Zimbabwe, Capitalist Lies, and the Urgent Need for Pan-Africanism

[XXPANTHAXX]

In the wake of elections in Zimbabwe, the
world has witnessed a continuation of attacks
by the capitalists/imperialists and their media
puppets against President Robert Mugabe
and his party, the Zimbabwe African National
Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).
For anyone who doesn’t know better, it would
be easy to conclude that ZANU-PF climbed up
from the depths of Hell and imposed a reign of
terror on the poor suffering people of Zimbabwe.
But the All-African People’s Revolutionary
Party knows this to be untrue because the
A-APRP never relies upon the capitalists for
information. The A-APRP always relies on primary
sources – particularly when those sources
are brother/sister organizations like ZANUPF.
What the A-APRP has learned through
diligent study and investigation is that the
story in Zimbabwe involves many more facts
than those presented by the capitalist press.
Before April 18, 1980, Zimbabwe was known
as “Rhodesia.” Decades earlier, British settlers
had through trickery and conquest occupied
and settled in this territory, imposing upon the
Africans racial terror, oppression and apartheid.
Among the settlers’ greatest crimes was
the wholesale theft of the region’s arable land.
Naturally, there was constant resistance by the
African masses until during the second half of
the 1970s, the “Patriotic Front” (which was a
coordinated armed offensive by the two primary
liberation organizations - the Zimbabwe
African National Union, led by Mugabe, and
the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, led by
Joshua Nkomo) was poised to drive the settler
regime from power. Seeing the handwriting
on the wall, the settlers along with Britain and
the U.S. encouraged the Patriotic Front to attend
a meeting at Lancaster House in England
to negotiate a peaceful end to the struggle.
At Lancaster House, the Patriotic Front made
it clear that their first priority was to reclaim
the land that had been stolen from the Africans
and to redistribute it to liberation war
veterans and other landless Africans. Britain
and the U.S. begged and pleaded that the
Patriotic Front not take the land, but when
it was clear that the revolutionaries were determined
to proceed with their plans, the two
western countries promised to compensate
the white land occupants in Zimbabwe with
money from the U.S. and British treasuries.
Mugabe went on to become Zimbabwe’s president,
and he waited patiently for years for the
two capitalist countries to make good on their
promises. However, U.S. President Jimmy
Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan, who
had no plans to honor the agreement. Britain
behaved as though the agreement had never
been made. Toward the end of the 1990s, the
liberation war veterans began to take matters
into their own hands, and they occupied various
settlers’ farms. In short order, the Zimbabwe
government instituted a land reclamation
program that immediately drew fire from the
capitalist world because of the example it set
for other African countries that might begin to
think about reclaiming their land and resources
from settlers and multinational corporations.
Meanwhile, white expatriates living in England
and elsewhere began to finance the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), an
opposition political party in Zimbabwe that
they hoped would defeat ZANU-PF and after
taking back the reins of government, allow
the settlers to return to their privileged lives
in Zimbabwe. However, the opposition party
was defeated repeatedly, and the flow of money
to the opposition party came to a halt. The opposition
party then began to resort to acts of
violence and sabotage. When the government
cracked down on them, the capitalists wrongly
accused the Zimbabwean government of human
rights violations and used these lies as a
basis for winning support for economic sanctions
against Zimbabwe that succeeded in
driving the country to the brink of disaster.
President Mugabe himself commented on these
developments during an interview with journalist
Baffour Ankomah that was published
in the Summer 2007 special issue of New African
magazine. Excerpts of the interview follow:

“Baffour: So why are the Americans now
funding regime change activities here to get
you out of power? For the first time, they
publicly admitted in an official State Department
report released in Washington on 5
April 2007 that they have been sponsoring
regime change in Zimbabwe, by supporting
the opposition, NGOs, the trade unions,
the private media, even religious groups,
who are working to discredit your government.
So why has there been this about-turn?

Mugabe: This is what America has always
been. Yes of course, they gave us that assistance
during Carter’s administration, because
they didn’t want a failure of our constitutional
negotiations which were taking place in Lancaster
House in London in 1979. But as soon
as Carter was out and Ronald Reagan had
come in, the funds were stopped, because they
said we were communists. They accused me
of being a communist. But they never, never
really approved of a solid African government,
a government that stands on its own.
They were behind Nkrumah’s fall, and they
have been behind the fall of other governments
—in Latin America, everywhere. So we
don’t trust them. They just don’t want a strong
government, a government that lives by the
truth and wants to help its own people, they
don’t want that.” Elsewhere in the interview:

“Baffour: But I would like you to situate
the Zimbabwe case in the wider African
context. Why should a Ghanaian or
Nigerian or Kenyan or South African or
an African-American support Zimbabwe?
Why should Africa stand with Zimbabwe?

Mugabe: Well obviously our cause is their
cause. The success of Zimbabwe is their success.
And we don’t live in isolation, we are not
an extension of Europe, we are part of Africa,
and so really our stand, as a fight, should be
seen as an African cause, and wherever we
have Africans, be they in the Diaspora or in
Senegal or Ghana where we first got our revolutionary
drink, they should be able to understand
and appreciate the war we are fighting
here, and when they are disillusioned, it is our
duty to remove that disillusionment and get
them back on the right path as our supporters.

Baffour: You are saying that if Africa allows
Zimbabwe to go down, no African
country would again be able to pop its head
above water. It would be like when Nkrumah
was taken out, the African revolutionary
fire was extinguished, and we
lost the momentum for the past 40 years.

Mugabe: Sure, it would affect them too – the
whole of Africa. If you want to read Nkrumah’s
own principle—Ghana would not regard itself
as totally free and independent unless every
inch of Africa was free. So every inch of
Africa matters. If that inch loses its freedom,
then the whole African continent is affected.
It’s freedom minus. And you don’t want anything
of that nature to happen to Africa...”

The A-APRP calls upon Africans everywhere
to, on this 50th anniversary of
ALD, heed the call of President Mugabe
and join an organization that is fighting
to liberate every inch of Africa.

[haqeel]

Originally Posted by XXPANTHAXX

In the wake of elections in Zimbabwe, the
world has witnessed a continuation of attacks
by the capitalists/imperialists and their media
puppets against President Robert Mugabe
and his party, the Zimbabwe African National
Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).
For anyone who doesn’t know better, it would
be easy to conclude that ZANU-PF climbed up
from the depths of Hell and imposed a reign of
terror on the poor suffering people of Zimbabwe.
But the All-African People’s Revolutionary
Party knows this to be untrue because the
A-APRP never relies upon the capitalists for
information. The A-APRP always relies on primary
sources – particularly when those sources
are brother/sister organizations like ZANUPF.
What the A-APRP has learned through
diligent study and investigation is that the
story in Zimbabwe involves many more facts
than those presented by the capitalist press.
Before April 18, 1980, Zimbabwe was known
as “Rhodesia.” Decades earlier, British settlers
had through trickery and conquest occupied
and settled in this territory, imposing upon the
Africans racial terror, oppression and apartheid.
Among the settlers’ greatest crimes was
the wholesale theft of the region’s arable land.
Naturally, there was constant resistance by the
African masses until during the second half of
the 1970s, the “Patriotic Front” (which was a
coordinated armed offensive by the two primary
liberation organizations - the Zimbabwe
African National Union, led by Mugabe, and
the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, led by
Joshua Nkomo) was poised to drive the settler
regime from power. Seeing the handwriting
on the wall, the settlers along with Britain and
the U.S. encouraged the Patriotic Front to attend
a meeting at Lancaster House in England
to negotiate a peaceful end to the struggle.
At Lancaster House, the Patriotic Front made
it clear that their first priority was to reclaim
the land that had been stolen from the Africans
and to redistribute it to liberation war
veterans and other landless Africans. Britain
and the U.S. begged and pleaded that the
Patriotic Front not take the land, but when
it was clear that the revolutionaries were determined
to proceed with their plans, the two
western countries promised to compensate
the white land occupants in Zimbabwe with
money from the U.S. and British treasuries.
Mugabe went on to become Zimbabwe’s president,
and he waited patiently for years for the
two capitalist countries to make good on their
promises. However, U.S. President Jimmy
Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan, who
had no plans to honor the agreement. Britain
behaved as though the agreement had never
been made. Toward the end of the 1990s, the
liberation war veterans began to take matters
into their own hands, and they occupied various
settlers’ farms. In short order, the Zimbabwe
government instituted a land reclamation
program that immediately drew fire from the
capitalist world because of the example it set
for other African countries that might begin to
think about reclaiming their land and resources
from settlers and multinational corporations.
Meanwhile, white expatriates living in England
and elsewhere began to finance the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), an
opposition political party in Zimbabwe that
they hoped would defeat ZANU-PF and after
taking back the reins of government, allow
the settlers to return to their privileged lives
in Zimbabwe. However, the opposition party
was defeated repeatedly, and the flow of money
to the opposition party came to a halt. The opposition
party then began to resort to acts of
violence and sabotage. When the government
cracked down on them, the capitalists wrongly
accused the Zimbabwean government of human
rights violations and used these lies as a
basis for winning support for economic sanctions
against Zimbabwe that succeeded in
driving the country to the brink of disaster.
President Mugabe himself commented on these
developments during an interview with journalist
Baffour Ankomah that was published
in the Summer 2007 special issue of New African
magazine. Excerpts of the interview follow:

“Baffour: So why are the Americans now
funding regime change activities here to get
you out of power? For the first time, they
publicly admitted in an official State Department
report released in Washington on 5
April 2007 that they have been sponsoring
regime change in Zimbabwe, by supporting
the opposition, NGOs, the trade unions,
the private media, even religious groups,
who are working to discredit your government.
So why has there been this about-turn?

Mugabe: This is what America has always
been. Yes of course, they gave us that assistance
during Carter’s administration, because
they didn’t want a failure of our constitutional
negotiations which were taking place in Lancaster
House in London in 1979. But as soon
as Carter was out and Ronald Reagan had
come in, the funds were stopped, because they
said we were communists. They accused me
of being a communist. But they never, never
really approved of a solid African government,
a government that stands on its own.
They were behind Nkrumah’s fall, and they
have been behind the fall of other governments
—in Latin America, everywhere. So we
don’t trust them. They just don’t want a strong
government, a government that lives by the
truth and wants to help its own people, they
don’t want that.” Elsewhere in the interview:

“Baffour: But I would like you to situate
the Zimbabwe case in the wider African
context. Why should a Ghanaian or
Nigerian or Kenyan or South African or
an African-American support Zimbabwe?
Why should Africa stand with Zimbabwe?

Mugabe: Well obviously our cause is their
cause. The success of Zimbabwe is their success.
And we don’t live in isolation, we are not
an extension of Europe, we are part of Africa,
and so really our stand, as a fight, should be
seen as an African cause, and wherever we
have Africans, be they in the Diaspora or in
Senegal or Ghana where we first got our revolutionary
drink, they should be able to understand
and appreciate the war we are fighting
here, and when they are disillusioned, it is our
duty to remove that disillusionment and get
them back on the right path as our supporters.

Baffour: You are saying that if Africa allows
Zimbabwe to go down, no African
country would again be able to pop its head
above water. It would be like when Nkrumah
was taken out, the African revolutionary
fire was extinguished, and we
lost the momentum for the past 40 years.

Mugabe: Sure, it would affect them too – the
whole of Africa. If you want to read Nkrumah’s
own principle—Ghana would not regard itself
as totally free and independent unless every
inch of Africa was free. So every inch of
Africa matters. If that inch loses its freedom,
then the whole African continent is affected.
It’s freedom minus. And you don’t want anything
of that nature to happen to Africa...”

The A-APRP calls upon Africans everywhere
to, on this 50th anniversary of
ALD, heed the call of President Mugabe
and join an organization that is fighting
to liberate every inch of Africa.

Keep me posted and share more info I'm considering joining the party.