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Tehran Times
U.S., British Propaganda Against Zimbabwe Part of Plan for
World Hegemony:
Ambassador
Following is a letter written by
Zimbabwean Ambassador to Iran S.C. Chiketa
in response to a letter by
Mohammad Fayyaz that was published by the TEHRAN
TIMES earlier this month.
The TEHRAN TIMES often publishes letters by
readers, but this does not imply
endorsement of the views of the writers,
and the TEHRAN TIMES definitely does
not endorse all of the views of Mr.
Fayyaz. Dear Mr. Fayyaz:
I write
to you having read your open letter to President George W. Bush
(Part 1) as
published in the Tehran Times International Daily of September
9,
2003.
In your reference to my country Zimbabwe, the tone and content of
your
letter reveal that you have signed up on and are peddling Bush and
Blair's
accusations that, by giving the black majority of Zimbabwe their
land, the
Zimbabwean leadership is a dictatorship.
For your own
information, the People of Zimbabwe fought a war of liberation
from 1962-1979
to install (an until then non-existent) democratic system of
government and
to reclaim their land that had been forcibly grabbed and
systematically and
violently confiscated without compensation. The 1979
Lancaster House
Conference Constitutional framework was agreed upon and war
ended only after
Britain and the United States had agreed to contribute
funds to purchase
land/farms from the white farmers for the purpose of
distributing it to and
resettling the indigenous blacks. When the then
Democrat President Jimmy
Carter was defeated by the Republican Ronald
Reagan, the U.S. reneged on the
promise to assist Britain with funds to
purchase farms from white farmers.
Not to be outdone by the Republicans
under Ronald Reagan, Tony Blair's New
Labour Government that had already
stolen the Conservative Party political
platform followed the American
example and also reneged on the agreements
reached at the 1979 London
Lancaster Conference. Funds to purchase farms from
white commercial farmers
to distribute and settle indigenous Zimbabweans
dried up as the British New
Labour Government dissociated itself from the
commitments made by the
British Conservative Government. Tony Blair's British
Government claimed
that they were not bound by agreements made by a previous
British
Government! The Zimbabwe Government could not and would not on its
own
continue to honour and to be bound by the Lancaster House Agreement in
so
far as they related to the question of the purchase of land
for
redistribution to the indigenous people. Since the other parties to
that
Agreement had reneged on their commitments the Zimbabwe Government was
free
to resume the struggle for the land from where it had been left off in
1979.
For this decision, my country which until then had been held as a
shining
example of a politically stable country with a democratic government
begun
to be vilified, denounced, demonized and called a dictatorship. In
an
attempt to undermine and reverse the land redistribution program,
the
British Government and the white commercial farmers funded and financed
the
labour movement and transformed it into an opposition party, the
Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC). In addition, sanctions were imposed
and, at the
instigation of the British Government and supported by the USA,
the IMF and
the World Bank denied the country any further loans and the
balance of
payment support which it had enjoyed until the country decided to
resolve
the land question on its own and in accordance with the laws of
Zimbabwe.
However, nothing could stop the land redistribution exercise. The
exercise
continued and has just been completed.
The land policy is
aimed at the equitable distribution of land, ensuring
social justice, racial
harmony, political stability, improvement of the
economic situation of the
majority of the people in the rural areas, and
putting the idle land into
production. Every Zimbabwean, black and white,
who would like to farm, is
entitled to one (farm).
However out of a guilty conscience, to deceive
the international community,
and to justify their hostile actions before the
international community,
Britain and the USA have branded President Mugabe a
dictator and have gone
further as already been indicated and imposed
sanctions on the country and
its leadership.
The claim that Zimbabwe
is under a dictatorship is contradicted by the
following facts: Zimbabwe is a
multi-racial Southern African country with a
multi-party democracy. There is
freedom of speech and a free press. Though
Zimbabwe is an overwhelmingly
Christian country, other religious groups such
as Hindus, Moslems, Jews,
Buddhists, etc. freely practice their faiths.
Furthermore, though three
political parties are represented in Parliament,
there are actually more than
five (political parties) in the country.
General parliamentary elections are
held every five years while Presidential
elections are held every six years.
Bi-elections are held whenever there is
a vacant seat in Parliament due to
death, ill health, or resignation of a
Member of Parliament. The first
general election was held in 1980 and since
then, general elections were held
in 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2000. The next
general elections are due in April
2005. These elections have been observed
by officials from the contesting
political parties, independent local
observers as well as invited observers
from several countries and
international organizations. Such observers have
in the past elections
declared the elections to be transparent, free, and
fair. The last general
elections which were held in 2000 and in which the
ruling party won 62 seats
and the two opposition parties 58 seats were
declared by the majority of the
observers who actually were in the country to
be free, fair, and
transparent. In addition to parliamentary elections the
country holds
Executive Mayoral elections. Currently the opposition holds all
but one of
the Executive Mayoral posts in the major towns and cities. Such a
scenario
hardly speaks of a country under a dictatorship. One wonders then
where the
writer of the letter gets his facts that lead him to such a
false
conclusion. For, he leaves the impression that the victim of the
unjust
colonial legacy and of the hundred years of brutal colonial rule is
the
white man!
Furthermore, the country holds Presidential elections
every six years. The
last Presidential election was held in 2002 and
President Robert Mugabe was
re-elected with a majority of over 400,000
votes.
It speaks volumes of the country's respect for democratic values
when one
considers the fact that the opposition parties and civic
society
organizations are recognized and are free to operate in spite of the
fact
that these same parties and organizations receive funding from the
British
and American governments that are hostile to the current Government
in
Zimbabwe. Furthermore, the fact that human rights violators like the
former
Prime Minister of Rhodesia whose government was responsible for more
than
50,000 deaths is still a free man residing at his farm in Zimbabwe is
an
attestation of President Mugabe's respect for human rights. It was this
same
respect for the value of man and his rights that was behind President
Robert
Mugabe's declaration of the policy of reconciliation so that the
Zimbabweans
would forgive one another, reconciled as they concentrated on
rebuilding
their country as a united nation.
I am thus surprised that
such a reputable paper like the Tehran Time chooses
to swallow hook, line,
and sinker the propaganda that is disseminated by the
western media that is
supportive of the discredited U.S. and British
Governments that are known the
world over that they lie and peddle lies, and
that are known to have hostile
intentions towards the current leadership in
my country. Worse still, the
author of the said article allows himself to be
used to propagate such lies
and thus misinform the friendly people of Iran.
The fact of the matter is
that these two countries' leaderships have told
lies and "sexed" reports
about the existence of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq, they are telling
lies about dictatorship in Zimbabwe, they are
telling lies about many other
things and countries, and they will lie again
as long as it helps them attain
their objectives, the domination and control
of the world resources and world
hegemony. It’s high time the world and Mr.
Fayyaz realized this and stop
aiding and abetting them in deceiving the
world public opinion. These
countries are not led by angels, they are led by
people whose interests are
and will always be first and last, their national
interests. Their national
interests may coincide with my national interests,
but for the most part and
particularly with regard to the land
redistribution question, their interests
are in direct conflict with my
country's national interests. It should also
be noted that the two countries
have even defied the United Nations as well
as world opinion in pursuit of
their national interest.
I hope that
your paper will publish this response and clarification in order
to make
available the correct information to the readership of your esteemed
paper. I
am for ever available to you Sir should you need any more
information and
further clarification on my country. S. C. Chiketa
Ambassador
By silencing the last independent voice in
Zimbabwe's media, President
Robert Mugabe is escalating his repression and
resembling what he once
fought against: apartheid-style power. Most of the
world is noticing. But
there is a notable exception.
This week,
Zimbabwe police said they would charge the entire editorial
staff and owner
of the Daily News with working for or operating an
unregistered organization.
The Supreme Court had recently shut down the
paper, drawing on a law, pushed
by Mr. Mugabe last year, which requires
media outlets to register and submit
details of journalists' party
affiliations. Mr. Mugabe also pushed through a
law banning public
gatherings. Last week, police raided the Daily News and
confiscated
computers and other equipment. The Daily News' attempt to secure
a license
to operate was rejected last week.
The Daily News is
Zimbabwe's best-selling publication and only
independent daily. The state
also controls radio and television broadcasts.
With its own words, the Mugabe
government has made clear it was targeting
the paper. Zimbabwean Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo said in 2001 that
the Daily News was "a threat to
national security which had to be silenced."
Mr. Mugabe, who helped win
Zimbabwe's independence from British colonial
rule, has sought to justify
oppressive measures by invoking the apartheid
legacy. His policies appear to
be motivated by racial retaliation and have
brought Zimbabwe famine,
hyperinflation and epidemic unemployment. Crusaders
against apartheid in
Africa have criticized Mr. Mugabe.
Anton Harber, the founder of South
Africa's the Weekly Mail, said in a
column for allAfrica.com last week that,
"Registration of journalists is
familiar to South Africans, who fought
against repeated attempts to
introduce it in the apartheid era. It was
blocked because journalists and
employees stood together in resisting what
would have been a death knell for
dissident voices."
Sadly, the South
African government doesn't see it this way. Rather than
pressure Mr. Mugabe
to reform or step down, it criticized Australia last
week for blocking Mr.
Mugabe from the next meeting of Commonwealth leaders.
Such a defense of Mr.
Mugabe puts South Africa at odds with the United
States, Britain, Amnesty
International, South Africa's National Editor's
Forum and media organizations
around the world, all of which have strongly
criticized Zimbabwe's attack on
press freedoms.
The Bush administration has done what it can in regard to
Zimbabwe.
Given South Africa's silent diplomacy, Mr. Mugabe is coming under
little
pressure. South Africa's handling of the Zimbabwe crisis should have
some
bearing on America's relationship with South Africa.
Washington Post
Editorial
Less Soft Diplomacy
Saturday,
September 27, 2003; Page A24
IN AN INTERVIEW with The Post this week, South
African President Thabo Mbeki
defended the "soft diplomacy" that he says he
is using in his efforts to
persuade Robert Mugabe, the dictatorial president
of neighboring Zimbabwe,
to introduce political and economic reform. His
quiet approach -- which has
in the past been praised by President Bush --
will, he says, bring change
faster than shouting or economic sanctions. "One
of the worst ways to have
proceeded would have been to make statements to
make good newspaper
headlines," he said. "That wouldn't produce any results."
The trouble is,
Mr. Mbeki cannot show that he has gotten any results from
failing to make
good newspaper headlines.
In Zimbabwe itself, there are no
headlines worth reading at all. This week,
the government took the final
steps to shut down the Daily News, the
country's biggest-selling newspaper,
its only remaining independent media
outlet and home to an unusually brave
group of journalists. The Daily News
was shut down after it lost its legal
bid to overturn a pernicious media
registration law. Among other things, the
law requires media outlets to
register with the government and holds
journalists liable for reports which
the country's Media and Information
Commission deems to be inaccurate. More
than a hundred people protesting the
decision have been arrested. The
newspaper's computers and printing equipment
have been confiscated by armed
police, and journalists have been
interrogated.
But the banning of the Daily News is only the latest in a long
string of
outrages from President Mugabe. During an election campaign held
last
spring, he unleashed a campaign of terror. His police
systematically
arrested, tortured and murdered opposition activists. His
political party,
ZANU-PF, extorted money from companies and sent gangs of
thugs around the
country to beat up people who failed to show party
membership cards. Thanks,
in part, to a series of violent attacks on white
farmers, the country has
suffered food shortages for the past several years.
Despite all of this, the
organized opposition to Mr. Mugabe, known as the
Movement for Democratic
Change, continues to make some progress in elections.
Indeed, many fear that
their success will propel Zimbabwe's president into
ever more gratuitous
acts of violence.
Before this happens, Presidents
Bush and Mbeki should reconsider their
unwillingness to use some less soft
diplomacy in Zimbabwe. Mr. Mbeki in
particular -- as the leader of Africa's
most visibly democratic country --
owes it to his Zimbabwean neighbors to
start talking loudly about the
shortcomings of Mr. Mugabe, and to consider
using economic and trade
sanctions against him. Mr. Bush should support Mr.
Mbeki in these efforts.
There are, it is true, few political or strategic
stakes in Zimbabwe. That
only makes it all the more important for the
president to demonstrate,
forcefully, that Americans believe in their
democratic rhetoric, even when
it isn't in their direct interests.
© 2003
The Washington Post Company