Maravi

(HERALD ZW) President speaks on Mau Mau victory

President speaks on Mau Mau victory
Saturday, 13 October 2012 00:00
Takunda Maodza Senior Reporter

Africa rejoices in the victory of the Mau Mau victims of British colonial brutalities after a London Court gave them the green light to sue for damages, President Mugabe said yesterday.

Last week, the High Court in London allowed three elderly Kenyans, Wambuga Wa Nyingi, Jane Muthoni Mara and Paulo Muoka Nzili, to pursue damages for torture during the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule.

Addressing the Zanu-PF 90th Ordinary session of the Central Committee in Harare, President Mugabe said Zanu-PF should not view the Mau Mau case as a matter far removed from the revolutionary party.

“I want to acknowledge a quiet yet significant victory which Africa has won against British colonialism. As some of you may be aware, Mau Mau victims of the British colonial savagery and brutalities in Kenya last week won the right to sue the British government for atonement of the suffering they underwent as they resisted British colonialism which, in comparable circumstances, involved theft of huge swathes of land, a good part of which remain in the hands of absentee landlords well ensconced in Britain and larger Europe,” President Mugabe said.

He added: “We who also bear the scars of British colonial atrocities can never view this test case as a matter far away from us as a matter for Kenyans alone. We see ourselves in those resilient Mau Mau fighters; we see in their horrid injuries our very own un-repaid injuries and injustices from that past of white savagery.”

President Mugabe said the Mau case was a lesson not just for Africa but for victims of slavery, colonialism and other de-humanising forms of imperialism suffered by the Third World.

“Time may have come when the abused notion of ‘responsibility to protect’ may make better sense when revisited so we incorporate within it, its long ignored correlative of ‘responsibility to account’ for past offences and horrible Nazi-like human rights abuses of indigenous peoples,” he said.

He said Africa must not allow a situation where history was recalled selectively, sparing the so-called mighty.

“We know to be wrong and guilty of heinous crimes against humanity both in the past and present. We should never allow a world order where might buys right, while right succumbs to wrong,” President Mugabe said.

The President and Zanu-PF First Secretary also saluted Hugo Chavez’s victory in Venezuelan presidential elections describing it as sweet victory against forces of global imperialism.

President Chavez, a socialist, was re-elected into office on Sunday after defeating Henrique Capriles.

“I recall and recognise last weekend’s loud and resounding defeat of global imperialism by the progressive people of Venezuela, led by their revolutionary leader Hugo Chavez. It was sweet victory against forces of global reaction and imperialism, indeed, a victory made sweeter by defeating the false hopes imperialism had concocted for itself even against the outward fact of the hugely popular Bolivarian revolution,” President Mugabe said.

He said President Chavez’s victory was a victory for the ordinary Venezuelan and the Third World.

“The people won, the poor won and as a revolutionary party, Zanu-PF, shares in that victory, indeed regards it as its own, albeit vicariously.

“Any gain for forces of global progress, wherever such may be registered, is another great stride for the larger half of mankind, a gain for the broad masses of the Third World for so long trampled upon by imperialism,” President Mugabe said.

He said imperialism continued to make the world more dangerous daily.

“It continues to corrupt institutions of democracy in our world, principally the ballot box, in order to attack genuine national leaderships in order to undermine national sovereignties and of course to subvert the very notion of democracy in whose name it pitches its claim to superiority,” President Mugabe said.

He said so heartless were the imperialist forces that they not only interfered in other countries’ internal affairs but went to the extent of invading them.

“We need to study the wiles which imperialism employed in Venezuela in a bid to defeat the will of the people.

“The blatant aggression of imperialism in North Africa and the Middle East, its continuing naked provocations in the Far East, and, as we saw not too long ago, its attempts even to destabilise a powerful state like Russia, clearly show a system experiencing a crisis, but one which will not hesitate to make wars abroad in order to stave off its own problems and challenges,” President Mugabe said.

He said the world has seen the limitations of neo-liberalism, an ideology of later-day imperialism.

“Hence when such alternatives, presenting fairer and more representative systems of Government triumph, we need to celebrate.

“We must boldly express solidarity with kindred parties and movements worldwide, so we continue to build a broad front against this new and deadly strain of resource-hunting imperialism,” he said.

“We have seen the enemy make repeated, rapacious attacks to suffocate our country using even those we are meant to build the country in partnership with. It does not work, it cannot work!” he said.

Labels: BBC, COLONIALISM, KENYA

posted by MrK @ 3:10 PM