Zimbabwe will never be a colony again!!!

[DJ RBG]

the return of Zimbabwe's land to its people


At the invitation of ZANU(PF), Harpal Brar, Editor of Lalkar and
Chairman of Zimbabwe Solidarity Front, attended a Conference in Harare,
April 20-23, with the theme The Liberation Struggle Continues. Based on
his participation at the Conference, the papers presented at it, as well
as other information, he wrote an article on the land question in
Zimbabwe. The first part of this article appeared in the previous issue
of Lalkar - September/October 2004. The second, concluding part, is
reproduced below.

Imperialist response to the Fast Track Land Reform and Resettlement
Programme (FTP)

The imperialist response to the land acquisition programme in Zimbabwe
was violently hostile. Britain, the US and the EU launched a concerted
hate campaign to intimidate and destabilise Zimbabwe, to ruin its
economy and to remove ZANU(PF) from the seat of power - especially
President Mugabe. They accused the Zimbabwean government of poor
government, economic mismanagement, corruption, human rights violations,
political violence and intimidation, abolishing press freedom and
rigging elections. The list of Zimbabwe's alleged crimes is endless.
Turning facts on their head, the defenders of monopolist privileges were
conducting a malicious campaign of lies against a regime which was
valiantly, and successfully at that, getting rid of the monopolisation
of Zimbabwe's land by a tiny group of settlers. They damned the land
reform programme as the politics of lunacy and the economics of suicide.


The British government intensified its efforts to isolate Zimbabwe by
enlisting the help of the US, the EU, the Commonwealth, the Southern
African Development Community (SADC), the AU and a host of other
organisations where Britain wielded any influence. Mugabe and his 'wild'
war veterans were by their actions hurting British interests, influence
and prestige. They had at one stroke rendered nugatory all the gains
made by Britain at Lancaster House; therefore they could not be allowed
to succeed. What is more, their example could prove dangerously
infectious in the neighbouring countries (South Africa and Namibia),
where land ownership is similarly skewed, consequent upon the ravages of
colonialism and the colonial legacy inherited by the newly independent
regimes. Zimbabwe's open flouting of one of the most scared principles
of capitalism, that of private property and the right to exploit (the
only true 'human rights' in the capitalist code of morality) outraged
the economic,
political and intellectual representatives of capitalism in the
imperialist countries without exception.

In violation of the accepted procedures of that organisation, Britain
was instrumental in securing the suspension of Zimbabwe, in March 2002,
from that hangover of the colonial era - the Commonwealth. In the end,
when that suspension was confirmed (7 December 2003) Zimbabwe, angered
by the discriminatory treatment it received, quite correctly and wisely
decided to quit this organisation.

German imperialism joins the fray

German imperialism, fearful of the Zimbabwe example spreading to Namibia,
a former German colony where white farmers of German descent own vast
amounts of land, joined the Zimbabwe hate campaign, through the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FEF) which worked out a strategy and a
detailed plan for the removal of the ZANU(PF) government and President
Mugabe. Written by its Director in Zimbabwe, and entitled Zimbabwe - a
Conflict Study of a Country Without Direction, the FEF report was
presented to the EU's Africa Working Group (AWG) in December 1998, to
serve as a basis for recommending action on Zimbabwe.

With great candour, this report singled out Zimbabwe's land reform
programme and its support for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
as the reasons for hostility towards the Zimbabwean regime. In addition
it blamed all the real and imaginary ills of Zimbabwe on its government,
especially on Robert Mugabe, adding arrogantly that to put matters
right, the ZANU(PF) government and President Mugabe had to go - either
voluntarily or be forced out. To that end, the report outlined a
programme of engineering economic decline in Zimbabwe to produce
hardship and civil disturbances and thus make the country ungovernable.
Tellingly, the report stated: "without economic deterioration, there
would hardly be any social protest"; "without social protest, there
would be no pressure for political change"; and "without political
change, the economic issues cannot be effectively addressed".

Cooperation between government and media

The British media, including especially the BBC, so keen on presenting
itself as the guardian of gospel truth and objectivity, naturally
collaborated with the British government's Zimbabwe hate campaign. Nor
could it be otherwise, for the 'free' media are owned by financial
magnates, and exist to protect the interests of the kings of finance and
robber barons of monopoly capitalism, and not in the furtherance of
truth. In close cooperation, the government and the media coordinated a
plan for the removal of the government of Zimbabwe and President Mugabe
through a scurrilous campaign of lies, slander and vilification against
the Zimbabwean leadership; economic sabotage; inciting civil
disturbances and ethnic strife; fomenting a coup d'tat; attempting a
split within ZANU(PF); and assisting the founding of a new opposition
party.

Richard Dowden, Editor of the Economist, in an article in November 1998,
outlined a plan for the removal of the government, suggesting "developments
along Indonesian lines", with a worsening economy, growing mass
dissatisfaction, a possible five-day strike by trade unions to demand
early elections. He added that if " the government banned the unions and
arrested their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, furious crowds would take to
the streets. After bloodshed the government might fall". He went on for
good measure: "or there could be a palace coup against Mr Mugabe one
faction could conceivably decide to seize power".

This same Dowden played a leading role at a meeting, on 24 January 1999,
of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House under
the provocative title: Zimbabwe - Time for Mugabe to Go. Having
identified the land reform programme and the dispatch of troops by
Zimbabwe to the DRC as the cause of the organisers' hostility towards
Zimbabwe, the meeting rehearsed the already enumerated scenario for the
removal of President Mugabe and his regime.

A seminar with the similar counter-revolutionary aim of overthrowing the
Zimbabwean government was held two months later, on 23 March 1999, at
the US State Department under the title Zimbabwe at the Crossroads. The
plan of action elaborated at this gathering was little different from
that described above.

Zimbabwe Democracy Trust and Westminster Foundation for Democracy

A year later, in April 2000, Morgan Tsvangirai visited Britain
ostensibly for fund-raising purposes. During this visit, a letter in
support of the MDC appeared in The Times - the list of signatories to
this letter is a veritable Who's Who of leading counter-revolutionary
spokesmen of imperialism, including three former British Foreign
Secretaries - Lord Howe, Lord Carrington, Lady Chalker of Wallasey,
Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Hurd (all former ministers under Margaret
Thatcher), former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Chester Crocker, and Evelyn de Rothschild from the notorious banking
family. Several of these signatories are members of the so-called
Zimbabwe Democracy Trust (ZDT), a select group of top British and US
politicians and fabulously rich businessmen, some of them with direct
economic interests in Zimbabwe. ZDT has advised and funded the MDC
extensively. The British government, through the Westminster Foundation
for Democracy (WFD), which received 95% of
its funds from the British government and whose governing body is
graced by the representatives of the three major bourgeois parties (Conservative,
Labour and Liberal Democrat), with Tony Blair as its patron, also
provided funds to the MDC.

Double standards

The above imperialist-orchestrated campaign has given rise to the
application of double standards in judging events in Zimbabwe. If there
are food shortages in Zimbabwe, these are attributed to the land reform
programme. The truth, however, is that as a result of the severe drought
conditions for two consecutive years, there were crop failures in
several countries in southern Africa. As a result, many countries - not
just Zimbabwe - suffered from food shortages. If the imperialist stooges
of the MDC are defeated in the elections, that must be because of
rigging. The truth is that no election in Zimbabwe would be regarded by
imperialism as free and fair unless ZANU(PF) and President Mugabe lost
it. Everywhere in the world, including Britain, authorities require
advance notification of any planned demonstrations, for reasons of
public order as well as traffic control. In the case of Zimbabwe, such
requirements are condemned as attempts to deny the right to free
assembly and
demonstrate. The requirement for newspapers and journalists to register,
while a common practice in practically every country, in the case of
Zimbabwe is regarded as an infringement of freedom of the press. And so
it goes on.

Thus Zimbabwe, its government, and its president, are subjected to this
vile campaign of lies, of vitriol and vituperation, of economic sabotage
and sanctions. Through its economic sanctions, on the one hand,
imperialism damages the economy of Zimbabwe and, on the other hand,
blames Zimbabwe's economic mismanagement for the intended harmful
consequences of its own deliberate acts of economic strangulation. The
programmes of the Voice of America's Studio 7 radio, and that of the UK-based
SW Radio Africa, daily and hourly beam scandalous broadcasts to
Zimbabwe calculated to rouse dissent, disaffection and rebellion among
the Zimbabwean masses against their government.

All the same, Zimbabwe has managed to survive and come out of this
baptism of fire much steeled and much strengthened. No matter what
happens, the land question has been decisively settled in favour of the
peasant masses of Zimbabwe. The land will remain with them, never to
return to a handful of European settlers.

However, to achieve this victory, ZANU(PF), the government of Zimbabwe
and President Mugabe, had to have nerves of steel, display great
vigilance inside the country and wage a vigorous offensive abroad to
keep on board its foreign friends. In the words of comrade Mudenge: "The
media war of 'awe, terror and saturation bombing' was unleashed on
little Zimbabwe by the bully boys of the West. It is a mark of the
maturity of SADC, AU and NAM [Non-aligned Movement] that they have
remained solidly behind Zimbabwe in spite of the above onslaught, as
well as blandishments and at times naked political and economic pressure.
Britain could not successfully spread its hate message beyond the white-race
solidarity grouping. The majority in the international community
supported Zimbabwe. To survive Zimbabwe had to win the battle for
international opinion".

The Role of Social Democracy and Trotskyism

Social democracy, both 'left' and right, and its variant, Trotskyism,
have played, not unexpectedly, a most shameful role on the question of
Zimbabwe, in particular its land reform programme. With the collapse of
the former USSR, 'left' social democracy and Trotskyism, throwing off
their radical 'left', even Marxian mask, have degenerated into being
cheer-leaders of imperialist aggression and open advocates of neo-liberalism,
in which guise present-day imperialism attacks the working class and
the national liberation movements. They have become the new missionaries
of democracy and fervent supporters of the selective application of the
doctrines of human rights and good governance, which are applied by the
imperialist countries to gauge the creditworthiness or otherwise of the
poor nations through the WB/IMF combine - behind which stand the giant
monopoly corporations which are firmly rooted in the centres of
imperialism. In the apt words of comrade Mudenge: "Is it not ironic that
the values of democracy for which the people of southern Africa fought
and died, are now being abused and subverted into instruments of their
conquest and re-conquest?" (Western Socialists' view of ex-liberation
movements, hereafter, WS).

We have already cited the November 1997 letter of Clare Short, the
darling of the Troto-revisionist gentry. On the question of Zimbabwe's
land reform programme, the most vehement opponents of this programme in
the European Parliament are led by Glenys Kinnock, wife of the former
Labour leader - not by any Conservative or Liberal Democrat. The British
Labour government set itself the task of engineering the downfall of
the ZANU(PF) government and that of President Mugabe. During her one-day
visit to Zimbabwe in early January 1998, Clare Short behaved haughtily,
refusing to meet any Zimbabwean official other than the Finance
Minister, Dr Herbert Murerwa, who had been his country's High
Commissioner in London. Later in the day she attended a reception at the
residence of Jim Drummond, head of the British Department for
International Development (DFID) in Harare. As she waddled about the
lawn, within earshot of DFID officials, she provocatively remarked that
"Mugabe should be
overthrown!" These are the four words with which British imperialism,
through one of its most loyal flunkey Labour ministers, announced to the
world its intention to destabilise Zimbabwe as a prelude to the
overthrow of its government and its president.

Manipulation of trade unions

Being unable to exert pressure on the governments led by the leaders of
the former liberation movements, and taking their cue from the counter-revolutionary
role played by Lech Walecha's Solidarity in Poland, and in view of the
baleful influence exercised by the British TUC and its counterparts in
other imperialist countries over the trade union movements in former
colonies, the advocates of regime change in Zimbabwe and elsewhere
resorted to subverting trade unions in these countries by identifying
trade union leaders who could be used as tools for replacing independent
regimes with those compliant to imperialist demands. Thus, Frederick
Chiluba in Zambia, Chakufwa Chihana in Malawi, Ben Ulenga in Namibia,
Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, and Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe, were
singled out for the role of suitable flunkeys of imperialism, and whose
trade union connections and positions could be used in the furtherance
of imperialist interests in these countries. The 1991 defeat of
the Zambian President Kaunda by Chiluba was a source of great
encouragement for social democracy to pursue this path vigorously.

Why should imperialism want to overthrow regimes in southern Africa? The
answer lies in the mineral riches of this region, which can justly be
called the mineral "Gulf Region" of the African continent. It offers
fantastic opportunities for the export of capital and exploitation of
cheap local labour. Strong, independent regimes present an obstacle to
imperialism's quest for domination of the region and the control and
looting of its vast mineral resources. Hence the hankering by
imperialism after compliant rulers who could deliver this region,
endowed with fabulous wealth, on a platter to the vultures of monopoly
capitalism in the latter's never-ceasing quest for the maximum of profit
and world domination. The oil rich Angola, Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial
Guinea and, particularly, the mineral-rich DRC, likewise are in the
unenviable position of being targeted by imperialism.

Social democracy and Trotskyism have gaily joined the imperialist attack
on the Zimbabwean regime. Literally a month before the Labour Party was
voted into office in May 1997, a Zimbabwe-accredited diplomat during a
visit to the Republic of Ireland was informed by a prominent Irish trade
unionist that the European trade unions had already singled out the
then Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU),
Morgan Tsvangirai, as their presidential candidate in Zimbabwe against
Robert Mugabe (information in this and the following few paragraphs is
taken from Dr. Mudenge's WS).

The Danish Trade Union Council (DTUC), the "cooperating partner" of ZCTU,
had already, towards the end of 1996, posted Georg Limke to Harare as
it regional representative to ensure the success of this project - it
being Limke's mission to transform the Zimbabwe trade union movement
into a political party. In 1999, Tsvangirai requested Limke to extend
his three-year assignment with the DTUC by six months to help facilitate
the final phase of the transformation of the ZCTU into an opposition
party that would challenge ZANU(PF). "On the technical-political side, I
would like to mention that the secretary-general of the ZCTU has
expressed the need for my services during the transitional period of the
ZCTU when the leadership is changing. This will be in the form of
technical support of the expected new phase and in the form of strategic
consultations and services in the broader spectrum of the activities of
the ZCTU", Limke wrote to his headquarters.

However, in later October 1999, after his cover was blown, Limke was
withdrawn and replaced by Mrs Gitte Vesterlund.

Rudolph Trauber-Merz, the Director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FEF)
in Harare until the end of 1998, wrote a report at the beginning of
1999 on his evaluation of the political situation in Zimbabwe. It is
patently clear from this report that he already knew that the ZCTU,
which he preferred to characterise as "the umbrella body", would be
transformed into a political party in 1999. He wrote: "ZCTU
functionaries would have to relinquish their posts before they switch
over to party posts".

Role of SWP

The Socialist Workers' Party (SWP), the largest Trotskyist organisation
in Britain, characteristically ignoring the extensive support furnished
by imperialism to bring into being the MDC, greeted the latter's
formation as a step forward for the working class of Zimbabwe. Instead
of seeing through the imperialist manipulation of the trade-union
movement in Zimbabwe, as would be obligatory on any socialist
organisation worthy of its name, the SWP asserted that as the ZCTU had
been involved in setting up the MDC, the latter could represent, and
advance, the social and political interests of the working class. The
International Socialist Organisation (ISO), SWP's sister party in
Zimbabwe, made the boastful, not to say shameful, claim that it had been
one of the first civic organisations to "encourage the ZCTU to form a
workers' party to remove ZANU(PF)".

In a revealing interview, which appeared in the September 2000 issue of
the SWP journal Socialist Review, Munyaradzi Gwisai, a leading member of
the ISO elected to the Zimbabwean parliament on the MDC platform,
explained that as from 1997 FEF gave substantial financial support to
the National Consultative Association (NCA), a precursor of the MDC,
with the aim of exerting its influence and advancing the possibilities
for getting rid of the ZANU(PF) government.

Fully laying bare the counter-revolutionary politics of the SWP and the
ISO, the interview proved beyond reasonable doubt that the MDC was the
creation of imperialism and that the ZCTU was being manipulated so as to
prevent the development of a truly radical and impendent working-class
movement in Zimbabwe. In this interview, calling it "an influential
social democratic organisation", Gwisai observed that the FEF "had a
strategy for building a viable party by getting people to work together
without calling it a political party. I think it was felt that there
was a danger of radicalization of the working class and this is how
Morgan [Tsvangirai] was then brought in as a figurehead leader of the
NCA. He lent credibility to the NCA, which was well funded".

It is clear that in the formation of the MDC, imperialism was creating,
through the combined efforts of European social democracy and its trade
union offshoots, as well as a host of NGOs, a pro-business outfit for
the twin purposes of disarming the working class of Zimbabwe and
removing the radical nationalist regime of ZANU(PF) and the latter's
most steadfast and representative spokesman, to wit, President Robert
Mugabe. Nor could it be otherwise. It is beyond belief that an
organisation like the FEF, notorious for subverting working class and
national liberation movements the world over, would ever consider giving
any support to a genuinely militant working-class organisation.

Friedrich Ebert Foundation

Founded in 1925 by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of Germany, "to
honour the legacy of Friedrich Ebert", who died in the same year, the
aptly-named FEF has continued to propagate and promote the counter-revolutionary
work of the notorious betrayer of the working class after whom it is
named. During the First World War, Ebert, along with the overwhelming
majority of the leadership of the SDP, deserted the working class and
went over to German imperialism under the slogan of the "Defence of the
Fatherland" - a slogan used by opportunist renegades of several
imperialism countries to betray the working class in the service of
imperialism. At the end of the war, Ebert became the first President of
the Weimar Republic. Along with Phillip Scheidemann and Gustav Noske, in
January 1919 he successfully led the social-democratic government's
effort to prevent the revolutionary overthrow of German imperialism,
freely using guns and bayonets to drown working class demonstrations in
Berlin in
blood. Several hundred revolutionaries, including Rosa Luxemburg and
Karl Liebknecht, were massacred on the orders of Ebert who notoriously
said: "I hate revolution!"

Resuscitated in 1947, the FEF has ever since been an important tool with
which German imperialism defends its interests on a global scale. Armed
with a budget of $90 million a year, a workforce of 700 at its
headquarters and an additional 2,000 elsewhere in the world, maintaining
offices in 74 countries, it boasts the possession of the largest
archive on the working-class movement in Europe, a vast research centre
and a publishing house. It trains and tames diplomats, academics and
trade unionists favourably inclined towards imperialist interests,
German imperialist interests in particular.

During the 1970s, the FEF played a significant role in subverting the
revolutionary movements in Spain and Portugal - guiding them along
reformist channels through the setting up of reformist social democratic
parties. It continues to do its dirty work in Eastern Europe, Asia,
Africa and Latin America in furtherance of the interests of imperialism
under the pretext of promoting "democracy", "good governance", "rule of
law", "political freedom", "human rights" and suchlike subterfuges.

This is no way to deny the part played by the mistakes of the Zimbabwean
government in the rise of the MDC. The acceptance by the government in
the early 1990s of the WB/IMF prescribed SAPs, and the consequent freeze
on wages accompanied by price liberalisation, led to the further
impoverishment of the poor and restlessness among the people, especially
the working class, which imperialism and its agents were able to
exploit with great adroitness. Here is just one example of the skilful
manipulation by the rich privileged minority of the discontent in the
ranks of the working class. In December 1997, trade unions in Zimbabwe
staged a five-day strike. The following perceptive observation made by
the South African Daily Mail and Guardian of 17 December 1997 is truly
revealing in this regard: "The strike drew on a deeper discontent which
has given trade unions common cause with other interests, including
employers who encouraged their workers to join the protest and white
Zimbabwean
farmers whose farms are threatened with seizures" ('Zimbabwe's Unholy
Alliance').

Belatedly, in 1999, the government abandoned the SAPs, further
antagonising imperialism. Better late than never. It was the correct
thing to do.

Precisely because the MDC was to be a vehicle for furthering the
interests of imperialism, organisations such as the FEF were showering
it with financial assistance, advice and all other kinds of support
facility. This simple truth has somehow managed to elude Gwisai who
naively complained that the alleged working-class character of the MDC
was "not captured in the Manifesto", that while being characterised as a
movement of "working people", the MDC was permitted "to include the
bosses". Contradicting himself at every step, he asserted that the MDC
had been "hijacked" by the capitalists, expressing the forlorn hope that
through the mobilisation of the mass of workers it could be won over to
a socialist programme. He added, as if to annihilate his earlier
assertion, that there was " real disillusionment, and there was a danger
of us socialists being swamped".

While maintaining that he had agreed to contest the Highfield
constituency on the MDC platform because the ISO hoped to be able to use
the election campaign "as a platform for building a revolutionary
alternative", with not a little unintended irony, he admitted that,
although originally chosen to fight the election for the Harare area, he
was moved to Highfield "because of the hostility from the party
leadership and its bourgeois party sympathisers about a socialist
standing in the central business district".

From the above it is clear as daylight that the SWP and its sister
organisation in Zimbabwe, the ISO, hitched themselves in Zimbabwe to the
chariot of imperialism. In this context, it would not be amiss to quote
the following words of Dr. Mudenge, with which this revolutionary
nationalist delivers truly stunning blows to what is at least nominally
a working-class organisation - the SWP: "Despite its socialist rhetoric,
the British Socialist Workers' Party has rallied behind pro-imperialist
policies and helped trade-union bureaucracy and the MDC to foment
opposition against the government of Zimbabwe. While the working class
is a viable social force that can advance a programme on which to take
forward a struggle for democratic rights and social equality, to do so
it must begin by acting independently of the political representatives
of capital. Instead, Zimbabwe's urban working class have been dragooned
into a common organization with their oppressors, a tragedy which the
majority of
the people of Zimbabwe have beheld with utter disbelief, and which the
workers themselves are beginning to exhume themselves from " (WS).

Dr Mudenge goes on to observe correctly that the abuse of trade unions
by SWP-type fake socialists " in our region threatens to polarize our
communities and plunge us into unprecedented dangers posed by a
political divide between urban workers on the one hand, and rural
workers and the peasantry on the other. This polarization breeds
violence, undermines nation-building efforts, and threatens to roll
back our advances in democracy" (WS).

More than that. It is counter-revolutionary to the core. For further
advances in Zimbabwe, as indeed throughout southern Africa, the working
class needs the closest alliance with the peasantry, without which it
cannot lead the latter. Those who would cause distrust among these two
classes, those who work for a rupture between them, in the name of some
pure and imaginary socialism, can only play a sorry and reactionary role.


MDC continues on its reactionary course

Meanwhile, the MDC, created by imperialism and supported by 'left'
social democracy and Trotskyism alike, continues to do the imperialists'
bidding. In January this year (2004), Gibson Sibanda, Vice-President of
the MDC, travelled across Europe. While there, he distributed an MDC
policy document with the title MDC International Briefs and Consultation
- First Quarter, January to March 2004. The preamble to this document
makes the following shameful admission: "At the Zimbabwe Consultative
Meeting held on November 17, 2003 in the House of Lords in London, a
blueprint for the MDC's internal political strategies and external
diplomatic outreach activity for the year 2004 was unveiled and
discussed" (emphasis added).

One could not wish for a clearer admission as to where the blueprint for
the MDC's internal strategy and external activity is made. It is
manufactured in that centre of reaction - the British House of Lords,
one of the oldest centres of aristocratic privilege and big money. Not
surprising then that, after unveiling this blueprint, Mr Sibanda
denounced SADC as an old boys' club, living in mortal fear of being
replaced by trade union based political movements. The reason for his
outburst against the leaders of SADC was the latter's support for
Zimbabwe. He called upon the 'international community', that is, a tiny
group of blood-sucking imperialist Draculas, to put pressure on, and
punish, the SADC governments in order to force them into line as per the
diktat of international monopoly capital.

ZANU(PF) emerges victorious

Thanks to the steady nerve and steadfastness of the ZANU(PF) government,
especially those of President Mugabe, the MDC has failed to make a
success of the goal set for it by its imperialist masters. The closest
it came to success was in the parliamentary elections of June 2000, when
it won 57 seats as opposed to the 62 won by ZANU(PF). With 30 further
seats occupied by presidential nominees under the Constitution, the
government was easily able to conduct its business in the 150-seat
parliament.

The opposition's success during this election, far from cowing the
government, only made the latter more determined than ever to settle the
land question through the FTP as from 15 July 2000. The rejection of
the draft Constitution a few months earlier had had the same effect.

Now that the land question has been irreversibly settled in favour of
the Zimbabwean masses, the government's stock has risen higher among the
people and it can look forward to a decisive victory in the
parliamentary elections next year. In contrast, the MDC's star has
dimmed. Its stance on the land question has, to the disappointment of
imperialism and the former owners of large commercial farms, become
ambivalent - to say the least. Initially it promised to bring clarity
and transparency into the land resettlement programme. That has become
irrelevant, since the government itself executed the programme with
clarity and transparency. Now that the land has been given to the black
masses, as well as black commercial farmers, it would be suicidal for
the MDC to promise to return land to the European settlers. So, in an
interview with a South African newspaper, MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai,
stated recently that he would not give land back to Joe Bloggs who left
Zimbabwe for Australia.
On being asked whether he would return land to Joe Bloggs in Borough
Dale (a rich residential area in Harare), he was at his wits' end for an
answer. This has made him unreliable for imperialism.

Conclusion

In any case, whatever the results in future elections, whatever the fate
of the ZANU(PF) government and President Mugabe, the land resettlement
in Zimbabwe is irreversible. Imperialism and its stooges are going to
have to live with this reality. It is to the undying credit of ZANU(PF),
in particular to its undisputed leader, President Mugabe, that they
have solved this, the most difficult problem of the Zimbabwean people.
Theirs is the first non-communist government, since the Great French
Revolution of the late 18th Century, to have solved the land question in
such a revolutionary way. Let imperialism and its stooges fulminate and
heap abuse on ZANU(PF) and Robert Mugabe. The whole of progressive
humanity has every reason to join the joyous masses of Zimbabwe on this
historical occasion of their tumultuous return to their land - nay, to
their country.

We cannot but associate ourselves with the following sentiments,
expressed by President Mugabe during an interview with Cuban journalists
in Harare on 15 March 2004; "We feel that our land has now been
liberated. It is now the land of our people. It [the land] gives the
people a sense of belonging and ownership".

He added ominously: "The people love their soil. No amount of pressure -
political, economic or military - would sway them and the government to
relent on the land reforms which were now spreading to other countries
in the region with similar land ownership disparities between white
farmers and the indigenous blacks".

Words like these, which frighten the daylights out of imperialism and
its stooges, are a source of inspiration and encouragement for the
expropriated black masses throughout southern Africa and beyond. This is
what explains the popularity that President Mugabe enjoys throughout
southern Africa, notwithstanding, or perhaps because of, his
demonisation by imperialism. His government's stance is a constant
reminder to the black masses of South Africa, where 12 % of the
population holds 80%of the land, that they too can solve the land
question in their country through radical measures in the fashion of
Zimbabwe.

Robert Mugabe and ZANU(PF) are thorns in the side of imperialism, for
they never cease to remind their former colonisers that the original
expropriation of the land of the people of Zimbabwe took place, not on
the basis of the willing seller/willing buyer principle, so dear to them
today, but through greed, fraud, deceit, extortion, trickery, violence
and conquest, which in some instances ended in the near total
extermination of the local people. Anglo-American imperialism works
itself into a frenzied rage over Zimbabwe, for the simple reason that
President Mugabe and his regime, questioning the very legitimacy of the
colonial conquest, never cease to assert that what was conquered and
stolen by the sword must return to the people of Zimbabwe - by the sword
if necessary.

In his 18 April 2004 speech at the National Sports Stadium, marking the
24th anniversary of Zimbabwe's Independence, President Mugabe outlined
his government's programmes and achievements during the preceding four
years. These range from continued efforts at electrification of the
countryside, irrigation projects, rural infrastructure (clinics, schools
and water supply facilities), to the development of the mining sector
and tourism, and a national housing delivery programme. He laid special
emphasis on fighting HIV/Aids pandemic, which he described as, "by far
the biggest challenge facing the country". He referred to the
intensified public education and awareness programmes, the distribution
of funds from a National Aid Levy, the allocation by the government of
10 billion Zimbabwean dollars for fighting AIDS, and the availability of
affordable anti-retroviral drugs - with Harare and Mpilo Central
Hospitals leading the way. The reality obviously is very different from
the myths
propagated by the imperialist rumour mill, especially the BBC, which
unashamedly churns out half-truths and straightforward lies in regard to
Zimbabwe.

Referring to the corruption prevalent in some sectors of the economy,
and the need to fight this cancer vigorously, he went on: "Our economy
has been badly bruised by some in our midst given to greed and corrupt
practices. The situation that has been obtaining in the financial sector
is simply disgusting and has required a very robust response. Equally,
the mining sector has shown serious lapses in integrity. For more than
five years, our gold was being smuggled out of the country through a
well-organised racket of international criminals. We have had incidents
involving theft of our platinum and nickel export consignments in South
Africa, which clearly smack of organised pillage.

"Millions in foreign currency have been externalised through a variety
of fraudulent activities practised by highly placed people we had
trusted to manage our economy. Now we are very clear that far from
deserving our trust, these fraudulent and thoroughly dishonest people
are the real enemies of our country and people, whose place and
permanent home is the prison.

"We shall continue to bring them to book and no person who robs this
country should be allowed to get away with it. In the drive to end
corruption, no one will be too big or too small. The law is rough with
criminals, and we shall shed no tears for them."

The greatest achievement of the Zimbabwean government over the last four
years has, doubtless, been the completion of the land resettlement
programme. "The last four years", said Mr Mugabe, "presented a number of
challenges and real trials for our country. Yet they have been years
also of break-throughs arising from our firm and indomitable stand on
matters of national sovereignty and economic freedom, the high point
being the fulfilment of our liberation war goal of recovering and
regaining the ownership and control of our land, and distributing it to
our people.

"Expectedly, this far-reaching policy has not endeared us to those
countries of the West, led by Britain and America, forcibly linked to us
by the cruel history of colonial occupation and other forms of imperial
plunder".

To the great annoyance of imperialism, but to a thunderous applause from
the 70,000 people listening to him at the Stadium, and to the applause
of progressive humanity the world over, he added:

"We will not compromise our principles of freedom and national
sovereignty, no matter who gets upset. Zimbabwe is not for the
convenience and pleasure of any country, less still of adventurous
bloodthirsty and domineering neo-colonialists. Zimbabwe will never be a
colony again! Never, never ever!"

The Zimbabwe government of President Mugabe has set a brilliant example,
which other countries in southern Africa are bound to follow sooner or
later. History will record the not inconsiderable contribution made by
the government of President Mugabe, and the people of Zimbabwe, to the
struggle of the peoples of the world against the legacy of colonialism
and against imperialist attempts at intimidation and subjugation of
small nations.

________________________________

In writing this article the author is indebted to the following sources,
on which he relied for a great deal of the information here presented:

The Report of the Presidential Land Review Committee, under the
chairmanship of the former Cabinet Secretary, Dr Charles Utete, August
2003.

Zimbabwe's Land Reform Programme (The Reversal of Colonial Land
Occupation and Domination): Its Impact on the country's regional and
international relations. Paper presented by Dr I.S.G. Mudenge, Zimbabwe
Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the Conference 'The Struggle Continues',
held in Harare, 18-22 April 2004.

'Western Socialists' Views of Ex-Liberation Movements', also by Dr
Mudenge at the above Conference.

'Land Reform: The Zimbabwean Experience', paper presented by Dr J.M.M.
Made, to the above Conference

Several articles from the Zimbabwean Sunday Mirror by Dr I. Mandaza, who
writes in that paper under the pseudonym of Scrutator.

Conversations with Paul Vanlerberghe, a Belgian comrade who has lived in
Zimbabwe for over a decade.

[rebelAfrika]

HOW IN THE NAME OF JESUS DID I MISS THIS??? EXCELLENT ARTICLE!!! Bruh...you gonna have to "up" your sources on all these great Zimbabwe articles you are coming with

P.S. MDC is F***** WACK!!! and ISO need to stay they wack ass OUT of African affairs before somebody F***'s them up!!!

[Tehuti-4]

Excellent article. Tua for posting this DJ!!