via Educating Boris Johnson et al on Zimbabwe – The Zimbabwean 2 March 2015
I have just read Boris Johnson, the Lord Mayor of London’s tirade against Mugabe and Tony Blair with curious intrigue.
I am compelled to add a new perceptive to help Boris and others in the UK better understand the root causes of the emergence of a ruthless dictator in Zimbabwe and the consequences thereof.
Please note that, for the avoidance of any doubt, I agree with Boris in his condemnation of what Mugabe has become. However, we need to be very careful and realise that we Zimbabweans have contributed significantly to creating the circumstances which we currently face.
In my opinion, it is rather a simplistic view to blame the causes of Zimbabwe’s economic decline and the emergence of a predatory liberation struggle cabal to the somewhat jaundiced views of things by Claire Short. Personally, I think that her reaction to the problem faced then reveals a naïve appreciation of Zimbabwe’s politics. She clearly was out of her depth and we have all suffered for it. This, however, does not exonerate the British from contributing to the problem, but they were never the primary reason.
I agree with Boris that Tony Blair’s team messed up and made some decisions that had far reaching negative consequences on the relationship between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom. However, that is now history.
From my reading Tony Blair’s auto biography- The Journey- I think he is an intelligent man but I suspect that his decisions on Zimbabwe then, might have been influenced by his advisors who may not have fully appreciated the rather complex colonial history of Zimbabwe and the emerging geopolitics at independence in 1980.
Readers must appreciate that from 1983 to 1987 Mugabe ruthlessly dealt with ZAPU in a bid to create his one-party state delusion. A crime against humanity was committed and the world watched with disinterest. He never lost his touch from then on.
Around 1993, Zimbabwe had to go through an economic structural adjustment programme promoted by the IMF as the solution to deal with increasing unemployment, declining growth and a self-manufactured economic collapse. In 1997 the Zimbabwe dollar collapsed due the demand by war veterans for gratuities from Mugabe. In 1998 Zimbabwe went into the DRC to fight in somebody else’s war that cost an estimated USD 2 million a day.
It was in 1999 that the MDC was established to challenge the Mugabe regime and on the airing of a cheque donation by white commercial farmers on national television, Mugabe lost it and reacted violently because he knew his game was up.
By that time, there was also a growing realisation and pressure from within ZANU (PF) that Mugabe had to go. He had to survive at all costs. Farm invasions in Zimbabwe were primarily caused by Mugabe’s fear of losing power and not because the British refused to fund land reform.
By decimating the white commercial farming sector, this helped Mugabe to destroy a very strong rural constituent base that supported the MDC. It is estimated that 350,000 rural-based farming families suffered because, overnight, their livelihoods went up in smoke.
The thinking by Mugabe here was that of you disempowered the white employers; their employees would be at his mercy. If you want to kill a snake you cut its head off, as Mugabe said with regard to ZAPU’s Joshua Nkomo during Gukurahundi in the 80’s.
This is true especially after seeing how white farmers provided transport to their workers to deliver a “No” vote on constitutional changes in 2000 which Mugabe lost dismally.
Farm invasions destroyed an organised and very powerful political rural constituency and by destroying that sector, he disempowered his enemy. Mugabe cared very little of its economic consequences and worse, he clearly does not understand economics anyway.
Remember that in 2005 Mugabe did the same in the urban areas through Murambatsvina where 700,000 informal businesses were destroyed, 300,000 homes demolished and 1,2 million people displaced because they were MDC urban strongholds- nothing else.
The economic meltdown that we now face is a result of years and years of Mugabe’s obsession with power at all costs and the entrenchment of a predatory liberation struggle cabal that is plundering our resources.
I guess it is easy and simple to blame Tony Blair and his team, but in my opinion, we Zimbabweans manufactured our own demise and with a little help from friends like the IMF, things really got worse.
Mugabe is very good at reframing problem situations and blaming others. That is his talent. He has gotten away with it for far too long. Boris has fallen for it.
Political and economic problems arise because of complex and variable interrelationships between actions of omission or commission among those with vested interests in desired outcomes. There is, therefore, never a single cause of outcomes.
It is rather comfortable and intellectually lazy to say that the economic meltdown and the emergence of a dictator like Mugabe in Zimbabwe was primarily caused by exogenous forces such as Tony Blair’s refusal to fund land reform- that is untrue. The same applies to sanctions.
Vince Musewe is an economist, author and President of Zimbabwe First! You may contact him on vtnusewe@gmail.com
COMMENTS
What a moronic piece from a blithering idiot! Who is paying for your supper now Vince? Even your historical sponsors have moved on and you are still singing the same old discredited song. Oh, the joy of being colonised beyond repair… Lol
Couldn’t agree more my friend. This is as dodgy as it gets. I doubt he even knows what he’s talking about let alone be in a position to educate another person. Mental colonisation comes in different forms and shapes–and some even appears to possess an enlightened view about complex historical and political contexts. Good job for calling him out on this blatantly banal and tedious piece of writing.
@ Murenga
‘… colonised beyond repair’? I thought it was the colonials that installed the infrastructure?
Totally agree with you. Someone is paying this idiot. From his perspective, the people of Zimbabwe do not have a right to their land.
I am in complete agreement with this analysis.
Thank you to the writer.
But I am also at a complete loss as to how we can come out of the situation.
It does not help that the political opposition is so ridiculously immature.
Nor does it help that Zimbabwean society has become so cautious and fearful and withdrawn from making even simple choices about our society.
Nor does it help that Zanu PF has become so violent and intolerant of everything that remotely threatens their own unfettered control on every aspect of Zimbabwean life.
It becomes increasingly difficult to imagine any positive outcome for the country.
article plagiarised from a piece by Eddie Cross…see http://nehandaradio.com/2014/08/22/attempts-at-social-engineering-in-zimbabwe/
The problem in Zimbabwe is we don’t know what really happen because we are not told the truth so it becomes difficult to solve problems we don’t know how they started. Other have this version on what caused the mess in the farms.
After reading your interesting article I was compelled to make a small but big contribution.
This is about what you said that labour refused to pay the Zimbabwe government as per our their Lancaster House agreement of 1979. You must remember that the agreement was with the conservative government and when labour came into power, that was a new govern and like any new government they have to look at issues such as contracts signed by previous government etc. So labour amount other things looked at the issue of Zimbabwe when Mugabe demanded some more money from them as per 1979 Lancaster House agreement. Like wise this was debated in Westminster and they said we can give money only after an audit to review what the first disbursement achieved and failed. This made sense because this was UK tax payer’s money and they wanted to know that their money is being used for the purposes it was meant failure of which the UK public will not fund thieves under the name government land redistribution. Don’t forget that Theatcher government had given Zimbabwe government £40 for land reform and obviously it was to be in phases. But naturally Tony Blair wanted an audit of the money first because of the fact above, public funds.
They agreed to have a land audit and ironically discovered extreme discrepancies, shot falls and institutionalised corruption that led to London demanding explanations from Harare which in turn infuriated Mugabe. Some of the issues involved people being resettled in “Mindamirefu” long fields, (These farms belonged to ARDA, an arm of government land). It must be noted that these long field were land allocated to would-be landless blacks as if they were being settled to former white men’s land as per Lancaster House agreement in which Britain was to compensate the whites. This means that the money Uk gave before Tony Blair’s administration came into power was not used used for the purpose it was meant by Harare. Tony Blair being a lawyer, wanted clarity and could not afford to take money from his people to through it into the see.
The irony of the matter easily seen in what the late Tekere said around 1982 in parliament, “I’m surprised that we are just 1 year from the bush, but some of my friends have a million dollars, where did they get it from?” This explains that there was a skeleton in the carboad in Harare it’s why we are heretoday suffering. Money for land reform was but into other people pockets and landless blacks where settled in government land so no white man was given any compensation from UK.
Vince while I agree on some points of your article it is true to say the British sold us off to a dictator. They created him thus his pageant for all things nice.
Mr Musewe, this article without going into specifics gives a very accurate overview of Mugabe’s ruthless ambition that has destroyed the economy and made economic slaves of Zimbabweans. The greed of his accolytes such as Mujuru, Mnangagwa, Chombo, et al knows no bounds, and compounds the misery of Zimbabweans.
Trying to educate Boris on Zim? Good luck with that one – we’re still trying to educate him about England.
One cannot deal with someone always throwing tantrums like the geriatric so what do some people do decide to back off . Disgrace would never tell him how to behave properly -dream on
I agree with the thrust of your argument, Vince, but you got some key facts wrong!
Britain in fact suspended funding for Zim LR in 1994 – when the Tories (under John Major) were still in government, because they had discovered that their funds were being used to corruptly give the elite farms. Blair and Labour only came in subsequently in 1997. At the 1998 LR donors conference Britain agreed in principle to resume its over 200 million pounds funding for land reform, if certain conditions were met (i.e, there was no corruption etc). This offer was still on the table by the time the 2000 land takeovers happened and of course it died right there.
So – the fact is that Boris and some of the above commentators are quite wrong about Blair and Labour breaking some sort of Pact at Lancaster House. The fact is, rather, that the Tories suspended British funding and in fact the British Labour government agreed to resume it under the right conditions. So Boris is actually more wrong about his own history than he thinks!
Musewe is spot on. The only additional comment, and this includes some of the responses above, is that the average Zimbabwean Shona speaking male is a craven coward, good at making lots of noise but useless at taking responsibility for anything. Also an expert at shifting blame to anyone and everyone, except himself. Useless at taking any stand on principle and unwilling to fight for what really matters. Usually to be seen muttering on a street corner in Harare with a second hand copy of The Herald under his arm and the right hand extended for a handout.
After all this is said and done, how can the Mug’s children and family show their faces in public ? I would rather kill myself than bear the name that history will carry in it’s black books (no pun intended)