July 2001 - Gadaffi bids to be leader of Africa*** THE new African Union (AU), launched at a summit of the Organisation of African Unity in Lusaka last week, is to have its own parliament. Indeed, the parliament building has already been built - in Tripoli. For the idea of the AU is being driven by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan president. Now that his long-standing ambitions for an Arab Union have come to nothing, he is hoping to play a central role in a union of African states instead. The organisation promises to respect democracy and good governance more than the OAU ever did. The snag is that its new parliament will sit in a country that allows no opposition, no free elections, free speech or free press.
In March, Gadaffi announced plans for single a African identity and a union under which the boundaries between states would be scrapped, national armies merged and a single passport introduced. Amazingly, this vision seems to have been largely accepted by African leaders. It has also been decided that, besides the parliament, there will be a pan-African court of justice, a central bank and a common currency. Clearly with the aim of flattering Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, Gadaffi has proposed that the first AU summit should be held in Pretoria next year and should elect a president - presumably Mbeki. parliament, there will be a pan-African court of justice, a central bank and a common currency. Clearly with the aim of flattering Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, Gadaffi has proposed that the first AU summit should be held in Pretoria next year and should elect a president - presumably Mbeki. ***
Aligned with Castro and Gaddafi - Mugabe Vows to Defend Zimbabwe from Western 'Bullies' *** HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe vowed on Tuesday to defend his government against Western "bullies" and said Zimbabwe's economic recovery hinged on land redistribution. In a 40-minute speech to open the new parliamentary session, Mugabe made no direct mention of tighter EU sanctions, his media crackdown or any plans for his ZANU-PF party to resume talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Strongly defending his government's right to take possession of white farmers' land, he ignored a boycott of his speech by MDC legislators, who make up just over a third of the assembly.
Outside the southern African state's parliament, there was no sign of a planned protest march by pro-democracy activists after police warnings that the demonstration would be crushed. Mugabe said Zimbabwe, in the grips of its worst economic and political crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, was facing "considerable challenges" from what he called "British machinations" and a regional drought.
The economy is in its fourth year of recession with record high inflation and unemployment and a severe food shortage. "Our sovereignty is constantly under attack from the bullying states ... which seek to use their political and economic prowess to achieve global hegemony," Mugabe said. At 78, Mugabe is a left-winger who counts Cuba's Fidel Castro and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi among his foreign allies. Monday, the European Union extended a blacklist of Zimbabwean officials subjected to a visa ban and asset freeze. The move is aimed at piling more pressure on the country whose human rights record it says has deteriorated since Mugabe's re-election in March. ***
Zimbabwe -- False confidence***Yet still the aid maize pours in, freeing up Mugabe to spend his hard-stolen cash on important things like arms and pay-offs for the army and police and to maintain his stumbling youth brigades. This last is most important: rumour has it that there are a couple of families in Mutorashanga who haven't been beaten senseless for months now and one can't have that kind of sloppiness. Better still, it now transpires that the UNDP now plans to give some Zimbabwean banks (run by Mugabe's cronies) $85m US dollars which they will lend to licensed grain importers (Mugabe's cronies) who will use the money to import food for Mugabe's cronies. Why so complicated? Far simpler just to make cheques payable to Robert Gabriel Mugabe.***
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ONE example of why we MUST NOT lift the embargo (give LOANS) on Castro.
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Zimbabwe -- Libyan spy spills the beans***LIBYAN spy Yousef Murgham, summarily deported from Zimbabwe last week, has revealed startling details of Libya's growing economic and military stranglehold on Zimbabwe, which is immersed in its worst crisis for survival. Murgham's details are revealed in a letter he wrote to President Robert Mugabe before his abrupt deportation to Libya last Thursday amid accusations he was engaged in activities which threatened Zimbabwe's security and interests.***
Zimbabwe -- Beware the U-turn***……….The key to understanding what Mugabe and his Zanu PF party are up to - for blacks as well as whites - is the word**************** "LEASES***************." The ruling party moguls, security force chiefs and 54,000 others getting so-called "model 2" holdings, capable of being farmed on an individual basis, will not be granted the freehold their 5,000 white predecessors had (The first 2,900 seizure and eviction orders fell due on August 9 and scores of whites were detained over the past weekend for defying them, although their constitutional validity is heavily in doubt). At the first sign of political disloyalty the "new farmers", as Mugabe calls them, will be liable to instant eviction.
"Owning land for Britain" means supporting civil society, or talking to human rights groups critical of Zanu PF, or voting for an opposition party. Mugabe showered praise on his ruling party youth militia, now commonly known here as the "Green Bombers". Their fraudulent claims to be ex- guerrillas from the 1972-80 bush war in Rhodesia were exposed in the early days of farm invasions, after the February 2000 constitutional referendum. It was the crushing defeat of Zanu PF in that referendum that caused Mugabe to unleash country-wide violence under cover of agitation for land reform in order to ensure a semblance of victory in the June 2000 parliamentary elections and the March 2002 presidential poll.
This campaign of terror Mugabe calls the "Third Chimurenga" or civil war. "The Third Chimurenga has yielded a New War Veteran: these young men and women who slugged it out on the farms in support of their elder veterans...We are not apologetic about our national youth service programme...it is mandatory, it is national, it links to the politics and defence of our country…It seeks to and will build a new national cadre who is self respecting, adequate, assertive and patriotic and thus does not apologise for being black," he said. Mugabe sees his enemy as "White-ism" - the route `"through which the forces of imperialism and neo-colonialism enter."
Mugabe either does not know that it is impossible to run commercially viable farms on the lord-and-vassal system he is imposing, or feels that the economic costs are more than offset by the blessings of "political stability" (i.e. he gets to stay in power until he can hand over to his children). Commercial agriculture here only prospered by being keenly responsive to world market trends. In the 20 years since the state monopoly, the Minerals Marketing Corporation, was created, millions have been lost through the tardiness of bureaucrats in responding to potential orders - they are paid for loyalty, not for initiative.
Doris Lessing, a founder member of Rhodesia's long defunct Communist party, concedes that her father's Kermanshah Farm at Banket (one of the 2,900 now being seized, although her family sold up 60 years ago) was hopelessly sub-economic at 400 hectares - and those were the days of ox-ploughing. To maintain competitive edge in an age of mechanisation, farmers need security of tenure, title deeds that can be lodged with financial institutions against loans.***