Democrat June 2000 (Number 44)

Euro-empires back into Africa

Leo Dreapir explains the latest moves of imperialism

"The British media wants me to give the order to end
the occupations, but I will not do it. This is a revolution, it has
nothing to do with infringements of the law." - President Mugabe

The deaths of three farmers has unleashed gushing Western demonisation of Zimbabwe's President and the war veterans movement. Thousands of hungry landless African peasants in their own country demanding a piece of their own land are effortlessly dismissed.

British colonists occupied African agricultural land in the early 1900's by British armed force. In the 1960's those colonial settlers declared unilateral independence from Britain and governed by apartheid.

During the liberation British colonists, and their Anglo-US backers killed 25,000 African civilians in bombing and elite commando raids. President Robert Mugabe led the Patriotic Front during the liberation .

In December 1980, the Thatcher - Reagan alliance, forced the "Lancaster House Agreement" on the new sovereign Zimbabwe. The deal, gave the British white minority 20 of the 100 National Assembly seats, and an assurance they would not be dispossessed until 1990. The Anglo- Americans were guarantors against expropriation. In 1987 the British minority represented minus 2% of the population

After 1980 the US and British secret services penetrated ZANU-PF, corrupted a section of its leadership and put Zimbabwe's revolutionary agrarian programme on the back burner. Agrarian reform was adjourned.4,000 British families still control 30% of prime land in a country half as big again as Great Britain.

An MCD (Movement for Democratic Change), has appeared opposing military support for the Congolese revolution. Relying on the black urban African middle classes in alliance with the British farmers they hope to capitalise on peasant and urban social discontent at IMF "Structural" devastation and dominate a majority of seats at the next election..

When the government shelved the revolution, it lost the support of African peasants. The Western media hailed Mugabe the great African icon of IMF economic reform. In February 2000, Mugabe sought to regain peasant confidence, in a referendum favouring the expropriation of British held land without compensation. But following the MDC campaign amongst the urban middle classes, the "no" vote won 53%.

The Anglo-Americans instantly remodelled, Mugabe a corrupt and incompetent African leader demanding he resign. The West estimated Zimbabwe was on the edge of the abyss.

The more the West raged, the more President Mugabe reinforced his anti-imperialist stand, drawing from the 1970's revolutionary programme.Essentially, the weakness of the MDC referendum victory and the strength of the War Veterans Movement is that 80% of Zimbabweans, the rural peasants,did not take part in the vote. The MDC is nationally weak and receives a constant build up from US and British support.. In 1998, the Anglo-US backed Rwanda Uganda alliance attacked the Congo, Mugabe stood squarely with Angola, Namibia and Mozambique, in the camp of the Congo revolution. The Anglo-Americans found themselves facing strategic defeat.

The proxy war against the Congo aimed to establish a puppet government to continue pillaging the fabulous Congo riches on behalf of Anglo-American interests. The political struggle in Zimbabwe cannot be properly understood outside the Central African revolution.

African leaders, that came to the aid of the Congolese revolution, were concerned that Anglo-American proxy wars would destabilise the entire continent. Since then President Mugabe has been under heavy sustained pressure from the West to withdraw 10,000 Zimbabwe troops from the Congo.

The IMF demands Zimbabwe's immediate withdrawal from the Congo. The Financial Gazette 18.3. 99, reported IMF strategy was not to provide any more aid to Zimbabwe, but negotiate that aid in exchange for pressure on President Kabila. IMF demanded that President Mugabe pressurise the Congolese President to negotiate directly with the US and Ugandan backed rebels. Mugabe insists Zimbabwe will not withdraw from the Congo until the Ugandan and Rwandan aggressors withdraw, and are replaced by the UN.

London and Washington see Sierra Leone as the weak link in the African revolution intervening because the UN/ African force lacked the will to contain the anti-Western rebels satisfactorily thus opening the door for future direct Western interventions.

The Foreign Office announced they are ready to evacuate 20,000 British colonials from Zimbabwe. In the light of the British Sierra Leone operation this can only be read as a veiled threat of military intervention against President Mugabe's government.

Beware, Messers Cook and Hain! Landless peasants throughout the Third World rejoice in solidarity with the Zimbabwean struggle.