Zim Online
Monday 22 January 2007
HARARE -
White farmers have no future in Zimbabwe and the government will
seize more
land from the few whites still on farms in the country, Lands
Minister
Didymus Mutasa said at the weekend.
"Only the lucky ones among the
outgoing (white) farmers" could hope to keep
their farms, said Mutasa in
response to questions by ZimOnline whether
eviction orders served on 15
white farmers last week meant the government
was revoking its promise
earlier this month to allocate land to former white
farmers wishing to
return to farming.
Besides publishing notices in the state-owned Sunday
Mail newspaper saying
it would return land to some white farmers, the
government last November
also gave land to about half a dozen whites who
were part of a group of
about 100 black farmers given 99-year farm leases by
the state.
But Mutasa - a close confidante of President Robert Mugabe and
is also in
charge of state security - said despite whatever policy
pronouncements or
other actions taken in the past, the government was clear
about the future
of farming in the country and that future was
black.
He said: "The confusion is being caused by those who can't read
the future.
There are black people still landless out there, and as long as
those people
remain, we will continue to take farms for
resettlement.
"White farmers do not represent the future of farming in
this country,
blacks do. At the end of it all, I don't expect to see any
more white
farmers, just successful black farmers. But of course like with
everything
in life, there are the lucky ones. Only the lucky ones among the
outgoing
farmers could remain."
Mutasa's comments should send alarm
bells ringing among white farmers still
entertaining hopes of continuing
farming in Zimbabwe.
Between 400 and 600 white farmers remain on land out
of the about 4 000 who
were farming in Zimbabwe before the government
launched its chaotic and
often violent land redistribution exercise seven
years ago.
The largely white-representative Commercial Farmers Union
(CFU) last week
said that the government had stepped up displacement of the
remaining
farmers, adding that eviction notices served on the 15 farmers
from the
south-eastern Chiredzi district had brought to about 80 the number
of
farmers ordered to leave in the past five months.
Zimbabwe, also
grappling with its worst ever economic crisis, has since 2000
relied on food
imports and handouts from international food agencies mainly
due to failure
by new black farmers to maintain production on former white
farms.
Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector has also
had far
reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands have lost jobs while
the
manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is operating
below
30 percent capacity. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 22 January 2007
HARARE -
At least 10 teachers from Mashonaland East province have fled their
schools
in fear for their lives after ruling ZANU PF party militias stormed
schools
in the area to confiscate radios donated by a non-governmental
organisation,
ZimOnline has learnt.
The solar powered radios were donated by an unnamed
non-governmental
organisation to teachers to enable them to listen to
alternative radio
stations broadcast from outside the country.
But
the government says the radios will corrupt villagers, that it deems a
key
constituency loyal to ZANU PF, as they would be able to listen to
channels
critical of the government.
There are no independent broadcasters in
Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH), which operates four
radio stations
that are all controlled by the government, is well known for
its sycophancy
in churning virulent government propaganda forcing most
Zimbabweans to tune
in to radio stations that broadcast from outside the
country.
The Voice of America's Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa, which
broadcast from
Washington and London respectively, are run by exiled
Zimbabwean
journalists.
A teacher who claimed to have fled the
militias - notorious for harassing
and torturing opposition supporters -
yesterday told ZimOnline that the
militias were conducting violent searches
at teachers' houses beating up
teachers and confiscating all the donated
short-wave radios.
"The situation is tense in Mash East. The youths and
the police have teamed
up and act on information provided by ZANU PF
supporters in the district.
"People are being rounded up and given
lecturers on the dangers of listening
to the radios. Those suspected of
being behind the distribution are also
beaten up," said the teacher who
refused to be named for fear of
victimisation.
At a meeting held in
Marondera town last Tuesday, Mashonaland East governor
Ray Kaukonde is said
to have told state security agents and ZANU PF
supporters to be vigilant
saying the radios should not be allowed to
circulate in the
province.
Contacted for comment yesterday, Kaukonde confirmed that the
government was
confiscating the radios "in the national
interest."
"It is a peaceful exercise (confiscation of radios) in the
national
interest. Villagers need food not radios or harmful information,"
said
Kaukonde.
"Those radios are propaganda tools so that villagers
can listen to hostile
stations such as Voice of America and turn against the
government.
"The security agents are only confiscating the radios and
carrying out
awareness campaigns so that villagers can report anyone seen
listening to
the radios or distributing them," he said.
The secretary
general of the militant Progressive Teachers Union of
Zimbabwe, Raymond
Majongwe, condemned the confiscation of the radios.
"Teachers and
villagers are being beaten up and harassed for accepting the
radios. At
least 10 teachers have fled Mash East province over the past
week.
"There is something terribly wrong with a government when it
uses violence
to stop people from listening to a radio station of their
choice," said
Majongwe.
The Zimbabwe government has maintained grip
on information dissemination
over the past seven years. Apart from shutting
down private radio stations
which were operating in Zimbabwe, Harare has
also banned four independent
newspapers during the past four years. -
ZimOnline
International Herald Tribune
The Associated
PressPublished: January 21, 2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe's
respected Roman Catholic Justice and Peace
Commission on Sunday decried
deepening hardships in the country, including
hunger, deaths caused by a
junior doctors strike and a record dropout rate
in state schools over
spiraling education fees.
In a message to coincide with Sunday services,
the commission called for
political reforms by President Robert Mugabe's
authoritarian government to
ease the way for fiscal measures to bolster and
liberalize the crumbling
economy.
The Commission described "wholesale
hardships" facing ordinary Zimbabweans
every day that included the collapse
of the health delivery and education
systems, chaotic transport and
communications and "paralyzed manufacturing
and mining among many other
sectors of the economy that are in intensive
care units."
In order to
bring back the dignity of the people the commission said it
called on the
government "to immediately set priorities that put the people
first before
anything else."
"The economy should be managed prudently if the suffering
is to be halted.
Politics and the economy are interrelated. No amount of
fiscal and monetary
policies will steer us away from our suffering without
the integration of
the two," the commission said.
Mugabe has blamed
deepening economic woes on erratic rains and Western trade
embargoes on the
agriculture-based economy in Zimbabwe, a former regional
breadbasket.
Western aid, loans and investment have largely dried up in
the wake of
alleged democratic and human rights abuses since Mugabe ordered
the
often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms in
2000.
The strike by junior doctors and nurses in the main state hospitals
that
began late December "has caused untold human suffering and loss of
life,"
the commission said.
Fees at government and private schools
rose sharply in the hyperinflationary
economy this month, the commission
said.
"A stroll in our residential areas during school hours will bear
witness to
the large numbers of school-going children roaming the streets,"
it said,
saying this would cause with long term affects on literacy and
skills of the
young in nation once considered to offer model education
facilities.
A teachers group reported earlier this month just seven
children attended
class at a state junior school, down from 38 at the
beginning of last year.
Fees for the new term had gone up
sixfold.
The independent Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights
said Friday
that maternal and infant care was hardest hit by the
strike.
Child mortality has risen to 1,100 per 100,000 live births, the
same rate as
war-ravaged Somalia, the doctors for human rights
said.
Annual inflation is running 1,281 percent, the highest in the
world.
The Sunday Times - Comment
The Sunday Times, UK
January 21, 2007
Minette Marrin
Compare and contrast, as exam papers used to say, the
cases of Mark Coleman
and Roberto Malasi. Both are young men from Africa who
wish to live
permanently in this country, but there the similarity stops.
Otherwise they
are as different as one could possibly imagine. One young man
is
law-abiding, willing to work if allowed to do so and has never claimed
benefits. The other has led the sort of hellish and destructive life in
Britain that makes people fear not only for themselves but for wider
society. He has robbed and shot one young woman to death and stabbed and
killed another. Guess which man is to be deported immediately and which will
be staying.
Each of their stories is bad enough in
itself; in
conjunction, as they were last week, they are scandalous. On
Thursday it
emerged that Coleman has been told by the Home Office that he
must return
immediately to his native Zimbabwe. His applications to extend
his visa, and
later for asylum, have failed and if he does not go at once
his removal may
be "enforced".
One could
normally count on Home Office incompetence to
spare him this fate, but
Coleman's problem is that by abiding by the law and
reporting to a police
station every two weeks and generally making his
whereabouts known to the
authorities, he has made things easy for them. He
has not disappeared into
the undergrowth. As usual no virtuous deed goes
unpunished. Obeying the
rules has made him easy to find. Unless someone
intervenes he will be sent
back to the hellhole that is Zimbabwe, where he
no longer has any work or
any family; they have all fled the Mugabe terror.
What
makes this case particularly absurd is that Coleman
is British, by any
standards except those of the Home Office regulations.
Although he was born
in independent Zimbabwe, his father was born there
while it was still the
British colony of Southern Rhodesia and his mother
was born in India; his
father's father was a British subject. His paternal
great-grandfather was a
British army surgeon, as was his maternal
great-grandfather.
His mother's family has been
English since 1160 and her
father served in the British Army and worked as a
prisoner of war on the
notorious bridge over the River Kwai. It is hard to
imagine anyone more
British in spirit and in fact, yet, because of a
technicality, Coleman
cannot have a British passport, cannot stay here and
will soon be shipped
back.
Not only does he have
some historical claim on this
country, he also has a compassionate claim;
nobody can possibly imagine that
a white man, whose family has fled, can
live or work safely in Zimbabwe, in
that nightmare of mayhem, anti-white
racism and confiscation.
Rules are rules, admittedly,
and hard cases make bad rules
as well as bad law. But there is something
sickening about the double
standards with which this man is having the rules
applied to him. We all
know something of countless cases of immigrants and
asylum seekers who flout
the rules and break the law; they are literally
countless, because the Home
Office simply cannot count them. On Monday Sir
David Normington, the senior
civil servant at the Home Office, disclosed to
MPs that one in five (30 out
of 160) sets of figures covering crime,
immigration and prisons is not, in a
ghastly establishment euphemism, "up to
scratch", which is to say not fit
for purpose.
In
this depressing context consider the case of Roberto
Malasi, the robber and
convicted murderer. He and his family came to Britain
in 1995, seeking
asylum from Angola, and in 1999 they were given indefinite
leave to remain
here. Now 18, when he was 16 he shot dead a woman holding a
baby at a
christening, while robbing the guests with his younger brother; he
escaped,
went on the run boasting about this killing and soon afterwards
stabbed to
death a girl he thought had "dissed" him.
Before these
crimes he was in and out of care, got little
or no education and lived what
police call a chaotic life. He will be
sentenced for the killings next month
and faces a long time in prison. He
does not, however, seem to face
deportation, much to the resentment of his
victims' families, also recent
arrivals from Africa. His lawyers are likely
to argue that Malasi would be
subject to persecution as a notorious murderer
if he were sent back to
Angola. On past form they are quite likely to
succeed where Coleman failed -
even though it is his crime that would
supposedly endanger
Malasi.
When I called to check some facts, the Home
Office would
not comment on either case. I am not sure why - these cases are
surely in
the public interest - but we do know that the Home Office finds it
difficult
to keep "up to scratch" with checking things, which is why it has
so little
idea of how many illegal immigrants or returned criminals or
escaped
convicts are in our midst.
However, it was
happy to explain that people such as
Malasi who have been granted indefinite
leave to remain can have that leave
revoked if the home secretary does not
feel that their remaining is
conducive to the public good. In so far as
there can be any certainties in
life, it seems certain to me that Malasi's
presence here is not conducive to
the public good.
Comparing and contrasting these two cases, and considering
the home
secretary's wide discretion in such matters, not to mention the
Home
Office's ability to "lose" people (which might be put diplomatically to
good
use in Coleman's case), it's clear that one man should be thrown out
and one
should be allowed to stay. And if, as I suspect, the wrong man gets
thrown
out, one will be able to conclude only that the Home Office is not
merely
incompetent, but also institutionally unjust.
There is
a way out for Coleman: he could pretend to be gay
and, as Zimbabwe is
notorious for persecuting homosexuals, he would have an
excellent case for
asylum. I am sure he could find a gay friend to help him
go through this
charade. However, that would involve lying; a corrupt result
of a degenerate
system. It will be quite legal if Coleman goes and Malasi
stays, but the
comparison highlights the blindness and chaos of our
immigration law and our
immigration system and the muddled, guilt-ridden
attitudes that underpin
them.
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
21 January 2007
11:00
A Russian business delegation is due in Zimbabwe on
Sunday to
sign a deal worth $150-million for the construction of mini
hydro-power
stations, reports said.
The delegation, from
Russia's Turbo Engineering, was expected to
sign the deal this week for the
construction of 17 power stations on small
dams around the Southern African
country, reported the official Sunday Mail
newspaper.
Zimbabwe badly needs any help it can get to boost power supply.
The country
has been facing acute shortages of power due to sub-economic
tariffs,
vandalism of equipment and shortages of coal.
There were
warnings last week that a new round of power cuts --
some of them lasting
for up to 10 hours -- was imminent.
Under the agreement Turbo
Engineering will manufacture and
install turbines and other equipment.
Zimbabwe's central bank will foot the
bill.
"We were in
Russia last month to do some due diligence on the
company and we were
pleased with what we saw," said Ben Rafemoyo, the acting
group chief
executive officer of Zesa, the state-run power utility.
We
checked their capacity, their factories and the work they
have done, he
added.
The power project will yield more than 120 megawatts
of power
and will be done over four phases, said the paper. Zimbabwe has a
power
deficit of more than 700 megawatts.
The country is
likely to be hard-hit by power shortages in the
region this year. Zimbabwe
usually imports 35% of its power.
Earlier this month Zesa
announced that thousands of Harare
residents, mainly in poor suburbs like
Mabvuku, Highfield and Kambuzuma were
without electricity because 80 power
transformers had been vandalised.
Desperate Zimbabweans,
facing poverty and the worlds highest
rate of inflation at more than 1 200%,
steal power cables and drain oil from
power transformers for resale as a
substitute for diesel in the fuel-starved
nation. - Sapa-DPA
Zim Online
Monday 22 January 2007
BULAWAYO -
The United States-based Famine Early Warning System Network
(FEWSNET) says
at least 1.4 million people in Zimbabwe are in urgent need of
food aid
between now and the next harvest in April.
In a report released about a
week ago but made available to ZimOnline at the
weekend, FEWSNET says the
food crisis was being particularly felt in the
southern Masvingo and
Matabeleland provinces.
"As the hunger season peaks, household food
access is under increasing
stress, particularly in the south. At least 1.4
million rural people need
food assistance until the green harvest begins,"
says FEWSNET.
"The most vulnerable households are those with orphans, the
elderly and/or a
chronically ill family head or member, as well as mobile
households and
those with no current livelihoods or alternative coping
mechanisms," the
report adds.
FEWSNET says Zimbabwe was likely to
harvest below average yields because of
insufficient rains.
Last
season, Zimbabwe harvested about 1.2 million tonnes of grain resulting
in
the Harare authorities importing a further 700 000 tonnes to cover a
national shortfall.
Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, has
grappled with severe food
shortages over the past seven years after
President Robert Mugabe seized
white farms for redistribution to landless
blacks.
But Mugabe's failure to provide inputs support and skills
training for black
peasants resettled on former white farms saw agricultural
production
tumbling by about 30 percent while food output fell by about 60
percent to
leave Zimbabwe surviving on handouts from international food
relief
agencies. - ZimOnline
Welcome back to Caroline who was
freed last month after spending six months
in prison for working with bogus
papers. It was wonderful to see her with
her small son Tenda, who had
looked so subdued when his father brought him
to the Vigil while she was
locked up. We still can't understand how someone
who is desperately trying
to survive can be locked up with hardened
criminals. Caroline's plight made
us wonder about several others who have
disappeared from the scene and we
have discovered that another Vigil
supporter is in jail and are trying to
contact him. There is a useful
website which can help you locate people who
are in prison:
http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/adviceandsupport/keepingintouch/locationservice/.
You can also email: prisoner.location.service@hmps.gsi.gov.uk
for
information.
Other welcome visitors were Jude and Rosemary from
the Bristol Vigil who
joined enthusiastically in the singing and dancing.
They brought some great
postcards they had designed: "Make Mugabe History -
Free Zimbabwe" is the
message. We hope supporters will spread this message
as widely as possible,
especially into Zimbabwe. The Vigil is sending some
to Mugabe himself for
his birthday. The next Bristol Vigil is on Saturday -
see below for
details.
After the gales on Thursday, which caused
widespread damage, we were
fortunate that the wind had died down somewhat,
and the Vigil was back to
pre-Christmas numbers and vigour. Doubt brought a
group from the Hatfield
area and Edward and Eniya from West Sussex brought
all their children - 3
teenage girls and a 22 month old boy. It was good to
have Patson from
Leicester leading the singing once again and Jenatry from
Luton
energetically leading the dancing. Their performances transfixed a
young
White Zimbabwean couple who had chanced by and stayed for the
afternoon,
joining in the singing and dancing.
For this week's Vigil
pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/
FOR
THE RECORD: 71 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY:
- Monday,
22nd January, 7.30 pm, Central London Zimbabwe Forum.
Sarah Harland of the
Zimbabwe Association will discuss the issues involved
in last week's
landmark Zimbabwean asylum appeal. Upstairs at the Theodore
Bullfrog pub,
28 John Adam Street, London WC2 (cross the Strand from the
Zimbabwe Embassy,
go down a passageway to John Adam Street, turn right and
you will see the
pub
- Saturday, 27th January, 11 am - 3 pm. The Bristol Vigil meets
under the covered way, just near the Watershed, Canon's Road,
Harbourside.
Vigil co-ordinator
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe
Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00
to protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current regime in
Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue until
internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
New Zimbabwe
By
Mutumwa D. Mawere
Last updated: 01/22/2007 02:02:47
THE debate that has
generated from the publication of Edgar Tekere's
autobiography, A Lifetime
of Struggle, and the historic link between its
publication and the debate on
Zimbabwe's constitutional options demonstrates
the lack of depth and
maturity that is systemic in many developing countries
in general and Africa
in particular.
With respect to Robert Mugabe and politics, we are now
being told that he
was a reluctant politician who had no mind of his own
without any
explanation as to what and how a person like Mugabe should have
behaved in
the face of an ivory tower created leadership vacuum in Zanu
PF.
One needs to understand and appreciate the views of those who seek to
describe Mugabe as a coward on democracy and leadership and how any person
who respects institutions and the role of the governed in selecting a leader
of their choice ought to have behaved in the face of what should properly be
described as an illegal and unconstitutional removal of Ndabaningi Sithole
from the party that he helped found.
Yes, Zimbabwe is worse of today
than it was at independence and yet that
should not encourage political
opportunism and a rewriting of history by
those privileged to have been part
of the country's history making.
Zimbabweans are at risk and vulnerable to
attacks by political vultures now
more than ever given the political
transition challenges that face not only
Zanu PF, the ruling club, but the
country in general. The conversations on
Zimbabwe in the post colonial era
are pregnant with testimonials that the
state of health of Zanu PF is
symptomatic of the general state of health of
the country and as such the
Zanufication of Zimbabwean politics seems to
have been crystallised to an
extent that there appears to be no life or
discussion beyond the party's
leader and the institution. If one carefully
examines Tekere's statements
that have been echoed by Enos Nkala, it becomes
evident that after all
Mugabe may possess the very misunderstood democratic
values that the country
appears to be in search of.
It is for this reason that I read with
interest Professor Moyo's opinion
piece entitled: "Hysterical reaction to
Tekere belies fear" in which he
makes a number of observations that need to
be interrogated in the interests
of elevating the conversations that are
necessary to better inform change in
Zimbabwe and the kind of leadership
values that should be expected of anyone
seeking the highest office in the
country. In addition, history may not
judge our generation appropriately if
we gloss over some historical events
and subjectively record other people's
stories in the interests of political
expediency. The fact that Mugabe has
remained in power for the entire post
colonial period and that he is a
towering figure in the politics of Africa
should ordinarily inform us that
we should avoid any intellectual dishonesty
in our evaluation of the reasons
underpinning his hegemony over the
political landscape.
This is what
Professor Jonathan Moyo had to say about the reactions from a
number of
archived politicians and political observers to Tekere's book. He
observes
that Tekere's autobiography makes three history-marking disclosures
about
how Mugabe rose into and remained in power to the point of becoming a
terrible liability to Zimbabwe today. The Prof targets what he terms
Mugabe's
propagandists for attack by alleging that their interventions by
providing
their own recollections of the events described by Tekere is an
abuse of the
public media as if to suggest that if he were still the
propagandist of
Mugabe he would have shut them. I have always believed in
conversations as a
way of better understanding my friends and adversaries
alike and believe
that it is important that history is informed by both
sides of the story. It
may be true that Mugabe is an embattled leader but
that should never be used
as an excuse of frustrating debate. In saying
this, I am reminded that
Zimbabweans should find a way of disagreeing with
each other without being
disagreeable to one another.
In as much as
Tekere is entitled to narrate the story of his lifetime of
struggle in his
own words through his own memory, I think the Prof and many
of those who
have chipped in the debate should allow the archived Rutanhires
and the
Commissioner of Police, Augustine Chihuri, to give their own
narrations
without labelling or targeting them. Intellectual intimidation is
no
different from the political hooliganism that people accuse the Zanu PF
government of engaging in. It is important, therefore, that those who
purport to seek genuine change try to exhibit different values from those
they seek to remove otherwise the prospect of Zimbabwe, the patient; ever
waking up from this long sleep will be doomed. It is instructive that the
Prof has suddenly become the defender of Tekere as if he needs one. When the
Prof was occupying the position of Chief propagandist of the government he
never saw merit in giving Tekere the same space to make disclosures that
would have been seen as tarnishing Mugabe's reputation and
legacy.
The disclosures in Tekere's book that the Professor feels have
annoyed
Mugabe's cronies are set out below:
Disclosure One
That
Tekere played a leading role in paving the way for Mugabe's rise to the
leadership of Zanu PF.
It is difficult to reconcile this disclosure
with the kind of values that
should have informed the selection of leaders
in any democratic club. I
would have thought that the Prof as a learned
gentlemen would have prefaced
his analysis with an acknowledgment that it is
wrong for any individual
belonging to a club to claim that his/her rights
are superior to the general
rights of members to decide who should lead
them. I have no doubt that if
the Prof had been placed in Mugabe's shoes he
would not have seen any
problem in a scenario where a few individuals
decided to co-opt Mugabe in
the club without any consent from the general
membership and then forty four
years later to then be reminded that it was
not the people who selected you
but you were a product of the decision of a
few wise people.
In trying to understand the history of ZANU as a
democratic force that was
established to fight against political and
economic hegemony of a race-based
cabal of wise persons, it is important
that we critically analyse the
actions of those who want their versions of
history to be the only one in
relation to how leaders in Africa ought to be
selected. We need to ask
critical questions that naturally should flow from
the disclosure by people
Zimbabweans should look up to like Tekere, Nkala,
and others with a view to
better understanding what values they seek to
impart to contemporary Africa.
Should leaders of political organisations
be elected by members? Should
citizens have the right to choose who should
lead them? How should citizens
or members of political clubs select their
leaders? Is it fair and just for
citizens to surrender their sovereign right
to choose their own government
to an incumbent President? Should Zimbabwe be
a dynasty or a republic? What
are the obligations of a republic on leaders
who believe that they should
manufacture a President?
I share the
sentiment that Mr Rutanhire in seeking to advance this own
version should
not have insulted Mr. Tekere by alleging that he "went mad
and formed his
own party (Zum) in the past". It is this kind of attitude
that limits the
progress and altitude of not only the country but the
continent. Yes, Tekere
should have an opportunity to express his own views
without fear or
prejudice in as much as Zimbabweans must invest in an
institutional
framework that will prevent individuals above the people from
claiming
credit for manufacturing political leaders. If Mugabe has
overstayed then
surely Zimbabweans are culpable because we do not have any
record of Mugabe
being comfortable as a beneficiary of an opaque selection
process or seeking
to avoid elections.
Yes, we can argue whether elections have been free
and fair but no one can
allege that Zimbabwe has missed an election because
Mugabe or his
lieutenants were afraid of the vote. It is important that
history is
properly recorded. If Zimbabweans now find Mugabe objectionable
after
electing him, then it is important for intellectuals like the Prof to
suggest in what way the country should respond while respecting the
fundamental position that leaders must come from the
people.
Having read what has been written about Mugabe by Tekere, it
occurs to me
that Mugabe's values have been consistent from the outset.
According to the
Prof, Tekere recalls in his autobiography that: "Mugabe's
road to power
started after his return to Zimbabwe from Ghana, when he was
approached and
incorporated into the nationalist leadership under the NDP.
To attract his
incorporation, Mugabe had not demonstrated any notable
leadership qualities
besides his impressive proficiency in pronouncing
English words with an
acquired if not exaggerated accent that leaves the
uncanny impression that
he is a highly learned person when he is
not.
As to how and when Mugabe came to head Zanu, Tekere's autobiography
recalls
a fact, which has been corroborated by various independent sources,
that he
was elevated after the Kwekwe prison sacking of Sithole by his
fellow
leaders in mid-1974 in a vote spiritedly moved by Tekere and
supported by
Enos Nkala and Maurice Nyagumbo but opposed by Sithole himself
with a
cowardly abstention from Mugabe while Moton Malianga did not vote as
he
chaired the meeting to sack Sithole from the leadership of
Zanu
About this Tekere recalls that "the votes were cast with three in
favour of
the sacking, one against (Sithole), and one abstention - Mugabe.
Once more
Mugabe did not want to "break" with his leader. His abstention was
total. He
sat silently in the meeting and did not raise a finger. This is
when he was
appointed to head the party. For the structure was clear on
this.
Since the Vice-President, Leopard Takawira, had died, Mugabe, as
secretary-general of the party, was the next in line. Sithole's dismissal
from the presidency of Zanu by his colleagues in prison was communicated to
all party structures, especially guerilla fighters, within and outside the
country. Therefore subsequent seemingly landmark events, including the
December 1974 "Nhari Rebellion", Chitepo's assassination in March 1975, the
crossing into Mozambique by Tekere and Mugabe in April 1975, the October
1975 Mgagao Declaration and the letter of January 24, 1976 from the Dare
reChimurenga signed by Josiah Tongogara, Kumbirai Kangai and Rugare Gumbo,
were footnotes to the sacking of Sithole and his replacement by Mugabe
through an indubitably courageous motion that was moved by Tekere in the
presence of both Sithole and Mugabe.
As such, only those who have
been blinded by the whims and caprices of
Mugabe's personality cult and who
because of that have become either
malicious or sycophantic can deny that
Tekere "was instrumental in
catapulting Mugabe to the helm of Zanu PF". The
supporting evidence is
unimpeachable. In any event, it is clear from the
public record that the
October 1975 Mgagao Declaration sought to make
Mugabe, who had already
crossed into Mozambique with Tekere, only a
spokesman and caretaker leader
pending the release from prison in Zambia of
Dare reChimurenga members who
had been accused of murdering Chitepo and who
were seen by the comrades in
Mgagao as the real true leaders of the armed
struggle who had inspired their
declaration. That is why the Mgagao
Declaration referred to Mugabe as the
".only person who can act as a
middleman". The difference between a
middleman and a leader is like that of
night and day."
Any student of democracy would agree that the behaviour
of Mugabe appears to
be consistent with anyone who believes in democracy. To
argue that Mugabe
should have been at the forefront of a coup de etat
against Sithole and then
proceed to criticise Mugabe for being a dictator
can be best described as
intellectual dishonesty. If the architects of
Zimbabwe's democracy are
themselves guilty setting a wrong foundation then
history may never know
that out of all the characters that have come to
symbolise the struggle,
Mugabe may be the most misunderstood leader by his
own friends and
countrymen. One would have thought with the passage of time,
people like
Tekere would understand Mugabe and the values that inform his
choices.
In as much as the Prof has never understood the animal called
Zanu PF
despite having been a member of its structure in the party and the
government, it appears that Mugabe's values may not be in sync with the
values of any power hungry person who has no respect for the will of the
people. One has to recognise that in seeking to promote and entrench
democratic values, Mugabe may have alienated himself from his colleagues who
believe in democratic centralism as the guiding force.
For me coming
from the private sector, I do appreciate where Tekere, Moyo
and Nkala may be
coming from given that leaders of commerce and industry are
rarely chosen by
shareholders. Shareholders typically are never involved in
the selection of
executives and in the case of directors it is typical that
directors co-opt
their friends and not enemies and all shareholders have to
do is to ratify
the choices made. Zimbabweans should make the choice of
whether they want
leaders to come from directors or themselves as
shareholders.
Disclosure Two
That, because Mugabe is basically an
insecure heartless person given to
brutal vengeance, he has over the years
used the political power he got with
a whole lot of help from his senior
nationalist colleagues to marginalise
and ostracise those very same
colleagues who helped him rise to the helm of
Zanu PF in the first place.
This is what accounts for the political
misfortunes of the likes of Zanu
stalwarts such as Nkala, Nyagumbo, Eddison
Zvobgo and Tekere himself not to
mention similar misfortunes of many others
in Zapu including the late
Vice-President Joshua Nkomo who was humiliated by
Mugabe into submitting to
a treacherous unity accord. In the circumstances,
Mugabe has come to be
surrounded by dodgy political characters along with
other bureaucratic and
media sycophants who are known for their malice and
incompetence."
It
is being argued that since Mugabe's legitimacy as a leader was a
manufactured one, he should be eternally grateful to his principals and not
the people who eventually elected his party at independence as a governing
party. It is not clear from the Prof's comments, how Mugabe should have
behaved in relation to his so-called principals particularly given that a
President of country should act in the interests of the nation rather than
partisan interests. In provoking discussion on Mugabe's legacy, I believe
that it is important that Zimbabweans rise above personal issues and debate
issues in an objective manner.
I would like to believe that if Prof
Moyo had been allowed to participate in
the last election as a Zanu PF
candidate, he would not object to other
people calling him names as shown
above. Is it fair and just to keep
reminding Zimbabweans of the undemocratic
values that informed the
liberation struggle without providing any insight
into what kind of
institutional framework is required by Zimbabwe to provide
checks and
balances to the kind of mess that is described in Tekere's book.
In as much
as the Prof wants us to believe that it was wrong for Mugabe to
ditch his
principals, would it also not be fair to use the same analogy for
him in
that he used the Zanu PF party and government platform to ascend to
power,
albeit as an legislator for Tsholotsho. Would it be fair and just for
the
Prof to criticise the hand that profitably fed him? If the Prof was
Mugabe
what should he have done in relation to the Zanu PF stalwarts is a
question
that should occupy our conversations. Yes, Tekere's life in many
ways
demonstrates the other side of Mugabe.
It is important to draw
lessons from Zimbabwe's rich political history and
understand that when
Nkala and others disagreed with ZAPU leadership, they
proceeded to set up
their own institutions to compete for political space
without seeking to
unseat Nkomo in ZAPU. They did not behave like what we
have seen in the
recent past where opposition parties have sought to
disagree and then
proceed to remain divided in the same party with two
leaders without any
courage to set up their own institutions.
Tekere set up his own political
organisations as it should be and was
allowed by the same Mugabe to compete
for national political space and the
rest is history. If Mugabe is as evil
as we want him to be then surely
Zimbabweans must be honest with themselves
and take responsibility for their
own inadequacies. It is wrong and naïve to
blame Mugabe while congratulating
each other on historical obfuscation. The
crisis in Zimbabwe deserves better
and Africa needs a Zimbabwe that is more
intelligent than our intellectual
and political leaders are
displaying.
I have written previously on Imperial Presidency and having
read Professor
Moyo's article, I have had to change my thinking on the
Zimbabwean crisis.
The crisis may ultimately be located in the minds of
those who seek to
confuse and rewrite history for self serving
ends.
Disclosure Three
That the blame for 90% of Zimbabwe's ills
should go to Mugabe, not the much
touted economic sanctions, and that there
is now a critical and urgent need
for bold leadership within Zanu PF with
courage to tell Mugabe that he is
now a liability to Zimbabwe and that he
should retire and pass the baton to
a younger and more imaginative
leader.
Having read the articles on Tekere's book and the interest that
it has
aroused, I am now convinced that the governance crisis in Zimbabwe
will take
longer to resolve because it is patently evident that the
foundation of the
liberation struggle particularly in terms of political
leadership and
democracy is fundamentally flawed. This is not a problem
unique to Zimbabwe
but to the extent that Tekere has opened the can of worms
it is incumbent
upon Africans to take ownership of the problem in a holistic
manner with a
view to establishing a consensus on whether leaders should be
help culpable
while their followers allow themselves to rewrite history in a
manner that
perpetuates the crisis by misleading citizens into believing
that they
should not have a say on who governs them but the right should be
reserved
for self appointed godfathers. If we seek to argue that Mugabe is
the only
problem, we should also seek to critically examine to what extent
we have
also personally and collectively contributed to the crisis.
I
am persuaded to agree that even if Zimbabwe was not under any sanctions,
the
crisis would still be evident. Just to demonstrate the gravity of the
Zimbabwean crisis and its location beyond the confines of Mugabe, I thought
that it would be beneficial to step back and reflect on the following New
Year messages for 2007 that were published in Newzimbabwe.com. I have picked
on three individuals in an attempt to show that there may be many realities
in Zimbabwe that may escape our attention in an attempt to target Mugabe for
political and not national interest expediency.
Reserve Bank Governor
Dr Gideon Gono: 'I aim to redouble my efforts this
year. 2006 was a
challenging year, but I am committed to the task at hand
and challenge all
Zimbabweans to help steer our country out of the current
situation. This, we
will do only if we are guided by honour, sincerity,
integrity and
purity.'
The questions we need to ask ourselves is whether the Governor
is himself an
honourable person, a man of sincerity and integrity, and
finally whether he
is pure. Yes, he wants every Zimbabwean to make
suboptimal choices by buying
the cheapest cars while he allows himself to
enjoy the ultimate mobile
luxury. We are told that the board of the RBZ
allocated him an S500 top of
the range Mercedes Benz as a company
car.
He then proposed that the same car be provided to him as a loan,
effectively
taking the asset out of the balance sheet of the Bank. We are
not told
whether the policy of the bank was changed to allow all eligible
staff
members to have the same dispensation. We are then told that the car
was
then imported into the country and the Governor then decided to swap the
car
for an S600 that happened to be available in the market. No one attempts
to
explain why the board of the RBZ that is chaired by Gono would approve an
S500 when it is evident that Gono was of the opinion that an S600 was the
appropriate vehicle. We are also not told of who was the supplier of the
vehicle. Could it be someone who had benefited from the opaque fertiliser or
wheat deals that have now become the order of the day?
Then we read
from the Standard that Gono was living large with the most
expensive car in
town. The story is then rebutted by the RBZ using
institutional money. We
are now told that the real car is the S600 with a
V12 engine.
When
one reads stories like this against a background of an economic crisis,
one
is tempted to believe that it cannot be Mugabe alone who is the problem.
What has sanctions got to do with this kind of story? It is clear that even
if Gono cannot go to Germany, Germany will come to him in form of an S600
luxury car.
I strongly believe that Moyo would not have a problem
with a public officer
of a state institution like Gono appropriating himself
a luxury car with no
evidence of Mugabe approving such a deal. Can you
imagine how many lives
would be saved if Gono and the RBZ had decided to
sacrifice his personal
comfort to buy a car that requires foreign currency
to purchase and maintain
for better health care? However, we are told that
we should hold Mugabe
culpable for the actions, tastes and appetites of
people like Gono.
Property magnate and former Chinhoyi MP Phillip
Chiyangwa: 'My resolution is
to get stinking rich and blow the minds of my
detractors apart. The more
money I make, the bigger the distance between me
and them.'
When you read the above resolution, you may be confused about
the state of
the Zimbabwean crisis. While many occupy their minds with the
challenges of
putting the next meal on the table others in the same country
are thinking
of getting stinking rich and blowing the minds of the poor. Who
ever said
that Zimbabwe was in a crisis when the velocity of primitive
accumulation
becomes the clarion call?
What would the Professor and
Tekere say about the 2007 resolution and what
should be the message to the
increasing number of vulnerable Zimbabweans?
When you read the above
statement would you be wrong in saying that Mugabe
is not the problem for I
do not believe that any 83 year old person would
have the capacity and
energy to know what the time is as they say. Even if
Mugabe was not there,
the problem may be in the appetite and attitudes that
are difficult to
change even with a change of government.
Yes, Chiyangwa represents a
different reality but how many other Zimbabweans
have been victimised for
doing what he may be doing for personal interest.
Yes, Gono who lectures
about patriotism and nationalism is evidently silent
on Chiyangwa begging
the question of selective and self serving treatment of
business
persons.
Tsholotsho MP Professor Jonathan Moyo: For me 2007 is a year for
action and
more action of the decisive kind not only within my personal
sphere but also
and even more importantly in national terms.
No one
needs to remind Professor Moyo that 2007 is only a year for action by
Zanu
PF and no significant national event is in the political calendar
except
decisions that have to be made by the ruling party for its own
survival. I
am not sure why the Prof is of the view that Zimbabweans should
expect
better and significant developments during this year. If the Prof was
wrong
on Tsholotsho, can anyone seriously expect him to be right on 2007?
Only
time will tell.
Yes, the Prof got into political leadership as a
nominated legislator by the
same Mugabe and yet he did not have the courage
to say no and prove himself
without the umbrella of patronage that he now
seeks to condemn. Maybe the
Prof would see no problem if Mugabe appoints the
future President of the
country and the dangers of investing in appointed
leaders are all too
evident from the Prof's own short but remarkable record
as the ultimate spin
doctor and what many have described as the axis of
evil.
I have previously observed that the only power people who do not
have power
is the power to be organised and not confused by simplistic
messages. The
air is pregnant with bad news about bad people making wrong
decisions about
the future of the country and yet there is no attempt to
broaden the
analytical and conceptual framework from the politics of the
struggle to the
politics of nation building.
Yes, political
machinations may have been acceptable during the liberation
struggle but a
nation that builds a future on conspiracy projects ultimately
undermines
itself than promote its strategic interests. The real enemies of
Zimbabwe
may not be the nations that have imposed ineffective targeted
sanctions but
Zimbabweans themselves who rightly or wrongly may have
invested in values
that are allergic to progress and transformation.
Mutumwa Mawere's weekly
column appears on New Zimbabwe.com every Monday. You
can contact him at: mmawere@ahccouncil.com
Znet
by Patrick
Bond and Lee Sustar
January 21,
2007
PATRICK BOND is a political economist and activist
at the University of
KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. He is the author of
numerous books on Africa,
most recently, Looting Africa: The Economics of
Exploitation. He spoke to
Socialist Worker's LEE SUSTAR about imperialism
and resistance in Africa
today.
WHAT ARE the dynamics of
the looting of Africa?
LET'S START with the process by which the
new imperialism relies on the
extraction of resources at ever-cheaper
prices.
We are in a confused period, because since 2002,
commodity prices--minerals,
energy and even cash crops--have been on the
rise. But many people will
agree that it's a small upturn in a
commodity-price cycle that since the
1970s has been on a dramatic decline.
It's that sense in which multinational
corporate power, and fealty to that
power by African elites, has reached
unprecedented peaks
now.
This has become so extreme that even the World Bank has
recognized that
there's no basis for economic development from the
extraction of resources
under the present regime. A little-known World Bank
report, Where is the
Wealth of Nations? which was published on the Web site
this year, has even
acknowledged the wealth drainage.
For example, in
Gabon, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in 2002 was
$3,370, which is
fairly high because of oil wealth. But net savings per
capita is negative
$1,183. That's the most extreme case. But the pattern is
true of virtually
all of the African resource-extractive economies. The two
most intensive
cases, by the way, Angola and the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), aren't
even listed because they don't have enough data.
There you see the
process of extraction of Africa's wealth without
reinvestment. This is
combined with capital flight by African elites--as
well one other factor,
the incredibly high GINI coefficient [a statistical
measure of social
inequality]. These countries are really the worst in the
world for
inequality, for relative capital flight, and for the extraction of
resources
without reinvestment.
In those respects, Sudan is a more extreme version,
but still part of the
overall process by which multinational capital doesn't
flow into Africa, but
skips from one site of mineral extraction to another.
That's the way Africa
finds itself integrated.
There are two other
factors to be mentioned. One is U.S. imperialism, and
the other is the China
factor.
With U.S. imperialism, we've also had South African
subimperialism, and the
U.S. and South Africa--notwithstanding a few
rhetorical differences now and
again--are operating fairly coherently in
setting up the structures to drain
Africa. One of them is the New
Partnership for Africa's
Development--NEPAD--which the U.S. State Department
has called
philosophically spot on, because it amplifies the neoliberal
project.
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced last
year that
there would be a new Africa command. Until recently, Africa has
been
patrolled by the Mediterranean command, the southern command of
Europe.
The other factor, China, is critical because of the new trade
regime, with
China entering the WTO. There used to be a sort of smallish
benefit for
manufacturing in Africa because of the U.S. Africa Growth and
Opportunity
Act (AGOA), which allowed a few countries, Lesotho for example,
to export a
little bit of manufacturing, especially clothing textiles into
the United
States.
That's now history, and the big story is the
destruction of virtually all of
Africa's clothing and textile capacity
through the imports. It extends to
footwear and electronics in a variety of
sectors. The Chinese import wave
has simply destroyed much of Africa's
capacity.
WHAT IS the Chinese government's policy in Africa?
THE
RELATIONSHIP seems to be one of opportunistic patronage.
Last year, the
Chinese government advanced a $200 million loan to the
Zimbabwe government.
This came more or less exactly a year after Zimbabwe
turned down a $500
million loan from the South African government because of
reported
conditions that might have opened up more space for opposition and
engagement with the regime. In addition, it would have entailed more
liberalization of Zimbabwe's economy vis à vis South Africa's.
What
the Chinese have done, we don't know in detail. But it is comparable to
another arrangement that was made in 2005, in which China bailed out the
Angolan government, which, although it's got very strong oil revenues,
urgently needed $2 billion.
It was going to the International
Monetary Fund, and the IMF had a variety
of conditions. The Chinese made the
loan, presumably at or near the same
interest rate--I don't have those
details--but without those conditions.
And likewise in Sudan, there's
plenty of Chinese infrastructure investment
to support oil extraction--in
the range $8 billion, I've heard.
In these three cases, plus many more
we're now familiar with in terms of
details, Chinese relationships with
repressive regimes in Africa seem to be
growing, and seem to be occurring
without any leverage for progressives, who
somehow want to condition those
relationships.
Just to illustrate: The grassroots movement in Zimbabwe is
calling for smart
sanctions against Robert Mugabe. The South African
relationship with
Zimbabwe is also terribly important, because so much of
the material
resources and ideological support for the Mugabe regime can be
found in
official South Africa.
In Zimbabwe, there was terrible
torture of trade unionists in September,
arrests of women activists, and
beatings and continuing repression. It's
really important to amplify the
voice of progressives in Zimbabwe to get
international solidarity up and
running. Pambazuka, the leading African
progressive Web site, has come out
with a major publication on China, Africa
and alternatives from below,
rather than the elite, patronage-based systems
that seem to have solidified
from above.
WHAT IS the political situation in South Africa?
AFTER
A very confusing period, the trade unions, meeting at a conference
last
year, again endorsed the candidacy of Jacob Zuma in the upcoming
leadership
elections of the African National Congress (ANC).
Zuma also had to
apologize for an incredibly homophobic remark he made to a
traditional Zulu
gathering. But he's also said on the record that if he
becomes president,
he'd reappoint the neoliberal finance minister, Trevor
Manuel, and that
economic policy is going just fine.
The way in which COSATU--the Congress
of South African Trade Unions--and the
South African Communist Party (SACP),
the SACP Youth League and the ANC
Youth League have embraced Zuma is ground
for some concern. This is no left
candidate.
WHAT IS Zuma's
base?
HE HAS an extraordinary base that the South African Communist Party
strategist Jeremy Cronin describes as a coalition of those with
grievances.
President Thabo Mbeki has acted in such a haughty and
non-consultative
manner centralizing power, and imposing his choice of
bureaucrats and
politicians upon party structures--even municipalities--from
above. A
widespread revolt has solidified. Although the ANC is still a
popular party,
and Mbeki does surprisingly well in opinion polls, the actual
internecine
dynamics reflect a profound split.
The base of Zuma is
partly the largest ethnic group, the Zulu people, who
have felt some
ethnically grounded concern that their underdevelopment in
one of the three
poorest provinces, KwaZulu Natal, might have something to
do with ethnic
fears. I don't know if there is any basis for that, but
certainly ethnicism
is on the rise, because Zuma plays the Zulu card as much
as he
can.
"One hundred percent Zulu boy" is one of the ways this has
manifested as a
slogan. It has appeared on placards, and some ethnic slurs
made against him
as a Zulu in some hoax emails that were circulating in the
highest ranks of
the ANC late last year.
Secondly, and much more
importantly, the trade union leadership--at least
the largest faction--got
behind Zuma. This was partly, in my view, because
of frustration with Mbeki
and the neoliberal clique around him--especially
Manuel, the finance
minister, and Alec Erwin, the public enterprises
minister.
This has
reached a point of despair for these union leaders, who have
pursued a
social contract between labor and government. That has been
unfulfilled, as
the government has broken virtually all its promises to
them, especially in
relation to economic policy.
So trade union leaders, also joined by most
of the Communist Party
leadership--although there are some important
exceptions--have felt that
Zuma is a better track into the ANC
leadership.
There is always talk that with a Zuma presidency might come
cabinet
positions, and the so-called ladder between the trade unions and the
government has been a very strong incentive. Several of the top trade union
leaders have walked out of COSATU or affiliates into government ministerial
positions.
That's always a factor--the way the tripartite alliance of
the ANC, SACP and
COSATU reproduces its own ruling managerial and political
elite without
necessarily having any ideological framework. Zuma represents
a better route
for that process than anybody that's closer to
Mbeki.
There's a final factor, which is a genuine sense that Zuma was
harmed [by
being put on trial for rape], and that organs of the state were
illegitimately used to try to destroy him.
Another major allegation
is that Zuma pulled a lot of pressure away from an
arms deal investigation
within the parliament, particularly because he wrote
a letter to the
parliament, which decommissioned a major investigative arm
of the
parliament.
Allegedly, that had something to do with a bribe of some
$70,000 supposedly
given to Zuma by a French arms company, Thint. It
transpires that that
letter was authored by Mbeki and only signed by Zuma.
That arms deal, which
was worth roughly $1 billion in offensive weaponry,
put South Africa in a
very strong subimperial location to do all manner of
activities across the
continent.
The arms deal--for which one
parliamentarian already went to jail--also
represents the way in which Zuma
is becoming a fall guy for a much wider
phenomenon.
So this is a very
convoluted moment in which people with integrity are
probably supporting
Zuma on some of these grounds.
Although Zuma was recently acquitted of
rape charges, there is all manner of
evidence to suggest that what he did,
as Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, was
take advantage of a woman half his
age--an HIV-positive woman he ran the
risk of re-infecting, and to protect
himself from infection went and took a
shower. This is the sense in which
Zuma has become a laughingstock.
There is a bloc in the ANC strongly
supportive of Mbeki. There is a bloc in
the ANC and the trade unionists
strongly in support of Zuma. And there is an
independent left disgusted by
both. Who knows the relative strength of these
blocs? We'll know about the
first two when Mbeki puts forward his own
candidate to replace himself as
ANC president and then, in 2009, the country's
president.
WHAT ARE
the most important social movements in Africa today?
MOST OF the
campaigns that represent a kind of progressive or
anti-capitalist
sensibility have been limited to either projects or sectors
of the
neoliberal threat. There are seven or eight struggles to watch.
There is
the struggle over anti-retroviral medicine access. AIDS treatment
activists
have broken the hold of pharmaceutical corporations on their
branded
medicines, so we now have more generic medicines in Africa, although
that
has to be watched very carefully.
A second important struggle is the
genetic modification drive--especially of
Monsanto, which is using South
Africa and Kenya as a launching pad for GM
crops.
A third would be
the blood diamonds victims' struggles, including one in
Kimberly, South
Africa, home of one of the biggest diamond mines, where De
Beers was
headquartered. Another related struggle is over diamonds and other
minerals
in Botswana, where the Kalahari Basarwa San Bushmen have fought
very hard
against De Beers and the World Bank to prevent their forced
removal.
Also, major hydroelectricity projects and water transfer
projects are being
opposed by the Lesotho peasantry. The Bujagali hydropower
dam near Kampala,
Uganda, is also being opposed by residents. These are very
effective
struggles that link indigenous rights and land struggles with
concern over
the ways in which hydroelectricity is continuing to be fostered
through
white elephant dam projects, especially by the World
Bank.
Then we've got the petroleum and energy-related struggles in Chad
and
Cameroon, because of a huge pipeline that's been contested by
environmental
activists, indigenous people who have had their land
dispossessed, and human
rights activists who are concerned about the
dictatorship in Chad having
access to arms because of the inflow of
resources.
There has been a little dance between the Chadian dictatorship
and the World
Bank over the issue of corruption, and it ended recently with
World Bank
President Paul Wolfowitz signing off on the Chadian governments
misuse of
the funds flowing from new oil revenues.
Likewise, in the
Niger Delta, there is probably the most powerful struggle
in Africa against
capital--especially the move by guerrilla groups to kidnap
oil workers,
which reflects just how desperate and difficult it's become to
do any
above-ground work.
We've had women leading that work, doing sit-ins in
oil company facilities
to try to get environmental justice and resources to
flow back into the
Niger Delta. That hasn't been successful, so now groups
are resorting to
kidnapping oil workers--who are given, as far as I can
tell, decent
treatment, and who come out of the experience, in some
publicized cases, in
favor of the activists' demands.
Finally, I
would point out the Ghanaian and South African activists fighting
privatization, especially water privatization. A South African company is
involved in the Ghanaian project in Accra, the capital, which is leading to
higher prices and worse services.
In South Africa, the water struggle
has gotten to the point where major
court challenges are being filed by left
forces, like the Anti-Privatization
Forum, to try to stop prepaid water
meters. This goes to show the extent to
which commodification is moving into
every aspect of life--even the air,
with carbon trading under the Kyoto
protocol.
The South African activists--even though there are splits
throughout the
movement--are doing a marvelous job in making clear these
kinds of problems
that occur through privatization. They're also advancing a
socialist
strategy of decommodification through re-nationalizing the water,
telecommunications, electricity and health systems, and really making them
much better able to serve poor people, as a very explicit agenda.
The
immediate strategy entails what some autonomists will call a
self-activity
of reconnection. After a disconnection of electricity or
water, the Soweto
Electricity Crisis Committee have got teams of township
plumbers and
electricians to reconnect illegally.
The extent to which that can
continue is based on the strength of these
movements, which is so far quite
impressive. But over time, clearly, what is
going to have to happen is the
evolution of a major program by the left.
Hopefully that will be joined
in the next five years by trade unions that
have split from the ANC--and
perhaps with the Communist Party joining them,
in a new party of the left, a
workers' party. But that's a few years away.