allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Country Faces Biggest Threat Since Independence (Page 1 of 3)

ONCE again, imperialist nations and their allied Press agencies along with other surrogate organisations have set out to destabilise the Government of President Mugabe and the ruling Zanu-PF.

Using circumstances surrounding the delay in the announcement of results of the March 29, 2008 poll for the Parliament and presidential elections, the chorus of calls for regime change have dominated the airwaves and print media.

US envoy Jendayi Frazer, who serves as Assistant Secretary State for African Affairs, was dispatched in late April to several countries on the continent to trumpet the idea of regime change in Zimbabwe.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has openly announced in the British parliament that Cde Mugabe must resign and hand over power to the pro-Western MDC.

The British went as far as promising the MDC leadership £1 billion annually to purportedly rebuild the economy of Zimbabwe which has been wrecked by the machinations of the former colonial power in London in co-operation with the United States and the European Union. What moral right do these imperialist nations have to interfere in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe and consequently Africa as a whole?

With specific reference to the United States, the whole idea of criticising the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for its job inside the country represents the height of hypocrisy. Was it not the current Bush regime that came into office in 2000 as a result of the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters, many of whom were African-Americans, during the debacle in Florida that led to the ascendancy of the present administration?

Even in 2004, it was documented by the Congressional Black Caucus and other civil rights organisations that the decisive vote count in the state of Ohio gave the necessary margin to declare George W. Bush victor for a disastrous second term in Washington.

Nonetheless, when democratic elections do not suit the interests of imperialism, such as what happened in Palestine when Hamas won the majority of seats in the authority, the results were rejected not only by the State of Israel but also the United States.

Background to the situation in Zimbabwe

When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, it was considered a major accomplishment that would eventually lead to the triumph of the national liberation struggles in Southern Africa.

Since the late 19th century when Cecil John Rhodes, the imperialist agent of British colonialism, pressed for the seizure of the land of the Ndebele and Shona peoples which was rich in natural resources and agricultural potential, the country became a major source of cheap labour and profits for the white settler class and its international partners.

With the beginning of the Second Chimurenga (anti-colonial struggle) during the 1960s, the first taking place in 1896-1897, the masses took up arms to fight for the end of British rule and the return of their land and mineral wealth to the African peasants and workers. In order to avoid an outright military defeat by the armed forces of the Patriotic Front composed of the Zimbabwe African National Union and the Zimbabwe African People's Union, the British and the United States forced the white-settler regime of Ian Smith, which had ostensibly broken away from the UK in 1965, to negotiate a political settlement with the liberation movements. Under the Lancaster House accords of 1979-1980, the British settlers would maintain control of most of the land in Zimbabwe for a period of 10 years. The whites would be guaranteed a 20 percent bloc within the House of Parliament for a decade and the independent Government would not nationalise the mines and other business interests inside the country.

However, it was agreed that the UK and the United States would supply funding for a land reform programme within 10 years to subsidise the gradual removal of the British from the prime land in Zimbabwe and the re-emergence of self-sufficient African farmers and agricultural workers. After the conclusion of the 1980s, the debate within Zimbabwe intensified over the delayed land reform process. By the end of the 1990s, the Zanu-PF Government of President Mugabe, after patiently waiting for two decades for the unfulfilled promises of the former colonial power of Britain and their imperialist partners in the United States, the passage of constitutional amendments granted the right to seize the farms of approximately 50 percent of the white settlers for the resettlement of the African people.

With the assistance of the revolutionary war veterans from the national liberation struggle of the 1960s and 1970s, these farms were occupied and the settlers, who held both Zimbabwean and British citizenship, were forced to leave and concede ownership to the Government which developed plans for land redistribution.

Destabilisation and the neo-liberal agenda

Since 1998, when it became clear that the Zanu-PF Government would eventually embark upon a radical land reform programme, the Western imperialist countries set out to bring down the administration of President Mugabe.

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