FORWARDED FROM JEBRON HUNTER

Zimbabwe
Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 03:30:23 -0700

In 2002 I was in Zimbabwe and met with one of the
white heads of the farmers union that included many
Zimbabween white farmers that confirmed the following.
Note: Sometime after his remarks to us was published
in a British daily he left or was removed from his
position with the farmers union.

Jehron


The Black Scholar Editorial on Zimbabwe

Submitted to Portside by the Author
===

Dear Moderator,

I think you are off the mark in your April 3 position
on Zimbabwe. But that is understandable, in view of
the massive disinformation that Blair, Bush, the EU have
been dispersing.

The simple fact is that Britain welshed on its
Lancaster House agreement to "buy out" white farmers
and compensate them for land they had stolen from
Zimbabwe some 100 years previously, when the country
was a fiefdom of Cecil Rhodes and called "Rhodesia."
and thus permit Zimbabwe to repossess its land and
income without confrontation.  Mugabe/ZANU inherited a
nation whose black population was impoverished [1 % of
the population--whites--owned 70% of the arable land.]
Zimbabwe then borrowed money from IMF, got into the
structural adjustment squeeze even though it has met
wage demands as possible .

At the same time, international capital began the
destabilization strategy of inflating an opposition,
supporting spurious demonstrations, and playing the
human rights card, strategies already deployed in
Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Poland to
eliminate legitimate administrations.

This campaign ignores the fact that Mugabe had been
elected twice--legitimately--in elections that were
deemed fair by international agencies. It also
dismisses the Africans' right to self- determination,
and ignores the fact that in late March, the leaders
at the two-day Southern African Development Community
(SADC) summit in Dar es Salaam took measures,asking
South African President Thabo Mbeki to help promote
dialogue between ZANU and MDC. (AllAfrica.com)

I would suggest that you research a bit more deeply
into the roots of the Zimbabwe crisis, and the
morphing of the front line states into SADC, which advocates
economic regionalism, political cooperation and
respects the independence of its members.

Separately, I am sending you an editorial I wrote on
this subject that will be published in Volume 37 No. 2
of THE BLACK SCHOLAR.

Sincerely yours,

Robert Chrisman, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief and Publisher,
THE BLACK SCHOLAR


===

ZIMBABWE: THE LONG STRUGGLE

by Robert Chrisman, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
THE BLACK SCHOLAR, VOL. 37 #1

BLACKS IN AMERICA have supported the Zimbabwe
Liberation movement, both from our ideology of Pan-
Africanism as well as from our identification with
oppressed people in emerging countries. This issue of
The Black Scholar explores the current crises in
Zimbabwe to develop deeper understanding of issues
within that embattled country. We give our thanks to
the scholars and activists who have contributed their
various viewpoints of this complex situation. Upon its
independence and the ascendancy of ZANU's Robert
Mugabe to its presidency in 1980, Zimbabwe's main economic
resources, particularly agriculture, remained in the
possession of white farmers who refused to release the
spoils of Cecil Rhodes' policies: one percent of the
population owned 70 percent of the arable land. As
part of the peace settlement negotiated at Lancaster House,
1979-80, which involved the US, Britain had promised
to subsidize the buy-out of these farmers but did not
provide funds to pay them and equivocated on terms,
insisting on 'willing buyer-willing seller,' and
'full-market value' for land. White farmers remained in
possession of the land. On November 6, 1997 British
Labour Secretary Clare Short sent a letter to Kumbirai
Kangai, Minister of Agriculture in Zimbabwe, in which
she stated that, 'We do not accept that Britain has a
special responsibility to meet the costs of land
purchase in Zimbabwe.'

Structural Adjustment

CORRECTING THE ECONOMIC and social welfare inequities
for blacks left over by the white Ian Smith regime
(temporarily solved by securing foreign credits), and
a severe drought, forced Zimbabwe to enter a structural
adjustment program with the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) in 1990. Structural adjustment typically
mandates laissez faire capitalism (disingenuously called
'neoliberalism'), privatization, and the reduction of
social welfare. Since implementing these measures
Zimbabwe's conditions have deteriorated drastically.
Writing of this adjustment, political economist
Antonia Juhasz states:

In order to radically reduce government spending, the
government fired tens of thousands of workers, gutted
the pay of those who remained and drastically reduced
spending on social programs. At the same time, taxes
were reduced (the idea being to encourage both
increased spending and businesses to locate to
Zimbabwe), and the country was opened to foreign
competition-hitting the manufacturing sector
particularly hard… Both employment and real wages
declined sharply. During 1991-1996, manufacturing
employment fell by 9 percent and wages dropped by 26
percent. Public sector employment fell by 23 percent,
with wages dropping by 40 percent. (Juhasz, 'The
Tragic Tale of the IMF in Zimbabwe,' Daily Mirror of
Zimbabwe, March 7, 2004)

The privatization of health care has had disastrous
consequences for AIDS/HIV treatment in Zimbabwe:

While campaigns to prevent and treat HIV in other
African nations benefit from international aid, the
political situation in Zimbabwe has caused most
foreign donors either to decrease aid for the country or halt
it altogether. The United States, Australia and the
European Union have also imposed economic sanctions on
Zimbabwe. The neighboring nation of Zambia, which has
a similar HIV prevalence rate, receives around US $187
per HIV-positive person annually from foreign donors;
in Zimbabwe, the figure is estimated to be just $4.
(Graham Pembrey, 'HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe, Avert.org <http://avert.org/>)

Clinics and individuals cannot afford to buy the
needed drugs. Even so, on their own initiative, the
Zimbabwean government and people have reduced incidence from 25
percent to 20 percent.

Destabilization

ZIMBABWE HAS BEEN SUBJECT to a two-pronged
destabilization program led by the United States,
United Kingdom and the European Union-1) economic
sanctions and 2) a relentless propaganda barrage.
Allegations against Zimbabwe of torture, cruelty, and
abuse resemble similar Western orchestrations against
Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, Grenada, Haiti,
Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nicaragua, North Korea, Palestine,
Poland, and other countries targeted for economic,
political, or military assault. The goal is not
economic justice for citizens but the creation of a
national bourgeoisie which serves Western global
interests, not those of its own people. A notable case
is the Mexican crisis, brought about by the neoliberal
polices of former president Vicente Fox and NAFTA.

THROUGH ELECTIONS Mugabe has remained in power, but as
is often the case when an independent or non-Western
force prevails, its legitimacy is contested by pro-
Western international and domestic forces. 'Democracy'
in this context often means penetration of the nation
by international capital, which ignores the fact that
the primary issue is self-determination, not
democracy. However, a country's cooperation with global
capitalism does not mean sharing in its profits. As Moamar
Gaddafi stated March 2, 2007, the 30th anniversary of his
declaration of a Jamahiriyah or 'state of the masses,'
the West has yet to provide economic aid to Libya,
despite its retreat from nuclear programs:

The prevailing powers today are in the hands of those
who have economic and military power which puts fear
in others. They can make you starve. They can close the
doors for your exports of raw materials such as coffee
or oil. . . . This is an international dictatorship
that is being practiced against people, especially
poor people. (William MacLean, Reuters, 'Gaddafi Says Fear
Drives World Economic System,' Reuters.)

For example, with the destruction of the Iraq nation
state headed by Saddam Hussein-to create
'democracy'-its nationalized oil policy was destroyed
to permit the plunder of the rich Iraq oil fields,
which are to be divided among ethnic and religious
factions, with the global West controlling their
markets. Writes Pepe Escobar, 'Sixty-five of Iraq's
roughly 80 oilfields already known will be offered for
Big Oil to exploit. Iraq has as many as 70 undeveloped
fields-'small' ones hold a minimum of a billion
barrels. As desert western Iraq has not even been
exploited, reserves may reach 300 billion barrels'
(Escobar, 'US's Iraq Oil Grab is a Done Deal,' Asia
Times Online, February 28, 2007).

The Road Ahead

ZIMBABWE'S PROGRESS toward true independence and self-
determination has been hamstrung by the Draconian
measures of economic sanctions, IMF schedules, and
international demonization. Possessing extraordinary
mineral and rare earth resources and fertile
agriculture, Zimbabwe must be permitted to develop and
integrate its resources with other developing nations
in Southern Africa. The following measures must be
taken immediately:

• Forgive Zimbabwe's IMF debt. Currently Zimbabwe is
128 million dollars in arrears to the IMF. Considering
that this amount is about five percent of the two
billion dollars a week the US spends waging war on
Iraq, debt forgiveness is a small price for securing
peace and alleviating poverty and suffering.

• The US, UK, and European Union should lift their
economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. These sanctions have
served no useful purpose but in fact expose the West
as a group that will ruthlessly punish an emerging nation
for reclaiming its patrimony of land, liberty, and the
pursuit of economic and social justice.

• The demonization of Zimbabwe must stop. The
whirlwind of disinformation pouring from Western and pro-Western
presses does not provide an objective, comparative
context for understanding Zimbabwe's issues relative
to those in other parts of the world, particularly the
western surrogates in Asia and the Middle East.

• The West must stop its provocative campaign for
regime change and respect the national and regional
autonomy of Zimbabwe, as Russia, China, South Africa,
and the African Union have done. The continuing
escalation of the West's belligerence and sanctions
against independent, sovereign countries at the same
time it offers a bait and switch of 'free elections
and democracy,' offers a caution for blacks in America.
The cause of social and economic justice in Zimbabwe is
best served by the elimination of sanctions, the
cessation of the propaganda war, and the forgiveness
of the IMF debt. Such measures will allow Zimbabwe to
solve its own problems without foreign interference

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