Zimbabwe -- Shame on you, African leaders

THE applause that President Mugabe received at the recently-concluded Earth Summit in Johannesburg and the laughter he elicited from delegates clearly demonstrated what we have been saying all along: that prevention or cure, only Zimbabweans can put an end to the nightmare that this country has become.

The world community can help but in the end it is only ourselves as Zimbabweans, both black and white, who can solve our own problems.

It was indeed totally lost on those delegates that the situation in Zimbabwe is quite different from the appearance which they, along with many others, have all too uncritically accepted as reflecting reality.

That President Mugabe had sunk the whole economy of Zimbabwe by his destructive policies was of no consequence to them. That there was massive contradiction between Mugabe's rhetoric and words on the one hand and deeds and actions on the other, was none of their business.

Against this background, Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, got it mostly right when he said Africa doesn’t associate itself with President Robert Mugabe’s vitriol at that World Summit. He should have said that most ordinary Africans despair of Zimbabwe’s errant president.

Sadly, though, Tony Blair may well have been wrong when he said most of the continent’s leaders “would totally disassociate themselves from what Mugabe said at the summit”. There has been precious little evidence to back that claim.

In Namibia, an increasingly wayward Sam Nujoma backs Robert Mugabe to the last degree, while elsewhere in Africa, presidents, dictators and tyrants watch with amused interest.

No doubt they’re waiting to see just how much President Mugabe can get away with before world powers take meaningful action against the Zimbabwe government.

After all, it has long been the African despots’ favourite game, perfected by that late wily old thief, Mobutu Sese Seko, who so cleverly twisted the US government, France, Belgium, the World Bank and IMF in knots while his personal coffers filled with fabulous wealth.

The British premier needs to understand that President Mugabe certainly has supporters, enlivened not by ideology but by their own personal greed and lust for power.

The continent remains over-populated with tyrants—and even poor old Sadc has more than its fair share of them. \

In Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi knows better than most how to crush the opposition.

In Angola, the MPLA regime led by that arch villain, Eduardo dos Santos, is arguably the least democratic and most corrupt in Africa, thanks partly to the US and French governments.

Zambia may be untested under Levi Mwanawasa, but under the guidance of Frederick Chiluba it was a hive of dirty dealing and underhandedness.

Even Botswana, often hailed as a beacon of democratic light, wouldn’t know how to spell the words free press if it tried.

And if anyone believes replacing Mobutu with the Kabilas of this world brought democracy to the DRC, then clearly they need their heads examined by a psychiatrist.

And then there’s the lamentable, unforgivable Thabo Mbeki, now considered a traitor to the people’s cause in Zimbabwe. Yes, President Mbeki’s inaction amounts to nothing less than treachery and a betrayal of ordinary Zimbabweans.

President Robert Mugabe used the World Summit to bandstand his cynical crusade. With puerile rhetoric, he managed to whip up support from the deluded and the ignorant, saying that he sought no land in Europe, but that Tony Blair should seek none in Zimbabwe.

No one, not a single delegate, made the point that the British aren’t seeking land in Zimbabwe. They’re neither looking for new land, nor asking to keep existing land—for the simple fact that the British government owns no land in this country.

The point is that the farmers being dispossessed of their farms, and the farm workers of their livelihoods, are all Zimbabweans. By stating that white Zimbabweans are British, President Mugabe is being mischievous and racist — and condemning all indigenous whites to second class citizens.

Yes, there is a lot wrong that the whites did in the past that needs no repeating here because all black Zimbabweans experienced it. But two wrongs do not make a right.

No doubt, white Zimbabweans have learnt their lessons the hard way and are now prepared to share Zimbabwe's heritage. Most wrongs of the past are now water under the bridge.

The sad truth for struggling, starving Zimbabweans, however, is that the country is being sold out, not just by a brutal and callous regime, but also by its brothers and sisters in the so-called Third World. Both Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo have yet to deny that land is the issue in Zimbabwe. Much worse, neither of them has offered more than the blandest and mildest of public criticism of the current occupant of Zimbabwe House.

Both are informed, educated, intelligent men, so surely they cannot be ignorant of the mass starvation that resulted directly from the destruction of agriculture. They cannot be so blind that they aren’t aware of the torture, murder and intolerance Zanu PF has unleashed on the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans.

Someone surely needs to make it plainly known to the rest of Africa, but particularly to Presidents Mbeki and Obasanjo, that Zanu PF is not at war with Zimbabwe’s pathetically small indigenous white population. It is at war with anyone and everyone who has the temerity to disagree with it — and that means more than 40% at Zimbabweans who voted for the opposition and who are very obviously, very proudly black.

Until Presidents Mbeki and Obasanjo understand this, Zimbabweans will continue to see them as treacherous, cowardly sell-outs to the cause of African democracy and freedom — vatengesi/abathengisi — so to speak.

Indeed, if there is one message President Mbeki — and the rest of Africa — should understand, it is this: unless action is taken very soon to prevent Zanu PF’s total destruction of Zimbabwe, the people of this country will never forgive their betrayal. And they must equally know this: Zimbabwe will rise again, and be a better, wealthier and healthier place. And what will the history books say about them?

This author is naive to the extreme. First of all, the rest of Africa's leaders aren't going to say a word about Mugabe because they are either 1) doing equally barbaric things to their own people, or 2) would act exactly as Mugabe is acting if put in his situation.

Secondly, this guy makes a common mistake that plagues any attempt to rectify the sitation: in the midst of discussing the brutality of Mugabe, he says: "there is a lot wrong that the whites did in the past that needs no repeating here".

Oh? Like what? Bringing electricity, modern medicine, modern farming techniques, modern communication, and modern transportation to a nation in which the indigenous inhabitants were literally living in the stone age? For creating a thriving economy that employed hundreds of thousands of blacks...allowing them to live at a much higher standard than ever before (and probably ever will again)? For insisting on a voter franchise that would prevent the ignorant masses from electing someone like Mugabe who would destroy the nation in a power-mad tantrum?

The reality is this: the whites in rhodesia have nothing to apologize for...while the blacks in Zimbabwe owe the whites for quite a bit...and the whites are being repaid with a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign.

Robert Mugabe isn't fit to shine Ian Smith's shoes...and any comparison of the two (or their governments) is an atrocity in itself.

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