Bush going to Africa
Why millions say 'Hands off Zimbabwe'
By Monica Moorehead
On June 25, President George W. Bush spoke at
a U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Washington, D.C. Among other
proposals, he called for the removal of Robert Mugabe and
Charles Taylor, the presidents of Zimbabwe and Liberia
respectively. Bush made these remarks before an audience that
included African leaders as well as business executives and
investors.
The day before, an opinion piece written by Secretary of
State Colin Powell had appeared in the New York Times. It was a
denunciation of President Robert Mugabe. Powell labeled Mugabe
a "tyrant." He blamed him for Zimbabwe's 300-percent inflation
rate, 70-percent unemployment, food shortages and much
more.
Powell wrote in part: "South Africa and other African
countries are increasingly concerned and active on Zimbabwe,
but they can and should play a stronger and more sustained role
that fully reflects the urgency of Zimbabwe's crisis. ...
"With [Mugabe] gone, with a transitional government in place
and with a date fixed for new elections, Zimbabweans of all
descriptions would ... come together to begin the process of
rebuilding their country. If this happened, the United States
would be quick to pledge generous assistance to the restoration
of Zimbabwe's political and economic institutions even before
the election."
This was but another effort by the Bush administration to
bribe African leaders with millions of dollars in aid--but only
if they defy international law by interfering in the internal
affairs of Zimbabwe.
Bush's speech and Powell's op-ed piece were timed to appear
just one week before Bush was to embark on a trip to several
sub-Saharan African countries.
Bush will visit South Africa, the most industrialized
country on the continent, which borders Zimbabwe. On June 16,
the Washington Post wrote a vile opinion piece suggesting that
President Thabo Mbeki turn off the electricity that South
Africa provides to Zimbabwe, interfering in the two countries'
relations.
Former political prisoner and the first Black South African
president, Nelson Mandela, has announced that he will refuse to
meet with Bush due to the U.S. war on Iraq. The African
National Congress and other groups plan to hold protests
against Bush during his visit there.
Why is the government of Zimbabwe front and center on the
radar screens of U.S. imperialism, its British junior partner
and the rest of the European Union?
History of bloody European dominance
In the mid-1880s, a very important conference took place in
Berlin. Various European capitalists gathered to map out a
strategy to carve up Africa among themselves so as to steal its
vast mineral resources and enslave the indigenous peoples.
Their goal was clear: expand their colonial empires and
markets in order to make more profits.
In 1888, British capitalist Cecil Rhodes and his business
partner, Charles Rudd, got the blessings of the British
monarchy for a conspiracy to steal Matebeleland, Mashonaland
and other surrounding territories that would come to be known
as Rhodesia.
These territories were targeted because of their abundance
of minerals, especially gold. In 1890, white mercenaries
invaded these territories. This bloody invasion laid the basis
for thousands of British white settlers to take over the land.
In fact, each white settler was promised 6,000 acres and claims
to the gold.
In 1898, an armed resistance emerged against the British
South Africa Co., owned by Rhodes and Rudd. This was the first
Chimurenga, or first stage of the liberation struggle. The
rebellion was carried out by a number of African nations in a
united front.
The indigenous populations were no match for the advanced
weaponry of these invaders. They were systematically forced off
the lands of their ancestors and herded like cattle onto the
most isolated, barren lands, known as native reserves. Others
languished in semi-slavery conditions on private white
farms.
The 1898 Native Reserves Order in Council immediately
legalized the theft of 15 million acres of the most arable
lands by the European colonizers. The Land Apportionment Act of
1930 formalized the separation of land belonging to Africans
and the settlers.
The population in 1930 was 1.1 million Black people and
50,000 whites--or more than 20 Black people for every white
settler. But the land was divided up this way: native reserves,
29 million acres; European areas, 49 million acres.
In 1965, the white minority regime of Ian Smith unilaterally
declared independence from Britain. In the same year, the
second Chimurenga, or second stage of the national liberation
struggle, was launched as the Zimbabwe African People's Union
and the Zimbabwe African National Union joined to form the
Patriotic Front. Robert Mugabe was the leader of ZANU and
Joshua Nkomo the leader of ZAPU.
Fearing that the growing guerrilla struggle could eventually
bring about a socialist revolution, the military wing of
Smith's regime, known as the Rhodesian Front, initiated
negotiations in London with the Patriotic Front and the British
government. These negotiations produced the Lancaster House
Agreement in 1979 and helped to lay the basis for the 1980
Constitution of the newly established government of
Zimbabwe.
Held back by Lancaster agreement
The Lancaster agreement was supposed to address the
redistribution of the land stolen by the colonialists. But it
fell way short. The document stated that the land was to be
acquired on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis. This was to
be applied during the first 10 years of independence. But it
never really happened.
Britain had pledged to fund the resettlement plan as a
maneuver to insure that provisions for compulsory acquisition
without compensation would not become an official part of the
1980 Constitution. Therefore, the Zimbabwean government was not
in a position to pressure the white settlers to give up the
most arable lands for sale. The lands offered to the government
were of the poorest quality.
Because of a "fair market price" clause, the new government
did not have adequate funds to buy out the white farmers. So,
after seven years of independence, only 40,000 out of 162,000
Black peasants who applied had been resettled.
Under the law, the Mugabe government had to wait 10 years
before it could add any amendments on the compulsory
acquisition of property, including land. In 1992, the Land
Acquisition Bill was drafted; it mainly targeted for
acquisition large-scale commercial farmland. This would be
redistributed to the majority of landless Black war veterans
living on the worst communal lands or reserves.
This bill passed by a two-thirds majority in parliament. The
bill stated that it was the responsibility of the British
government to pay compensation to the whites for the land
repossession.
Britain had pledged 44 million pounds to the resettlement
program. In 1997, when the Labor Party came into power in
Britain with a new, more conservative leader, Tony Blair, the
British government cut off the funding, claiming that the
Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe was using it to resettle
governmental officials on the land. London never refers to the
fact that Ian Smith, former leader of the white government of
Rhodesia, still owns 10,000 acres in Zimbabwe, as do other
former white officials.
Finally, in 1997, Mugabe supported the direct confiscation
of the lands initiated by the Zimbabwean peasants. The number
of commercial farming families, most of them white, had dropped
from 4,660 in 1998 to 2,900 by the summer of 2002, according to
the Land Tenure Center at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison. Many of them then bought land very cheap in
Mozambique, where a white-led mercenary army had devastated the
country.
As of December 2001, over 360,000 African families had been
relocated on the land. The fact that the Zimbabwean farmers and
peasants are carrying out their own land reform is at the heart
of the imperialist attacks and racist demonization of
Mugabe.
In 1980 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
had imposed structural adjustment programs on Zimbabwe as a
condition of its receiving any loans. They demanded that
government social spending be kept at a bare minimum.
Instead of moving forward as an independent, self-sufficient
country, Zimba bwe was being transformed into an exporting
country. This meant mass starvation for the Zimbabwean people
and super-profits for the white commercial farmers who grew
cash crops like tobacco.
By 1999, Zimbabwe had openly rebelled against the policies
of the World Bank and IMF. In 1999 it was declared in default
and its loans were terminated. Recently, the IMF and World Bank
revoked Zimbabwe's membership.
The land crisis is not confined to Zimbabwe. It exists in
South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and other countries of
Africa. It is rooted in the deep-seated legacy of colonial
theft and plunder. The U.S. and British imperialists want to
bring a halt to the agrarian revolution in Zimbabwe to prevent
a people's takeover of land there and in other countries.
Land crisis and support for Congo
The imperialists are also targeting Zimbabwe for the role
its armed forces played in the crisis that unfolded in the
Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998. After the fall of CIA
puppet Mobutu Sese Seko, the government of Congo was led by
Laurent Kabila, who openly denounced imperialist intervention
in his country and the region. Kabila asked the Southern
African Development Community for military assistance to help
repel an invasion by Uganda and Rwanda that had the backing of
the United States and Britain.
The SADC sent troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia to
assist the Congo. Kabila was eventually assassinated in January
2000, however.
Bush and Blair want to make an example of Zimbabwe for some
of the same reasons they are hostile to Iraq, Iran, North
Korea, Palestine, Venezuela, the Phillippines and Cuba. No
country is allowed to defy them. It is all about endless war
for U.S. empire in order to re-carve up the world for profits
on behalf of big business.
Mugabe was once viewed as a "model" African leader--until
the land confiscations took center stage.
Robert Mugabe is a nationalist who aspires to see the
development of an indigenous property-owning class inside
Zimbabwe. Revolutionary socialists do not necessarily support
Mugabe's policies, but defend his open rebellion against
imperialism. The anti-imperialist movement, especially in the
United States, has a responsibility to demand reparations for
the people of Zimbabwe who are fighting to complete their
national liberation, which means freeing their economy from
colonialist and imperialist penetration.
Sources for this article include South Africa Independent
Media Center and the Southern African Development Community
website.
Reprinted from the July 10, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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