Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Don't swop birthright for donor's dollar: President Mugabe

Don't swop birthright for donor's dollar: President Mugabe
By: TC-TZG reporters
Posted: Friday, July 9, 2010 10:47 am

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe said Zimbabweans should forget about getting help from the West and cultivate relations with friendly countries as the West is only interested in plundering Zimbabwe's resources.

He urged the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change that are in the inclusive Government not to waste their efforts on “futile initiatives” and futile relationships with the West.

Addressing the 81st Ordinary Session of Zanu-PF's Central Committee at the party's headquarters in Harare yesterday, President Mugabe said maximum exploitation of natural resources would turn the economy around and the nation should not wait for Western benevolence.

“Zimbabwe shall recover by her wits and resources. Zimbabwe will not be saved by any country or organisation, least of all Western.

"Let our partners in the inclusive Government get that, so we do not waste our efforts on useless initiatives,” he said.

President Mugabe added: “We have friends in other parts of the world, friends from history and common outlooks. Let us work with those for progress and let us turn our back on those who do not want to work with us.

"Let the party (Zanu-PF) take a leading role in ensuring our policy of 'Looking East' gets vindicated.”

President Mugabe said the Central Committee was meeting as Western countries redoubled their efforts to control Zimbabwe’s affairs.

“The latest such gross and unashamed meddling comes in the wake of the recent meeting of the Kimberly Process Certification Process on diamonds held in Tel Aviv in Israel,” he said.

President Mugabe said the KP was a voluntary organisation whose focus was on regularising movement and sale of diamonds to keep them away from being used in destabilising legitimate Governments by armed rebels.

He added that the KP is not a human rights organisation.

“It is not a human rights organisation. Yet this is what the United States of America, Canada and Australia would want it to be — not for all times, not in all cases — but only and simply for Zimbabwe…

"We have been put in the dock for having diamonds in our territory and for wanting to exploit them with partners from other countries other than from these (Canada, United States and Australia) and other Western nations.

“We have been put in the dock because it is assertive Zimbabwe that has found diamonds and is thus likely to be even more assertive in outlook. We have been put in the dock because these same countries have imposed illegal sanctions on us for our total ruin.

“Diamonds would thus blunt their sanctions enabling us to offset and checkmate their disastrous effects on our people and on our economy.”

President Mugabe reiterated that diamonds from the Chiadzwa fields in Manicaland Province would be sold soon, with or without KP approval or their "NGO pawns".

“We are a sovereign country. We have no conflict here, no rebels here. We are a lawful Government representing the people of Zimbabwe who own these resources.

"Our diamonds are not only bright and clean, they are greatly demanded worldwide. We have the technology to mine them and will soon have the technology to polish them. Let no one doubt our resolve to sell them, with or without the KPCS, with or without the blessings of the USA, Canada, Australia or their NGO pawns.

We do not need the blessings of anyone, least of all nations with chequered origins and equally chequered profiles in spilling so much blood to lay their filthy hands on resources of other nations,” President Mugabe said.

Cabinet last month approved the immediate sale of diamonds from Chiadzwa following Mines and Mining Development Minister Obert Mpofu's presentation on his visit to Tel Aviv.

KP monitor for Zimbabwe Mr Abbey Chikane of South Africa presented a non-adverse report to the Tel Aviv meeting.

President Mugabe told other countries they had no say in Zimbabwe’s constitution-making process and urged Zanu-PF to defend the process and safeguard the gains of the liberation struggle.

“We have positions to defend, principles and policies and on these there shall be no compromise. Zanu-PF has to defend the constitution-making process to ensure it has integrity and is not taken advantage of by hostile foreigners who wish to hang and enslave us by this process and by a deformed outcome.

“We are working towards a Zimbabwean constitution, not a constitution for Zimbabwe by non-Zimbabweans, a constitution which foreigners want or wish for us. Foreigners must back off. We had nothing to do with their constitutions, in fact we were not even there as a free people when they wrote them.

“The draft constitution must come from the hands of Zimbabweans, not from those countries who think the fact of making financial inputs to our processes entitles them to interfere with the outcome. We cannot swop our birthright for the donor's dollar,” President Mugabe said.

He said foreigners drafted nasty constitutions for Zimbabwe in the past and the country “bears everlasting scars from harsh laws written for us”.

President Mugabe said Zimbabweans looked to Zanu-PF to be the “vanguard in that new war”.

“Once the process is defended and secure, we must ensure the product carries and consolidates our ideals as a nationalist revolutionary party. We fought for the Independence and untrammeled sovereignty of this nation. That coveted status must remain solid, secure and unshaken for all time.

"Zimbabwe ndeyeropa, yakauya nehondo. Haichadzokera kuvarungu zvakare (Zimbabwe was won through the shedding of our blood and will never be controlled by whites again,” President Mugabe thundered to sustained applause.

He said the process of capturing and collating views during the outreach should be honest, broad, accurate and completely free from personal prejudice.

The President and Zanu-PF First Secretary hailed the spirit of peace and mutual tolerance being exhibited during the outreach.
He, however, noted that the process had faced some challenges.

“From the reports we are getting, it is clear this crucial exercise has been made more challenging by the sheer sparseness of resources. The whole process is severely underresourced, creating situations that are near impossible for all those involved.

“We pay tribute to our teams for persevering against such scant support,” President Mugabe said.

Labels: MUGABE, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 2:34 PM