14 June 2002
editorial
PRESIDENT Mugabe this week cut a lonely figure at the Rome FAO food summit. Television cameras showed him seated alone, his ministers behind him, receiving the occasional greeting from African ministers present. But he was shunned by leaders of any consequence who refused to allow the summit to become a focus of anti-Western demagoguery of the sort Mugabe specialises in.
Thabo Mbeki correctly identified problems of access for developing-country products (the US) and subsidies (the EU) as obstacles to fair trade and development. But Mugabe's claim that industrialised countries were not interested in finding a solution to problems affecting Africa was effectively rebuffed by USAid head Andrew Natsios who pointed out that "tyrannical and predatory" leaders like Mugabe were the main hindrance to recovery on the continent.
"He is causing the crisis in Zimbabwe," Natsios pointed out. And despite the bluster of Zimbabwean ministers in the official press, that is very much the consensus now.
Mugabe did manage a meeting with Kofi Annan. But the UN secretary-general reportedly used it to urge Mugabe to lift the GMB's chokehold on the import and sale of grain in Zimbabwe.
Britain's international development minister Clare Short noted that the FAO summit was typical of the old-style UN meetings where third world despots attacked the West while insisting they be given more handouts. Thankfully the UN is moving away from that sort of grandstanding. But the stayaway by world leaders except the Italian and Spanish prime ministers (Italy hosted the summit and Spain is current EU president) demonstrated a growing refusal to entertain Mugabe's posturing.
His statement that Western powers wanted to see developing countries suffer was precisely the sort of statement that he is no longer able to get away with. He was the cause of suffering in his own country, officials pointed out. It was "distasteful to see the president of Zimbabwe giving the impression that he really cared about his citizens", Natsios remarked. And EU parliamentarian Glenys Kinnock pointed out that Mugabe was using UN meetings to parade himself while people in Zimbabwe suffered because of his policies. It was "sheer hypocrisy", she said, for members of the Zimbabwean regime to be discussing efforts to ease poverty and hunger when their actions have helped to make the threat of widespread starvation a reality.
UN Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson pointedly remarked that some leaders were engineers of hunger and deprivation.
The evidence is clear enough. Farmers have been forbidden to plant crops on listed farms. Their willingness to plant winter wheat has been thwarted by Agricultural minister Joseph Made's refusal to give them assurances that their Section 8 notices will be lifted.
The havoc caused by sweeping land seizures, including the illegal seizure of irrigation equipment and other farm implements has directly impacted on food production. Nobody except the delusional circle around Mugabe is now disputing that. And the uncertainty surrounding the land issue has discouraged investment in agriculture across the board with damaging consequences for downstream businesses.
This is not a programme of giving "Zimbabwean land to Zimbabweans" as the president fatuously pretends. The victims of these wholesale dispossessions are Zimbabweans - farm workers and their white Zimbabwean employers who Mugabe has chosen to demonise in his racist campaign to deprive them of their livelihoods for exercising their democratic right to support the opposition.
Political intolerance, lawlessness and racism are the core policies driving Zanu PF's "third chimurenga". In what other country is it found acceptable for the government to wage a violent campaign against its own law-abiding citizens on the grounds of race or political affiliation?
That the world has finally woken up to this reality as famine now stalks the Southern African region is welcome, however belated. No amount of silly stories about Italian businessmen lining up to invest here can disguise the truth about Zimbabwe's descent into penury.
Travel writers brought here to write puff pieces last year don't appear to have been deceived either. This regime spells disaster not only for Zimbabweans but for the region we used to help feed.
Mugabe hoped to be the centre of attention in Rome. He was. He has become the symbol of African misrule. No wonder everybody else kept their distance!
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