(HERALD ZW) UK invasion plot: Nujoma speaks out
December 4, 2013
Mabasa Sasa in ETUNDA VILLAGE, Namibia
Namibia’s founding President Cde Sam Nujoma chats to Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Namibia Ms Chipo Zindoga at his residence in Etunda Village, Namibia
Any attack on Zimbabwe is an attack on the entire SADC region and will warrant a military response from the bloc, Namibia’s founding president, Dr Sam Nujoma, has said. The Father of the Namibian Nation spoke in the wake of revelations that Britain, under former premier Tony Blair, approached South Africa seeking co-operation in a military invasion of Zimbabwe during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency. South Africa rejected the overtures.
Diplomatic sources also told this paper that Britain had approached at least two other southern African countries to provide land and airspace for a possible invasion of Zimbabwe at the turn of the millennium.
This was when Zimbabwe had embarked on its revolutionary Fast-track Land Reform Programme.
It is understood that one of the countries (named) actually agreed but backtracked when Zimbabwe sent an envoy to ask the leadership of that nation why it wanted to assist in an invasion of a fellow Sadc member state.
The source said, “At least three countries were approached. One of them rejected the idea flatly, one listened to the proposal and then rejected it, and another went along and only stopped when Harare made it clear it was aware of the plot. That is where it crumbled, but this tells Zimbabwe to remain vigilant as such threats can never be consigned to history.”
In an interview in his home village of Etunda in Northern Namibia earlier this week, Dr Nujoma — who was president from Namibia’s independence in 1990 until 2005 — said while he had not been approached to assist in an invasion of Zimbabwe, it should be made clear to the whole world that such an action would never be tolerated by the region.
He said, “Namibia will never betray an African country to allow an imperialist country to use our territory as a base for aggression against any member of the African Union.
“If anyone attacks any Sadc member we will be there. These imperialists understand nothing, but the language of force. We are ready for them.
“Why all of a sudden is Renamo causing problems in Mozambique? Sadc should raise an army and wipe out the rebels who try and destabilise the region, like we did in the DRC.”
This was in reference to renewed rebel activity by Mozambique’s Renamo after having first instigated a civil war that ran from 1975 to 1992 and cost more than one million lives and affected its neighbour to the west, Zimbabwe.
Dr Nujoma said Africa must be prepared to confront the European Union and NATO in battle if need be.
“Member-states of the African Union must contribute to the Standing Force to defend the continent of Africa. What happened in Libya and now in Egypt should not be allowed anywhere else. No African country should be used to harbor foreign troops on its territory, including the American AFRICOM.
“We know they are stationed in Stuttgart, Germany and they have been there since the Second World War. Now they want to come to Africa. Africa should be prepared to fight them…
“It should be clearly stated that any attack on Zimbabwe is an attack on Sadc. I can be commander myself, we are already fighters and we don’t need guns or training from anyone.”
Dr Nujoma added: “We congratulate Zanu-PF and President Mugabe for fighting the machinations of the British and neo-colonialists in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a shining example on the African continent…
“We say no to the return of imperialists in our lifetime and we follow in the footsteps of Robert Gabriel Mugabe,” he said.
Dr Nujoma urged the youth of Africa to follow in the example of the liberation movement generation that sacrificed much to achieve political independence.
Among sitting heads of state and government in the region, only Presidents Mugabe, Jose Eduardo dos Santos (Angola), Hifikepunye Pohamba (Namibia), and Jacob Zuma (South Africa) had a direct experience of the liberation struggle.
“The youth of Africa must follow in the footsteps of their forefathers. We must start fighting to liberate our economies.”
He said Africa had won many battles against the West before and it would draw from these experiences to continue resisting oppression as it strives towards economic independence.
Dr Nujoma said empowering African people was the next logical stage in the struggle for true independence, and this battle would be premised on improving education and building capacity in the citizenry to run economies and nations in the best interests of indigenes.
There was no reason why, he noted, Africa could not industrialise within the next 10 years and become self-sufficient.
“All resources of Africa must be used in the interests of the African people. Let us produce for ourselves… We are not poor, they (Europe) are the ones who are poor.”
Dr Nujoma said Europe was vulnerable at the moment and Africa must take advantage of this to surge forward economically and in asserting sovereignty over its resources.
He said he could not understand why Europe and America were busying themselves with developments in Africa and yet they were facing immense problems of their own back home.
“In Greece, in Italy, in Portugal and all over Europe, their people are dying of hunger. They are poor, they are suffering. Why should they bother us?
“Europe and America must concentrate on supporting their own people who are dying from hunger over there.”
A fortnight ago, Cde Mbeki said Blair’s regime put pressure on Tshwane to abet an invasion of Zimbabwe.
The British wanted to depose President Mugabe unconstitutionally and impose MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai in his stead.
Interestingly, around the time of these invasion plots, Tsvangirai told a rally in Harare that he was prepared to remove President Mugabe from office “violently”.
Before Cde Mbeki’s revelation, a senior officer in Blair’s uniformed service had also said the military option had been strongly considered.
Lord (General) Charles Guthrie, Chief of the General Staff of the British Army from 1997 to 2001, said Blair had asked him to look at an invasion of Zimbabwe. Lord Guthrie said his response was, “Hold hard, you’ll make it worse.”
Labelled Blair’s favourite general, Lord Guthrie is credited with conniving with the then Prime Minister to send troops to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In his memoirs (“A Journey: My Political Life”), Blair said, “People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, Milosevic, the Taliban and Saddam, why can’t you get rid of Mugabe? The answer is: I would have loved to; but it wasn’t practical (since in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously).”
A number of factors are said to have weighed against an invasion of Zimbabwe.
Firstly, the Zimbabwean military is battle-hardened, having been involved in frontline action almost every year from the start of the liberation struggle in 1996 up until the deployment in the DRC war that ended in 2003. The British Military Advisory and Training Team was in Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2000 and knew of the Zimbabwe Defence Force’s capacity.
Secondly, there were some 100 000 British white citizens in Zimbabwe at the time and London knew they would be affected by any invasion.
Thirdly, Britain was at the time over-stretched in Afghanistan and then afterwards in Iraq.
Another factor was that at the time the United States – Britain’s largest ally – appeared unconvinced about the efficacy of an invasion, especially after the experience of Somalia in the early 1990s when Zimbabwean troops essentially rescued American troops from a quagmire they had sunk themselves in.
Labels: LIBERATION, NAMIBIA, SAM NUJOMA, SWAPO, TONY BLAIR
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We are ready to defend Zimbabwe - Nujoma
By Sheikh Chifuwe
Sat 18 Sep. 2010, 04:01 CAT
WE are ready to defend Zimbabwe against the imperialists, f has declared. In an interview last weekend at Talatona Hotel in Luanda, Angola, where he was attending the third African meeting of solidarity with Cuba,
Nujoma said Africans would not sit back and watch the aggressors against the African continent.“Do they think we are going to keep quiet? No! If they attack Zimbabwe, we shall pick our guns and defend Zimambwe,” he said. “Africa belongs to Africans, Europe to Europeans and America to Americans.”
Nujoma expressed optimism that the African continent would win its ‘wars’ against imperialism.
“The American people gave weapons to PW Botha (South Africa's apartheid era president) to fight our people but we defeated them clearly, we defended our territorial integrity,” he said. “This was the first time the white imperialists were defeated.”
The American government supported the apartheid regime of South Africa during Namibia's liberation struggle, but with support from Angola and Cuban revolutionary troops, was defeated and forced to retreat.
Nujoma also disclosed that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting which took place in Windhoek resolved to put pressure on the European Union to end the economic sanctions against Zimbabwe.
“This demand should be supported by any non-governmental meetings such as this one here,” he said, referring to the third African meeting of solidarity with Cuba which took place in Angola from September 12-13.
Nujoma further said the continued incarceration of the Cuban Five was a pure hatred for the socialist people.
Labels: SAM NUJOMA, SANCTIONS, SWAPO, ZANU-PF, ZIMBABWE
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Nujoma warns West over Zim, Africa
TZG reporter and sources
Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:47:00 +0000
FORMER Namibian president Sam Nujoma told a rally of his party the South West Africa People's Organisation (Swapo) over the weekend that his country and the rest of the region will not sit back and watch the West carry out their illegal regime change agenda to topple President Mugabe.
The support for Zimbabwe came as the United States, through their Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, admitted openly for the first time that it had sanctions on Zimbabwe, but said it would not be lifting them.
Former President Nujoma, came out strongly against Western powers that funded opposition parties on the African continent and elsewhere in the world for their own interests and took exception to illegal attempts to topple President Mugabe.
He was speaking as news that the MDC-T party was being secretly funded by the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) made the headlines.
"The white imperialists should be careful not to topple Cde President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, because if you touch Zimbabwe, then you touch Namibia and the whole Southern African Development Community."
The veteran nationalist, who during the anti-Apartheid struggle, took the combat name "Shafiishuna", meaning "lightning", was addressing a Swapo star rally at Ongwediva in the Oshana region.
"It is because of the Western powers and those colonialists that oppositions are formed in our countries in the African continent and elsewhere in the world," he said.
Nujoma, who was the president of Namibia from 1990-2005, said U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe because the Zimbabwean people had demanded their land from the white minority who were historically privileged by the racist colonial system.
"How could one impose sanctions against people who are demanding their own land? It was made that those who have too much land or many farms should give some to the Government so that the landless black people could be resettled there.
"The whites have been on our necks and colonised us for a long time, they crossed with our people through the Atlantic Ocean and made us slaves in their countries. ‘Omushiningwa iha dhimbwa, ashike omushiningi oye owala ha dhimbwa’. (The victim will not forget, but the wrongdoer will forget easily.)
"The whites must be careful, if they play with us we will thoroughly deal with them," Nujoma said in his fiery speech.
He said imperialist countries were facing the prospect of poverty and were redoubling their efforts to loot African resources to sustain their own economies.
Nujoma, whose Swapo party gave the title of Leader of the Namibian Revolution, said imperialist countries are now poor because they used up all their natural resources and are now looking to exploit Africa and Asia. Because they have all knowledge and skills, they come to African and Asian countries to tap the natural resources and take them to their countries for their own benefit.
Nujoma compared the white minorities who refused to fully integrate after African independence to a black mamba, which even if you keep it in a room for years, it would one day bite you.
"Whites are dangerous, just like a black mamba, if they oust President Mugabe, they will oust another president in the African continent," he said.
He accused Britain, the United States and Germany of violating democracy and human rights in parts of the world such as Iraq, Afghanistan and in Zimbabwe.
"They talk about human rights and democracy. Where do they know human rights and democracy if they kill Asians, Iraqis and Afghanis daily?" Nujoma charged.
Nujoma said, Sadc countries are united and will stand up to anyone who violates the rights of one of its member countries.
"Let us beat them, not with knopkieries, but with hammers in their heads, if they touch one of our Sadc countries."
He called on all Namibians and Africans in general to be ready to fight against "the imperialists now killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan", because it was possible that they would come to Africa next.
Nujoma accused African newspapers of failing to report on "Americans killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan".
"Those newspapers must know, the day God will be away from them, and Satan comes to them, we will deal with them," Nujoma said.
Nujoma had a prepared speech of more than six pages in English, but did not use it and delivered his speech in Oshiwambo.
Last week, Ambassador Carson tacitly said Washington had imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, as opposed to the "restrictive measures" talked about by the MDC-T party..
The MDC-T party through the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, Gorden Moyo, denied the existence of sanctions on Zimbabwe and instead claimed these were either "restrictive" or "targeted" measures; although the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy Recovery Act passed by the U.S. in 2001 is clear on the issue.
ZIDERA imposes penalties on companies that trade with Zimbabwe and impose restrictions on international financial institutions on lending to Zimbabwe. The U.S. president, through ZIDERA places an embargo on entities such as Ziscosteel, ZB Bank and the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation which are not owned by any one individual and which employ thousands of people.
Carson said "We reserve the right to lift those sanctions when we want to do so and when we see progress." - The Namibian/TH/New Era/TZG
Labels: SAM NUJOMA, SANCTIONS
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We're doing badly in education, says KK
By Chibaula Silwamba
Monday May 28, 2007 [04:00]
WE are doing badly in education, Dr Kenneth Kaunda has said. And former Namibian president Dr Sam Nujoma has said Africa's political freedom will be meaningless without economic independence. Featuring on a special Africa Freedom Day programme on ZNBC Television on Friday, Dr Kaunda said the education sector in Zambia was performing badly. "We can't hide that we are doing badly in education. We need to work on that one," Dr Kaunda said.
He said when Zambia became independent in 1964, there were only 100 university graduates, of whom three were medical doctors.
He said his government had to introduce free education and by the end of UNIP's 27-year rule, there were over 35,000 university graduates.
"We had made education free so that we make people ready for responsibility of self-governing," Dr Kaunda said. "Really, education is key and I would encourage our government to push education. Education must come first."
Dr Kaunda said youths were the future of any nation.
He said without proper education and job opportunities for youths, the leaders would leave empty places.
"All of us as leaders must emphasise the importance of youths in our society, without that we will not succeed," he said. "We need to genuinely involve youths so that they participate in what is taking place in our country." Dr Kaunda also said he was confident that HIV/AIDS would be wiped out in the world.
And Dr Nujoma, who was linked via the phone from Namibia, said Africans should now fight for economic independence. "We liberated ourselves from the shackles of colonialism and imperialism. We are now concentrating all our efforts to the second struggle for economic independence because our political freedom will be meaningless if it is not accompanied by economic independence," he said.
Dr Nujoma paid tribute to Dr Kaunda, the UNIP government and Zambians for their support during the liberation struggle of other southern African countries. He said Zambia provided refuge to most freedom fighters from countries in the region.
"The UNIP government headed by Dr Kaunda offered us military training in order to confront colonialism in Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa," Dr Nujoma recalled. "We pay great tribute to those heroes and heroines on the African continent who made great sacrifices."
He recalled that Zambia braved bombardment from the Apartheid government in South Africa and Ian Smith's government in Zimbabwe. "The history of liberation of Africa will never be written without mentioning those African visionaries such as Dr Kaunda, Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Kwame Nkrumah Ghana)..." he said.
Dr Nujoma ended his contribution with a slogan: "Long live the OAU! Long live the AU!"
And academician John Mwanakatwe said rich countries and their agents are exploiting poor and heavily indebted African countries. Speaking during a radio programme on Africa Freedom Day dubbed 'listenrite to Shoprite', Mwanakatwe observed that many African countries were poor and their freedom was compromised.
"Representatives of rich nations or their agents tend to exploit poor countries in Africa from time to time," Mwanakatwe said. "In my view, in spite of this disadvantage, all countries in Africa should continue to celebrate Africa Freedom Day."
He said some countries in Africa had not enjoyed peace from the time they gained independence.
Mwanakatwe said the battle against poverty was yet to be won. "Much still needs to be done through hard work, dedication and honesty by men and women who lead us from time to time at various levels - political, commercial and religious levels in our country. Undoubtedly, the reduction of poverty in our midst in Zambia today will be a difficult task. Otherwise, freedom and independence will be meaningless if poverty levels are not reduced, albeit gradually, in the years ahead," he said.
"Zambians should consider carefully the contribution they can make to the improvement of the quality of life of our people both in urban and rural areas. For without Zambians themselves working hard to improve the economy and develop our country, the alleviation of poverty among the majority will remain a pipe dream. Without alleviation of rampant poverty in our midst in years ahead, the celebration of "Africa Freedom Day" will eventually become meaningless."
He said the freedom fighters' desire was to use the freedom gained to raise the standards of the people. Mwanakatwe observed that youths nowadays were dangerously pre-occupied with harmful undertakings such as drug trafficking, hooliganism and misuse of modern technological facilities such as television and computers.
Labels: EDUCATION, KENNETH KAUNDA, SAM NUJOMA, UNIP
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Zambezi Resources has a useful friend in Glencore
By Jack Hammer
Wednesday May 16, 2007 [08:49]
Sam Nujoma, former president of SWAPO and one time leader of Namibia, visited Zambezi Resources offices in Lusaka recently. Nujoma is doing a degree in geology and was looking for helpful hints and practical insights into a working mining company office. It remains to be seen whether or not it’s a sign of a toppy market that the former leader of armed resistance to South Africa in Namibia is entering the mining business at the right end of a rockhammer.
But he’ll have got his insights at Zambezi alright. Zambezi’s offices are decent enough. There’s an expensive coffee machine, a pool out back, and plenty of anti-AIDS literature scattered all over the place. But most of the space there is - as it should be - given over to map tables.
On the walls are the rosters for the company geologists, detailing which of Zambezi’s many projects they’ll be working on and when, and the names on those lists ought to make welcome reading for a famous African nationalist: Boniface Nguni, Giddy Mwale, Titus Mabeseru and Nhamo Manenji. For a small company, Zambezi does a good job of promoting local talent. All the senior geologists are Zambian. And, with Zambezi’s results to date, it has to be said that it looks like they know their job.
Perhaps the real reason for Nujoma’s visit was to check out his likely future bosses.
Nujoma might be ahead of the pack in focussing on a company with a portfolio well outside of the traditional mining comfort zone in Zambia, but he’s not the first, nor with all due respect, the most significant player on the international scene to take an interest.
It was a real step up for Zambezi last year when a joint venture with diversified commodities giant Glencore was mooted. It took some serious paperwork to finalise, but the deal was eventually signed off in February this year and sealed with a “1m placing of Zambezi shares to the Swiss-based giant.”
Glencore’s principal interest is the Cheowa project, a copper-gold property close to the Zambezi River. At the moment Cheowa boasts an inferred resource of 1.7 million tonnes grading 1.5 per cent copper and 0.5 g/t gold, but with Glencore planning to spend US $10million on Cheowa over the next two years, Zambezi chief Julian Ford is upbeat about its prospects.
The plan is to do 60,000 metres of drilling this year, after which the resource numbers ought to look very different. “We’re very confident this project’s going to work out,” says Ford. “I don’t see any critical flaws. Every hole has hit mineralisation exactly where we expected. Glencore is very keen to put it into production.”
With a structure in place for funding Cheowa all the way through to feasibility, Zambezi can direct its cash towards other projects. And there are plenty.
There’s the new Kangaluwi-Chisawa copper prospect, on which 25,000 metres of drilling will take place this year; the Chakwenga gold project, where grades go as high as 6 g/t, and on which just over 8,000 metres of drilling is planned; there’s another property that Glencore has taken an interest in, as well as three other gold targets and a uranium target.
To fund all that work, Ford plans to raise US $10 million to add to the US $1.7m already in the bank. From here on in though, an increasing proportion of the money raised by Zambezi will come out of Australia, where the company has just listed.
“It’s a risk mitigation strategy,” says Ford.
London, he thinks, has become overly obsessed with cash flow, partly because it paid too much for assets in the first place.
That means the squeeze is on explorers, and he wants to have somewhere else to turn if the money dries up completely.
“Good projects will always find money,” he says, but perhaps not always in London.
Paladin, he reckons, is a case in point: “John Borshoff survived for years on the smell of an oily rag. I dare say he wouldn’t have survived in London.”
Perhaps London just isn’t as much as a pushover as it used to be. But one way or another Ford aims to keep his geologists in the field for as long as possible, and maybe even one day offer Nujoma a job. - Minesite
Labels: SAM NUJOMA, ZAMBESI RESOURCES
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