EDITORIAL
Zimbabwe wins
Zimbabwe has weathered a full-court press by former colonial
ruler Britain, the U.S. and the European Union. These
imperialist gangs had hoped that their open political and
financial support for the political opposition, coupled with
economic pressures from the IMF and World Bank, would wear down
the government of Robert Mugabe and prevent him from carrying
out his promises to the landless poor.
The mechanism for this was to be the election for president.
The media around the world were lined up to declare it fraud
ulent before the first ballot was even printed. A bunch of
"observers" were sent from Europe--where were they when Bush
stole the Florida election?--to put a stamp of disapproval on
the process. When one was sent packing, a howl of accusations
went up. By the way, he was the Norwegian Kare Vollan, who
according to the March 18 Guardian of Britain had earlier given
his blessing to the election of a Western-backed candidate in
Ukraine after a process marked, in his own words, by "violence,
intimidation and harassment."
The Guardian wrote that "... election observing has become
little more than a tool for powerful states to interfere in the
internal affairs of weak ones. Monitors delegitimize elections
which elect a candidate the West does not like, while turning a
blind eye to the deficiencies of polls that produce the desired
outcome."
So many people turned out for the hot election in Zimbabwe
that a judge agreed to the opposition's request to extend the
election to a third day--and the Mugabe government went along
with that. When the opposition, sensing defeat, asked for yet
another extension, it was turned down.
Tony Blair said Britain wouldn't accept a Mugabe
victory--infuriating many African states. When Mugabe won by a
very comfortable margin that showed solid support from
Zimbabwe's big rural majority, Britain threatened the country
with sanctions. It then managed to push through a one-year
suspension of the country from the Commonwealth it dominates.
Ironically, the person who, at Britain's bidding, read out the
Commonwealth's condemnation of Mugabe was Gen. Abdulsalam
Abubakar of Nigeria, who had himself taken power in 1993 in a
Western-supported military coup.
The Organization of African Unity observer team in Zimbabwe
declared that "in general, the elections were transparent,
credible, free and fair." In South Africa, where the government
has been critical of Mugabe, the National Assembly approved a
report from its observers who found that the election
"substantially" reflected the popular will.
Other African heads of state stood with Zimbabwe, even
though they were themselves subject to pressure for doing so.
The Australian of March 18 wrote that the presidents of South
Africa and Nigeria were "flying to Harare to meet Mr. Mugabe
knowing their own standing with Western aid donors and
investors would suffer if they stood by their early recognition
of the Zimbabwe elections as a legitimate exercise in
democracy."
Even though Mugabe won this election, the pressures against
him will intensify as he tries to carry out land reform. Some
6,000 white commercial farmers control half the country's 81
million acres of arable land while 850,000 Black farmers are
crammed into the rest. The election was about letting these
poor farmers, some of whom are veterans of the national
liberation war, take over the land that had been stolen from
their ancestors by colonial armies.
The political opposition, which pretends to have a trade
union base, supports free market policies and the return of
expropriated lands to white farmers.
There should be no doubt in the minds of progressives on
this question. Land to the oppressed! Support Zimbabwe against
the imperialist exploiters!
Reprinted from the March 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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