 People rally in support of Robert Mugabe. Photo: Reuters/Howard Burditt |
Since winning independence from colonialism in 1980, Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front has led the country. In the April 2005 elections, ZANU-PF won 78 seats in parliament compared to 41 seats for its rival, the U.S.-backed Movement for Democratic Change. One additional seat went to an independent. Under the constitution, the president appoints 30 more seats to the 150-seat parliament.
The imperialists have been increasingly hostile to the ruling ZANU-PF over the past decade. The United States, the European Union and Australian governments have unleashed propaganda campaigns against the ZANU-PF government, charging the government with corruption and repression. For example, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently dubbed Zimbabwe an “outpost of tyranny.”
Since the elections in Zimbabwe, the imperialist countries have accused Mugabe and the ZANU-PF of electoral fraud and vote tampering. But observers from around the world monitored the elections and declared them free and fair.
Observers representing the Organization of African Unity and other observers endorsed the results. OAU observer and South African Minister of Labor Membathisi Mdladlana stated, “It is the view of the mission that the 2005 parliamentary election in Zimbabwe reflects the free will of the people of Zimbabwe.” (Agence France Presse, South Africa Accepts Zimbabwe Elections Outcome, April 2, 2005) Mr. Mdladlana led the observer mission for the elections. There were no reports of violence during the elections or after the results were announced.
Self-determination and the land
The hostility toward Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF government on the part of the imperialist countries is deep-rooted.
The hostility stems first and foremost from the fact that Zimbabwe’s government has its origin in the armed struggle that ended the Western-backed racist, fascist settler regime. U.S. and British opposition to the government reached a crescendo as the Mugabe government moved to confiscate and redistribute the commercial agricultural land owned by white farmers. This land constituted 70 percent of the country’s prime farmlands.
White colonial settlers initially stole the land from the indigenous African population when they colonized Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was then called by the British, in the late 1800s. They held onto these farms after the white minority regime of Ian Smith declared independence from Britain in 1965.
Later that year, politically advanced sectors of the majority Black population launched a national liberation struggle. During the war, two mass organizations emerged as leaders of the anti-imperialist struggle. ZANU, headed by Robert Mugabe, was based among peasants who lived on the land away from the cities. The other organization, the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union, was headed by Joshua Nkomo. It was stronger in the cities and towns. The two organizations eventually joined to form the Patriotic Front for the purpose of defeating the racist Rhodesian state.
In the armed struggle against the Rhodesian government, ZANU emerged as the more powerful force. At that time, ZAPU favored a more conciliatory approach toward Britain, the former colonial power.
In the late 1970s, the racist government of Rhodesia, having become hopelessly isolated by the armed struggle and world public opinion that supported the revolution, entered into negotiations with the Zimbabwe liberation forces. The negotiations resulted in the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement. This in turn laid the basis for the 1980 constitution of the newly established government of Zimbabwe.
Land to the people
The aim of the imperialist-sponsored negotiations was to prevent a thoroughgoing social revolution that would have completely expropriated the vast holdings of the tiny, racist ruling elite.
The constitution was supposed to address the redistribution of the land stolen by the colonists by setting up a way for the government or Black peasants to purchase land from white farmers. It was not sufficient. Its mechanism for distribution was premised on having money, but the newly established government of Zimbabwe had few financial resources, since the people had suffered under colonial rule for over one hundred years.
To put this struggle in context, it is important to note that the white settler elite constituted less than one percent of the population and owned 30 percent of the land, or 70 percent of all prime farmland.
For some years after independence, Zimbabwe was not in a position to pressure the white settlers to give up the lands. After seven years of independence, only 40,000 of 162,000 Black peasants who applied for land had been resettled.
In an attempt to rectify this problem, the Land Acquisition Bill was drafted and passed by a two-thirds majority in Parliament in 1992. The bill aimed at acquiring large-scale, white-owned commercial farmland. This would be redistributed to the majority of landless Black war veterans living in the most desperate conditions.
The bill stated that it was the responsibility of the British government to pay compensation to the whites for the land repossession.
In 1997, Mugabe supported the confiscation and redistribution of the agricultural lands.
The radical land distribution has met significant resistance from the white owners. They petitioned Zimbabwe’s high court to retain their hold on the commercial property, but were handed a resounding legal defeat. Last November, the court ruled that the Land Acquisition Amendment Act was legal and the public interests override the white farmers’ private interests.
“We have not sought to quarrel with any nation,” said Mugabe. “We have no other ambition than to remain sovereign as we cooperate and respect the sovereignty of others.
“It cannot be the rule of law that is the matter, for here they massacred thousands as they colonized our country and pillaged our resources. We cannot be a nation worth its name if we succumb to and acquiesce in the sheer erosion of our sovereignty.” (Gregory Elich, Centre for Research on Globalization, May 6, 2005)
The imperialists have spread lies about this redistribution since it began. They say that recent food shortages in Zimbabwe were the result of land seizures. This racist notion implies that Black farmers cannot manage or make productive the commercial farmland after receiving it from the former colonist owners.
But the truth is that the overwhelming majority of white farms raised crops for export, which directly profited the white farmers and had little impact on internal food consumption.
Land reform in Zimbabwe was meant not only to remedy the injustice of colonial theft, but also to reduce poverty and contribute to the economic progress of the nation.
 The Mugabe government has been condemned by imperialist governments for land reforms, which are supported by the Black population. Photo: Hugh Bennett |
In response to the land redistribution, the U.S. government and the European Union placed what they call “smart sanctions” on President Robert Mugabe and other members of the government leadership in 2001. They are now threatening to use the “fraud” claims around the April elections to widen the sanctions.
The U.S. and British government are following a well-rehearsed destabilization script. Their campaign is remarkably similar to what was used in Iraq, Haiti, Panama, Nicaragua and wherever else the imperialists have sought to destabilize governments in preparation for their overthrow and replacement with puppet regimes. Today the propaganda campaign is focused on the allegation that ZANU-PF is corrupt and has “mishandled” the economy. After using every economic tool imaginable to impoverish Zimbabwe, the Bush administration officials now insist that they are defending the interests of average people in Zimbabwe from the government’s so-called failed economic policies.
There have been serious impediments in Zimbabwe’s post-colonial development. But these are mostly due to the drag on the economy from Western sanctions and because of the serious AIDS crisis and droughts. The two latter problems are endemic throughout southern Africa.
Any existing economic impediments have been compounded by restrictions instituted by the imperialist-run World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the British Commonwealth of Nations. They are trying to re-impose the colonial stranglehold of the past through economic means.
But the government and the people are preparing to resist. The ZANU-PF government is preparing military and civilian defenses, in addition to seizing land from colonial settlers and taking measures to improve the economy. Through its mass organizations, ZANU-PF has begun to arm the people of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has a capable military that benefited from key training and assistance from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. There is no better protection from intervention than arms in the hands of people fighting for their class and national interests.
The liberation of Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa from the yoke of colonialism and racist white rule was a historic achievement. But as long as the imperialists continue to interfere on the continent, no one in Africa will truly be free. The African liberation struggle is continuing. The resistance by the government and people of Zimbabwe to the dictates of the United States and Britain is part of that struggle.
“Through our land reform program, we have raised the banner of Africa’s second struggle, the struggle for her economic emancipation,” declared Mugabe. “That is the core of the second African revolution, indeed, of the rebirth of Africa.” (Gregory Elich, Centre for Research on Globalization, May 6, 2005)
