Leaving Africa for Africans is the first time that Mugabe's ever been right.
Posted on 04/18/2005 6:29:43 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
President Robert Mugabe celebrated 25 years of independence yesterday by telling the West to stay out of Zimbabwe's elections and leave Africa to the Africans.
After four new Chinese jets flew over the National Sports Stadium on the outskirts of Harare, Mr Mugabe said Zimbabwe no longer needed "Anglo-American validation" for last month's general election, which gave his ruling Zanu-PF a landslide majority.
Observer groups from the European Union and other western countries were barred from monitoring the March 31 poll, but South Africa and other African observers said the elections reflected the "will of the people".
"We have turned east, where the sun rises, and given our back to the west, where the sun sets," Mr Mugabe told the crowd of 40,000, some of whom were in the stadium to see a football match after the celebrations ended.
Absent from the silver jubilee gathering was Mr Mugabe's most important supporter, the South African president Thabo Mbeki, as well as Armando Guebuza, the newly elected president of another neighbouring country, Mozambique.
Also absent from official functions to mark Zimbabwe's birth were any members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, even though many of its older leaders were involved in the war for independence.
The five-year-old MDC won 41 out of 120 parliamentary seats in the elections three weeks ago. Mr Mugabe can appoint a further 30 non-constituency MPs.
The MDC has been hounded by Mr Mugabe's security forces and the largely partisan justice system since they came within three seats of winning a parliamentary majority in the 2000 election. Mr Mugabe, 81, who now has a two-thirds majority in parliament, is expected to amend the constitution to extend his period of office by a further three years to 2010.
The president has bankrupted the country, but he preferred to devote much of his 35-minute address to the past, recalling a century of British colonialism and the bush war that claimed about 30,000 lives and forced the former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith to negotiate the end of white rule. "We proclaim our pan-African spirit, stressing we shall never be a colony again."
Mr Mugabe said that although Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 it did not control the country's wealth, "above or deep in the land". He said the confiscation of about 4,500 white-owned commercial farms in the past five years had resolved the "long outstanding land question". He said seizure of the farms had made "our people happy and contented and that is all that matters".
Commercial agriculture provided about 40 per cent of Zimbabwe's foreign currency, which collapsed as more and more white farmers were evicted from what was some of Africa's most productive land.
Mr Mugabe made no mention of the deepening poverty of Zimbabweans, nor that he needs to import immediately hundreds of thousands of tons of maize from South Africa. The staple food, maize meal, is no longer available except on the black market.
Mr Mugabe was applauded abroad for his statesmanship and generosity at independence in 1980 when he offered reconciliation to Rhodesia's whites who had locked him up for 10 years, had refused to allow blacks the vote or equal education, and denied them access to land ownership in the most fertile parts of the country.
"If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you," Mr Mugabe said at the time. "Is it not folly, therefore, that in these circumstances anybody should seek to revive the wounds and grievances of the past?" The contrast could not be greater between his speech yesterday and his address to the nation as the first democratically elected prime minister 25 years ago.
A few months after independence Mr Mugabe told a group of white farmers at a closed meeting in Chinhoyi, about 60 miles north of Harare: "You will need shock absorbers as you will hear many things about yourselves, but just keep going."
They responded to his comforting message and expanded until reaching 40 per cent of foreign currency earnings. Economic growth was breathtaking and Mr Mugabe invested heavily in social services. As these advances were going on, Mr Mugabe made it clear he wanted a one-party state.
Having effectively crushed all internal opposition, he has created a new enemy in the form of the British prime minister. His recent election campaign slogan was "the anti-Blair vote", and he said yesterday that he would not "interfere in Britain's internal affairs as Mr Blair has done in Zimbabwe".
Does that include the billions of dollars "the west" sends in food, medical aid and supplies?
Independent is independent. They may get what they wish for and regret it.
Leaving Africa to Africans is fine by me. That should mean no more Western aid, including aid through the UN, World Bank, IMF or NGO's. Independence means being independent.
They should get what they wish for. They may regret asking for it.
Bet everything you own that Mugabe has a bazillion lines of "fine print" below his "declaration of independence" that includes all the material goods and money "interference" the west *is* allowed to indulge in.
Leaving Africa for Africans is the first time that Mugabe's ever been right.
I propose a deal. The West leaves Africa to the Africans, and the Africans stop blaming the West for their problems.
Funny how you refer to 'they'. Mugabe is a brutal dictator who has repeatedly crushed the opposition. What does the rest of the world do - NOTHING.
I seem to recall a speech about the US standing with those who stand for democracy. To bad that once again it is only talk and no action...
Sounds good to me.
We tried to leave Africa to the Africans and now half of them are dead from AIDS and civil war.
I'd love to leave Africa to the Africans.
"Enter At Your Own Risk"
We should send Jesse over there to make his life uncomfortable. Africans deserve freedom, too.
Maybe we should take that away and let Oprah and the others support Africa; since she is alledgely dances with Mugabe. Maybe she is at the celebration now.
Believe me, Mr Mugabe, I would like nothing better than to leave the rest of the world outside the Anglosphere to drown in an ocean of corruption, savagery, and squalor.
Total, public disengagement and isolation from these thugocracies would remove their political crutch of blaming the West in General and the US in particular for all their problems. We "apologize" for any past "wrongs", and tell them we leave them in peace to pursue their own destinies.
Then, we sit back and watch those societies self-destruct from our spy satellites, while minding our own business and doing what we do best, and that's build wealth for ourselves and our children.
Let the Third World burn.
But a moment ago he was telling westerners to leave Africa to the Chinese. I think it is the latter.
Ahhh yes, slaughter in Rwanda -- the legacy of Madeline Albright.
Suits me.
If they quit blowing mega-bucks on Africa maybe our taxes will drop.
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