The Zimbabwe Guardian (London)
Floyd Nkomo
19 June 2008
PRESIDENT Mugabe has said that Britain is to blame for all the troubles bedeviling the country today because they reneged on their pledge to fund the land redistribution programme as agreed at the Lancaster House Conference in 1979 which paved way for a transitional constitution for an independent Zimbabwe.
Speaking during his election campaign in the second largest city of Bulawayo, the Zimbabwean veteran leader said although the Conservative Party led by Former British Prime Margaret Thatcher and later John Major agreed to fund the programme, the Labour government under Tony Blair reneged on the pledge through a letter written by one of Blair's ministers, Claire Short.
President Mugabe was referring to a letter written by then Secretary of State (for International Development), Claire Short, wrote to Zimbabwe's Minister of Agriculture and Lands, Kumbirai Kangai.
She said: "I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers."
Almost immediately, Britain stopped payments for land reform.
At Lancaster House USA and Britain had promised £2 billion for land redistribution, yet by 1997 they had made payments of only £44 million in honouring their commitment.
"The Labour Party did not want to co-operate with us. They reneged on the agreement. 'We derive our own authority from our own principles, not the Conservative Party,' they (the Labour government) said," said the President.
He also said that the government of Zimbabwe tried to reason diplomatically with Prime Minister Blair to continue making the land redistribution payments but they shut all doors.
"Then we said, keep your money, we keep our land. Why should they now cry foul?"
President Mugabe also said his government taught the British democracy as there was no democracy in colonial times.
"We taught them the principle of one man, one vote which did not exist under Ian Smith," he said adding that "Democracy also means self-rule, not rule by outsiders," referring to Western interference in the affairs of the southern African country.
President Mugabe also vowed that he will never let Zimbabwe go back to the colonials through the MDC-T party.
President Mugabe hailed Zimbabwe's education system, saying it was the second best on the continent after Tunisia.
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How the hell does it cost £2,000,000,000 to redistribute the land? Let me guess. Grace needs some shopping money for her trips to Italy?
Mugabe is correct on this matter but because it is all mingled up in politics it sounds like hogwash.
for another thing, Grace was not even there when these amounts were agreed.
however, disappointment over Britain's dishonor does not warrant or even tend to justify lose of human rights principals and massacring the same subjects that one has proudly liberated. such actions are uncommon and in their basest state are barbaric and degenerate. nullifying all the glory and respect, one may certianly have
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This post was deleted because it contravenes AllAfrica's commenting guidelines.
Of course Phiri...the only value to Africa in your distorted eyes is the likes of mugabe..people who personally dismantle a given treasure and fashion to nothing more than a public toilet...because that is what the once prosperous zimbabwe has become..an uncleaned overused public toilet!!! And all being run by one little murderous thug who will do anything to hold on to this toilet!!!!
£2 billion? Are you insane? That would mean spending £500,000 on every resettled farm. As Glyph says, that was in the 90s so today it would be like spending a million pounds per farm. Were they going to buy 300 tractors for every farm?
I've never seen this £2 billion figure mentioned before. Given that the Zim Guardian is nothing more than a UK wing of The Herald I consider this "news" to be BS propaganda.
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Mr Mugabe was given an opportunity to take an African country into the 21st century and help bring new understandings and meaning to justice for all . AND HE RUINED IT. Please do not blame any one for your own failures Bob!