Posted on 09/03/2002 4:26:10 AM PDT by Clive
If Sam Nujoma hoped to change the way the west treats Africa, Tony Blair was probably not the best man to savage in his speech at the earth summit yesterday.
Mr Blair is, after all, the best salesman in the west that Africa has for its vaunted revival plan. Although his pestering of George Bush and most of the EU to back the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) has not been a huge success, at least it remains on the agenda.
But that was not the Namibian president's concern yesterday as he scorned Britain, and Mr Blair personally, as the cause of the problems in Zimbabwe and much of southern Africa. And while other African leaders may have thought it unwise to voice such views, Mr Nujoma was by no means out on a limb in his aggressive support for Robert Mugabe and his vilified land reforms.
Mr Nujoma is very much in the Zimbabwean president's image. Just last week, he threatened to expropriate the land of "arrogant white farmers". It was not for the first time. And he has made threats against gays that puts Mr Mugabe's derision of homosexuals as "worse than pigs and dogs" in the shade.
But then both men are products of long and bitter struggles against racist white rule - in Mr Nujoma's case the South African apartheid regime's illegal occupation of what Pretoria called South West Africa - that delivered liberation pretty much on the terms of the oppressors.
Each agreed to peace deals that imposed western-style constitutions that greatly curtailed presidential powers and promises of Marxist rule. Each has followed an earlier generation of Africa's liberators in proving reluctant to give up control of countries they view as their reward for struggle. Mr Nujoma changed the Namibian constitution to perpetuate his rule beyond a two-term limit. Earlier this year, Mr Mugabe rigged Zimbabwe's presidential election to retain power.
The Namibian leader has proven a friend in deed, as well as words. When Mr Mugabe cast about for an ally to fight alongside his troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sam Nujoma was quick to volunteer his army even though Namibia had little interest there.
It quickly developed one, though. Like Zimbabwe's leaders, Mr Nujoma's allies in government have done very nicely out of exploiting Congo's lucrative diamond mines. More recently, the leaders came to see eye to eye on land reform and gays.
The Nujoma government plans, less controversially, to expropriate 192 farms owned by white foreigners who do not use the land. "The landless majority of our citizens are growing impatient by the day," he told his ruling party congress last week. But then he let loose with a bout of vitriol to rival that of Mr Mugabe. "If those arrogant white farmers and absentee landlords do not embrace the government's policy of willing-buyer, willing-seller now, it will be too late tomorrow."
Mr Nujoma has repeatedly ranted against gays and lesbians as un-African, unnatural and against god's will. Last year, he told Windhoek university students that "the Republic of Namibia does not allow homosexuality, lesbianism here. Police are ordered to arrest you and deport you and imprison you".
Mr Nujoma's views at the summit will have surprised few in Africa. On their own, they would have meant little. The damage will have been done by the strong applause they received - much of it from African delegates - and the fact that Mr Mbeki then let Robert Mugabe speak for double his allotted time as he launched his attack on Mr Blair.
The impression was left that Africa had turned on its main ally. The reality is that many African leaders quietly agree with Mr Mugabe's aims even if most would not go so far as to single out Mr Blair as the one who "created the situation in Zimbabwe", as Mr Nujoma did.
If they have an objection, it is due to the economic damage being wrought in southern Africa. On Sunday, Mr Blair went to Mozambique where he praised President Joaquim Chissano as a model African leader. The day before, the Mozambican president told an agricultural show that he is behind Zimbabwe's land confiscations.
The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has offered only tempered criticism of Mr Mugabe - and then only under pressure to be seen to take a stand over the election-rigging so as to keep Nepad alive in the west.
Africa's wiser leaders may have thought it unnecessary to humiliate Mr Blair, but Mr Nujoma and Mr Mugabe were saying what so many others quietly believe.
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