Dear Editor,
Baldeo Persaud in SN of May 5 regurgitated the very biased view of the Western establishment, particularly the British, about President Robert Mugabe. In baldly stating “Leaders like Mugabe are responsible for the present state of Africa,” he completely dismisses Zimbabwe’s horrendous colonial legacy. He did not ask why the Western media simply parroted the alarmist and irresponsible statements by the MDC without ever giving the opportunity to Zanu-PF to explain its actions.
Nor did he ask why the West was so concerned about democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe when concurrently the same West and its allies were perpetrating atrocities in other parts of the world
Nobody knows enough of current events in Zimbabwe either to pile all the blame on Mugabe or to exonerate him completely. But the past has an iron grip on the present, and it should not be ignored. Mugabe’s land reforms, which have been at the root of British pique, simply mirror the thefts which first enabled the whites to control so much of Zimbabwe’s economy. In the 1890s, Cecil Rhodes and the settlers he led first cheated and then forcibly dispossessed the Shona and the Ndebele people. The whites stole their land, their cattle and, through taxation, their labour. When they resisted, they were cruelly suppressed and their leaders were hanged. From 1930, blacks were forbidden to own land outside the barren and crowded reserves. Until 2001, 74% of the most fertile land in Zimbabwe was owned by 4,000 whites.
Through the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement, which oversaw the transition to majority rule in Zimbabwe, the British recognized this injustice and promised to compensate the white farmers for land redistribution to their rightful owners. Thus, Mugabe, the architect of Zimbabwe’s liberation from Ian Smith’s white supremacist rule, had brought Zimbabwe to a position where the blackman had a vote for the first time and where his grievances were to be addressed. However, these iniquities were never satisfactorily addressed and in 1997 Mr Blair completely reneged on the pledges given in 1979, leaving the land reform programme in the lurch. What was Mugabe supposed to do?
So, Mr Persaud, only “Leaders like Mugabe are responsible for the present state of Africa?” In addition, Mugabe is too friendly with China and is an obstacle to Western schemes for the privatization of public services.
Almost complete credence is attached to all the utterances of fraud and intimidation by the MDC, with the accompanying demonisation and dehumanisation of Mugabe. But who bankrolls the MDC? A prominent group of British and American businessmen with energy and mining interests are behind the MDC. They constitute the Zimbabwe Democratic Trust (ZDT), whose patrons include former British Foreign Secretaries Malcolm Rifkin, Douglas Hurd and Geoffrey Howe. The driving force of ZDT is Sir John Collins, the Zimbabwean Chairman of National Power, Britain’s largest energy company. Former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Dr Chester Crocker, Director of the Ashanti Goldfields, is another patron.
So, Mr Persaud, do you not even suspect neo-colonialism as one factor in Africa’s plight or do you still think that it is all down to the incompetence of Africa’s omnipotent leaders?
Then there is the erroneous statement by Mr Sean Brignandan that “the food industry in Zimbabwe collapsed because the organizational ability of the white farmers (who were in the business for generations) was not there” (‘Africa has done as well as China and India economically’ SN, 6.5.08). Much of the white-owned land was used to grow not necessities for the hungry but luxuries for the sated: mange tout, radicchio, French beans and tobacco. Redistribution would enable the poor to support themselves and to produce staple crops for the landless. Land reform in Zimbabwe is an urgent necessity. Mr Brignandan, what is the land reform programme of the MDC opposition, ensuring that in your answer you quote the documentary source?
Of course conditions in Zimbabwe, hit by UN sanctions, are dire. Mugabe unwisely pawned his country to the IMF and World Bank through structural adjustment policies that destroyed the economy in the 1990s. However, while the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) has its limitations, it is widely respected. Those who denigrate Mugabe should explain why Zimbabwe has a HDI ranking above that of 26 other African countries, such as, for example, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and others.
But the biggest mystery is the vast disparity in media coverage given to Mugabe compared with other violations of democratic rights. Even liberal newspapers such as the UK Guardian devoted full front pages day after day to Mugabe’s alleged theft of the elections. It is difficult to believe that the West was exercised about respect for the will of the electorate when it has not condemned, for example, Musharraf of Pakistan for remaining in power when his party had clearly lost the elections or when Israel had kidnapped and jailed many of the democratically elected leaders of the Palestinian people or when, in the same period that there has been such intense publicity of Mugabe’s misdemeanours, the opposition in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, was being jailed on trumped-up charges.
In conclusion, much, of course not all, of Africa’s current problems stem from a ruthless colonial legacy and virulent neo-colonialist interference both directly and through local puppets. Given that background, the MDC’s hysteria about electoral fraud, intimidation and murder should be taken with a pinch of salt. Guyana’s colonial history should have taught its citizens to be more circumspect about Western vilification of “third world” leaders.
Yours faithfully,
D Ramprakash
