By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources, (www.originalsources.com)
April 26, 2000
While we in America were totally engrossed in whether or not Elian Gonzalez should be returned to his nuclear family consisting of his father, stetpmother and baby half-brother in Cuba or be raised in Miami by distant relatives, a few other things were happening around the world. One of them was the growing anarchy in still another land - Zimbabwe.
In the last year we have seen anarchy hit various areas - Indonesia, once a thriving nation who had people with the money and desire to pour into the Clinton 1996 Presidential Campaign, Kosovo, a province in the nation of Yugoslavia, the Horn of Africa and now Zimbabwe.
At the height of the Elilan controversy I posted a news story about the economic impact of the growing anarchy in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe which seemed to irritate a reader who had never seen any mention of the problems in Zimbabwe in the dominant media. "Why don’t you tell us what’s going on there, Mary?"
The reader had a good point, but, frankly, I long ago came to the conclusion that the entire continent of Africa could drop into the sea and it wouldn’t make the front pages of the Washington Post. For all the liberal left’s talk about concern for the "Africans" or the "African Americans," the fact is, they really are not interested in what is going on in Africa, as was illustrated by Clinton’s total disinterest in the death of hundreds of thousands of blacks by genocide but created a war because 1400 Albanians died in 1999 in Kosovo. He didn’t mention the 600 Serbs who also died.
Well, for those few who might actually care, what’s going on there is merely the final result of the same kind of illogical decision making in Zimbabwe that has led to anarchy in other nations around the world where un-democratic rebels, who were smart enough to call themselves rebels searching for Democracy, have won control of nations. Americans particularly have a romantic notion that the problems of Africa are all caused by conflicts between whites and blacks. Actually, the worst problems are always between various black factions and tribes, not between whites and blacks and that is playing out now in Zimbabwe.
Today Zimbabwe is ruled by Robert Mugabe, who was educated in white-man financed and built educational institutions in South Africa. He announced, in 1964, "The time has come for African rule." At the time Zimbabwe was called Southern Rhodesia and was then a British colony. Sixteen years later Rhodesia had gained its independence, changed its name to Zimbabwe, and elected Mugabe as its first prime minister. Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on Feb. 21, 1924, in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia. He taught in Southern Rhodesia and then in Ghana where he came under the influence of Kwame Nkruma. In 1960 he returned to Southern Rhodesia. Finding the black nationalist movement of Joshua Nkomo too tame, he helped organize the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). His group advocated deposing by force Rhodesia's white government. In 1964 he was arrested for speaking against the government and imprisoned for ten years.
Mugabe was released from prison in 1975 and, with Nkomo, helped organize guerrillas in the Patriotic Front (PF) to oppose Rhodesia's white-ruled government. The war ended in 1979 when whites agreed to a new constitution allowing black rule, and in 1980 Mugabe became prime minister. He formulated a Marxist-socialist government. He has been re-elected every since - a perfect example of the saying, among many blacks in South Africa and Zimbabwe - "One Man, One Vote, One Time." The guerrilla warfare in Africa that did away with the white man’s rule has generally been only transferrance from one tyranny to another.
Back in 1970 a constitution, dubbed an instrument for retaining white rule, was adopted which allowed for a republic with a president and prime minister; a Senate of 23 members and a House of Assembly elected by separate white and black voter rolls, eventually to have 50 representatives each. In order to vote, one had to have paid income tax, which most blacks, of course, did not then and still do not pay. The 1979 Constitution is the one that Mugabe attempted to change to approve the seizure of white farms.
Only, his new Marxist based provision to allow him to take the white man’s land was not approved by the voters, much to his surprise. So, since then he has encouraged "squatters" to simply move in on white commercial farmers and take their land. About 800 of the 4500 white owned farms have been taken over in that manner. Many blacks, in a country where there is now, after 20 years of Mugabe’s communist government, 50% unemployment realize that most of the jobs in the country revolve around the white commercial farms and other industries, mining and steel, which were built with the white man’s know-how and investment.
Yesterday in Harare a memorial service was held for the first white farmer to be killed by an old terrorist’s new trick - simply not enforcing the law now that he controls the government. A year ago that first farmer, David Stevens, was abducted from his farm and shot at pointblank range then dumped in the bush on April 15.
"The murderer or murderers are not caught, they have to be brought forward, not for the sake of revenge, not for being tortured and beaten in hate, but for justice. It is necessary for the soul of the country to see justice done." Chaplain Terje Bjerkholt of the Norwegian Church Abroad said. Stevens had "a high sense of righteousness; for him a lot of things were either right or wrong. These qualities in David's life got him killed," Bjerkholt noted.
In a report from Independent News (the news source targeted last week in a bombing raid) yesterday Stevens was described as "a supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which is bearing the brunt of violence organised by supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party ahead of parliamentary elections.
"Robert Fisher, a friend and fellow farmer, told the service that Stevens had exposed corruption at the local council in their Marondera district, southeast of Harare.
"Few blacks were among the mourners, but there were several farmers whose land has been targeted in the wave of illegal farm occupations. Some have had their crops burned, have seen workers beaten and have had homes attacked by arsonists.
"’Things can't get much worse,’ one friend and farming neighbour of Stevens said.
"’It looks like we are going to become refugees, which is a bloody scandal,’ he said. ‘It is very dark at the moment,’ he said.
"The farmer said he was unlikely to invest between Z$10-million and Z$12-million (about R1,7-million to R2,12-million) needed to plant next year's tobacco seedlings. The Zimbabwe dollar, which was worth $1.58 when Mugabe took control today is worth only .26. So much for the value of a Marxist economy.
"’I am 80 percent sure that I will not grow a tobacco crop, because I am not prepared to do so under a government that is doing this kind of thing,’ he said. (And, when his land is broken up among a group of warring former guerrilla fighters, it’s not likely to be planted with tobacco or much of anything else either.)
"When asked if he held out any hope that politicians could negotiate a settlement to the land issue, the farmer told the Independent news: "It all depends on the president, if he gives the word then things will all get back to normal."
"Mugabe has personally endorsed the occupation of more than 1 000 white-owned farms. He is demanding that Britain and other international donors fund a land distribution programme to give farms to hundreds of thousands of landless black people.
"A high-level delegation was due to leave late on Tuesday for London to hold talks with British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on the land reform programme.
"Some farmers fear that Mugabe and his entourage will pocket any proceeds from the sale of land.
"’I honestly doubt that farmers will get paid for their land,’ said one."
So, what is going on in Zimbabwe, which, when Mugabe took over the country in 1980 was a major food exporting country has already lost much of its income from agricultural exports and will increasingly become an area of Africa which cannot support it’s own population, much less export foot to other nations. Already about two-thirds of the white minority in Zimbabwe have left the country. Probably most of the rest of the white farmers in Zimbabwe will be forced to leave also.
And, of course, this movement to oust the white minority is not confined merely to Zimbabwe. It has been going on in South Africa too. A disaster-weary world, which in 1978 mobilized millions of dollars to save the starving people of Ethiopia, will be faced with a rapidly growing food shortage in Africa as its regular droughts and AIDS take their toll of the Continent.
Most of the time the famines of Africa could have been avoided by a cessation of local black-on-black wars. In Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s land grabbers already are targeting the black farm workers - the people who produce the food for the nation. The so-called "black veterans" of Zimbabwe’s "revolution" of the 1970s are simply guerrilla fighters. That’s their trade. They are not farmers, never have been and probably never will be.
If the West really was interested in halting famine in Africa, which it doesn’t appear to be, it would stop supporting black Marxists whose real interest in staying in power at all costs. Failing that, it needs to point out to folks like Robert Mugabe that if they continue their Stalinist tactics there will be a screeching halt to all foreign aid to their countries. And that even means no parts for their Mercedes and Rolls-Royces when they break down. That might get their attention.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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