Maravi

(NEW AFRICAN) In the name of democracy

COMMENT - An older article from New African Magazine's editor Baffour Ankomah on Zimbabwe. However, it contains a lot of home truths not elaborated on in the mainstream media.

In the name of democracy
Baffour's Beef

“He [Mugabe] was extremely magnanimous in allowing Ian Smith to go on in Zimbabwe – I wouldn’t have, I really wouldn’t – and I think that was partly because he didn’t want to alienate whites. That attitude lasted for quite a long time, 15 years or so” – Lord Carrington, the former British foreign secretary who negotiated Zimbabwe’s independence constitution at Lancaster House, quoted by Heidi Holland in her new book, “Dinner With Mugabe – The untold story of a freedom fighter who became a tyrant”, published in March 2008.

Human beings have short memories! If not, how could the Western world engage in the orgy of Mugabe-bashing that we have seen since the 29 March elections in Zimbabwe? In fact, the bashing has been going on for far longer - since 2000 when the Zimbabwe land issue blew up, after some Africans decided that enough was enough and they wanted their stolen ancestral land returned to them!

Since then, the once “blue-eyed boy” from the rolling hills of Zimbabwe, who once dined and wined with British royalty, who once received countless unsolicited honorary degrees from Western universities, and numerous awards from the likes of the Hunger Project for being “the best African president”, has sadly become a tyrant!

In her book, Heidi Holland hurls silly adjectives at President Mugabe who has now become some kind of political football worthy to be kicked and spat upon by all and sundry in the Western world. Holland’s colourful description of Mugabe include: “Naivety, emotionally immature, paranoid, no warmth, from dirt-poor childhood, loner, emotionally underdeveloped, has no conscience and sense of concern for others, monster, ruthless tyrant, a damaged person underneath, reviled politician, unstable, deluded, personality disorder, and mad”.

Holland, who now lives in South Africa, describes herself as: “A Western-orientated writer with an involvement albeit peripheral in the politics of Rhodesia and Zimbabwe.” She narrates how when she was trying to get an appointment to interview Mugabe for the book, Mugabe’s press secretary George Charamba asked her what she thought of Zimbabwe and she replied “it’s a tragedy”, Holland says: “I expected him to raise his voice again: His snarled comment: ‘So you have written a Eurocentric book’, to which I replied: ‘Of course, I can only be who I am’, seem certain to incur his displeasure.” In 1975, Holland had allowed her friend, Dr Ahrn Palley, a constitutional expert and fellow activist, to hold a secret meeting in her “ranch-style home” in Zimbabwe with Mugabe who was about to flee to Mozambique after his release from 11 years in jail. Holland says she provided “dinner” for Palley and Mugabe, and this qualifies her to regurgitate it in 2008 as a “dinner with a freedom fighter who became a tyrant”.

For those Africans who don’t know the issues at stake in Zimbabwe and who think Gordon Brown and “the international community” are jumping mad because they want Africans to have more democracy (Brown is yet to be elected by his own people anyway), please take a cue from Holland’s “Of course, I can only be who I am.” I was in Zimbabwe before, during, and after the 29 March elections, and I entreat all to read my report overleaf.

In April last year, when Nigeria’s opposition parties rejected the result of the presidential election won by Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and alleged that the election had been heavily rigged against them, Britain and “the international community” pretended they had gone on holiday. Over 200 Nigerians died in both pre-and post election violence, yet did we see Brown or any of those jumping mad over Zimbabwe today, jumping mad over Nigeria? President Paul Biya of Cameroon, already 26 years in power, has just received parliamentary support to change the constitution again so that when his current term ends in 2011, he can run – again - for another 7 years. And “the international community” is not jumping mad about Biya. Why? Don’t Cameroonians deserve more democracy? That should make us pause and reflect. Before then, to enrich our understanding of what is happening in Zimbabwe, let’s look at some issues raised by Holland in her book. She interviewed Clare Short, the former British secretary for overseas development, whose 5 November 1997 letter repudiating British colonial responsibility for funding land reform in Zimbabwe, sparked the troubles we’ve seen in that beautiful country for the past eight years.

Holland reports that Clare Short tried to shift the blame, first on Peter Hain, the South African-born British minister for Africa at the time. “I think the rhetoric of the UK [on Zimbabwe] was badly handled by Hain, of all people,” Holland quotes Short as having said. “I remember being in my bedroom in Birmingham and hearing him on the radio. I thought, ‘Peter, you sound like a colonial master speaking up for white farmers’. And of course, the media here loved that.”

Short went on: “One of Britain’s errors was the noisy rhetoric. We should have kept it right down, not tried to take a leading position, and we should have made sure that the neighbouring countries were absolutely clear as to how much money was on offer and how strongly the case for redistribution was supported internationally. We should have made that our rhetoric. I absolutely don’t accept that the letter I wrote was seminal, although of course I would take it away if that could stop the destruction and suffering that has gone on in Zimbabwe. But it is definitely Mugabe who is responsible.”

Well, the man Short’s department employed to investigate the Zimbabwean land issue, does not think so. Soni Rajan is an independent London-based consultant on international development who was employed by the ODA to investigate land redistribution in Zimbabwe on a number of occasions, both under the Tories and during Clare Short’s time.

Rajan told Holland “It was absolutely clear from the attitude of her [Clare Short’s] staff towards my recommendations that Labour’s strategy was to accelerate Mugabe’s unpopularity by failing to provide him with funding for land redistribution. They thought if they didn’t give him the money for land reform, his people in the rural areas would start to turn against him. That was their position; they wanted him out and they were going to do whatever they could to hasten his demise.”

What really strikes me in Holland’s book is her description of our late president, Kwame Nkrumah, as “a revered premier”. Since when did Nkrumah become a “revered” figure? Between 1960 and his overthrow in February 1966, and even long after his death in April 1972, Nkrumah was “a Mugabe” in the eyes of Western governments and their writers. All the adjectives and insults that Holland heaps on Mugabe today were hurled at Nkrumah! It is a mark of the versatility of the human mind that today, when history has absolved him, Nkrumah could be fondly looked at as a “revered” figure. He wasn’t “revered” when the West wanted him out!

Zanu PF will look back on the 29 March elections with trepidation at its own suicidal tendencies. In the midst of a deteriorating economy, and shortages of essential goods and services, the March elections were always going to be crucial to the destiny of the country. And yet Zanu, a party of such impeccable liberation credentials, went into the elections riddled with destructive infighting which saw – and this is no laughing matter – in some constituencies, two Zanu PF candidates fighting for the same seat and confusing their voters, and thus allowing the opposition to win the seat (or seats) by default.

Sabotage by the business community which increased prices in the run-up to the elections also did not help. There are still 400 British companies based in Zimbabwe and who dominate the economy. The government can shout as much as it likes, but the companies are private and they make their own decisions – which are not always in favour of the government. By increasing prices in the weeks leading to the elections, they sent a strong message to the electorate. The government’s tendency to allow things to drift, even in the face of clear signs of sabotage, also added to its electoral woes. The government watched on, apparently unconcerned, as commercial banks allowed long queues form at counters and ATMs in the crucial weeks leading to the elections. This was a sure way of creating disaffection among voters who were forced to queue for hours to withdraw their own money. The time they spent in the queue gave them the opportunity to talk and damn the government.

Zanu PF’s message at the rallies was also not very effective. It was long on the liberation war and short on the way out of the economic hardships. While the history was fine, people were yearning to hear about their stomachs and how the current difficulties were being, or going to be, resolved. That message was lacking.

‘Morgan is more’

In contrast, MDC-Tsvangirai ran a slick campaign and promised that their “friends” abroad had $10bn at the ready to heal the economy at a stroke, in the wake of a Tsvangirai victory. In certain instances, though, their adverts on the state-owned ZBC TV and radio, and even in the state-owned print media, were better and sharper than Zanu PF’s. The simple catchphrase: “I am Morgan. You need more. And I need your vote”, caught attention better than Zanu’s many long-winded messages.

Tsvangirai’s campaign was also hugely aided by six anti-Mugabe weekly newspapers (three based in Harare, two from South Africa and one from the UK, and all freely distributed in Zimbabwe’s urban areas). They tore Mugabe and Zanu into shreds week after week. There were also the Voice Of America’s Studio 7 broadcasting propaganda into Zimbabwe from Washington DC, and SW Africa Radio doing the same from the UK. All together, this gave “Morgan Is More” an advantage over Zanu PF in terms of media messages.

All said and done, the much expected presidential run-off is going to be a very interesting election.

Labels: BAFFOUR ANKOMAH, HEIDI HOLLAND, NEOCOLONIALISM, PROPAGANDA, ROBERT MUGABE, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 6:27 PM