West on recolonisation of Africa: Thabo Mbeki

Led specifically by the ‘post-modern countries’ of France, the UK and the US, the UN Security Council authorised the current NATO military operation against Libya, which has absolutely nothing to do with helping the Libyan people peacefully to resolve the crisis afflicting their country. Rather, it has everything to do with regime change and the assertion of the ‘new kind of imperialism’ which Robert Cooper called for, which was echoed by Bruce Anderson when he wrote of the need for ‘a form of neo-imperialism.’The African Executive

By Thabo Mbeki

There has issued especially, but not accidentally, from various circles in the UK, a call for a ‘new imperialism’ and therefore the ‘recolonisation’ of Africa! Because we considered this to be an obviously preposterous proposition, as a Continent we ignored this voice.

However, the agenda for the ‘recolonisation of Africa’ is a present and actual part of the reality to which we must respond in the context of the uncertain global order which, inevitably, shapes and will continue to shape the future of our Continent.

The argument has been advanced that the process of globalisation has created such interdependence among all nations that the “post-modern world” (Western countries) has a responsibility to ensure the integrity and proper functioning of the global system.

The British diplomat, Robert Cooper, in a 2002 article on “The Post-Modern State” said that one of the “main characteristics of the post-modern world” is achieving “security (that) is based on transparency, mutual openness, interdependence and mutual vulnerability.”
These ‘academic’ views have also been echoed by the media, and have therefore helped to prepare opinion in the ‘post-modern world’ in favour especially of the ‘recolonisation’ of Africa. For instance, in a June 2, 2003 article, Bruce Anderson, columnist of The Independent (London), wrote:

"Africa is a beautiful continent, full of potential and attractive people who deserve so much more than the way in which they are forced to live, and die. Yet it is not clear that the continent can generate its own salvation. It may be necessary to devise a form of neo-imperialism, in which Britain, the U.S. and the other beneficent nations would recruit local leaders and give them guidance to move towards free markets, the rule of law and - ultimately - some viable local version of democracy, while removing them from office in the event of backsliding."

On April 19, 2008 The Times (London) published an article by Matthew Parris entitled ‘The new scramble for Africa begins’ in which he said:
“Fifty years ago the decolonisation of Africa began. The next half-century may see the continent recolonised. But the new imperialism will be less benign. Great powers aren't interested in administering wild places any more, still less in settling them: just raping them. Black gangster governments sponsored by self-interested Asian or Western powers could become the central story in 21st-century African history.”
Another British commentator, Richard Gott, wrote in the New Statesman magazine published on 15 January 2001:

“There is a growing belief, not least within the ranks of latter-day new Labour missionaries, that appears to favour the reconquest of Africa. No one really suggests how this would come about, nor is there a "plan" available for discussion. Yet the implicit suggestion of recent reporting from Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, sometimes echoed in London, is that imperial intervention might indeed be welcomed by peoples threatened with mayhem, anarchy and civil war…

 “What Africa really needs, Maier, (in his book This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis), seems to suggest, is the advice of a new generation of foreign missionaries, imbued with the new, secular religion of good governance and human rights. Men such as Maier himself and R W Johnson would fit the bill admirably. Other contemporary witnesses, the innumerable representatives of the non-governmental and humanitarian organisations that clog the airwaves and pollute the outside world's coverage of African affairs with their endless one-sided accounts of tragedy and disaster, echo the same message.

“With the reporting and analysis of today's Africa in the hands of such people, it is not surprising that public opinion is often confused and disarmed when governments embark on neo-colonial interventions. The new missionaries are much like the old ones, an advance guard preparing the way for military and economic conquest.”

What Richard Gott reported is the setting of a political agenda in the UK, which observation also applies to the rest of the ‘post-modern world’ which would help to create the conditions for Western governments to “embark on neo-colonial interventions.”

The NATO bombardment of Libya is the ultimate outcome and practical expression of the theories advanced by intellectuals such as Robert Cooper and popularised through the Western media by commentators such as Bruce Anderson.

Led specifically by the ‘post-modern countries’ of France, the UK and the US, the UN Security Council authorised the current NATO military operation against Libya, which has absolutely nothing to do with helping the Libyan people peacefully to resolve the crisis afflicting their country. Rather, it has everything to do with regime change and the assertion of the ‘new kind of imperialism’ which Robert Cooper called for, which was echoed by Bruce Anderson when he wrote of the need for ‘a form of neo-imperialism.’

This means that we must understand the role of the proposition of “the Right to Protect”, which has been used to justify military interventions allegedly to protect civilians and advance human rights. Similarly we must put in its proper context the elevation of “international justice,” as represented by the ICC, even above the search for peace to save human lives.

All this fits in perfectly with ‘the new world order’ which Robert Cooper visualised when he wrote: “What is needed then is a new kind of imperialism, one acceptable to a world of human rights and cosmopolitan values. We can already discern its outline: an imperialism which, like all imperialism, aims to bring order and organisation but which rests today on the voluntary principle.”
This point is emphasised by the reality that many organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group have challenged the arguments used to justify the NATO military action against Libya. In this regard, in an April 14, 2011 article in the Boston Globe newspaper, under the heading, “False pretense for war in Libya?” Alan K. Kuperman said:

“Evidence is now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold…
"Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention… Thus, the president concluded, “preventing genocide’’ justified US military action.

“But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents…

“Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight “to the bitter end.”
All this means that as Africans we must understand the true meaning of the NATO assault against Libya, authorised by the UN Security Council. It is neither an aberration nor a mistake. It constitutes a concrete expression of the systemic ‘neo-imperialist’ resolve to impose on Africa the “world in which the efficient and well governed export stability and liberty, and which is open for investment and growth,” for which Robert Cooper argued.

If the NATO military intervention in Libya succeeds, this will open the way for these countries to use the Libyan experience as a precedent which would encourage them to intervene everywhere else in Africa.   

Thus whatever we do to ‘reposition Africa sustainably in a shifting and uncertain global order,’ we must take on board the present and concrete reality that the Western powers, presenting themselves as ‘the post-modern world,’ are resolved to ensure that they determine the destiny of Africa. They are convinced that they have to act to ensure the integrity of the ‘new world order’ of globalisation whose essence they have defined, and that as Africans, we are incapable of ensuring that our Continent conducts itself in a way that is consistent with the requirement to guarantee this integrity. The Western powers are acting even through military means, to ensure that Africa is governed according to their wishes.

One of the consequences of ‘the new world order’ is the transformation of the vitally important Office of the UN Secretary General into an institution which would systematically ‘(support) initiatives that coincide with American interests,’ rather than those which coincide with the interests of the world community of nations as a whole.

Two of our most urgent and current tasks are to take all necessary steps:

• to mount a united offensive for the defence of the independence of the peoples of Africa and our right to determine our destiny; and,

• to evolve a minimum programme to mobilise the billion Africans into united action to advance our shared interests.

An important part of our response must focus on the implementation of existing Continental decisions including those relating to such matters as democracy and human rights, peace and security and the prevention of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

The challenge we face is seriously to internalise the reality that nobody but ourselves can and should take responsibility for the renaissance of Africa towards which the billion Africans aspire. We have to act together to make our future and think together about what that future will be. When H.E. Ben Mkapa, former President of Tanzania, delivered The Thabo Mbeki Africa Day Lecture at the University of South Africa on Africa Day this year, he said:

“I consider these three freedoms – from food insecurity, from ignorance and from disease – as the fundamental and priority measure of the dignity of African Independence. More emphasis should be given to the war against them. The terrain to fight them must be of our own demarcation. The weapons and terms of their deployment must be of our own determination. The indices of success must be established by us. External support groups whether civil or State, must be selected by us; their deployment too must be monitored by us. The war is fundamentally our own and we can win if we set our sights objectively. This is the first challenge and imperative facing the second generation of African Leaders.”
I could not agree more!

President Mkapa went on to quote what the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere said when he addressed the South African Parliament on 16 October 1997:

“We have to depend upon ourselves, both at national level and at the collective level. Each of our countries will have to rely upon its own human resources and natural material resources for development. But that is not enough. The next area to look at is our collectivity, our working together. We all enhance our capacity to develop if we work together.” 

As Africans we must mobilise ourselves to respond to the challenge starkly posed to us by ‘the new world order’ which demands that we should not merely proclaim our right to self-determination, but indeed act to determine our destiny! - The African Executive

• Writer is former South African President.

Libya: Zim gets it right

While the likes of South Africa have blundered and regretted, as the country now appears to be doing, Zimbabwe has been consistent in its opposition to Western interference.

By Tichaona Zindoga
Zimbawe has sent the Libyan envoy who defected to the rebel  National Transitional Council, packing in a show of Zimbabwe's disregard of the Western-backed movement that overtook Tripoli recently and claimed power.
Taher Elmagrahi who was accredited to Zimbabwe under the Col Muammar Gaddafi government, joined the rebel bandwagon two weeks ago and announced that he recognised the authority of the NTC whose flag he subsequently raised at the Libyan embassy in Harare.
Elmagrahi also took down the official potrait of Col Gaddafi and burned the  country's all-green flag.
However, the Zimbabwe Government, which along with the majority of Afica do not recognise NTC, put its foot down and declared the Libyan envoy persona non grata.
Zimbabwe also withdrew its diplomatic mission in Tripoli.
If leadership and inspiration against the imperialist West, the power behind the rebels, was what lacked the day three African countries South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon, voted for United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1973, Zimbabwe certainly has provided it.
Since the March 19 start of the bombardment of Libya by Nato to ostensibly effect a no fly zone to protect civilians from Col Gaddafi, which no sooner assumed an outlook of regime change, Zimbabwe has been one of the most vocal critics of Westen interference in that country.
Last month, President Mugabe came clear and described Nato as a "terrorist organisation".
He said: President Mugabe said Nato was involved in terrorism as it continued to ignore international law.

"Look at what they are doing in Libya. Nato, against international law, is attacking Libya under the pretext that they are protecting civilians...Now when they do that deliberately and it is exactly what Al Qaeda and the Talibans do. What is the difference in terrorism between what they are doing and what the other states condemn?"

"If it defies international law. It has no rules and those out blatantly wanting to kill, that is terrorism. That's murderous, brazen murder, assassination and who then can set it as a law-abiding organisation? It has lost its legitimacy, it has become terrorism," he said.
President Mugabe added: "And beware, this they can do on any other African country than Libya. We must always be in a state of preparedness."
And when Zimbabwe expelled the Libyan mission, he was merely making clear the statement that he would not support a regime that is born out of terrorism - more so terrorism coming from erstwhile colonisers on a recolonistaion mission.
But there is even more significance in Zimbabwe's actions.
Having stood up against a decade of Western coercion in form of European Union and US sanctions, Zimbabwe increasingly shows how it champions the rights of African people against Western crusaders.
Zimbabwe has refused to support or endorse the West by proxy.
Zimbabwe has refused to sell her soul.
It is little doubt that as the black gold of Libya - oil - is at stake, any country would stand a chance to tap into the well simply by recognising the NTC.
Already other countries in and out of Africa are anticipating deals that would ensconce them within Libya's apparent next regime.
While the likes of South Africa have blundered and regretted, as the country now appears to be doing, Zimbabwe has been consistent in its opposition to Western interference.
Not much has been heard of Nigeria in the aftermath of the death certificate it signed against the Gaddafi government nor from little Gabon.
But an Africa that has long been looking for a super power to go on the global stage is disappointed in South Africa and Nigeria, either of whom many people tipped would get a UN permanent seat for Africa.
The acquiescence of the two countries to Nato's Libyan crusade while two other global powers China and Russia abstained from voting on UNSC
1973 mortified and disquieted Africa and the progressive world.
Yet no matter how profusely they might justify, or for that matter, apologise the damage has been done.

From now, it would be impossible to trust the fate of Africa in the hands of Africa's preeminent states even if the two countries manage to convince - and even apologise - that they had trusted in the sincerity of the west.

This is not only to the infrastructure of Libya and the African lives in it, but also the trust in the so-called big boys of the continent.
While Africa licks its wounds, the west rubs its hands in glee for another Marshal Plan.
Libya, which has a danger of slipping into instability, will also be taxed for the damage it suffered.
Africa will be counting on another step towards recolonisation.
As President Mugabe said, which resonates with many observers, it could be Libya today, but tomorrow it can be any other country in Africa.

Zim-US relations: mutual respect important

The US should not try to champion values of human rights and rule of law on which scores it fares quite badly individually and by proxy, to coerce Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe does not need to be made out of the image of the imperfect US.

By Tichaona Zindoga
Last week, United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray met Zanu-PF national chairman, Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo at the Zanu-PF headquarters in Harare. The development was described as a step towards rebuilding relations between the US and the revolutionary party which the US so loves to hate.
Of course, the American diplomat repeated the deceptively blithe statement which he has been to town with that the US does not favour, or for that matter hate, any one party in the country.
It will not do anybody any good to waste time pointing out just how dishonest Ambassador Ray is on this score, with all due respect to the diplomat.
The record speaks for itself especially through Zidera with which the US seeks to undermine the President Mugabe-led Zanu-PF party by putting its members on sanctions and by crippling the Government which Zanu-PF at one time exclusively led.
The reverse side of this policy has been the support to the "pro-democracy" MDC parties, the civil society and the "independent" media.
It will be a surprisingly happy day indeed when the US will make good of its claim that it does not support any one party over another in Zimbabwe.
In particular, it will be interesting to see the US reconciling itself with Zanu-PF considering the ideological chasm that exists between the two.
Need it be pointed out that it does not matter whether America is led by George W Bush, Barack Obama or someone that falls from Mars straight into White House?
Yet the meeting between Ambassadors Khaya Moyo and Ray points to the necessity and even desirability of normalising relations between the US and the party that best represents the nationalist goals of Zimbabwe.
Outside of the ephemeral developments like the so-called movement for democratic change embodied in the political parties of a similar name, Zimbabwe has certain constants.
This includes jealously guarding the great natural and human resources of the country.
This is a continuum that stretches from at least the 1890s' resistance to settler rule right to this date when the country is set to consolidate self-determination through the ownership of resources and economic empowerment of the majority.
Zanu-PF, which by the way has more than a fair share of legitimacy to claim ownership of the gamut of patriotic history of Zimbabwe - along with the heroes that made it - leads Zimbabwe's continuum of self-determination.
This is one aspect that the US has not been comfortable with and has frantically tried to undo, to the point of regretting that the current crop of its favoured MDC formations has not been able to achieve American ends the same way US pawns elsewhere have done under similar circumstances.
Former American ambassador here Christopher Dell made this lamentation.
Despite the MDC parties, in particular the larger faction led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, saying they are for the future, there is precious little on the ground to suggest that they can outlive their inherent fleetingness.
For instance, it is conceivable that the US could well shunt MDC-T aside one bad day (for PM Tsvangirai and company) when it is sufficiently fed up with these cards that they have been dealt, as Dell would put it.
Does it come as a surprise then that even PM Tsvangirai has admitted that "(President) Mugabe is part of the solution", much to the mortification of those used to the "Mugabe must go" mantra?
There has been talk of the US through, and with the MDCs engaging "moderates" in Zanu-PF.
In all these scenarios the fundamental aspect is that Zanu-PF is an important component of Zimbabwe's politics and society at large.
As well, it is evident that the US needs Zimbabwe and Zanu-PF with the reverse being true, which is all the more critical in this globalised world.
The contentious area, though, is the engagement.
The current stand-off that was especially born out of America's buying into Zimbabwe's bilateral land issue with Britain - which it typically does where the latter is in trouble - is unsustainable.
This is not only because it is hard to imagine America continuing hypocritically and arrogantly to hold aloof even when it is being exposed for double standards on Zimbabwe and Zanu-PF which have maintained that they do not have a basis for a beef with America.
In fact, it is the US that has found beef with Zimbabwe over some alleged human rights abuses even when it is as clear as day that the US is itself about the worst violator of human rights as Guantanamo, and US' neo-imperial wars today testify.
The stand-off between Zimbabwe and the US has cost both sides dearly - perhaps more than any side is ready to admit.
But the basis of mending relations between the US and Zanu-PF should be mutual respect.
Zanu-PF doesn't need to like US foreign policy nor does the US have to like Zanu-PF as a party with its hardliners and all.
The Zimbabwe that Zanu-PF leads is as sovereign a country as the US is.
The US has really no business dictating to Zimbabwe what it should do with its land and diamonds, among other resources, or to use its comparative political, military and economic strength to coerce Zimbabwe to behave in a particular manner.
It would not be quite as pleasant were roles to be changed!
Similarly, the US should not try to champion values of human rights and rule of law on which scores it fares quite badly individually and by proxy, to coerce Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe does not need to be made out of the image of the imperfect US.
Here is also to remind the likes of Ambassador Ray to stop pretending to be as ordinary folk like any other when he is the face of US imperialism just as the civilian-faced USAID, represents the same.
Ambassador Ray has lately been playing ordinary folk.
He was quoted as saying, for example that "...if you read some of the things some of the media have accused me of doing, you wonder if I'm not some re-incarnation of Machiavelli instead of a simple country boy who happens to be the American ambassador here."
Further, he revealed that with his wife, they had "raised four children and I'm the oldest child in a family with three younger brothers and sisters. I am accustomed to temper tantrums and the way I deal with that is ignore it until they run out of steam."
Ambassador Ray can't be as ordinary, and the US indeed is about the incarnation of Machiavelli.
It won't help matters when there is pretence to the contrary.
Yet in the world where convergence is far better than divergence there is more reason, on Zimbabwe's part for example, to embrace both Ambassador Ray and the US while the reverse is also true.
But it is all serious business which won't be helped by a diplomat that goes onto the streets and gives money to newspaper vendors and says he is re-engaging Zimbabwe.
Similarly, granting Ambassador Ray is the ordinary man he chooses to parade himself as, it does not make him as ordinary as the man on the street who suffers sanctions that Ambassador Ray's US has imposed to make Zimbabwe's economy scream.
Zanu-PF's major undoing and crime will be its insistence on Zimbabwe's sovereignty but it has shown that it can be accommodating even to its sworn enemies.
There has to be a beginning and difficult concessions will have to be made on both sides.

Noam Chomsky discredits, exposes self on Zimbabawe

DR NOAM CHOMSKY, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is often hailed, by many, as the moral conscience of America on many global issues such as Palestine/Israel, inexplicably lost his moral compass when asked to comment on Zimbabwe during a recent interview with globalbreakingnews.com.

Dr Chomsky, the author of countless scholarly and political books and articles, spanning decades, refused to condemn the US economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe since 2001 that was responsible, according to a United Nations' official, for the spread of cholera in the country in 2008.


"Mugabe is a monster who has caused irreparable harm," Chomsky ranted, referring to Zimbabwe's President.


And, without offering any evidence, Chomsky charged that President Mugabe has committed major crimes against Africans.

Chomsky takes his cue from so-called non-government organisations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and TransAfrica.

These organisations dismiss the historical right of black people in Zimbabwe, in particular, and Africa in general, to reclaim the land that was stolen from their ancestors by white settlers. The IRI is an affiliated organisation of the NED, which has an annual budget of over US$30 million that is financed by the US Congress.

The board of directors of both the IRI and the NED comprises a virtual who's who of the American national security establishment, including Lawrence Eagleburger, former secretary of state in the George H.W. Bush administration, Brent Scrowcroft, retired US Air Force lieutenant-general, former Democratic congressman Richard Gephardt, and Republican senator Norm Coleman.

The NED boasts that it is the darling of America's mainstream conservative activists and thinkers.

According to its website, "endorsements of the NED have been offered by the leadership of such stalwart conservative organisations as the Heritage Foundation and Empower America, and favourable editorials have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and National Review."
Although the NED pretends to be independent of the US government, it frequently consults with relevant policy makers about its work, "going well beyond the level of contact required by its authorising legislation", according to its website.

Carl Gershman, president of the NED, advised the US Senate to deploy assets to bribe and coerce officials of Zimbabwe's "electoral systems, national legislatures, judiciary, local governments, civil society and the Press", to destabilise, and ultimately overthrow, the government of Zimbabwe.

On Zimbabwe, Dr Chomsky and the so-called progressives in Europe and America are the leftwing of the rightwing shills of white settler interests.
What was disturbing about our exchange with Dr Chomsky was that he refused to acknowledge that the imposition of US sanctions in 2001 coincided with the Zimbabwean government's acceleration of its policy of "one man, one farm," which deprived white settlers of their huge land holdings.


What is also disturbing is that no "progressive" publication in America or Europe champions the rights of indigenous Zimbabweans to control the levers of economic power in their country. Matthew


 Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, refuses to publish any article, which asserts the right of black people in Zimbabwe to control their economic space.


It is a default position of so-called progressives - support the right to vote for black people but not the right for black people to own and control their economic resources.

When asked to comment on matters of African economic control, Dr Chomsky resorted to the same prevarications as Zimbabwe's rightwing detractors:

"Do you believe that the seizure of white settler land is a just policy to reverse over 100 years of economic terrorism against Africans?", Chomsky was asked. No response.

"Are you familiar with the workings of Zimbabwe's democratic institutions?", Chomsky was asked. No response.

"Do you agree that the sanctions against Zimbabwe should be rescinded immediately?," Chomsky was asked. His response: "Sanctions are wrong".


"Will you be as vocal in your opposition to those sanctions which are killing Zimbabwean children as you are of Israel's killing of Palestinian children?," Chomsky was asked. His response: "No, because the US role is much less significant and the situation is much more ambiguous."

Correction dear Professor! There is no ambiguity. The US' role is front and centre of the suffering of Zimbabwe's people. The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, enacted by the US Congress in 2001, prevents the Zimbabwean government from accessing the loans and lines of credit it needs to purchase medical equipment and supplies for its hospitals, so that its citizens can receive effective treatment for cholera and other diseases.

The Act empowers the United States' secretary of the treasury to "instruct the US executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against any extension, by the respective institution, of any loan, credit or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe."

And, one of the most odious conditions of the Act is the demand that the rule of law be restored in Zimbabwe "including respect for ownership and title to property," before the sanctions are lifted.

The only people who are complaining in Zimbabwe today about the lack of "respect for ownership and title to property" are the white settlers whose land, which was stolen from indigenous

Zimbabweans has been returned to their rightful owners.
In other words, what the US government is really saying is: "Until the white settlers are given back their land, Zimbabwe's economy will continue to be attacked by the American government."

When questioned about those issues, Dr Chomsky resorted to intellectual puerility: "I am sorry that you don't understand that I have not been appointed your slave, and therefore choose my own priorities", was his childish retort.

For someone who is often called upon by the media to mediate between that huge body of knowledge lying out there, about various matters, and consumers of news, Chomsky's lack of integrity on the Zimbabwe land and sanctions issue is disappointing.

As a mediator between the news and those who consume it, Chomsky ought to know that he has a responsibility to be a purveyor of truth.

Instead, he has assumed the role of an imperial knave regurgitating innuendo, half-truths and outright lies.

You need to hit the books, Professor!

• I. K. Cush is the editor-in-chief of globalbreakingnews.com and the New York correspondent of the London-based New African magazine.

President Mugabe defines the national Question

By Tichaona Zindoga

Lately, academic and commentator Dr Tafataona Mahoso has been decrying the fact that Africans in general and Zimbabweans in particular were increasingly and tragically relying on benchmarks set in America and Europe in the fields of judiciary, politics, media, economy, among others.

The sad thing about borrowing these robes, he argued, was that they were unsustainable and had failed in their home countries with tragic consequences such as the recent global financial crisis or tsunami, which proclaimed to be the worst in around a century.

He cites the phone hacking scandal involving media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World publication as the latest crisis born of the unsustainable Western standards and benchmarks.

Even sadder, he noted, was that Western countries were trying to foist these same failed policies in developing countries like Zimbabwe through the media and the western sponsored NGOs.

However, save for proffering the concept of ubuntu as the basis and linchpin of home-made benchmarks, the academic is yet to pronounce the benchmarks that Zimbabwe and Africa have to adopt and what ideals should constitute the same.

Yet something happened during the just-ended Heroes holiday that no doubt tallies with what Dr Mahoso probably had in mind.

Before President Mugabe made his keynote address to mark this year’s Heroes Day at the National Heroes Acre monument, a minister of religion, Roman Catholic priest Fidelis Mukonori read a passage from the Bible in which Moses was being promised plenitude for him and future generations.

But there was one condition: that Moses stuck with the Law and Truth.

Presumably, many people were left groping for the significance of this passage, which the priest read at length and could only cap with the Lord’s Prayer.

But President Mugabe, alluding to the reading, gave a meaning to this passage and defined Zimbabwe’s own Ideal and Truth, which explains why he has been and is the revolutionary that he is and one that the West hates with a passion.

He said Zimbabwe would have the plenitude that Moses was promised by God if there was the recognition of “our principles and forthright ideals that the country ours”.

He said: “You heard from the Bible that Moses was promised by God that if you are upright and in Truth even the enemy will be defeated because you will be in Truth.

“As for you,” he told the thousands gathered, “even there is suffering and death, the enemy (meaning the West) will not take the country back. But you should stand by the Truth and not be misled by the enemy, his words or money.

“Remain by the Truth; and the Truth. The Truth is what we fought in this country. The Truth of this country is that the country is ours. The Truth is that the fruits of this country are ours. The truth that the soil that gives the fruits is ours; the soil that gives us wealth is ours.

“This is the Truth that we fight for: the Reality, the Truth of the issue.

“That is the National Question that we fought for and it is that what is continuously being fought for with you as one and united. There should be no disunity and if you break away you go away you would have deserted the Truth and go to the Lie. Remain on the Truth that the country is yours...”

It is no doubt that by explicitly pointing out the National Question, President Mugabe put into proper context the history, the present and the future of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is defined by its people and God-given resources and the people as relating, indeed owning, the God-given resources.

The liberation war, dating back to the 1893 Umvukela, was over land and Zimbabwean people’s sovereignty as exercised over that land.

It is the Truth and the benchmark that the people of Zimbabwe have set for themselves.

Suffice to say, since at least 1890, the West has been at war with the people of Zimbabwe, as with the rest of the Afrian continent, over because the British wanted to negate the Truth of the people’s ownership of their God-given resources.

This war with Zimbabwe subsists to this day.

Need it be pointed out that it has been established that the reason for the current standoff between Zimbabwe and Britain, along with its allies and kith and kin in the West has been over the issue of land?

And has the world not seen Britain employing all kind of tactics to defeat Zimbabwe and steal her land?

This is where the issue of benchmarks comes into play.

Against a background of the well grounded Truth that Zimbabweans should be in control of their destiny by owning their resources, the West has employed various players and instituted to have the world and Zimbabwe believe that the fundamental question in Zimbabwe is about democracy.

Ironically, the same forces that preach democracy today are the ones that fought against democracy yesterday with the colonial master Britain fighting tooth and nail to deny Zimbabweans majority rule, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, universal suffrage, among other benchmarks.

The West is sponsoring all manner of activities and personalities to undo the gains of the liberation struggle, chiefly the land.

This is done in the name of demoracy promotion with the aptly-named Movement for Democratic Change parties being the chief agency for the envisaged new benchmarks.

In contempt of the values ande benchmarks wrought in the continuum of fighting against an interfering West, some of the “democracy fighters” have deserated national institutions and personalities like the National Heroes Acre and heros.

The so-called security sector reform, for example, which dovetails into the broader institutional reform that the West envisages in Zimbabwe, seeks to purge the country’s eurity setor of “hardliners” who have stood steadfast against the machinations of the West.

Some have gone public with their pro-Zimbabwe stance against hostile interference from the West saying they won’t salute anybody who does not have liberation was credentials.

The meaning of this is that the liberation war is a benchmark of national interest.

Anyone who did not fight the war, just 31 years on, where it was possible to, could well serve to defeat the national interest.

As indeed does MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai through his embracing, and benefit from, Western agenda to undo the gains of the liberation struggle.

The “independent” media in Zimbabwe is all but undoing the gains of the liberation struggle by seeking to defeat not only the revolutionary Zanu-PF and President Mugabe but also such programmes as the land reform and the current indigenisation and economic empowerment drive.

And by the standards that the West sets by founding these media and or oiling them with what Professor Jonathan Moyo calls dirty brown envelopes they should.

The same for the judiciary: a judiciary that seeks to consolidate the gains of the liberation struggle is considered bad by the West while that which seeks to defeat the same, like the ill-fated Sadc Tribunal, is hailed.

Unfortunately, the West seeks to disenfranchise and disempower the majority as only a few individuals and companies they own benefit and this usually backfires spectacularly like the global financial tsunami that was triggered by few individuals fiddling with markets in America.

This calls for the upholding of Zimbabwe’s own benchmarks that benefit the majority of the people of this country.

This is the fundamental Truth and the National Question that President Mugabe defined.

The British did NOT save Zim leaders!

The British Government is going about in a very deliberate way to release and relaunch aspects of history of this country, of course from a British perspective. It is raising facts, or claims of them. It is raising debate not just for itself but for us too. It is cleansing itself, its policies and its personages. What is worse, it is soiling our own history, actions and personages. Our heroes become its crooks. Our heroes become its zealots. Much worse, we must all be indebted to the Great British Heart for the survival of those of our crooks and zealots in history and therefore in our lives. The Great British Heart saved, preserved our leadership which given its foibles, did not deserve to live anyway!
The Britain which saved our leadership in spite of that leadership's depravity, in spite of that leadership's Maoist flatness, surely cannot be a bad Britain which covets our land, sponsors quislings, slaps us with sanctions, or harbor any ill-will against us, surely?
The Herald

By Nathaniel Manheru
On December 29, 2008, the British establishment, working thorough its captive Sunday Times' Martin Fletcher, ran what has turned out to have been a valedictory story on Zimbabwe for the year. That momentous year had seen Zimbabwe go through two significant polls that left the country's fate hanging by a slender string.
Of course September of that year had seen a glimmer of hope by way of an MOU that would pave way for the Global Political Agreement, itself the blueprint for the Inclusive Government we have had since 2009. One could say in 2008, Zimbabwe hung on a delicate balance that only needed a feather to tip it either towards chaos or second chance.


Here, still standing
But beneath the seeming danger was also a clear indication that the country stability structures were both solid and tensile enough to adapt as circumstances shifted and altered, thereby underpinning durable peace.
Not many African countries could have sustained such a spell of uncertainty without collapsing into civil unrest or even war. Clearly the system had depth, indeed had a strong, durable establishment which could guard the peace and absorb the ups and downs of, and in the political deck. Not many saw this vital resource, least of all countries of the West which tried their damnedest to upset the applecart. Today we are here, still standing, we of steel
Crook and zealot
So the fact of a Martin Fletcher - a Briton - publishing a story which suggested that the James Callaghan Government had secretly worked with African leaders not just to end war in Rhodesia, but also to help late Vice President Joshua Nkomo, not Robert Mugabe, to become leader of the newly independent Zimbabwe, was calculated to have grave forebodings in that delicate environment of political uncertainty.
Fletcher had not only trawled from newly released British Government Cabinet papers under that Government's 30-year rule; he had also infused freshness to bones of British historiography by summoning David Owen, Callaghan's then Foreign Secretary, from oblivion to life and currency.
"Better a crook than a zealot," Lord Owen had told the British scribe in explaining why the then British Government saw more in Joshua Nkomo than Robert Mugabe, both of them men of comparative badness in the British establishment eyes.
In that short line, Lord Owen had written a pithy epitaph to characters of history and destiny, our history and destiny. The story was developed to suggest Nkomo was cutting deals with the British, all behind the back of his counterpart in the Patriotic Front, Robert Mugabe, in order to enhance his prospects for leadership in Independent Zimbabwe.
The intention was very clear, namely to suggest Ndebele treachery in order to introduce a regional faultline to Zimbabwe's already fractured politics.


History's mistake
It sought more. It communicated a Nkomo leadership dispensation as venal. Referring to late Nkomo, Lord Owen said: "He was in it to feather his own nest."
But the sins of venality were far better for the British and presumably for you and me than the excesses of zealotry.
Says Lord Owen of Mugabe: "His obduracy was so great and his zealotry so fierce that I felt you could not ignore the Maoist elements within him."
In trying to fend off accusations that by not thwarting the rise of Mugabe in 1980, the British Government was complicity in the so-called Gukurahundi or disturbances of early Independence, Owen asks and answers rhetorically: "People often ask why we went overboard for Robert Mugabe. The answer is that we didn't."
Mugabe is depicted as a horrid mistake history could not stop, a grievous mistake history and chance installed, all to great grief for mankind. But that is not my story. I need to summon another example before I make my point.
A saving empire
Five days ago on August 1, 2011, BBC's Mike Thomson ran a documentary which suggest the British Government saved both Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe from getting assassinated by Rhodesians, so Britain could find in both men interlocutors for the Lancaster House talks later to be convened in London from October to December in 1979.
After the downing of the two Rhodesian passenger planes by Zipra Forces in 1978 and 1979, the Rhodesians were blazing with vengeance. They wanted to knock Nkomo out of this life. They tried on Good Friday in 1979, under an Operation codenamed Operation Bastille. But by the time they got to the late Vice President Nkomo's house in Lusaka, the late Nkomo had evacuated.
The Rhodesians, too, had a lethal package for Robert Mugabe, and one which incorporated the South African navy. Again by the time the Rhodesian hit men got to Zanu's Maputo headquarters, President Mugabe had made good his escape.


The two men who were called
One Peter Petter-Bowyer, a senior figure in the Rhodesia military, resolves to jinx for the BBC, British historiography and, it is hoped, you and me as Zimbabweans. "No question, Mugabe was called, there is no doubt. That is exactly what happened," says Petter-Bowyer. Who did he believe called Mugabe? "The Brits," he replies, firmly.
For Nkomo's survival, the BBC documentary draws from none other than Lord Owen who confirms alerting Nkomo of the impending attack. The documentary asks how the Brits gathered such vital intelligence, well ahead of these attacks. Owen answers: "The head of Rhodesian Intelligence, Ken Flower, was also on our side. So I was well aware of what Ken Flower was claiming was being done, and I used to read the reports."

Jen Flower

I hope the reader remembers Ken Flower proceeded to serve the Independence Government until his retirement and subsequent death, natural death. He went to his grave with images of an unnerving encounter he had had with President Mugabe - then Prime Minister - soon after the President's landslide victory in 1980 and the constitution of the Independence Government.

The President who has survived many assassination attempts in the run-up to those bloody polls under Commonwealth supervision, looked Ken in the eye and asked him point blank: "Why are you trying to kill me?"
After that pointed question from a man about to become Prime Minister, Ken changed course and pledged loyalty to the new man and new Government. Both lived happily ever after.
History washes away all sins
I think I have summoned enough examples to develop my argument for the week. The British Government is going about in a very deliberate way to release and relaunch aspects of history of this country, of course from a British perspective. It is raising facts, or claims of them. It is raising debate not just for itself but for us too. It is cleansing itself, its policies and its personages.
What is worse, it is soiling our own history, actions and personages. Our heroes become its crooks. Our heroes become its zealots. Much worse, we must all be indebted to the Great British Heart for the survival of those of our crooks and zealots in history and therefore in our lives. The Great British Heart saved, preserved our leadership which given its foibles, did not deserve to live anyway!
The Britain which saved our leadership in spite of that leadership's depravity, in spite of that leadership's Maoist flatness, surely cannot be a bad Britain which covets our land, sponsors quislings, slaps us with sanctions, or harbor any ill-will against us, surely?
As natives we owe our very survival to the master who kept leading us away from harm's way. We owe our leadership to the kindly British.
"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want . . . Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death/I fear no evil, for You are with me/Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me/You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies . . . "
Fudging history
The Americans, too, have been declassifying. The other day I google-searched Henry Kissinger, Lord Owen's American equivalent on the politics of our country. He visited Southern Africa in the momentous 1976. The apogee of this trip was an encounter he had with South Africa's John Vorster, over dinner.

Henry Kissinger

The conversation between the two men is on internet. It is loaded; it makes claims on our leadership, on our history. Unbalanced, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, inciting you to condemn your own, men and women who can't answer back to history's unfair charges, western history's unfair and treacherous charges.
Again Umdala Wethu is the butt. He is presented as imperialism's preferred candidate, a man through whose installation to leadership America, Britain and South Africa hoped to outflank "men of guns", through whom the same triad hoped to secure confidence and guarantees for Rhodesia's whites, themselves the obsession of the triad's foreign policies.

You go along that account of history, you miss the fact that the same year, Zapu under Joshua Nkomo, then trading as ANC-Zimbabwe, was not only engaging Ian Smith on very firm principles of majority rule; it was also re-launching its armed struggle after unsettling schisms and the deadening detente.
Above all, its external leadership was already laying groundwork for collaborative action with it's sister liberation movement, Zanu to resume the armed struggle in a more resolute way.
What you then have in the Kissinger/Vorster conversation is an elaborate entrapment conveyed through fudged history, one similar to that by which I opened this piece, which involved the British, theZambians and the Nigerians, seeking to divide the Patriotic Front.
A force for good?
We are in the season of dense commemorative history. That is what August stands for in Zimbabwe. In the month of July when we are busy remembering the demise of Joshua Nkomo, our late leader, the British release snippets of our history, or their version of it. They play it up in the month of August, when we commemorate our heroes.
The intention is very clear. It is to take advantage of the heightened interest in history to influence our understanding of it. And that understanding of it is meant to convict our leaders - living or dead - by suggesting they carved safety nets for themselves with the enemy while everyone else met risks, faced and took danger.
It is to belittle our own responsibility in securing our leaders, defending them through sheer courage and ingenuity, in order to cede that responsibility and the resultant honor for their survival to the very forces which sired settler colonialism here.
We become indebted to the coloniser through and through: for colonising you in the first place; for saving you and thus for being ultimately responsible for decolonising you and enabling you to be the leaders. A leadership which when read against its foibles and atrocities in history, did not deserve to the saved. That way colonialism comes across as a force for good, a force for the preservation of life. .........Grateful native......I just find it recklessly bold for the British establishment to prepare a documentary which seeks to convince us and the rest of the world that a British Labour leader called Callaghan whose party had no clue absolutely on how to decolonize Rhodesia, would have had the vision to preserve Nkomo and Mugabe for a futuristic Lancaster House Conference which would only materialize reluctantly under the succeeding Conservative leadership of Margaret Thatcher, doubly pressured by the sobering military realities inside Rhodesia, and the relentless international pressure against the white settler regime.
That amounts to granting the Labour party and government a certain clairvoyance a fraction of which is would never claim for itself. It is also to suggest a false British goodwill for the Patriotic Front leadership, much worse to suggest imperialism fights liberation guerrilla insurgency not to defeat it, but to grow, nurture, nurse and mature it as interlocuteurs valables with whom to do business at the negotiating table. It is a very strange view of imperial state actions and history, but a very understandable strategy of owning and controlling people through colored history designed to engender undeserved indebtedness.........The real history stumbles......Apart from the declassifying British and Americans, the Rhodesians themselves are writing copiously. The bookshop at O.R. Tambo
International Airport is a good barometer. Hardly do you pass by without meeting a new publication by Rhodesians beckoning for your soul. There is a great, one-sided battle for possession of the history of this country. So far the Rhodesians have an upper hand, what with the fractious enervation on the part of the African makers of that contested history! The pipeline to the ZANU(PF) history is endless. Dr Shamuyarira is still writing, seemingly interminably. The President's memoirs are still to go beyond page One, which is why history shall serve "Dinner with Mugabe", making it a serve after Mugabe. Zapu's effort, dubbed Mafela Trust, is more a symbolic protest colored by publicity needs of contemporary politics than a serious go at history. Where the likes of Joshua Nkomo and
Edgar Tekere have sought to write personal memoirs, their historical reach is blunted by contemporary bitterness. Nkala promises something that only sees the light of day as he leaves this Earth. It has to be a soliloquy by a dead hero to the living. A valedictory speech is not the way to record history. Dzinashe Machingura says he will publish this month or next, sponsored by well-heeled liberal forces, more to discredit current politics, vindicate his own controversial role in a contested history, than to defend a much maligned history with so man players, beyond those who governed or govern. It's a parlous state of affairs, which is why it indeed is true that Rhodesians never die. It is scary! Nyangwe ndikafamba pakati pemupata wemumvuri werufu handitongotyi! The bell of history tolls for you and me. Icho!

MDC-T is synonymous with violence

MDC-T violence has been against those opposed to their regime change agenda especially ZANU PF supporters, security officials and Zimbabweans in general.BULAWAYO24


By Mukachana Hanyani

It is no longer a secret that the MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and his party are synonymous with violence. Whenever he opens up his mouth there is nothing constructive that comes out, expect senseless statements borne out of a clueless mind.




Tsvangirai as a national leader must know that preaching peace in the country exalts his person but on the contrary he is on a self-destructive path destroying himself by uttering hate speeches that has left every peace-loving Zimbabwean in a puzzle.





Tsvangirai recently made a baffling statement when he was addressing his supporters in Chegutu where he was quoted saying, “his party would emulate protests that toppled governments in North Africa if it deemed it necessary”.





The statement alone is a reflection of the violent nature of his party, as the good book says from the heart the mouth speaks.





Since its formation in September 1999, MDC-T has been the incarnation of unruly and thuggery behaviour which has attracted the riff raff of the people of Zimbabwe especially the unemployed youths.





In 2000, while addressing workers on May Day Workers Celebrations at Rufaro Stadium, Morgan Tsvangirai, the then newly appointed leader of an opposition political party and former Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union, stunned the nation when he said, “What I want to tell Mugabe today is that go peacefully or we will remove you violently”.





Little did people know that this statement was going to be the bedrock of this opposition party whose ideology became “regime change should come by whatever means necessary ” even if it was to the detriment of the people of Zimbabwe”.





Close analysis of what has been taking place since 2000 when Tsvangirai publicly said that violence would be used against leaders of the government to ensure political change, and his reiteration of the same statement ten years later reveals that Tsvangirai and his goons still believe that their twisted reasoning that violence could beget regime change could actually work.





Before the formation of the MDC in 1999, there were various political parties that existed peacefully with the ZANU PF government and violence was foreign to the socio-political landscape of the day.





Since independence in 1980, ZANU PF has been ruling the country peacefully and allowing other political parties to express their views without fear or intimidation. All opposition political parties were allowed to contest elections in the country.


In 1985, ZANU PF allowed political parties like PF ZAPU, Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe, (a former Republican Front party for whites), Independent Zimbabwe Group, another whites only party, and Zanu Ndonga to contest elections without any violence.





The above-mentioned political parties accepted ZANU PF victory in which it got sixty-four (64) seats with the remainder of the seats being shared among the losers with special mention for PF ZAPU and Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe each getting fifteen (15) seats.





In all these instances, there was no intimidation or violence from the opposition political parties and the country was run peacefully by ZANU PF.





To prove that ZANU PF was never a violent party but only MDC-T is well oiled in spearheading violent tactics against those who oppose their ideology, in 1990, ZANU PF allowed their former comrade in arms in the armed struggle the late Cde Edgar Tekere to form his party, which was called Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM).





On 23 March 1990, parliamentary elections were held in Zimbabwe simultaneously with the presidential elections. Those were the first elections held under the amended constitution of 1987, which ushered in an established executive presidency and abolished the senate, which was later reintroduced in 2005.





A number of opposition political parties including the then newly formed ZUM led by the late Edgar Tekere contested for supremacy. Despite having a number of such political parties which included those which contested in 1985 minus PF ZAPU which then joined ZANU PF in an historic Unity accord of 22 December1987, the elections were held in a peaceful atmosphere with no evidence of violence.





In 1996, presidential elections were also held but no evidence of violence was witnessed.





This serene environment became a thing of the past when Morgan Tsvangirai decided to form his party using the popularity he got during his time as Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union.





During the 2000 parliamentary elections, the country witnessed unprecedented violence that was to mark future occurrence as the newly formed MDC unleashed violence on the doorsteps of ZANU PF supporters and Zimbabweans in general.





MDC-T violence has been against those opposed to their regime change agenda especially ZANU PF supporters, security officials and Zimbabweans in general.





To show that MDC-T is a violent party which is not even afraid to target security officers, on 02 May 2011, four MDC-T supporters murdered Kingstone Mangwenya a member of Zimbabwe National Army based at KGIV barracks in Harare at Unit L Shops in Chitungwiza.


On a related note, in May 2011, the MDC-T members teamed up and fatally beat Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Deputy Officer- In-Charge of Borrowable Police Station, Inspector Petros Mutedza to death at Glen View 3 Shopping Centre as he and his colleague were trying to disperse an unsanctioned meeting held by the group.





In January 2011, about 200 MDC-T members assaulted and seriously injured ZRP, Assistant Inspector Shadreck Mudzimba in Budiriro 5,while he was attending a meeting at Rambai Makashinga Housing Cooperative.





Civilians are not spared from MDC-T violence especially those from ZANU PF membership.





In February 2011, Jimu Kunaka a ZANU PF Harare Provincial Youth Chairman was assaulted and seriously injured by four MDC-T youths at Bakers Inn corner Robert Mugabe and Rezende streetin Harare.Rezende streetin Harare.







MDC-T`s violence has of late been witnessed even among themselves as factional fighting pitying supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai and Tendai Biti, MDC-T Secretary General, took centre stage.





In March 2011, Sekai Holland, the MDC-T National Secretary for Policy and Research ran for dear life in Chipinge when the disgruntled MDC-T supporters wanted to mete instant justice on her and other senior MDC-T officials who were conducting the restructuring of Chipinge Central District Assembly at Gaza stadium.





In Midlands, the MDC-T violence reared its ugly head again when the factional feuding sides pitying the pro-Tsvangirai and pro Biti exchanged blows at the Zvishavane-Ngezi District restructuring exercise held at the end of March 2011. The elections, which were presided over by the Glen View Legislator, Paul Madzore, needed the swift intervention of the police which helped to calm down the situation.





The exchange of blows between the feuding factional sides that day resulted in the injury of two MDC-T activists Nomsa Gumbo and Melody Wandoreva forcing Paul Madzore to call off the elections,





In April 2011, an MDC-T Makokoba District Congress, held at Stanley Hall in Bulawayo took a nasty turn when some members were beaten up under the instigation of the MDC-T Vice President Thokozani Khupe. Khupe is alleged to have urged her supporters to beat those who were against her position as Makokoba legislator.





Chaotic scenes were also witnessed in Mutare in April 2011, as MDC-T chief whip, Innocent Gonese ran for dear life after some MDC-T youths loyal to one faction in the Manicaland Provincial Assembly Executive election sought to beat him up as they were against what he was doing.





So the MDC-T is a party, which always thrives on violence as it seeks its political supremacy.

Time to pay for Colonial sins

'A number of Europeans have sued in the past; you look at the Jews suing the Nazis and the families of Lockerbie bombing victims suing Libya.
'It is a matter of morality and it boggles the mind why Africans have not seriously pursued reparations.
'Some argue that the financial assistance given to Africa is some form of reparations for centuries of looting and inhuman treatment, but that is not the case.
 'Besides that aid comes with so many conditionalities that it is a crime in itself.'
Southern Times

By Farirai Machivenyika and Tichaona Zindoga
The decision by a British court to allow four former Mau Mau fighters to sue the UK for atrocities committed by colonial soldiers in Kenya provides an avenue for Africans to claim damages for crimes against humanity perpetrated by imperial powers.

Wambugu Wa Nyingi, Paulo Muoka Nzili, Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua and Jane Muthoni, who are in their 80s, have been battling since 2009 to get the British courts to hear their suit.

They allege brutal treatment in detention camps, including castration and sexual assault, at the hands of British colonial agents.

Some detainees interned during the 1952-1961 Mau Mau uprising in Kenya were murdered, forced into labour, starved and subjected to violence.

Among those allegedly abused was US President Barack Obama's grandfather.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office had argued that the responsibility for restitution devolved to the government of independent Kenya, which would be like claiming the current government of Germany is responsible for torture of Jews in Nazi-era concentration camps.

While it is a small step for Kenya, it is potentially a huge one for the rest of the continent as the Mau Mau case could set a precedent for countries brutalized by imperial powers.

Virtually no country was spared the terrors of colonialism.

In Southern Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the DRC particularly suffered under colonial rule, and the massacres of black Africans numbering more than 100 000 could be cited as an example of genocide and crimes against humanity in European and/or international courts.

Window of opportunityA prominent lawyer in Harare, Terrence Hussein, said the Mau Mau case provided window of opportunity.

He told The Southern Times: 'I had an opportunity to see the papers in that case and it was whether or not the Mau Mau had the right to sue the British government.

'The decision was that they had the right to sue; they have an arguable case. The matter can now go to trial.

'This sets a precedent and anyone who has a claim against the British government. I will give you a contemporary example: the residents of Tripoli can sue the British government and its allies for bombing civilians using a United Nations resolution that entails the protection of civilians.'

Western forces under Nato invaded Libya on March 19, 2011 ostensibly to protect civilians from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as spelt out in UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

But they have been bombing civilians and civilian infrastructure. Hussein said suits could be brought in classes or individually.

As in the Mau Mau case, he observed, it was cheaper to do bring class action suits where people sue as groups.
He said the British government could no longer dodge responsibility for its colonial actions.

In Zimbabwe's case, Hussein noted, Prince Charles himself pulled down the colonial flag in Harare and demonstrated British responsibility for colonialism – though the UK might try and dodge lawsuits from that country by trying to pin the blame on Ian Smith.

Time is essential
But there are some dangers.

'Time is essential,' said Hussein, 'you must find people who were affected. It was one of the reasons why the Mau Mau case was done quickly because most of the survivors are old.'

One of the applicants died before the ruling that they could sue the British government.

Hussein said victims of colonial brutality could go the Mau Mau way, noting it might be difficult for African governments to sue as they were not personally involved at the time and were not yet legally constituted.

However, in Zimbabwe's case – for example – he said the government could sue for the illegal European Union and US sanctions on the country.

The government could take the issue up in the British courts or to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, advised the lawyer.

Former Zimbabwe Attorney-General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele said it was within Africa's rights to sue for colonial wrongs.

'I remember when I was at the AG's Office we were trying a suit against Britain, specifically on the issue of land,' he said.

He said they had been emboldened by a case in Canada in which indigenous Americans successfully sued the American government.

The US – like settler Australians – attempted to wipe out indigenous peoples in some of the worst acts of genocide ever committed.

'There is a possibility; it can be done and those who were detained during colonialism can sue in British courts,' Gula-Ndebele emphasized.

He said Attorneys-General, as governments' chief lawyers and advisors, were critical to the whole matter.
A political commentator at the Harare Polytechnic, Brighton Nkala, agreed that the Kenyan case had set a precedent for former colonies.

'A number of Europeans have sued in the past; you look at the Jews suing the Nazis and the families of Lockerbie bombing victims suing Libya.

'It is a matter of morality and it boggles the mind why Africans have not seriously pursued reparations.

'Some argue that the financial assistance given to Africa is some form of reparations for centuries of looting and inhuman treatment, but that is not the case. 'Besides that aid comes with so many conditionalities that it is a crime in itself.'

Zimbabwe's Deputy Minister of Public Works, Aguy Georgias, has sued Britain over the imposition of illegal sanctions and early this month President Robert Mugabe urged other patriotic Zimbabweans to do likewise.

Georgias believes that such cases will expose Western hypocrisy and make rich countries accountable for their actions.

The evidenceThe UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office admitted to holding 1 500 colonial files on Kenya that it previously claimed were lost.

These files could expose Britain as they are believed to contain evidence of 'the burning alive of detainees'.

Martin Day, head of the legal team representing the four Mau Mau atrocity survivors, recently said: 'The paper trail went all the way up to the colonial secretary here in the UK.'

The papers were removed from Kenya's national archive in the run-up to independence.

A colonial office memo at the time said their contents 'might embarrass HMG (Her Majesty's government), might embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others'.

In Namibia, German colonial forces massacred two-thirds of the Herero population between 1904 and 1907.

A group of Herero's have for three years tried to claim US$4 billion in damages in US courts for the annihilation of as many as 60 000 of their kinsfolk.

The Namibian government however, has appeared reluctant to lend support to their cause.

In Zimbabwe, 10 000 people were killed by colonial agents and dumped in mine shafts in the Mt Darwin area between 1972 and 1979, in addition to the massacres of women and children at refugee camps.

In South Africa, workers who suffered in apartheid era mines could potentially claim up to US$100 billion from companies that treated them inhumanely.

There are numerous examples of British, Portuguese, German, Belgian and apartheid atrocities across Africa.

Legal precedents
Since 1945, Jews have successfully claimed millions of dollars in reparations from Nazi criminals.

As it was simply put by Mburumba Kerina, a Herero activist, a few years ago: 'The concerns of the Hereros must be seen in the same light as that of the Jewish people.'

 Africa can also draw on the example of Italy which in 2008 'voluntarily' paid Libya compensation of US$5 billion for its 30-year colonial rule.

Germany paid reparations to European nations for World War I and Japan did the same for its sins to South Korea in World War II.
All this is based on sound principles of international law.

On July 29, 1899 The Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War by Land was signed and took effect on September 4, 1900.

It regulates warfare and contains several provisions that were openly violated throughout the colonial era.

Article 4 says 'prisoners of war in the power of the hostile government . . . must be honorably treated', while Article 7 adds that 'the government into whose hands prisoners of war have fallen is bound to maintain them'.

Article 23 goes on to say 'it is especially prohibited to kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army; to declare that no quarter will be given; to destroy or seize the enemies property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessity of war'.

Article 46 reinforces it all by stating that 'family honours and rights, individual lives and private property . . . must be respected'. This was buttressed by the Nuremburg trials of Nazis and the Mau Mau case only adds to the precedents that Africa can draw from.

Sidney Harring, in an article for the West Virginia Law Review in 2002 ('German reparations to the Herero Nation: An Assertion of Herero Nationhood in the Path of Namibian Development?) summed it up thus; 'The concept of reparations is rooted in natural law, the common law, and international law; it is an equitable principle that the beneficiary of an ill-gotten gain should make restitution, both as an act of contrition and good will, but also simply to restore the victim to some part of their previous life.'