Zimbabwe Coalition : African Solution to African Problems?

Published on 21st September 2008

Thambo Mbeki
In his speech The African Renaissance, South Africa and the World delivered at the UN on 9 April 1998, the then deputy President Thabo Mbeki said, “We must assume that the Roman, Pliny the Elder, was familiar with the Latin saying, “Ex Africa semper aliquid novi!” (Something new always comes out of Africa.)”

Thank God, our brother Morgan Tsvangirai started to listen to the African Union  instead of London which was “promising” him £1 billion if he accepted nothing less than the post of executive president. 

“I have signed this agreement [as Prime Minister] because I believe it represents the best opportunity for us to build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic Zimbabwe,” Morgan Tsvangirai told 3,000 invited guests in Harare's International Conference Centre on Monday, 15 September 2008.  

For his part, President Robert Mugabe said, “Are we beginning today? No. We have been walking the same route without knowing it, or not recognizing each other. After all, we are all Zimbabweans and is there any other route to follow?” Africans around the world cheered while the British jeered. 

“My discussions today with European Foreign Ministers in Brussels showed widespread concern for genuine change in Zimbabwe,” the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said. “Like the vast majority of Zimbabweans, I share that view.” What nonsense! Which Zimbabweans? 

If the British government and their European Union allies had had they way, UN peace-keepers, (euphemism for foreign occupation forces) would have taken control over Zimbabwe, arrested President Robert Mugabe, his ministers and security chiefs and sent them to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the latest neo-colonial tool for selective justice. 

The presence of foreign troops in Zimbabwe would have turned the country into another Iraq, with former African liberation armies such as the Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), the National Resistance Army (NRA), the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) regrouping to re-liberate Zimbabwe. Why? 

As demonstrated by their uncompromising support for President Mugabe over the years, African governments had reached the conclusion that the European Union, led by the British, were applying double standards about democracy and human rights to isolate and destroy Zimbabwe. What is the evidence? 

While ignoring gross human rights abuse and election rigging in Uganda, our former colonial masters accused Mugabe of the same and misused the European Union, the United Nations and the G8 to maintain the total blockade of Zimbabwe, leading to the deaths of millions of children and other vulnerable people.   

They sent Ugandan-born Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu to the BBC not only to demonise Mugabe, but also to cut his dog collar, swearing that he would never wear it again as long Mugabe ruled; thus dragging himself and his spiritual high office through sewer. 

In October 1999 and March 2001, they welcomed Mugabe to London and Brussels, then used hired thugs to perform a symbolic but embarrassing citizens’ arrest. They repeatedly smuggled banned BBC correspondents into Zimbabwe, blatantly violating the country’s territorial integrity and independence. 

On July 12 July 2008, the UK tabled a draft resolution at the UN, the third in six weeks, imposing punitive sanctions on Zimbabwe, which was already on its knees, and calling for UN intervention under Chapter seven, which authorises the use of force, because Zimbabwe had become a threat to international peace and security! 

They singled out President Mbeki and demonised him not only for his quiet diplomacy, but also for refusing to cut off vital fuel and food supplies to Zimbabwe, a move which no sane African leader would even contemplate, considering the traumatising legacy of colonialism. 

And they used their hatred for Mugabe to insult the twice-elected Zambian President Levi Mwanawasa, even in death, when the BBC announced “He came to prominence RECENTLY for being one of the African leaders most critical of the violence in Zimbabwe.”

The historic power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe raises these unavoidable questions.  What justification will the British and the European Union use to ignore Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s clarion call “We need the doors to unlocked aid doors.  We need medicine, food, and doctors back in our country?”

Hasn’t Zimbabwe become the first shoot of the African Renaissance, which Thabo Mbeki talked about in 1998? Why can’t the African Union use Zimbabwe as a blueprint to stop western-inspired genocide in Darfur, Somalia and Eastern Congo?

But hasn’t President Thabo Mbeki already secured his place in history as Africa’s Mr Fix It?  

 


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