Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Britain reneged on its obligations – Mugabe

Britain reneged on its obligations – Mugabe
Floyd Nkomo
Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:12:00 +0000

PRESIDENT Mugabe has said that Britain is to blame for all the troubles bedeviling the country today because they reneged on their pledge to fund the land redistribution programme as agreed at the Lancaster House Conference in 1979 which paved way for a transitional constitution for an independent Zimbabwe. Speaking during his election campaign in the second largest city of Bulawayo, the Zimbabwean veteran leader said although the Conservative Party led by Former British Prime Margaret Thatcher and later John Major agreed to fund the programme, the Labour government under Tony Blair reneged on the pledge through a letter written by one of Blair’s ministers, Claire Short.

President Mugabe was referring to a letter written by then Secretary of State (for International Development), Claire Short, wrote to Zimbabwe’s Minister of Agriculture and Lands, Kumbirai Kangai.

She said: “I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers.”

Almost immediately, Britain stopped payments for land reform.

At Lancaster House USA and Britain had promised £2 billion for land redistribution, yet by 1997 they had made payments of only £44 million in honouring their commitment.

"The Labour Party did not want to co-operate with us. They reneged on the agreement. ‘We derive our own authority from our own principles, not the Conservative Party,’ they (the Labour government) said," said the President.

He also said that the government of Zimbabwe tried to reason diplomatically with Prime Minister Blair to continue making the land redistribution payments but they shut all doors.

"Then we said, keep your money, we keep our land. Why should they now cry foul?"

President Mugabe also said his government taught the British democracy as there was no democracy in colonial times.

“We taught them the principle of one man, one vote which did not exist under Ian Smith,” he said adding that “Democracy also means self-rule, not rule by outsiders,” referring to Western interference in the affairs of the southern African country.

President Mugabe also vowed that he will never let Zimbabwe go back to the colonials through the MDC-T party.

President Mugabe hailed Zimbabwe’s education system, saying it was the second best on the continent after Tunisia.

Labels: CLAIRE SHORT, LANCASTER HOUSE AGREEMENT, LAND REFORM

posted by MrK @ 11:12 PM