ZIMBABWE: Land redistribution & Western sanctions

• Part 1. The rise of colonialism in Africa
• Part 2. On Somalia and Sudan

Abayomi Azikiwe Photo: Patricia Lay-Dorsey

The following is the third and final installment from a talk entitled “A review of developments in Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe and the role of the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament/ Aspects of the politics of contemporary Africa in the era of continuing imperialism” delivered at a Detroit Workers World public meeting on Feb. 10 by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire.

Azikiwe is a co-founder of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI). He can be heard on radio weekly on WDTW, 1310 AM, on Sundays from 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. in Detroit. In Toronto, he can be heard on Thursdays on CKLN, 88.1 FM, from 9:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. This broadcast can be heard online at www.ckln.fm

The talk was dedicated to the memory of the late Mama Adelaide Tambo, the African National Congress Women’s League leader and widow of the late Oliver R. Tambo, longtime acting president of the ANC while Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa.

Britain was also the nation that colonized Zimbabwe during the last decade of the 19th century. Mutapa was an ancient kingdom in Zimbabwe which has been traced back to the 15th century. By the 19th century the kingdoms of Matebeleland and Mashonaland ruled most of what is known today as Zimbabwe.

There were strong efforts aimed at anti-colonial resistance led by Lobengula of Matebeleland and Nehanda and Kagubi of the Mashonas. However, the use of superior weapons by the British resulted in the consolidation of a vicious colonial system in what became known as Rhodesia (named after Cecil Rhodes).

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the people of Zimbabwe launched an armed struggle to overturn the settler-colonial system. The British settlers ostensibly broke with the mother country and proclaimed a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965.

The act of defiance angered the Pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist government of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, which broke diplomatic relations with Britain over its refusal to put down the rebellion in Rhodesia. Nkrumah was overthrown in a Central Intelligence Agency backed coup in February of 1966 after he had taken such a strong position over the Rhodesia question.

Prior to the granting of national independence to Zimbabwe in 1980, both the United Kingdom and the United States had agreed to provide monetary assistance for a major land redistribution program in Zimbabwe. The debate over land reform would intensify in Zimbabwe during the 1990s after no assistance from the western nations was materializing. In 1998, when the government of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriot Front (ZANU-PF) under President Robert Mugabe made it clear that there would be radical land re-distribution sooner than later inside the country, a series of political attacks were launched against this southern African nation.

White land owners, who were citizens of Zimbabwe but at the same time held British passports, joined in with opponents of the Zimbabwe government to form the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). This organization saw the existence of the ZANU-PF government as the main problem in Zimbabwe.

With funding from the U.S. and Britain, the MDC embarked upon a disruption campaign aimed at derailing the land redistribution program. A series of strikes launched by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the MDC were designed to further weaken the country economically.

The U.S., Britain and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe. After the country withstood two major attempts during election campaigns in 2000 and 2002 to overturn the ZANU-PF government, these Western imperialist nations set out to isolate Zimbabwe.

They pressured the government of President Thabo Mbeki in South Africa to place a blockade on Zimbabwe. The South African government under the leadership of the African National Congress refused to establish a blockade of Zimbabwe and instead extended the country a loan that prevented a further deepening of its economic problems.

Despite the attempts by the West to cripple Zimbabwe and topple the government of President Mugabe, the nation has survived. They have developed a “Look East” policy aimed at increasing trade with nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The land redistribution program in Zimbabwe has sparked vigorous debate in both South Africa and Namibia, where similar situations exist with Europeans still controlling most of the arable and mineral-rich land years after national independence.

The African Union (AU) was established in 2003 in an effort to implement the Nkrumaist vision of a unified African continent. The Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was formed in May of 1963, had agreed to dissolve in favor of a more effective continental organization that would move towards a continental assembly, a peacekeeping force, a single currency and transport and communications systems.

The AU has been involved in the conflicts in the Horn of Africa between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Darfur conflict in Sudan, the situations in Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The current chair of the AU, John Kufour, gained the seat because the controversy in Western circles surrounding the Darfur conflict prevented President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan from taking the seat for two years in a row. Consequently, the AU faces the same challenges as the former OAU with persistent interference by the U.S. in the internal affairs of African nations.

The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) based in Midrand, South Africa, was established by the AU in 2004. Its ultimate aim is to become a continental-wide legislative body that will be elected by popular vote. The president of the Pan-African Parliament is Gertrude Ibengwe-Mongella of Tanzania.

In order for both the AU and the PAP to become political forces in the international community, it will require an independent foreign policy on the part of significant numbers of African governments. Alliances with U.S. imperialism have proven to be extremely detrimental to African states. The role of Ethiopia and Kenya in the U.S.-backed invasion and occupation of Somalia will have long term implications for these East African nations.

An article released recently by the Guardian newspaper in London states that the Pentagon has established an African Command called “Africom.” This is designed to intensify U.S. military operations on the continent. Africa’s role as an oil supplier to the U.S. and other Western imperialist nations will create potential conflict within African states.

The formidable resistance in Iraq against the American occupation will be sparked in Africa at an even greater level if the Americans pursue their plans of re-colonizing the continent. Africa has a long tradition of waging successful popular and armed struggles against colonial forces including Portugal, France, Britain, the Boers in South Africa, Italy and the U.S. in Angola and Somalia.

The anti-war movement must be equipped politically to take on the challenges of U.S. foreign policy aims in Africa as well as other parts of the world including Latin America, North Korea, Iran, China and the Caribbean. A broader and deeper study of the ever increasing role of the U.S. in oil exploration and trade in Africa as well as the attempt to stifle independent political initiatives such as the Union of Islamic Courts movement in Somalia must be a main focus of attention.

The $620 billion to $716 billion estimated annual defense budget in the U.S., which is greater than all other nations combined, should be utilized to solve the problems of hunger, homelessness, health care, racism, education and senior services. When people in the U.S. begin to focus their attention on solving the national and international crises of poverty and inequality, then perhaps the declining image of the world’s most powerful imperialist nation will change. It is up to the people of this country and the world to fight against all attempts to re-impose colonialism and reverse the course of history.

Distributed by: The Pan-African Research and Documentation Center, 50 SCB Box 47, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202; e-mail: [email protected]

• Part 1. The rise of colonialism in Africa
• Part 2. On Somalia and Sudan