SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

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DAILY HERITAGE WEDNESDAY , SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
The Mugabe Africans will remember
BY KOBBY GOMEZ-MENSAH
DEATH, THE inevitable,
finally visited
the man who
over the last couple
of decades dominated
headlines not just in Africa but
also in the West, China, India and even
Russia for very many reasons. Little
has been heard from the courageous,
fearless, sharp and straight shooting
tongue of Uncle Bob since the coup
of November 2017. Africa lost its last
voice in the liberation and emancipation
struggle.
The mutiny by the enemy within
that took control of the nation to rapturous
celebrations not only across the
country but also within western corridors
of power as well as human frailty
took its toll.
The expeditious congratulatory
messages from many western leaders
were not in the least shocking. Alas,
the only African leader who said it as
it is and told them to the face has been
shamefully removed. Within a matter
of hours, promises of supporting former
Rhodesia to restore its lost glory
were dangled in the atmosphere to
give Zimbabweans an impression that
his exit marked the beginning of their
socio-economic liberation. Robert
Mugabe, the sole reason for watching
the country’s economy to disintegrate
under sanctions for nearly two
decades, had been hung to dry. Therefore
all celebrated.
Zimbabweans
In that euphoria following his
overthrow, many Zimbabweans cursed
their former leader for sitting on their
individual and collective progress.
Months before his toppling, his wife
Grace, who had assumed godly status,
schemed with the longest-lasting icon
of the continent’s liberation struggle
to inflict pain on many citizens.
Mugabe had been completely
blinded by the power he had held on
to for nearly four decades. Dissenting
voices were crushed with the heaviest
of punishments; opponents were brutally
tamed and members of his government
who opposed his wife’s
meteoric rise to political prominence
simply risked being exterminated. In
fact, that would become the final
straw.
Finally, Mugabe was removed by a
junta he created, nurtured, resourced
and unleashed to visit cruelty on his
people, people he vowed to protect
and defend. He had become the
proverbial cannibal, eating his own
kin. But as the famous Ghanaian saying
goes, “there is no gain in severing
one’s tongue and roasting it for meat.”
The more voices as he clamped down
on to protect Grace, the more fearlessly
others spoke up knowing what
could befall them. The raw terror visited
on his people is believed to have
eroded all the gains made for the
nearly two generations of leadership
that even his fiercest critics admit
started pretty well and is credited with
the high rate of education that make
Zimbabweans the most educated
African population.
Uncle Bob’s determination to bequeath
to all generations of Zimbabweans
a quality education is what I
choose to celebrate. Zimbabweans,
whether in Africa or diaspora, demonstrate
the essence of education. No
wonder many are quick to mention the
number of academic laurels awarded
the fallen hero. As a Ghanaian, I see
his stint with my country’s education
that influenced his interest in same
makes him an icon worth celebrating.
At the time of his surrender, even citizens
who celebrated his removal
praised the education he gave them.
Educating his people
Mugabe knew that by educating his
people, he was arming them with gifts
he himself could not deprive them of
in future. But he did not quibble with
it. He rolled out educational opportunities
and ensured that majority of his
population was enrolled. No wonder
when he became a tyrant, the educated
in the country took him on, courting
his displeasure and sometimes leading
to their incarceration.
The question is if Mugabe were
a monster, would he invest heavily
and deliberately to ensure his people’s
education? My guess is something
hard to give! Mugabe, like
any leader, was intoxicated by the
absoluteness of the power he
wielded with the backing of the
military. His army of comrades
was willing to keep him in power
to oil their own wheels. I remember
a BBC ‘Focus on Africa’ interview
before the election that
culminated in power sharing with
the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai. An information minister
said: “There was no one capable
of replacing Robert Mugabe in
the Zimbabwe African National
Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-
PF)”. I was dumbfounded but in
these parts, where many are willing
to sell their mothers in pursuit of
political power, maybe one shouldn’t
be shocked after all.
Since his death was announced
two weeks ago, many westerners are
quick to point to the economic decay
of Zimbabwe at the time of Mugabe’s
overthrow.
Land seizures
The land seizures often find space
in their criticisms but hardly any mention
of the history of how unfair the
original Land Act of 1970 was to the
indigenes. Again, the impact of economic
sanctions on the deterioration
of the southern African country’s
economy seems lost on these analysts.
The truth is no economy under sanctions
thrives. Cuba, Venezuela, Iran,
Libya and Sudan are enough to confirm
this theory. Countries placed
under sanctions become distressed
with their economies the hardest hit.
Those able to contain the shocks are
oil-rich nations but that is only for a
while. Oil-rich Venezuela caved in
after a while under US (Western) sanctions.
In simple terms, nations under
this spell are subjected to the sort of
scrutiny that prevents foreign direct
investment which is critical for
economies the world over; therefore
discussing the Zimbabwean crisis
without regard for these obvious setbacks
is plainly disingenuous.
Mugabe had been completely
blinded by the
power he had held on to
for nearly four decades.
Dissenting voices were
crushed with the heaviest
of punishments; opponents
were brutally
tamed and members of
his government who opposed
his wife’s meteoric
rise to political
prominence simply
risked being exterminated.
In fact, that
would become the final
straw.
Liberation struggle
Suggestions that Mugabe was violent
during the liberation struggle,
coming from white commentators
who sought to protect their interest,
looked the other way or were just
from unconcerned observers of the
blood spill and these are ludicrous.
They deliberately ignore Ian Smith’s
ruthlessness towards black Rhodesians
which resulted in the killing of scores
of black Zimbabweans.
Not only did Smith unilaterally declare
independence from Britain but
he also rigged the election that put
him in charge of Southern Rhodesia
with white minority votes over seven
times the majority’s share of votes.
White votes totalled 89,594 against
12,664 black votes, while the rest of
the black population was consulted
through tribal and village chiefs who
depended on the government for their
salaries.
His Land Tenure Act of 1970 also
split the country’s land almost equally
between 240,000 whites and about 5
million blacks, allocating 44 million
acres to whites and 45.2 million acres
to blacks. But talk of Mugabe’s land
reform has overshadowed this grave
injustice to humanity done to the indigenous
population before real independence
in 1980.
Smith’s cruelty was likened to
Hitler’s Nazism by former Prime
Minister Garfield Todd (1953 to
1958), who was later detained by
Smith under house arrest during the
latter’s premiership. His only crime
was supporting black rights and involving
them in running their heritage.
In fact, Smith, then his deputy,
ousted PM Winston Field on the accusation
that he was unable to secure
independence in 1962.
His rise to power
His rise to power is similar to
Mnangagwa’s rise to power, except
that this time the blacks were running
their own affairs. Smith’s viciousness
as Zimbabweans
relentlessly pursued self-governance
took over 27,000 innocent lives. But
many white commentators are quick
to conveniently blame them on the
split between Robert Mugabe and
fellow black Zimbabwean in the independence
struggle, Joshua Nkomo,
who, despite their differences, was invited
to the post-independence government.
As was evident in many independence
struggles, the opposition is never
offered an olive branch at the point of
freedom, but Mugabe shied away from
that before the subsequent fallout.
Not only did he run an inclusive
regime of blacks, but he also invited
whites in the country to help rebuild it
at independence after the Lancaster
House agreement in London paved
the way for his triumphant return to
his motherland to lead the country. Of
course the death of 10,000 to 30,000
Ndebeles in Matabeleland, mainly supporters
of Nkomo’s Zimbabwe
African People’s Union (ZAPU) is regrettable
and must be condemned.
Even though we are told that the USbased
Genocide Watch classified the
Matabeleland bloodbath as genocide,
they turned a blind eye due to economic
progress at the time. If they
meant well, Mugabe should have faced
the law for genocide, but it was convenient
because he was a trusted ally.
Queen of England
The irony is that the Queen of
England, after a decade of such gross
human rights violations, appointed
Mugabe as an honorary Knight Grand
Crossing the Order of Bath when the
latter visited the UK in 1994. This honour
was bestowed on Mugabe, knowing
fully well that Gukurahundi – the
rain that washes away the chaff, before
the spring rains – was a government
policy against Nkomo’s ethnic group.
Cables from Harare to London and
other western capitals indicated their
government’s deep knowledge of the
atrocities. But as usual, they only
sought to protect their interests.
One such cable reported
noted: Zimbabwe is important to us
primarily because of major British and
western economic and strategic interests
in southern Africa, and Zimbabwe’s
pivotal position there. Other
important interests are investment
(800 million pounds) and trade (120
million pound export in 1982), Lancaster
House prestige, and the need to
avoid a mass white exodus. Zimbabwe
offers scope to influence the outcome
of the agonising South Africa problem;
and is a bulwark against Soviet inroads…
Zimbabwe’s scale facilitates
effective external influence on the outcome
of Zimbabwe experiment, despite
occasional Zimbabwean
perversity.
Attitude towards
human rights
The content of the cables explains
Great Britain’s ‘see no evil’ attitude towards
human rights violations in their
African colonies. If it does not touch
its nerves, it is willing to turn a blind
eye regardless of the scale of abuse.
No wonder the land reform policy,
one that bruised a raw nerve, elicited
those rapid responses from western
governments. The fear that British and
western interests in Zimbabwe were
threatened could not be fathomed.
Taking land from white farmers as
Mugabe did led to massive exodus of
whites. The so-called strategic economic
interest was threatened, so
Zimbabwe could be in ruins for all
they cared.
Yes, Mugabe became a tyrant long
before the land reforms but for as
long as he did not tinker with western
stakes, he could do as he pleased. One
can conveniently say they helped create
the monstrosity of Mugabe’s leadership.
As they admit that even though
they observed this monster hatching,
they saw no malice in the brutalities.
Zimbabwean economy
Another song parroted by the
western allies and their agents is that
the Zimbabwean economy was in tatters.
Of course it was! How was the
economy supposed to survive when
the US and the EU were plainly strangling
it to death? Though the US sanctions
were targeted at 141 individuals
and organisations, they were far-reaching
and stripped the economy to its
marrow.
Kobby Gomez-Mensah is a
Ghanaian jour nalist with research
interest in African democracy, good
governance and human rights.