Thread: Mugabe: Mea maxima culpa

Get real, my people - the man has dragged us Africans down the gutter. A revolutionary? A true African? A son of the soil of our Continent? A great leader? An example to future generations? The dear leader?

I think not.

Not soon, but eventually we will realise the folly, the short-sightedness, the foolishness of having supporting him and ZANU-PF's blind, brutal and destructive pursuit of political power - because that, and only that, is what the 2nd and 3rd Chimurengas were all about: Nothing else.

Mark my words.

Here's what I think is a very good analysis published in South Africa's Business Day about the blind hero-worship of Mugabe and it shows why we all in the regin will stand to lose a lot of we continue to stick with him:

Kofi Bentil

AFRICAN leaders meeting their European Union (EU) counterparts in Lisbon this weekend are supposed to represent our future, but when it comes to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe they are stuck in an ideological time warp: Mugabe is a freedom fighter and Zimbabwe is a victim of western depredations, including the threats to boycott the meeting.

Democratically elected Ghanaian President John Kufuor, chairman of the African Union (AU), recently observed: "When the leader of the opposition gets beaten up, for good or ill, naturally all concerned should be worried." At least Mugabe is honest: "Some are crying that they were beaten. Yes you will be thoroughly beaten. When the police say move, you move. If you don't move, you invite the police to use force," he said about trade union activists arrested last year.

Paralysed by hero worship, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in August supported Mugabe's claims of a UK plot, our heads of state gave Mugabe a podium and a standing ovation in Kenya in May, most of them backed Zimbabwe's cruelly ironic election to the United Nations (UN) Commission on Sustainable Development this year, and the whole AU boycotted a 2003 summit with the EU because Mugabe was excluded.

Their pretext is the sacred mantra of noninterference and respecting sovereignty -- meaning the sovereignty of ruling cliques, not of long-suffering citizens.

Our leaders have to recognise that Mugabe is not an ideological dictator in the mould of their heroes -- Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia or Milton Obote in Uganda -- nor even like ideologues such as Hitler, Stalin or his own hero, Kim Il-sung: he is a straightforward kleptocrat determined to hold on to power at any cost.

Even the democratic African leaders, including Kufuor and Thabo Mbeki, like to hear Mugabe blaming the west for Zimbabwe's and all our ills, as he did in Nairobi at May's Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) summit.

He was applauded for complaining about commodity prices being fixed by the west, although free markets do not fix prices in the way that African governments fix prices and monopolise commodity sales.

SADC leaders in Lusaka even backed Mugabe's claim that Zimbabwe is a victim of economic sanctions although the only measures, by the EU and the US, are travel and financial restrictions on about 130 members of the ruling clique (in fact, the UK is the second-biggest provider of humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe).

Many also shared Mugabe's economically ignorant call for self-sufficiency. No developed country is self-sufficient in commodities (nor even most manufactured products) and we Africans cannot live on a diet of cocoa beans and tea: selling it is much more profitable.

Manufacturing and adding value are great economic aims but they do not happen successfully by government decree -- right now, Africans suffer heavy import tariffs for essential inputs (such as fertiliser) and medicines, state control of exports, lack of property rights, obstacles to private enterprise and a corrupt bureaucracy. Yet our leaders do not accept that the key to our future is allowing our people to create wealth: we cannot free ourselves from poverty without economic freedoms such as property rights, the rule of law and free markets.

But the Mugabe version remains attractive because we all like to believe that our failures are someone else's fault. And Mugabe remains in power after 27 years. Neither SA's "quiet diplomacy" nor western restrictions on money-laundering can influence a man cocooned in delusions and treated with deference by his neighbours.

Our new crop of elected African leaders, blithely talking of an African renaissance, should be emboldened by their own democratic authority to face up to people such as Mugabe (and the leaders of Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia). They should make Mugabe unwelcome at meetings such as the EU-Africa summit and put legal pressure on him by consensus, as west African leaders did to force out Charles Taylor in Liberia.

Our leaders managed to evade any action at the recent Commonwealth summit because Zimbabwe is no longer a member, but the AU-EU summit puts Mugabe centre stage: he has confirmed he will go and Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed his boycott.

They should heed the call of Ghanaian former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who said recently: "Africans must guard against a pernicious, self-destructive form of racism that unites citizens to rise up and expel tyrannical rulers who are white, but to excuse tyrannical rulers who are black."

Before embarrassing themselves again, our leaders must come to their senses and join the huge majority of Africans who reject the barbaric Mugabe: by embracing economic freedoms to save their own countries, they would offer hope to Zimbabweans for the day after Mugabe.

Bentil is a lecturer at Ashesi University, Ghana, and a business strategy consultant.

You are right, give the man a break. Now I understand it much better. Its not Mugabe thats to blame, its the police force of Zimbabwe. They beat the people up. Also a common thing of police officers beating up blacks.

Get real, we, blacks and coloureds are use to be beaten up by police officers. Not so long ago the army were helping them. The police are alowed to shoot un armed blacks and coloureds. Every where the same, in France police officers beat and kill blacks, in USA its no better, in Germany they do it and here in England too. Where is the problem?

There is no problem if blacks are beaten up or killed by the police or the army. Mugabe were in jail before, Nelson Mandela were in jail before, the late Kwami Nkrumah, the Messiah, the Christ of our day were in jail, Herman Toivo ya Toivo were in jail, Diallo Telli, a distinguised Guinean diplomat, who had served as the first secretary-general of the Orginisation of African Unity spent his last months of his life in prison, ... Haile Selassie were imprisoned and he died a prisoner on 27 August 1975, ... Stephan Bantu Biko died in prison in South Africa. Alan Boesak was in prison, Ben Ulenga was a prisoner, Ken Saro-Wiwa was held in detention for nine months, without access to lawyers, before being charged with incitement to murder. He was then brought before a special tribunal, consisting of two judges and a military officer, with no right of appeal. He denied the charge and no credible evidence was ever produced linking him to the murders. Neverthless, he was found guilty and, along with eight other defendants, sentenced to death.

I was in prison, prisons are make for us blacks and coloureds. We are use to the torture and the killings of our people by our people and the whites. This is part of being an African. The blood that spills on the soil of a few thousand whites are nothing to compare with the millions of blacks and coloureds, that has paid the highest price for Africa and for freedom. Open your eyes, people. You might be next, talk now, when you can still talk. Warn them now, if they have not been warned before.

Stop the killings, stop the torture, stop the brutal ways on making us silence.

When will this come to an end. How long will they kill our people, while we stand a side and look. Bring the conspirators before court. Bring Nujoma to the International Criminal Court, to explain what has happened to our brothers, our sisters, our friends.

Brother, you walked the walk, now you can talked the talk. This is so true what you said. Prisons have been build for us and the people of Nothern Ireland, that are not free yet.

Nevertheless, its about time having regard to Article 48 of the Statute of the Court and to Article 31, 44 and 47 of the Rules of Court, become applicable to Sam Shafishuna Nujoma, Salomon "Jesus" Hawalah and the SWAPO leadership, in due time. Just be patient.

We need to file Application with the Registry of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, whereby we, the people of the Republic of Namibia, instituted proceedings against the SWAPO leadership and individuals who are in dispute for serious violations of international law, which they had committed on Namibians during the so-called "liberation struggle of Namibia".

We must work together with the Breaking the Wall of Silence Group, The Workers Revolutionary Party Members, The Parents Commitee, The Centre for International Human Rights, and other Groups not mentioned here. Our vast network with support groups such as Nordrhein-Westfalen Flüchtlingsrat, Essen, Deutsche Stiftung für UNO -Fluchtlingshilfe .V., Bonn, Deutsches Rotes Kreuz, Berlin, UNHCR, Berlin, ect., are growing dayly.

Remember racism has many faces.

If this has nothing to do with you, then please stay out of this.

No need to mess things up with violence, no need at all. We have enough people who know that justice will prevail. The answers to our problems is in the International Criminal Court.

My people of Namibia, you have suffered and pain enough. This is the time, when we remember the empty seats around the Christmas table, some chairs will be empty for ever. When you gather-together around the circle, we want you to know, that we are out there, doing some thing, maybe now not visible, but with the break of a new day, you will see it clearly.

Christmas is a time to celebrate and have joy and be together in harmony. Let it be like that. Some of us need to burn the midnight oil, so that one day, our beloved country will be trully free.

Let us use this freedom of speech to bring harmony. Let us stop for a moment through-ing mud on innocent whites, blacks, coloureds, namas and who ever that feels s/he has been left out. Now is the time for Nation building.

Never forget, the whites are part of the solution, because they are African too, and if not, then they help us too. The traitors, the liars, the murderers were from the most trusted circles, they have some serious explanation to do. The bad apples should be sorted out first, then we can do the classification of the rest.

Be aware, if you are with them, we will bring you to book to and also before the ICC.

Drive save those who are going to relax after a hard year of working. Do not drink and drive, it only make us poorer.

To those that celebrate XMas, get the gifts and the final preparation well on the way.

Thanks to the Shebeen also, for the opportunity to speak our mouth. I am glad I am not the one who is doing the SLA's of the site, but I know its a whole lot of fun to. CRM is maybe more for me, but I enjoy more playing with OME and use Citrix.

"The bad apples should be sorted out first, then we can do the classification of the rest."

I shudder to think of what these words could imply. Are we back in 1932/33?

Mugabe beside beside being confused for a political hero image, has these to his credit-- made sure Africa never forget the ugly face of dictatorship; that dictators and waanabes will always gang-up; that authoritarian rule is multi-faceted (from as low as Idi Amin to the highly educated Bob); that Africans irrespective of literacy level will fall victim. And that for now and for a very long time Africa will follow this same insane path.

He ain't no hero. This nutter is a big, fat ZERO!

Will they ever learn? Mugabe has been pulling the wool over the eyes of our leaders evern since they have "engaged" him. For goodness sake, when is enough enough? This is a circus!

http://www.theshebeen.org/governance...ve-crisis.html

Never! Some are not willing to learn!