The Zimbabwe Situation

Mugabe unbending over MDC talks

ROB 4

LENDING SUPPORT: Buffalo City mayor Sindisile Maclean and Robert Mugabe at the University of Fort Hare
graduation ceremony. Picture by PHILLIP NOTHNAGEL

By Adrienne Carlisle

ALICE -- President Robert Mugabe yesterday again effectively scotched any hope of his ruling Zanu(PF) party sitting down for talks with opposition Movement for Democratic Change any time soon.

The Zimbabwean president said here that as long as the MDC was "dictated to" by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, dialogue with it was not possible.

Mugabe has already insisted that the MDC recognise him as legitimately-elected president before he engage in talks with them.

Addressing about 400 Zimbabwean students at the University of Fort Hare yesterday, Mugabe said if the "MDC put its house in order" and adopted what he referred to as "basic principles", Zanu(PF) might find itself able to "interact with it".

He praised Nigeria and South Africa for "standing firm" in their belief that the Zimbabwean situation must be resolved by Zimbabwe and Africa.

He said "sacred principles", such as those held by Zanu(PF) on land ownership could not be sacrificed "on the altar of expediency". Zimbabwe would not be cowed by what Blair and US President George W Bush had "done in Iraq".

He said while he expected one or two people to die in the war to extend sovereign control over Zimbabwe's resources, the people always, ultimately, won such wars. Mugabe acknowledged to the students that the situation "back home" was difficult with a drought, sanctions, shortages and high prices for basic foodstuffs. But he predicted a better year ahead with better agricultural and other yields.

He vehemently dismissed the suggestion, to cheers from the students, that his government's land acquisition and allocation policy was "disastrous". He said emerging farmers were facing a new situation but would be assisted by government. The newly appointed land review committee was looking into implementation of the policy and would soon report how it was going.

He said those white farmers who continued to campaign for Zimbabwean people to be tenants and servants could leave the country and he would not "shed a tear". Those that wished to stay and work within the policy were free to do so.

Mugabe called on students who qualified in SA to return to Zimbabwe and contribute to the well-being of that country. He is in the country to attend ANC veteran Walter Sisulu's funeral today.

Saturday 17.05.2003, CET 10:00

Lausanne University agrees to settle “biopiracy” case

swissinfo

March 5, 2001 8:10 AM

What control do countries have over their own biological resources? (Keystone Archive)

The University of Lausanne has agreed to renegotiate a controversial agreement over the use of Zimbabwe’s medicinal and poisonous plants. The agreement follows mounting criticism of a patent for a potential fungicide compound, which was granted to a professor at Lausanne University.

The decision to renegotiate the patent came at a highly charged meeting in Zimbabwe between the Universities of Zimbabwe and Lausanne, as well as the Environment Ministry and the Zimbabwe Traditional Healers Association.

Participants agreed that the patent held by the University of Lausanne, as well as the current agreement on access and benefit sharing, were legally unacceptable.

Zimbabwean and Swiss non-governmental organisations have repeatedly accused the university of “biopiracy” – charges denied by Professor Kurt Hostettmann, director of the Institute of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry.

In 1995, the universities of Lausanne and Zimbabwe signed a research agreement on plants, which stipulated that a joint application would be made for any patent filed. Lausanne ignored the provision and proceeded to file a patent on its own for the anti-fungal properties of the plant, Swartzia madagascariensis.

Francois Meienberg, spokesman for a Swiss non-governmental organisation, the Berne Declaration, who also attended last week’s meeting in Zimbabwe, says the agreement was totally unsatisfactory.

“Both universities made a mistake when they signed this contract,” he told swissinfo. “The University of Zimbabwe is not allowed to give access to the country’s genetic resources. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Zimbabwean government is the only body which can grant access.”

Meienberg said the case was proof that the illegal appropriation of biological resources from developing countries was still common practice by northern universities and corporations.

“It is clear that universities go into countries where the state is not organised in this respect and try to find a loophole.”

The Berne Declaration wants the Zimbabwean Ministry of Environment and Tourism to draw up clear rules for bio-prospectors to ensure that any benefits are not monopolised.

Meanwhile, the Lausanne professor, Hostettmann, has vigorously denied charges of biopiracy: “By making an agreement including the University of Zimbabwe, our aim was not to exploit Zimbabwe.”

Hostettmann said he had been investigating the potential as a fungicide of the root bark of swartzia madagascariensis as far back as 1990 when he had no contact with Zimbabwe, and that by 1994, he had already been able to isolate the active constituent. He said the samples gathered in Zimbabwe confirmed what he had already discovered.

Ironically, the United States pharmaceutical company, Phytera, which was developing the compound, has stopped its research because of toxicity problems.

Hostettmann says he hopes to continue collaboration with the University of Zimbabwe under a new agreement which would include other partners like the government and traditional healers.

“The Rio Convention on Biological Diversity must of course be respected,” he said. “But it is not clear in many countries who the official partner should be. We agree entirely with NGOs that precise guidelines should be established urgently.”

by Vincent Landon

Key senior members of the Zimbabwe government are to be investigated by the
United Nations for allegedly looting and illegally exploiting natural
resources, including a fortune in diamonds, in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.

According to UN sources in Nairobi, investigators are to travel to Harare
within days, where they will question, among others, the Speaker of the
Zimbabwean parliament and former National Security Minister Emmerson
Mnangagwa - the man widely tipped as a possible successor to President
Robert Mugabe.

Mnangagwa was identified in a UN report on the looting of Congo, released in
October last year, as the "key strategist" for the Zimbabwean branch of an
elite network that benefited from a variety of criminal activities in Congo,
including theft, embezzlement and the diversion of public funds,
undervaluation of goods, smuggling, false invoicing, nonpayment of taxes,
kickbacks to public officials and outright bribery.

Mnangagwa told the Sunday Times he was unaware of any investigation into his
affairs while he served as chairman of a joint committee of ministers
responsible for the war-torn Congo. He also denied that UN investigators had
written to him or otherwise contacted him with their questions.

"But let them come," he said. "That report is full of lies. They had better
come now and talk to us."

The UN document - titled The Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the
Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of DR
Congo - details how this "elite network" benefited from instability in Congo
and sought to fuel that instability by supporting armed groups opposed to
Rwanda and Burundi.

"The elite network of Congolese and Zimbabwean political, military and
commercial interests seeks to maintain its grip on the main mineral
resources - diamonds, cobalt, copper, germanium - of the
government-controlled area," the document says.

"This network has transferred ownership of at least 5-billion of assets from
the state mining sector to private companies under its control in the past
three years with no compensation or benefit for the state treasury."

The document identifies Mnangagwa's key ally as Zimbabwe Defence Force
commander General Vitalis Zvinavashe, and names several other key ZDF
figures as being involved. "The general and his family," it says, "have been
involved in diamond trading and supply contracts in the DRC."

It also claims Air Marshal Perence Shiri, a long-time ally of Mugabe, has
been involved in military procurement and in organising air support for the
pro-Kinshasa armed groups fighting in the eastern Congo. Shiri is also part
of the inner circle of ZDF diamond traders who have turned Harare into a
significant illicit diamond-trading centre, the document says.

Zimbabwean Defence Minister Sidney Sekeramayi is also implicated in the
report.

A preliminary report on the panel's investigation is to be handed to the UN
Security Council next month. A final report is due in September.

Meanwhile, a Ugandan probe following UN charges that Uganda and Rwanda
illegally exploited Congo's natural resources has exonerated Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni but has suggested members of his family and top
military officers may have been involved, Reuters reports.

The judicial investigation has recommended further investigation of
Museveni's sister-in-law and brother, the army commander and the head of
military intelligence.

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An essay on history

As you doubtless are aware, the annals of history abound with peoples who
have, 'come, saw and conquered'. It is a constant that has formed the
history of civilization from the dawn of time, probably beginning with the
extinction of the Neanderthals.

We are in danger of judging the actions of the past by the morals and ideals
of today. If Africa had been seriously colonized at an earlier date by the
metropolitan powers, rather than during the latter part of the 19th century,
it is quite likely that there would be states today in Africa, which had
majority white populations. They would, likely as not, also be of first
world status. I use for my model, the history and settlement of such
countries as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

After thousands of years of a tradition of conquest, settlement and
displacement, a great change began to occur in international politics during
the 19th century, especially in the UK, the super power of its time. The UK
was instrumental in abolishing slavery, and actively sought to force an end
to the Atlantic slave trade by the use of its powerful navy. They also
forced an end to long established Arab slave trading from Zanzibar. It also
has to be said, the tradition of slavery in Africa is a long one, and it was
black Africans themselves from the interior, who were supplying slaves to
the coastal areas for export.

Slaving was seen as a commercial enterprise like any other, in fact, along
with prostitution, it is probably one of the oldest forms of commercial
enterprise. This can clearly be seen in the 1830 census records of the state
of Virginia in the USA, where 3,775 free blacks are recorded as themselves
owning 12,740 black African slaves. These slaves were often hired out to
white plantation owners for work. There are even cases of free black women
owning their husbands. These startling facts, for obvious politically
correct reasons, are not often mentioned by African-Americans, who wish to
peddle the falsehood of slavery being the sole preserve of the white man. It
also has serious implications for African-Americans who are seeking slave
reparations. Who were the descendents of slaves and who were descended from
the slave owners? It clearly proves that people of that time, unlike we
people of today, saw slavery purely as a business. We have not even touched
upon the 'white slavery' of the time, which was known as indentured
servitude. The Virginia colony was forged on the backs of these wretched
people, often transported for life from England for trivial offences, such
as stealing a loaf of bread to feed starving children.

The British Empire's change in attitude towards its subject peoples during
the 19th century, meant that Britain now saw its role as bringing the
benefits of civilization to the Empire. No longer were native peoples
eradicated or displaced, but rather the ethos was to create god fearing
people with 'British' christian values. This same climate of change was also
occuring in the UK itself, where child labour was abolished, along with many
other abuses of the 'Dickensian' era.

Rhodesia was a modern and advanced country, that was born in the last years
of the 19th century. Even before UDI it was a first world country, a country
which was enjoying rapid growth and economic expansion. Of course, not all
was sweetness and light in the garden, but again, we must not be too quick
to judge the past with a modern eye. However, it is beyond dispute that
after 1893, there was an explosion in the African population of Rhodesia.
This can be accounted for by the introduction of the rule of law, the
curbing of tribal conflict and modern medical care. Even basic medical care
has a huge impact on a population used to a high infant mortality rate.

It is also true that during the time Rhodesia existed as a nation, nobody
ever went hungry, even during the darkest days of the bush war. It is also
true that after 1965, there was a growing black middle class who were
beginning to take a more active part in the country's economic life.
Rhodesia was evolving socially at a sustainable pace. Ian Smith knew full
well that Rhodesia needed measured evolution rather than revolution.
Unfortunately, due to overt Communist support of terrorism, and the Wests
covert support of the same, Rhodesia got revolution and Mugabe, and an
inevitable slide to the third world. I don't see how the citizens of 'modern
' Zimbabwe have benefitted from Mugabe's revolution? They may well have
benefitted from measured evolution, had the country been given a fair chance
to succeed. The West would not even give Zimbabwe-Rhodesia a chance. Never
has there been such a cynical betrayal of the principles of democracy, at
the alter of appeasement and colonial guilt.

The biggest problem in Africa, since the advent of independence for the
former colonies, has been the culture of blaming the former colonial masters
for economic failure. It worked for many years in the insidious climate of
colonial guilt, and succeeded in sucking in vast amounts of aid and
assistance. Unfortunately, most of this disappeared into the pockets of the
corrupt and depraved political leaders. In most cases, an enlightened
colonial master had been swopped for a far more unwholesome local despot.
Africans have exploited each other, far more than they have been exploited
by the colonial authorities. A perfect example of Africans exploiting
Africans has been the recent horrors of the DRC. So many African nations
with their noses in the Congo's trough, as the people of that tragic country
suffered terribly.

It is almost unbelievable for example, that a country like the DRC, which
covers an area the size of Western Europe and has natural resources in
plenty, can be so grindingly poor. At face value it should be an economic
dynamo, a treasure trove of riches benefitting all its people. For Africa to
succeed and compete in the modern world, it has to have modern leaders, and
a population who can leave their tribal nepotism behind them and think on a
national level. Africa has failed abysmally in the DRC, it has failed
massively again in Zimbabwe. Will we ever see that real decisive swing
towards necessary change in Africa?

Much of the bitterness of white Africans towards black Africans, is based
upon this continual saga of corruption and failure. It is difficult for
people to understand how a first world country such as Rhodesia, with its
strong and diverse economy, can be brought down to the level the worst kind
of banana republic in only twenty years. I believe this may provide you with
some enlightenment of why there is so much disdain for black African rule.
Actions always speak louder than words, the fancy rhetoric of African
leaders is meaningless without real achievements.

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