Posted on 09/04/2002 4:50:08 PM PDT by Clive
JOHANNESBURG — Robert Mugabe is not only one of the world’s longer serving presidents, after 22 years in power and nearly six to go. He is also one of the most highly educated.
Those assets were on display when he addressed the Earth Summit in Johannesburg with a blend of passion and oratory that was a contrast with the monotone efforts of his peers.
"We wish no harm to anyone, we are Zimbabweans, we are Africans, we are not English, we are not Europeans. We love Africa, we love Zimbabwe, we love our independence," he said.
There was applause in the hall, from more than a few heads of state as well as journalists and observers, after the 78-year-old former guerrilla slammed Britain, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations, official host of the 200- nation summit.
A day later, Mugabe’s political opponents were still baffled by the enthusiastic reaction.
"It just hit me that people were clapping. It shocked me, after the infantile demeanour that he presented in his speech," said Tendai Biti, foreign affairs spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), this week.
"Yes, a few of those leaders clapped but not one of them would ever consider copying his policies," Biti said during a brief stay in Johannesburg. He came to the summit to try to put the case against Mugabe, five months after presidential elections that were condemned as rigged by observers from southern African parliaments and the Commonwealth.
As the butt of most of Mugabe’s invective, British Prime Minister Tony Blair did not mince his words on Tuesday.
"...this rubbish about neo-colonialism, that is just a cloak, a cover, for what is a corrupt and ruinous regime," Blair said on his return home from the summit.
For a senior African diplomat involved in moves to mediate in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s fiery speech was a disappointment.
"It looks like nothing has changed. One had hoped there might be some reconciliation but this shows the administration in Harare is digging in, hardening its positions," he said.
In the absence of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Mugabe was probably the most senior left-wing president in town, closely followed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
Invoking nationalist and socialist principles, Mugabe has refused to consider a devaluation of Zimbabwe’s dollar, even though it trades on the black market at one-twelfth of its official rate of 55 to the US dollar.
The distortion is so huge that analysts reckon 80 percent of basic foods are now bought and sold at the black market rate. Inflation is expected to reach 150 percent by December.
Southern Africa’s former breadbasket is empty, and the government says six million of its 14 million people are facing famine.
An estimated two million Zimbabweans are economic refugees in South Africa and other neighbouring states. Many of the young waiters and waitresses serving summit delegates at restaurants in the plush Sandton suburb were Zimbabwean illegal aliens.
For the European Union and the United States, both of which have clamped personal sanctions on Mugabe and his innner circle, Zimbabwe is in crisis because its policies are disastrous.
But for Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF, Zimbabwe is a battlefield between good and evil, the poor and the rich, the black and the white.
They say their country is paying the price for daring to take on the white world through a sweeping programme of land redistribution. Mugabe has vowed to press ahead with the eviction of 2,900 of Zimbabwe’s 4,500 white commercial farmers, a majority of whom are of British extraction.
Nowhere does the land issue touch raw nerves more painfully than in Africa, which was carved up by European colonisers.
A Ugandan delegate at the summit, Ndawula Kaweesi, agreed that Mugabe’s speech on Monday lacked diplomacy. But he added:
"African countries really are supporting him, he is trying to identify the grassroots problems. Unlike in Europe, politicians in Africa deal with grassroots because the problems we have are very basic."
Mugabe and his main ally, 73-year-old President Sam Nujoma of Namibia, chose the sensitive venue of South Africa to make their highly publicised attacks on Europe.
At home, South African President Thabo Mbeki is often decried by his white minority for being soft on Mugabe and for perversely portraying the March elections as legitimate.
Yet a vocal black minority in South Africa accuses Mbeki of selling out to rich whites and failing to push through a radical land programme of his own.
Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa stirred things up on South Africa’s leading radio phone-in this week.
"My advice to South Africa is start now (on land reform). Don’t wait until the pressures are too overwhelming," he said.
"If you think that in South Africa you will be freed from what is happening in Zimbabwe and you don’t anticipate those changes, I feel sorry for you because as things are South African blacks are in a worse situation than Zimbabweans," Chinamasa added.
The speeches by Mugabe and Nujoma were diametrically at odds with what Mbeki has been selling to the West - a vision of an investor-friendly continent ready to do business in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
"The two old guys enjoyed snubbing their noses at Mbeki. But as Mbeki says, the entire population of Namibia is less than half the size of Soweto, so why worry?" one South African analyst said.
- Reuter
Soweto and Namibia.
They would, but the VAT makes it untenable.
Communists!
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