Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Zimbabwe 'President's Stand Historical'

‘President’s stand historical’

Sunday, 09 June 2013 00:00
Lincoln Towindo

President Mugabe is the only leader on the continent in post-independence

Africa who has withstood a combined and illegal onslaught from Western countries bent on enforcing neo-colonialism, editor of popular pan-African news magazine New African Baffour Ankomah has said.

Ankomah, a journalist of more than 30 years, is widely respected for his profound perspective on African issues.

Speaking on Star FM current affairs programme The Hub recently, Ankomah said the current crop of African leaders needs to follow in Zimbabwe’s footsteps and resist Western interference in domestic affairs.

“I have been going around advocating that we do a PhD course on Zimbabwe,” he said.

“How did Zimbabwe survive?

“How has President Mugabe become the only leader in pre- and post-independence Africa who has been able to survive an assault not by one country but the combined might of what are called the nations of European stock?

“All the way from New Zealand coming to Australia, to North America to Europe and he has been able to withstand. So, I have been advocating, everywhere I go, I have said ‘why don’t we do a PhD course where somebody can really go into how Zimbabwe did it’ because I think it’s a model for all other African countries.”

Ankomah said Western countries were always inclined to “remote controlling” African nations in order to exploit their resources.

He said Zimbabwe has stood against hegemony because of a strong contingent of nationalists which always stands by the President.

“My first interview with President Mugabe was about how the West is using the ‘remote control’ to control Africa. They sit in Washington, New York, London, Paris and they are using remote control to control our leadership.

“And that is the problem; we need leaders who can really stand out. I have just done a piece where I am looking at President Mugabe and I am saying if you look at modern African history, and I am talking about pre-independence and post-independence, everybody that the West has attacked has been defeated; even Nkrumah.

“When they attacked Nkrumah in 1960, by 1965 he was gone. It has only been President Mugabe who has been able to stand and he has been able to stand because Zimbabwe has been, 33 years after independence, building up a cartel of nationalists who have been able to stand with the President. At the moment, we don’t have that at all in most of our countries.”

The renowned journalist added that Southern African countries, which have land ownership models skewed in favour of Europeans, should replicate Zimbabwe’s land reform programme in order to repair the historical land distribution imbalances created by colonialism.

He said the West has continued to portray the country’s successful land reform in bad light to dissuade other African nations from replicating the programme.

“The programme (land reform) can be replicated in Southern Africa where the white people decided not to go back where they came from.

“And I am looking at Namibia, South Africa even Kenya, who have their prime land still in the hands of whites. These countries can look at Zimbabwe and replicate what has actually happened here and that is one of the reasons Zimbabwe has had to suffer (for).

“You have become some kind of sacrificial lamb for Namibia and South Africa because I can’t quite remember: 2001, about two weeks after 9/11, I was invited to attend some conference somewhere around Frankfurt in Germany and the subject of the conference was Zimbabwe.

“They had actually invited Tendai Biti and some of these guys who couldn’t turn up, but they didn’t invite anybody for Zanu-PF.

“Apparently, the organisers, having read many things I had written about Zimbabwe, thought I could stand in for the Government, so I asked them: ‘Why didn’t you invite anybody from Zanu-PF?’.

“They said they didn’t even bother to. From that conference I got the inkling. The next day when we were walking from the hotel to the conference room, one of the organisers who was walking with me said and this is his quote, ‘We will never allow Mugabe and Zanu-PF to continue the way they are doing.’

“And I didn’t quite understand what he meant until I arrived in Namibia and found out that they even have a worse system than here. I remember last year I was in Namibia and I went out from Windhoek to Gobabis some 200km and I was travelling with an official from Swapo who told me,

‘Look, Baffour, in Namibia we the black people own the tarred road and the air.

“‘Looking at both sides of the road you will see fence and all these places are occupied by German people and so Germany will not allow Mugabe and Zanu-PF to go on the way they were going because any success in Zimbabwe would impact on their people in Namibia who are settling on the land of black people.’”

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