Zimbabwe at War
stephen gowans | 27.06.2008 03:16 | Social Struggles | World
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 is 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, and have answered in theirs.
Zimbabwe at War
Filed under: Civil Society, Color Revolutions, Imperialism, NGOs, Zimbabwe — gowans @ 2:39 pm
By Stephen Gowans
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 is 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, and 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]
...
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 absolute 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.
etc
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/zimbabwe-at-war/
Filed under: Civil Society, Color Revolutions, Imperialism, NGOs, Zimbabwe — gowans @ 2:39 pm
By Stephen Gowans
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 is 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, and 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]
...
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 absolute 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.
etc
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/zimbabwe-at-war/
stephen gowans
Comments
Hide the following 14 comments
Mugabe the friend of capital, not socialism
27.06.2008 07:07
ZanuPF's resistance to this arrangement was a test of their loyalty to the fighters in the independence struggle; however, Mugabe's capitulation to these demands at the expense of all other considerations was cavalier and disasterous; no plan was put in place to retain a level of food production capacity which neccessarily meant not expropriating so many of the white farms as occurred. Cases going through the law courts of the transfer of 500 farms may have taken another couple of years to process, and the war veteran's should have been persuaded to hold off their hostility for the sake of the economic-health of the country. Instead the rushed, careless wave of land seizure crashed the zimbabwean economy. Economic mismanagement has since been the cause of hyper-inflation.
At the same time, the very idea that ZanuPF want nothing to do altogether with western capital is false. Anglo-American are about to embark on a proposed £200m platinum mining scheme in Zimbabwe. Here is an old news report from 7 years ago which also emphasises this as well:
Rugby hero tackles foes of Mugabe
The tycoon behind plans to split farmers
Special report: Zimbabwe
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
Sunday March 25, 2001
The Observer
He was a star of Rhodesia's national rugby team during the heyday of white rule. Canny and ruthless, he emerged as a key figure behind Ian Smith, helping to supply arms to the beleaguered white minority regime in its battle with the guerrilla forces of Robert Mugabe.
But last week he emerged as a central backer of President Mugabe's attempt to split the white farmers and end their fierce opposition to 'fast-track' land seizures in Zimbabwe.
Although the farmers rejected his proposal, John Bredenkamp, the country's wealthiest businessman, will continue his efforts, as an influential Mugabe ally, to divide the farmers by persuading them to open negotiations with the regime.
Bredenkamp, an international arms merchant, mining entrepreneur, oil dealer and hotelier, maintains that Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis will ease once a resolution of the land issue is reached. Normally Bredenkamp shuns the limelight, but there is no doubt that he is a key player.
Mugabe strives to make it appear that his chief enemies are Zimbabwe's whites. But his regime's dealings with Bredenkamp make it clear that when it comes to money Mugabe doesn't care where it comes from.
Bredenkamp's elegant Harare offices boast a museum-quality collection of African masks and other artefacts. Ministers breeze in unannounced for quick visits, showing an unusual familiarity and friendliness .
His demeanour is affable and charming but those who have done business with him say this masks a steely determination and ruthlessness. Aged 55, he is a self-made man who has devoted supporters and vociferous detractors. He first rose to prominence as a star of the Rhodesian national rugby team and he began amassing his fortune in the tobacco business.
His firm, Casalee, had success in breaking international sanctions and selling Rhodesian tobacco overseas, and it became a major international shipping and forwarding company. Having learnt to evade sanctions, Bredenkamp then moved into arms trading and reportedly sold weapons to Smith's government. After Smith's regime fell and majority-ruled Zimbabwe was born in 1980, Bredenkamp stayed in the arms-broking trade with offices in Europe.
Bredenkamp's empire is now global and his fortune is estimated at between £300 million and £500 million. In the past year he moved his headquarters to Zimbabwe, where he now spends most of his time.
His splendid residence, Thetford House, enjoys a commanding view over the Mazowe Valley, about 35 kilometres north of Harare. The capital's residents know when Bredenkamp is in town because they hear his private helicopter transporting him from his home to the city.
Bredenkamp defends his dealings with Mugabe, saying his business has required close relations at the very top with both the Smith and Mugabe governments.
He maintains he is working to find a middle ground in Zimbabwe at a point when the country is bitterly polarised, and that he is attempting to help it out of its economic crisis. One of his companies, Petraf, is the only firm bringing fuel into Zimbabwe. His critics claim he is simply making money as the supporter of a corrupt regime.
Bredenkamp's companies are major suppliers of arms to the Congo war, according to the Africa Confidential newsletter, and he has taken over management of Zimbabwe's mining concessions in the Congo, including uranium, cobalt and other strategic minerals, following the failure of another
Zimbabwean businessman, Billy Rautenbach, to make profits from the mines.
Those concessions were granted as payment for Zimbabwe's support to the Kabila regime.
Although businessmen say Bredenkamp is critical of Mugabe, he rejects the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Instead, he is said to favour Mugabe associate Emmerson Mnangagwa.
It was Bredenkamp's role in the campaign to reform the white farmers' union that revealed him as one of Mugabe's strategic allies. He bankrolled the drive by Nick Swanepoel to persuade the farmers' union to accept the loss of nearly half its members' land.
Swanepoel, a former chairman of the Commercial Farmers Union, tried to convince white farmers to drop all legal cases objecting to Mugabe's 'fast track' land seizures. He also called for the union's leaders to step down and to be replaced by allies of Mugabe.
Mark
Mark and the racist white left on Zimbabwe
27.06.2008 10:01
Mark's statement highlight the backruptcy of the White left on Zimbabwe that can ONLY be explained in terms of their racism. Clearly, the imperialist tendencies of the Anglo-American elite is shared by the white supremacist tendencies of the White left. The issue of Mugabe's supposed capitalism is an excuse for their nasty, white supremacy.
It is up to black people in Zimbabwe and elsewhere as to whether they want socialism or communist not the white Left in the formerly colonising country. If Mugabe is unpopular and MDC popular, as they claim, then this is hardly evidence that Zimbabwe wants socialism.
If Mugabe is ruining the economy as claims and is unpopular as claimed, then the ordinary members of the army and police will get rid of him. There is no evidence that the army and police is being specially privileged by Zanu-PF. There is no evidence of rebellion being put down in the army or police. There is no evidence of rebel army or police members being politically jailed or killed by Mugabe. MDC or anyone else's claim that outside military help is need to get rid of the mad, brutal dictator Mugabe is patently absurd.
The lies about massacre in Matabeleland in the 1980s are lso patently absurd. (I'm not saying there were not murders on innoncent civilians committed by the government.) If the present violence/fraud etc is not bad enough, the dupes bring this up. The dupes say 20,000 were massacred. At the time, it was supposedly for tribal reasons, the Ndbele make up 13% of Zimbabweans (hardly a threat). Now, people say it was for political reasons (although the team of researchers that most people depend on for this say that most people killed were Zanu-PF supporters). Yet, the leaders of the rebel movement rejoined the government when a truce was agreed despite this (ridiculous) 20,000 massacre. And despite the fact that this occurred in MDC Matabeleland, no one has come up with the mass graves of the remains of these 20,000 people. Have they all disappear or is it just a load of lies?
SADC members in April 2007 were informed that the West's aim is to remove from power in the region all governments made up of the national liberation movements. They were putting financing opposition in Zimbabwe and Namibia. They were also targeting South Africa.
Simon
correction
27.06.2008 12:18
the sentence which began as:
"I do accept that this policy change by the UK necessarily required pressurising ZanuPF to batton down their support base", INSTEAD THIS SHOULD HAVE READ AS:
"I do accept that this policy change by the UK would have necessarily pressurised ZanuPF to batton down their support base, but this would have been an indirect consequence of the UK's policy of conditionality for the recontinuation of financial aid, not a direct objective or intended consequence of it".
Mark
Simon & the ZanuPF Black Bourgeois capitalist mafia
27.06.2008 12:19
Horace Campbell and Eusi Kwayana : "It was only after the massive opposition from the working people in 1997 and after the loss of the referendum of February 2000 that the ZANU leadership opportunistically launched the Fast Track Land reform process. This opportunism has only been surmounted by the fact that the best land went to the political elite who was not real farmers. Opportunism and cronyism exposed the reality that for land reform to be beneficial for the mass of the population, reform must involve the political empowerment of the poor, especially farm workers. The new black landowners did not treat the farm workers any better than the previous settlers. If anything, this experience exposed the reality that the issues of the health and safety of farm workers and their children are just as important as the question of land ownership. Farm workers whether working on farms owned by blacks or whites must be paid a living wage and must have adequate protection from pesticides. They must be accorded full political and economical rights instead of being forced to live in a semi-slavery state. The experiences of land acquisition in Zimbabwe pointed to the reality that land reclamation by itself could not solve the problems of the Zimbabwean society. There had to be transformation of the credit, transportation, agricultural marketing, seed production, distribution of fertilizers, water management and all of the aspects of economic relations associated with agriculture."
Ref:
imbabwe-horace-campbell-and-eusi-kwaya
Ref:
Mark
Election results
27.06.2008 12:19
Yes - this whole idea that more people in Zimbabwe are anti-Mugabe than pro is clearly a fabrication of the evil, racist western media.
Oh, wait a second. There was a first-round election...
Morgan Tsvangirai: 47.9%
Robert Mugabe: 43.2%
Simba Makoni: 8.3%
Langton Towungana: 0.6%
It also seems in bad taste to compare Mugabe's brigade to the revolutionary Americans. The British crimes against the revolutionaries (killing, displacing or jailing opposition members, preventing them holding rallies and so forth) do appear to be taking place - but those crimes are being done by Zanu-PF members, not to them.
Norville B
simon says
27.06.2008 13:21
Incredible! But, it's up to black people in Zimbabwe what government they want, is it Simon?
The point is, Mugabe claims ZanuPF run a socialist state! He had pretensions that he did (and there were social programmes b4 the country went broke). Mugabe had the chance to make Zimbabwe truly independent through slow transition and gradual land redistribution in 1998, but he blew it, and has been crashing the economy just to keep the politbureau's head above water ever since.
Simon also said: "There is no evidence that the army and police is being specially privileged by Zanu-PF."
> well, I'm afraid this is complete crap as well (atleast the teachers got a pay-rise, though it was soon swallowed by by the 300,000% inflation rate). Taken from: ^"Is Mugabe wooing workers?", Sapa-AFP (IOL), March 12, 2008:
"In light of Zimbabwe's dramatic inflation rate, Mugabe massively raised the salaries of members of the security forces in February, and on March 10 he approved raises for teachers and civil servants."
The record of ZanuPF:
ZanuPF represent a ethnic (Shona) capitalist bourgeois elite, propped up by their tribal support base, that have:
- successfully led the independence struggle alongside Joshua Nkomo's mainly Ndebele PFZapu against Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front, also known as The Second Chimurenga, or as Zimbabwe's liberation war, resulting in a negotiated settlement through British initiated negotiations
culminating in the Lancaster House Constitutional Agreement in 1979.
- Involvement in border clashes against South African Afrikaner forces in the Border Wars of the 1980s
- Won an internal civil war against Zapu guerillas in Matabeleland during the 1980s. In one
operation known as the Gukurahundi (Shona for "the early rain that washes away the chaff"), atleast 10,000 Ndebele were killed, spearheaded by a notoriously brutal North-Korean trained army unit called the Fifth Brigade
- hoarded land amongst their patronage networks and cronies, at the expense of the majority of the rural poor during the 1990s, when financial constraints meant the land redistribution process even after the 1992 Land Acquisition Act, was always going to be limited under the shadow of IMF austerity
- corrupted the land redistribution process, and in turn, sacrificed the long-term food producing and currency earning capability of the country, destroying the central dynamic of the Zimbabwean economy
- allowed the new capitalist farming entrants to treat the farm workers no better than the previous settlers
- exhibited a woeful record on investment in agricultural infrastructure such as credit facilities, transportation, agricultural marketing, seed production, distribution of fertilizers and water
management
- financially enriched a priviledged elite and maintaining high salaries for the military, state police and civil service whilst neglecting public sector workers and allowing the mass of the
population to endure hunger, starvation and severe economic hardship,
- Completely mismanaged the economy by allowing cash-baron beneficiaries of Zimbabwe's patronage networks to print loads and loads of extra currency, so that the total currency in circulation was vastly in excess of the underlying productive resources of the country, leading to hyper-inflation
- alleged suppression of opponents and election irregularities in the 2000 & 2002 election in Zimbabwe
- The paying off of all outstanding debts to the IMF in 2006
- The introduction of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Bill, legislation which stipulates that every company operating in the country must have at least 51% of its shares owned by indigenous Zimbabweans, in 2008
- election irregularities and brutal suppression of Zanu PF's political opponents in the run-off election has been so severe that even countries within SADC such as Zambia, Tanzania and Angola have broken ranks from the previous "benefit-of-the-doubt" consensus afforded to Zimbabwe, criticising the manner in which the election run-off has been handled in recognition that the excesses of the Zimbabwean state's brutality now have no bounds under Mugabe
More info: article named "Zimbabwe: Tragedy & Hope"
Ref:
Mark
Ludicrous
27.06.2008 14:19
Some classic examples from the past are:
"Soviet socialism was, and remains, a model for humanity..."
And:
"[North Korea] offered free health care, free education, virtually free housing, radical land reform and equal rights for women, and its industry was steaming ahead of that of the south. By contrast, [in South Korea] people lived harsh, miserable, uncertain lives, in incessant struggle with a military dictatorship backed by the US, bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to Europe’s pre-war fascist regimes."
Ted Bear
Ludicrous
27.06.2008 14:32
Some classic examples from the past are:
"Soviet socialism was, and remains, a model for humanity..."
And:
"[North Korea] offered free health care, free education, virtually free housing, radical land reform and equal rights for women, and its industry was steaming ahead of that of the south. By contrast, [in South Korea] people lived harsh, miserable, uncertain lives, in incessant struggle with a military dictatorship backed by the US, bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to Europe’s pre-war fascist regimes."
Ed Bear
the fact of the matter is
27.06.2008 14:44
the left are not intrinsically racist black or white, and i should point out that i am not a fan of the left or the right or the centre, i dont need people to form my views or dictate how i live my life. Simon and Brian (Brimon) you do yourself no favours by trying to abuse the left in the way you have, try and frame your arguements in a rational way and dont rely on out of date press releases.
I would be interested in hearing your views on mandelas comments. becasue as we all know he is a white supremacist and apuppet of the west. I look forward to hearing them.
so yes brimon mugabe will win the election, but that doesnt make it right now does it. you are both obviousely not of the people, if you were you would be arguing for free and fair elections with a variety of parties that can represent the views of all the people of zimbabwe.
Brian, i will see you at the embassy after the results have been released, are you working there tomorrow or do you have the weekend off?
the watcher
Ted Bears selective editing
28.06.2008 00:03
he writes
''Is there really a more ludicrous figure than Stephen Gowens writing anywhere today? He appears to inhabit a totally parallel universe where totalitarian, authoritarian societies such as North Korea and the Soviet Union are paradises, whilst countries that elect political parties with which he disagrees are, by definition, heartless oppressors of the downtrodden masses. '
Well, yes Ted, theres you and those of the dizzy left that normally highly sceptical of the official media and western govts on Mugabe and Zimbabwe, find themselves behaving like YES men! Steph Gowans shows you a side of the story youve not been exposed to, and all you can do is launch an old time character assassination, while acting as a defender of the Zimbabwe people....
Now THATs ludicrous!
And on North Korea, im sure youd love Greg Elich, who has defended both Zimbabwe and NK, showing that unlike you he has an independent mind.
But your own mindset is totalitarian andauthoritian, or dont you read what you write?
brian
Watcher needs glasses
28.06.2008 00:24
Did you know, Watcher,that your favorite MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai are both fronts for privatising western govts and prone to violence?
Lets have a look:
' The establishment of a new opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), in September 1999, found instant support from Western leaders. Significant funding from Western sources enabled the party to rapidly grow to the point where it won 57 out of 120 seats in the June 24-25 2000 parliamentary election, less than one year after its creation. Ostensibly based in the labor movement, the program of MDC reads like a call for a return to ESAP. A policy paper issued by the party spelled out its plans for privatization. Upon taking power, the party plans to appoint a "fund manager to dispose of government-owned shares in publicly quoted companies." The boards of all public enterprises would be "reconstituted," and the new boards would be "required to privatize their enterprises within specified timetables...with an overall target of privatizing all designated parastatals [public companies] within two years." The interests of Western capital would not be ignored. "In areas where a high level of technical skill is required, foreign strategic investors will be encouraged to bid for a majority stake in the enterprises being privatized." A primary principle of the program would be that "all sales of major state assets will be conducted through open, international [that is, Western], competitive bidding." In order to counter opposition from workers made redundant, the National Privatization and Procurement Agency would be instructed to "carry out public awareness campaigns regarding the privatization program in order to generate public awareness and support for the exercise." Implementation of its program, the MDC feels, will mean "that foreign direct investment will take place on a substantial scale." (10) As a further incentive for Western investors, the MDC plans to review income and corporate tax levels "for regional competitiveness." (11)
The MDC appointed an official of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Eddie Cross, as its Secretary of Economic Affairs. In a speech delivered shortly after his appointment, Cross articulated the MDC economic plan. "First of all, we believe in the free market. We do not support price control. We do not support government interfering in the way people manage their lives. We are in favor of reduced levels of taxation. We are going to fast track privatization. All fifty government parastatals will be privatized within a two-year frame, but we are going far beyond that. We are going to privatize many of the functions of government. We are going to privatize the Central Statistics 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." (12)
and:
'In addition I have become increasingly dismayed by the following:
1. The senior member of staff dismissed by the National Council in its June 2005 meeting has been re-employed by the Tsvangirai faction.
2. The youths responsible for the violence in Harvest House in September 2004 and May 2005 expelled from the party by the Management Committee (and endorsed by the National Council) have been re-employed by the Tsvangirai faction.
3. At least one of these youths was involved in the unlawful hi-jacking of a vehicle in the lawful possession of the Mutambara faction in March. It appears as if no internal disciplinary action has been taken against that youth.
4. The senior members of the National Executive and MPs implicated in the Harvest House violence were all elected to the National Executive and some are on the new Management Committee of the Tsvangirai faction.
5. Senior members of staff implicated in the Harvest House violence have retained their positions.
6. Tsvangirai faction Chairman of Harare Province Morgan Femai was quoted in the press as having told a rally in Mufakoze on the 2nd April 2006 that “before we remove Zanu PF we will stamp them (the Mutambara faction) out.” No statement rebutting this policy has been issued by the leadership of the Tsvangirai faction.
7. The Tsvangirai faction’s winning candidate in Budiriro is one of the very people suspended by the MDC National Council in June last year for 2 years on the accusation of being involved in the Harvest House violence.
8. The Budiriro by election has been marked by violence and illegal activity including the tearing down of the Mutambara faction candidate’s posters.
In the last few weeks leaders within the Tsvangirai faction, including Morgan Tsvangirai himself, have spoken about their commitment to non violence. That is obviously a step in the right direction but mere statements do not impress me. Even Zanu PF leaders have spoken about their belief in non violence recently. In this regard the pledge that Martin Luther King drafted in 1963 is relevant. All those involved in non violent civil disobedience activities in Alabama were required to “refrain from the violence of the fist, tongue and heart”. It is the last injunction that is all important; for it is easy for leaders themselves not to be involved in violent activities and to convey the pretence of a commitment to non violence in their speeches.
etc
These are the sorts you are backing watcher....You do need glasses
Mandela? Id see him as a puppet of the west, yes..after all UK gave him a shiny statue!
Like you, Mandela has been brainwashed by the MSM.
brian
Left + their inconsistencies = racism
28.06.2008 11:42
I would suggest that before you start claiming I am black bourgeois or whatever, you on the white Left should clear up your ridiculous inconsistencies.
The capitalist media in the UK are on overdrive in their attempts to support regime change in Zimbabwe. Their opponents, the white Left, supports them.
The white Left claim they dislike Mugabe because he is a capitalist, yet don’t even think about or explain why Western capitalists want to get rid of him.
The white Left support the people who are against the capitalist Mugabe and support the fact that they are supporting a party more wedded to capitalism than Mugabe.
It is this distorted logic on behalf of the white Left that means the ONLY explaination is racism or to be more precise white supremacy.
When black people decided to split from Western capital, ditch the IMF and pursue their own path, Western capital attacked them. And the white Left loyally followed in their wake.
Did not Castro execute thousands when he came to power? Did Castro have free elections? Did Castro have a free media? Did Castro arrest political opponents? What’s the difference between Castro and Mugabe?
Did Lenin ever refuse to use violence to consolidate the Bolshevik revolution? Of course not. Did that mean the white Left do not honour him. Of course not!
So, what’s the difference between Castro and Lenin on the one hand and Mugabe on the other?
- Simon also said: "There is no evidence that the army and police is being specially privileged by Zanu-PF."
> well, I'm afraid this is complete crap as well (atleast the teachers got a pay-rise, though it was soon swallowed by by the 300,000% inflation rate). Taken from: ^"Is Mugabe wooing workers?", Sapa-AFP (IOL), March 12, 2008:
"In light of Zimbabwe's dramatic inflation rate, Mugabe massively raised the salaries of members of the security forces in February, and on March 10 he approved raises for teachers and civil servants." -
Am I blind? Because I'm sure the title of this story IS NOT ‘Is Mugabe buying off the security forces?’ This story is evidence that government employees need a pay rise to catch up with inflation. They suffer under Zimbabwe’s economic conditions as much as trade unionists who support the MDC.
The Shona represent over 80% of the population. To argue that Zanu-PF merely represents a tribally-base bourgeois class is ridiculous. Are we are to believe that the MDC represents not the Ndbele bourgeois but the Ndbele working-class?
Can some of you white Left racists explain:
Why ordinary members of the army and the police allow themselves to be used by the brutal dictator Mugabe and small cliché of supporters when they are suffering from the collapsed economy as much as anyone else?
Why we have not heard of any armed clash within the army between those fed up with the brutal dictator Mugabe and whoever it is who supports him?
Why we have not heard of any coup attempt by rebel army and police personnel?
Why we have not heard of any rebel army or police personnel being executed?
Why we have not been told of the remains of the 20,000 massacred by Mugabe’s 5th Brigade in the 1980s found in numerous mass graves? I ask again, where are the remains of the 20,000 people?
It remains the case that most politically conscious black people do not go along with the Western media regime change agenda. White Left on other hand think differently. Oh, you'll find much support for your position from black trade unionists on the TUC Race Relations Committee, particularly those who do what they are told by their white union bureaucracy.
You’re all just proving how racists you are. To be honest, I’m not convinced that the people here who claim to be white Left are in fact white. Rather, you are likely to be Rhodesians pretending to be white Left and keeping the white Left on the anti-Mugabe bandwagon.
Simon
Black political views on Zimbabwe
28.06.2008 12:45
"Zimbabwe’s problems are caused by two conflicting ideological dispositions, Pan-Africanism versus neo-colonialism. To understand this we must remember that British Prime Minister Tony Blair came out openly that he is working with the Movement of Democratic Change in Zimbabwe to effect regime change. To achieve this objective the western secret services MI6, CIA, etc use their arsenals of alliances, networks of military bases, economic devices such as sanctions, sabotage, blackmail and provocateurs. Equally insidious is the psychological weapon of propaganda with the aim of impressing on the masses a number of imperialist dogmas."
Philip Agee, former CIA operative and author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary, confirms this when he revealed that “…the successes of revolutionary movements in Ethiopia, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Grenada, Nicaragua and elsewhere brought ‘cold warrior’ Democrats and ‘internationalist’ Republicans together to establish in 1979 the American Political Foundation (APF). The foundation's task was to study the feasibility of establishing through legislation a government-financed foundation to subsidize foreign operations in civil society through U.S. non-governmental organizations. Within APF four task forces were set up to conduct the study, one for the Democrats, one for the Republicans, one for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and one for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).”
Agee describes how this effort developed mainly into the U.S Agency for International Development—now doing overtly what the CIA used to do covertly to advance the neo-colonial agenda of the West. The psychological denial around Zimbabwe consistently avoids such facts. The author asks, “Why has the pro-democracy movement not been able to capitalize on many reported failures of the ZANU-PF government?” Could it be because this not a legitimate movement? Nor is it for democracy.
Neglected by psychological denial in the anatomy of Zimbabwe’s problems is the fact that the trade union “movement” in Zimbabwe, which spawned the so-called Movement for Democratic Change, is in line with recommendations from a 1998 European Union study on Zimbabwe. These recommendations call for Mugabe’s removal specifically by systematically building up NGOs and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) as alternative centers of power, supported by fostering strikes, demonstrations, urban unrest, food riots and carefully engineering dissension within the ranks of the government, the ruling party and the country's armed forces."
Pan African Youth Cooperative in Zimbabwe
Any aggression against Zimbabwe Land Revolution should be considered as an aggression against Global Africa. Individually, we are too weak to withstand, let alone defeat the forces of imperialism that desire to peg us eternally on the lesser podium of global race relations. It is only when we stand together, and glavanise our individual strengths into a colossal army can we move Africa forward. Africa must reclaim her strength and her destiny. The work is massive and your input materially and logistically is forever welcome. It is with this in mind that we salute SALSA for their portfolio that is designed for capacity building for organisations such as ours. We take our hats off to you.
Topix
Banny Manokora, Zimbabwe
|Report Abuse |Judge it! |#4 Mar 12, 2008
I don't know whether Sixpence is black or white or male or female, One thing for certain whether you like it or not Mugabe will be remebered for his principled stance on the Land Question, his continued fight for black economic and political empowerment and emancipation for his true Pan Africanism. The run up to the March 29, 2008 Election has been peaceful and people have shown maturity and level headedness. There won't be a Kenyan like situation in Zimbabwe. Anywayn Mugabe is not murdering innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and in other parts of the world. He is fighting fo the rights of the others. All of a sudden he has become a dictator but remember a few years ago he was a hero amongst the white communities in Europe, WHo is folling WHo here. Sixpence and all of his kind what to treat true Africans as immature and brainless individuals. Come on guys
Southern Pan African Youth Summit in Zimbabwe
Introduction
The summit was held at Midlands State University in Gweru, Zimbabwe on the 25th of February 2007.
ZIPAYA reported that Zimbabwe was under extreme pressure from Europe and European Diaspora. The manipulation of financial systems particularly current has created serious problem for import and Zimbabwe international trade. The sanction are not targeted to leadership as propagated in Western media, there are targeted to all Zimbabweans. There are economic sabotage like destructive seeds & fertilisers and buying food from farms for burning it. In spite of that imperialist terror Zimbabwe is resolve on economic recovery through Look to the East Policy and Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.
Simon
Hey Mark
01.07.2008 21:03
Mark,
Thanks Mark for the criticism on another article! You said I was being a 'disservice to the left'. That was humbling but I guess I deserved it! Save most of it for Mugabe! I looked at Zimbawe's 'Gini-index' and it gives a poor showing. Incidently, Ethiopia does very well on wealth distribution!
Jason
Jason