(HERALD) Lacey historically ignorant

Lacey historically ignorant

EDITOR — An article titled "Time for the old lion to go" written by Dr Terry Lacey, a development economist based in Jakarta, Indonesia, and published by The Namibian newspaper of Namibia is a frightful muddle and needs response, if only for posterity. While I grant that Lacey is not a historian, I still think he could have saved himself embarrassment and done readers a favour by checking basic facts and people’s names as well as the role they played in Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle before sending his opinion article for publication.

In his article published on Friday April 6, Lacey wrote: "So I met Robert Mugabe just once, at the independence talks presided over by Sir Christopher Soames . . ." Nothing can be further from the truth than that.

The plain fact is that Christopher Soames was not the chairman of the Lancaster House Conference talks. That honour goes to Lord Carrington. Lord Soames was only appointed Governor of the then Rhodesia for the transition period between the Lancaster House talks and the elections in 1980.

Lacey also writes about a "Rev Albert Sithole".

Says he: "Mugabe was at Lancaster House leading the independence talks because Zanu had done what the British Foreign Office had least expected and had beaten the experienced old hand Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu as well as the Rev Albert Sithole’s centrist party."

The Sithole who led this so-called centrist party was the late Rev Ndabaningi Sithole. At no time did he masquerade as Albert.

In an obvious attempt to slight Zimbabwe’s land reform programme, Lacey writes: "Of course, he (President Mugabe) would lead a radical land reform programme, but why did he leave it so late?"

The reason is simple there was a 10-year moratorium on land reforms in the Lancaster House Agreement. Mugabe was trying to woo the whites and assure them that they had a role to play in the development of the new nation under his famous reconciliation policy.

It may be useful to remember that for many years after independence Mugabe appointed whites to the post of Minister of Agriculture. One of them was Dennis Norman.

To give him his due, President Mugabe was wholeheartedly committed to the policy of reconciliation so much that this prompted Ian Smith to remark in his book "The Great Betrayal" that the man he had considered a Marxist and terrorist leader could surprise him with his progressive approach to things in Zimbabwe.

One of the diehard supporters of Ian Smith was Chris Anderson, a leading lawyer at the time. Mugabe appointed him minister in charge on the civil service for many years.

It is instructive that Mugabe made these remarkable appointments at a time whites were spurning his hand of reconciliation and he had to deal with murmurings of disapproval of his Marxist-Leninism policies from within his own party. I think people who wish to communicate through the media owe it to their readers to verify their facts. Lacey tried to lead us down the garden path.

Moses E.D. Magadza.
Windhoek,
Namibia.