch us;
Through the powers of the Most-I (shoobe, doo-wa),
We keep on surfacin’ (shoobe, doo-wa);
Thru the powers of the Most-I (shoobe, doo-wa),
We keep on survivin’.
Yeah, this ambush in the night
Planned by society;
Ambush in the night;
They tryin’ to conquer me;
Ambush in the night
Anyt’ing money can bring;
Ambush in the night
Planned by society;
Ambush in the night(/b)
Ram , interesting videos indeed. Tell me however, what are your views on it. Do you share the premist of the journalist and her organization slant provocative slant ? IIt might well be that black Aparthied is in full bloom now in SA now that evil blacks have finally taken over. Did the
Bob Marley was a weed smoking misguided black musical artist that tried to pen a few songs for his savage Jamaican people caught up in the throes of the CIA Castro dogfights. He might have done as much to extend the slave legacy of black men making too many bastard kids and dying without fully providing for them. His black wife Rita was probably only recently able to reacquire a few of the millions that were stolen from his estate years ago. He would have done much better to smoke less and focus on the real up keep of his many kids. Good song, but that where it should remain. This is politics, and not something that fringe lunatics. Let me see a blueprint for how you intend to deal with land disparity and social inquality in good old T& T where tribalism is professed to be absent. The people of Africa can work out their own shenanigans when they are ready. It starts with the ouster of all greedy dictators disguised as representatives of the people.
Over 50 post on this topic… Yet we have not heard the Trinidad and Tobago Government position on this Zimbabwe issue… But Trinis are talking.
Let me rephrase, What is the T&T government position on Zimbabwe?
“Bob Marley was a weed smoking misguided black musical artist that tried to pen a few songs for his savage Jamaican people caught up in the throes of the CIA Castro dogfights.”
Don’t get tie up Neal, the man did not “pen a few songs”! He was a gifted writer, world class superstar, who wrote hundreds of chart-toppers, and was extremely lucid when it came to world politics, black power issues and peace. Go review your musical history before slandering his memory.
He also actually wrote a song especially for Zimbabwe’s freedom and so respected that he was invited by Mr. Mugabe to perform the song and take part in the independence celebrations in 1980!
I also take particular issue with your reference of the Jamaican people as”savage”, and wonder why you would say this. Do you know that the murder rate in T&T is almost on par with that in Jamaica? Does that make Trinis savages, too?
With reference to your reference to “CIA Castro dogfight “. Michael Manley, the Prime Minister of Jamaica did in fact tangle with the US Gov’t during the seventies over his socialist ties to Fidel, but to my knowledge Bob Marley was not involved in this political tussle…
With respect to his fathering skills though, I can’t defend him. He did father 12 kids with 8 women…. the man just loved women…
Happy 4th July to you too Neal.. But lets not forget the Greatest American, the gem of the Founding Fathers was a Carribean Man, Alexander Hamilton… A ‘Bastard’ too. So give Bob a break. Hate to digress, but..
My thought on the SA video… “One Hundred Thousand Black are entering into the middle-class yearly”, Thank God for YouTube.
The challenge to us now is, how do we put our resources together and bring Zimbabwe out of it’s oppression? How do ‘we’ (African-Trinis) network with that growing middle-class in SA? As for the Poor Whites, maybe they can pull themselves up by their own boots straps.
That is ‘their’ answer to Africans who are locked in poverty here in the ghettos of the US. Then again, I do not wish misery on anyone.
Anyway enjoy…> Africa you never see on tv.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvC64lWeu-s
Where has Neal Noray been living all his life? Did he know that Bob Marley is the musician whose music is recognized everywhere i n the world, and was voted Musician of The Century, by Time MAgazine? This idiotic comment says much more than it was meant to.As for the position of the government of Trinidad and Tobago, why do they need to tell us what the y feel about Mugabe? if the issue had arisen at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference, I guess their position would have been made clear.
Who is in a position to demand that governmet take a position on this issue? Keep talking, so your biases can be revealed for what they are.
There is certainly much work to be done in all quarters. Good all round responses Ram and Kerry. I did deliberately go a bit overboard in my attacks on one of the more noble Jamaican brother. He was a visionary and an excellent artist. In reference to the savage depiction, we are the ‘noble savages’. I got it from very reliable sources that in Jamaica, if a member of the opposition’s dog did cross the boundary of a neighbor of a different political persuasion -especially in the heat of election; – it stands a 99% chance of getting shot. I doubt we are close to that level yet Kerry, are we?
Murders are not necessarily a good indicator of one’s savage nature. Unlike Jamaica, we have the ‘economic means’ to do something about it. One of my favorite quotes has always been to “beware of a man with nothing to loose.” Keep elitism in check, take care of blatant economic disparities, and both majorities should be somewhat wary of crafty partisan elements that repeatedly strive to divide them- if the 1986 dream is to again finally materialize .
The overiding problem is that each tribe that make up the beautiful rainbow nation, has brought various idiosyncrasies from their respective motherlands – whether good , bad or indifferent- and are prepared to hold on firmly to them failing to recognize the negative impacts they had on thoes left behind.There are choices , keep the head in the sand like the ostrich, and wish that someone comes from Mars and rectify the problem ,or get to work -together.
I could have been a bit off with respect to the T&T crime stats, Neil, but I was just being illustrative on your “savage” comment. Ja’s crime rate is still higher.
In respect of Jamaica’s political violence, since the ’70s, there has been a bloody history of polticians arming thugs in so-called garrisson communities of the inner cities of Kingston. But that still does make them savages, it speaks to the failures of the 2-party political system, politicians refusing to cede power, and people become pawns of the power-hungry elitists running the that country’s political system.
I understand that there is now political will on the part of the political heacyweights there, but the “cancer” has now become much bigger than them, that even they may not be able to curb it. Trinidadian politicians can learn much from their political system about what NOT to do….starting with compromises and meetings with thugs cum community leaders….
Kerry I fully understand where you are coming from. I have this bad habit at times where I tend to deliberately exaggerate some scenarios and situation for shock purposes and ignite a bit of all round passion. You might recognize that some words have loosed their sting over time. If you look back on a few of my post, you’ll see I use the word savage a lot- Europeans, Africans, and now Jamaicans. I hope you recognize that I was displaying some attempts at humor when I depicted us as the ‘noble savage’ in Trinidad.
We both share the frustration and disgust of the crime situation, and the manner in which our own political elites- as you referred to them – are dealing with it. Tell me, what are your assessments of the state of our Civil Society in T&T? I know that ever so often a one or more of our different religious leaders make a pronouncement on administering more discipline, or some other social issue.
What about our business communities are they committed to seeing good governance in your opinion? There must be efforts aimed at true partnership between all groups. Without capital from the business community, the political parties themselves will falter. They therefore have some influence. With sound leadership they too cannot thrive. Civil society can force government and even outside forces to be honest one hope?
Someone was rightly lamenting about our weak/unrepresentative media. They might have moved from a small number in my time to the massive amount today, but I am not too sure if the people are really benefiting.
Most importantly is the question of technology. If internet is beyond the reach of many of our citizens because of cost and computers are a luxury for many, this put us all at a disadvantage in advancing healthy unfiltered debates outside of the local main stream.
Let’s keep the dialogue going however; as I still have hope in the people and recognize that they want to be lead. They might be skeptical, but put a good plan before them that is reflective of common interest and we can all be the beneficiaries. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/patrick_awuah_on_educating_leaders.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ngozi_okonjo_iweala_on_aid_versus_trade.html
Check out the above links and hear what have been done and being said by Africans who care. Perhaps we can emulate.