arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Stop imperialist intervention in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe today provides irrefutable proof, if such be needed, of the decadent and parasitic nature of British monopoly capitalism.
British imperialism was forced to give up direct political control of Rhodesia (which it named to honour Cecil Rhodes, the notorious imperialist who organised the country's colonisation), when the enslaved colonial masses, recognising the British ruling class would never voluntarily consider any of its colonies "ready for self-government", substituted the weapon of criticism for the criticism of weapons.
By 1965, Britain felt the situation was getting out of control and wanted Ian Smith's ruling apartheid party, the "Rhodesia Front" to negotiate with the liberation fighters. Ian Smith (Prime Minister of the colonial government) refused point blank and on November the 11th issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in a vain attempt to cling to power and retain the exclusive sway of the white settler landlord-bourgeois class.
Smith declared a state of emergency and a period of unprecedented repression followed as the vicious apartheid regime tortured civilians and bombed refugee camps (in neighbouring Zambia and Mozambique) in its efforts to crush all opposition and to preserve the privileges of 7,000 white farmers, and their families, who together occupied some 35 million acres (more than half) of Zimbabwe's most productive land.
But oppression breeds resistance. The liberation struggle gained momentum as ZANU (led by Robert Mugabe) and ZAPU (led by Joshua Nkomo) joined together to form the Patriotic Front which, by 1979, emerged victorious in the civil war to break the people's chains of slavery.
The first free elections were held in February 1980 and, in recognition of its leading role in the victorious liberation struggle, ZANU won an overwhelming landslide victory.
Constitutional change and hand over of power was negotiated in the ensuing Lancaster House Negotiations, culminating in an agreement signed on 18 April 1980. Britain and the US pledged $2bn in compensation for the white farmers for the loss of their land (which their colonial ancestors had expropriated at gunpoint from the black tribes who lived there), which was to be re-distributed to the land-hungry black masses.
Britain and US failed, however, to honour their obligations.
Under the new constitution, the whites had 20 seats in the assembly and 10 seats in the senate reserved for them. This remained the case until 1987, but more importantly, the economic privilege and powerful organisation of the white landlords was maintained as was imperialist ownership of the largest mining and industrial enterprises.
The latter's hold on the nation is well illustrated by the following quotation:
"The political privileges enjoyed by whites were subsequently eliminated, though there were extensive privileges in other areas. These were evident by figures in a technical report on Zimbabwe's land tenure system: [published in June 1985] 4,500 farmers (most of them white) owned 50% of the country's productive land while the 4.5 million peasants lived in communally owned rural areas known as "tribal lands" [i.e. least fertile] where the black population were forced to live during the colonial era.
"The 'Commercial Farmers Union' of white farmers blocked many initiatives for rural relocation. They controlled 90% of all agricultural production, paid 1/3 of the country's salaries and exported 40% of the country's goods." (New Internationalist "World Guide 1997/98" - Zimbabwe. Our emphasis) The continuing colonial mentality of the landlords was evident from the fact that they carried on voting for the former party of apartheid, the Rhodesian Front. Until recently, that is, when they struck on a more sophisticated weapon: the "Movement for Democratic Change" (MDC).
Any attempt at redistribution or black participation in business met with sustained campaigns to destabilise Zimbabwe's economy and remove ZANU(PF) from government.
In 1990, parliament passed the Land Reform Act, which proved popular among the majority of the workers and peasants, but evoked fierce resistance from wealthy whites. By 1992, they had brought the economy to its knees and the IMF forced ZANU to implement a Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) to "reform" the economy in favour of imperialist interests: "its aim would be to liberalize the economy" (ibid.). In other words, Mugabe was forced to halt land reform and decrease expenditure on education and health.
But without fundamental redistribution of wealth, the domestic (still overwhelmingly white) landlord class and British finance capital have been able to consolidate their position and even increase the flow of tribute from exploitation of Zimbabwe's fertile agricultural land, its mineral wealth, and the labour power of its people.
Consequently, "Per capita incomes today are lower than in the heyday [!] of Mr Smith's white minority government in the early 1970s. Average real wages are lower than at independence, while between 125,000 and 150,000 jobs have been lost in the past 18 months. In July the UN reported that Zimbabwe was one of just five countries in the world whose human development index - measuring social and educational standards as well as prosperity - was lower than in 1980.
"Inflation is running at an annual rate of 70%, foreign investment and foreign aid have totally vanished and the currency has collapsed. In two months the parallel market rate for the Zimbabwean Dollar has doubled to Z$300 to the US dollar, nearly six times the official rate of Z$55" (Financial Times 18-19/8/2001 "A Bitter Harvest").
The thinly-veiled implication that blacks were better off as colonial slaves is not subtle. The FT, of course, attempts to blame Mugabe for British imperialist and landlord exploitation of the black masses; for the International Monetary Fund's SAP limiting the national education and healthcare budgets; for all manner of sabotage, including the financial campaign launched against Zimbabwe to devalue its currency.
The latter, incidentally, should not worry Zimbabe's workers and peasants. It is merely the stock market's reflection of the fact that conditions are no longer ideal for foreign capitalists to make a fast buck by exploiting Zimbabwe's labour and mineral resources. While devaluation can cause short term hardship, it should be taken as an indication that ZANU are doing something right: pursuing a policy that will ultimately result in Zimbabwe's people controlling their own nation's wealth, not the western imperialists who have for so long "turned the African continent into a warren for the hunting of black skins" (Marx, Capital, Vol I).
The rich white farmers are held up as captains of industry, earning "much of [Zimbabwe's] foreign currency" (The Times "Iron silence" 16/8/01). The implication is that taking their wealth and dividing it among the nation's poor (black) masses will make the whole country poorer. It will not. The vast majority of Zimbabweans (with whom the landlords do not, incidentally, share their foreign currency!) will be considerably enriched. It is only the exploiters who will lose. They will be forced - horror of horrors - to join the ranks of the proletariat and work for a living. And it is only the exploiters' privilege that our pro-imperialist media pundits seek to justify and protect. The fact is that Zimbabwe's national policy under Robert Mugabe and ZANU(PF) has been one of firmly opposing the machinations of imperialism, both domestically and Africa wide.
That is why, despite its domestic problems, 8,000 Zimbabwean troops have been sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo to support the Kabila's regime's progressive government in its fight to resist the US backed invasion of Rwanda and Uganda, which incidentally has exterminated over 2 million Congolese, be it said for the benefit of the imperialist spokesmen and those on the 'left' who "condemn unreservedly" the attacks on the World Trade Centre with the loss of 2,500 lives but have never been heard to say much about the imperialist terror attacks on the DRC. And Zimbabwe has found support among other nations who resolutely oppose imperialism, much to the latter's chagrin: "Mugabe is sufficiently hard pressed to be willing to make friends with a lexicon of pariah [i.e. independent] states. Besides Libya, the ranks of his foreign supporters have dwindled to China - which last month extended a further £2.57m loan to him [Zimbabwe] - North Korea, Iraq and a scattering of mainly impoverished African states" (The Sunday Times, 19/8/01).
In the face of increasing hardship, the militancy of the masses has been rekindled and the veterans of the liberation struggle (on whose heroism our imperialist press cannot pour forth enough contemptuous scorn) have once again placed the land question firmly on the agenda by occupying white farms.
ZANU pledged to support their struggle and held a referendum in 1999 to make the necessary constitutional changes allowing confiscation of land. In response, the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) in cooperation with the shady Zimbabwe Democracy Trust (ZDT)(a powerful organisation of imperialists, including three former British foreign secretaries and a former US assistant secretary of state for Africa) launched the "Movement for Democratic Change" (MDC).
The MDC drew on its masters' full economic and international media muscle, and succeeded in winning a "No" vote to constitutional reform, preventing land confiscation. Mugabe replied by using his presidential power to pass the Land Acquisition Act and the government has "already resettled 130,000 families - about 700,000 people" (FT, ibid.)
The MDC, led by Morgan Tsvengirai, went on to oppose ZANU in the parliamentary elections held in June 2000. (See analysis in Lalkar, July / August 2000). But despite the overwhelming material, organisational, political, economic and media support rendered to these thinly veiled puppets of British Imperialism, the MDC failed to oust ZANU.
Our media persist in trying to discredit Mugabe, by portraying him alternately as insane and ridiculous then dictatorial and racist, victimising the farmers merely because they are white. This spurious victim status attributed to the powerful CFU and disgusting attempt to justify (the really racist, neo-colonialist policy of) Britain's interference in Zimbabwe's internal affairs could not be further from the truth.
Dr Timothy Stamps, a (white) British citizen who came to Rhodesia in 1960 as a medical officer, but came to oppose the colonial regime and support ZANU, is now Zimbabwe's health minister. Stamps affirms that "Britain has consistently reneged on commitments to help finance land reform in its former colony and has played the leading role in manipulating and financing internal discontent in an effort to discredit and humiliate Mr Mugabe's government"
"British Companies like Lonmin (formerly Lonrho) and Tory MPs who own land here have donated large sums of money to what they call human rights organisations".
Imperialists are now gearing up to depose Robert Mugabe in forthcoming presidential elections due to be held in March 2002. The bourgeois press is already beginning its campaign of vilification and misinformation, and it looks set to eclipse the propaganda barrage that preceded parliamentary elections held in June. We can only hope that the result turns out similarly and that ZANU prevail to implement their "Third Chimurenga" (liberation struggle), as they refer to the overthrow of the white landlord elite.
The media are gleefully predicting an impending food shortage as these kulaks (who, having the largest farms, produce most of the marketable grain) threatened with re-possession, refuse to produce, hoping to precipitate unrest and heap blame upon the government. They openly state the case to use this blackmail of starvation against the Zimbabwean masses to rig the elections in favour of a pro-imperialist (MDC) candidate: undoubtedly the second coming of "their man" Morgan Tsvangirai.
"This poorly planned and under-funded [because Britain and US didn't honour agreements] exercise in social and economic engineering [shock horror! As if unbridled exploitation and impoverishment of the masses was not also social engineering - but in the reverse sense, in favour of the capitalist imperialists. We are not ashamed that we wish to "socially and economically" engineer a better world in which the exploitation of man by man and nation by nation will be outlawed!] coincides with a growing food supply crisis.
"Following the 35% fall in maize production this year… Zimbabwe faces a 600,000 tons cereals shortage between now and the next harvest in May, according to aid agencies. Most of this, about 500,000 tonnes is in maize, the country's staple food.
"Imports, which will be needed by December at the latest, will cost US$110m, which Simba Makoni, the finance minister, admits the country does not have. He has appealed to aid agencies for help, but donors are wary lest food aid be used by Zanu-PF to win votes." (FT, "A Bitter Harvest", 18/8/01).
More blatant still is the FT's editorial "Mugabe's UDI" of August 20th, 2001:
"The crisis in Zimbabwe presents the international community with as great a challenge as Ian Smith's Unilateral Declaration of Independence… A minority regime has effectively seized power, and human rights are being systematically abused."
One cannot let this go without passing comment. Has our respectable bourgeois journalist forgotten that (despite flagrant imperialist intervention via mass media, political funding of an opposition movement who miraculously sprang out of thin air in time to call the imperialists' tune, the support centres set up by the CFU and the ZDT, and the economic blackmail to which they subjected their workers) ZANU(PF) won the election by a clear majority on the largest turnout since independence? Certainly their majority makes the victory recently secured by either Tony Blair or George Bush Jr look farcical!
The human rights to which our faithful journalist refers, are of course, the only rights which the bourgeoisie really cares about: the right of capital to exploit labour and the right of imperialists to exploit their neo-colonies. But let us return to the text.
"One hope is that President Robert Mugabe can be defeated at the election due to be held by April next year. But a severe food shortage is expected to hit Zimbabwe well before then. If the crisis is not soon resolved, the international community will face a dilemma [!]. It can help feed Zimbabwe and cushion Mr Mugabe from the consequences of his misguided policies. Or it can watch the country go short of food, in the hope of precipitating change"
Ah yes! Once again, western finance capital stands powerless, wringing its hands in anguish - one could help, but would that really be for the best? One can guess how this moral "dilemma" will be resolved. ZANU(PF) are refusing to be intimidated and pressing ahead with land reform, leaving the question of compensation to be negotiated between the farmers and the British Government. The FT then goes on to admit that, actually, the west is already applying "de facto" sanctions - making the possibility of aid look wholly ridiculous - unless, of course, Zimbabwe would care to re-consider its "misguided policies":
"Mr Mugabe and his regime have been remarkably resilient. The country is already enduring de facto sanctions: the IMF and World Bank have frozen loans, aid is limited to humanitarian needs, and foreign investment has dried up. A carrot accompanies these sticks. Were Mr Mugabe to respect the question of human rights and adopt appropriate economic reforms, economic donors would help fund land reform [begging the question: where were these donors during the last 20 years?]." And so the question is stated openly. Stripped of all imperialist spokesmen's obscurantist terminology and their hypocritical concern for "human rights" (not those of the black masses, of course), it amounts to this: Either turn your economy voluntarily over for imperialism to exploit, stop meddling in international affairs against our will, primarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where we are attempting to gain control of the very gold, diamonds, cobalt and other minerals of that vast and vastly ruined rich central African country, and submit to imperialist diktat, or we will wage uncompromising political and economic struggle against you. If necessary we will starve you into submission, for it is our right to rule you and your place to submit. But Zimbabwe has other ideas!
"'Zimbabwe is ours' says a senior member of the Zanu-PF politburo and close confidant of Mr Mugabe. 'We shall never give it up. If need be we will go back to a peasant economy.'" (FT, 'A bitter Harvest')
Following the defeat of the MDC in June, Robin Cook threatened that if "Mugabe chose to ignore the election results", Britain would launch an international campaign to pressure him to "implement the will of the people." As we noted above, Britain's imperialists find themselves in a unique position to interpret the Zimbabwean "people's will" directly, without the use of such trivial intermediary devices as the actual election results!
But there is real menace behind these seemingly absurd words. Britain is orchestrating an international political campaign to isolate Zimbabwe, to supplement its internal interference and economic measures.
Special pressure is being put on South Africa, as the most powerful regional neighbour, but pressure is being extended to other African and commonwealth nations to suspend Zimbabwe from their organisations, clearing the way for extensive overt sanctions and possible military intervention "Francis Maude, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, called for Mr Blair to take a lead in trying to get Zimbabwe expelled from the Commonwealth" (The Times 18/8/01)
This is all done under cover of opposing alleged 'human rights abuses', as documented by another of the ZDTs 'Humanitarian Organisations', the 'Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum':
"The Foreign office said that ministers were extremely concerned by the contents of the report, but the government tactic was to work with European and Commonwealth partners to put pressure on Mr Mugabe. The EU is expected to meet Zimbabwean officials within days and a commonwealth foreign ministers' conference in Nigeria next month offers the best hope to press the government's case, the spokesman said" (ibid.)
The Sunday Times of 26th August frankly tells Blair to get over his feelings of "colonial guilt," and treat Mugabe's Zimbabwe as it did Apartheid South Africa: "…a worldwide economic blockade and the county's diplomatic isolation…
"The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, should be supported and military intervention should not be ruled out… Until decisive action is taken, the whole region is a high-risk area for investors. Whatever happens, Zanu's thugs will not inherit Zimbabwe's once fertile earth: the locusts will. Chastising Mr Mugabe at the next Commonwealth conference will not do. Appeasement has failed. Mr Blair must make that clear."
Meanwhile our monopoly-capitalist owned media churns out stories of alleged human rights abuses, of 'mistreatments of whites' and attacks on freedom of speech.
Much has been made of the closure of the Daily News, which had been the only imperialist controlled daily newspaper in Zimbabwe, having been "founded with British and Local backing in March 1999," since when it has been engaged in a "war with the government which has gone beyond words." The paper's editor, Geoffrey Nyarota is being positively idolised as the "thorn in the side of Mr Mugabe". Adopting the familiar counter-revolutionary propaganda tool, he serialised George Orwell's Animal Farm, but this time it is not Stalin who was maligned: "…it was the cartoon of Napoleon, the farm's autocratic pig, with a pair of spectacles identical to Mr Mugabe's that drove the point home"!
Needless to say, Nyarota has been rewarded for his 'brave' loyalty to imperialism. "His work won him international awards in journalism, including the commonwealth press union and the Association of Black American Journalists."
Imperialism's pressmen rail against Zimbabwe's government press precisely because it is independent. Independent of the most malignant and powerful influence of British and American finance capital, and is being used to counter their all-pervasive propaganda, evidently with a measure of success.
It is the duty of every progressive and right-minded person, especially those who consider themselves to be socialist, to support the right of the Zimbabwean people to govern their affairs, free from outside (British imperialist) intervention.
We must not be hoodwinked by the imperialist-led media campaign of vilification into opposing Mugabe. Undoubtedly, the typical Trotskyite tactic of "criticising Mugabe from the left" will be invoked by the opportunists in the British working class movement. They will join the imperialist chorus in denouncing alleged "human rights abuses" and levelling allegations of "corruption." No doubt some will call for a revolution to overthrow ZANU and institute "real" peoples rule. These disgusting gentry wouldn't know a revolution if it hit them over the heads (and they may rest assured that one day, if they persist in the thankless task of propagating their counter-revolutionary filth, it undoubtedly will!)
Indeed, that is precisely what they have been busy doing in Zimbabwe, where a Trotskyist outfit known as International Socialist Organisation (ISO), sister organisation of the British SWP, has been a founder member of the MDC, which even by the admission of Trotskyists is totally dominated by capitalists, white farmers, middle class elements and, above all, by imperialism. The efforts of the ISO, and its only MP, Munyaradzi Gwisai, who represents the Highfield constituency of Harare, have been concentrated on the destruction of "…the Zanu dictatorship and the propertied classes of bosses in whose service the Zanu-PF dictatorship ultimately operates" (quoted in the Weekly Worker of 19 July 2001). If that is the case, one wonders why imperialism has created the MDC (which the Trots, with their characteristic subservience to imperialism, have joined with such glee) to destroy "the Zanu-PF dictatorship"? The question has only to be posed to get the answer that all reactionary forces - from imperialism to the Trots - have joined hands, as they have always done, to overthrow a progressive regime which wishes to better the lives of its people by taking some radical progressive steps such as land distribution.
True socialists will not shirk their duty of promoting international solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe, hard as it may be to counter the flood of imperialist propaganda. It is clear that right is on the side of Robert Mugabe and ZANU(PF).
This much requires only a fundamental sense of justice. But we must help workers to see that the question of support for Zimbabwe is one of their fundamental self-interest.
Our whole way of life in Britain is parasitic to a very great extent. Our lives of relative comfort (compared, say, to those of Zimbabwean landless peasants) is possible thanks to the flow of tribute extracted from the poorest countries and people of the world through subjection of the entire economies of third world countries to the interests of 'our' multinaationals, guaranteeing a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
After the second world war, the workers of imperialist nations led a charmed existence. Reconstruction brought abundant employment and their ruling capitalist classes made a conscious effort to treat them well, in order to counter their growing militancy. Our capitalists have increased the exploitation of foreign lands to achieve this, they have literally "exported revolution."
But without the breakdown of the Keynesian consensus as a result of the deteriorating position of British imperialism, and expecially following the demise of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the eastern bloc, British imperialism has lost the capacity and the motivation for providing conditions in which ALL workers have a reasonable standard of life. It is putting the boot in by attacking the social provisions and wage conditons of increasingly broad sections of the working class. Export of capital gives our capitalists access to labourers who have a much lower standard of living. If they move production to these countries, their costs will decrease and profits increase. This leaves working people in Britain only two choices
Either, to lower their pay and conditions and their standard of living to those of the third world labourer, to the barest subsistence, in order to compete. Alternatively we can support the struggle of the people of exploited nations to raise their standard of living and fight the encroachments of imperialism - and thus help our own revolutionary fight against our parasitic ruling class: "Either eke out a miserable existence and sink lower and lower, or adopt a new weapon. That is the choice imperialism puts before the working class. Imperialism brings the proletariat to revolution" (Stalin).
We must make common cause with the masses of the Zimbabwean people in their struggle against our common exploiter, the British Ruling Class. Their struggle is ours.
Victory to the Third Chimurenga!
As this article was completed, the news broke that the Zimbabwe's foreign minister has signed an agreement to halt land reform while attending the Commonwealth meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. In return, Jack Straw has given vague assurances that "international donors will be found" to fund land redistribution. The Telegraph reports he has promised a paltry £36m. The deal would give "2.5 million acres of land from white farmers to resettle 20,000 Black families"
This may well be a diplomatic manoeuvre to buy time and leeway as Britain and America tighten the thumbscrews and undermine Zimbabwe's international support.
Euro MPs called for a travel ban on ZANU's leaders and seizure of their European assets. "Shopping in Harrods will be out, as will visiting their children in public schools" said Glenys Kinnock, tripping over herself to display her impeccable credentials as a devoted imperial servant. Together she and her husband take home hundreds of thousands in return for whipping up such racist anti-ZANU feeling among British workers. Yet another example of Labour's utter bankruptcy!
The imperialist hyenas are also tightening the screws on the governments of the various African countries that are supporting Mugabe. When confronted with imperialist economic blackmail, some African governments may think the easiest option is to submit, to sink lower and lower, little by little, in the hope of avoiding conflict. But the masses of their super-exploited workers and peasants are already living on their knees.
It is necessary to remember Cde Mao Tse-tung's famous statement that imperialism is but a paper tiger. It appears almighty and invincible and is frightening to confront. But imperialism is shaking at is foundations at the prospect of countries standing up for their own independence. Zimbabwe's example is spreading to dispossessed Africans in South Africa, as a result of which "The South African Rand has dropped to record lows, as international markets fear that the regional superpower will contract the Zimbabwean 'infection'".
No wonder imperialism fears Zimbabwe's example could provide the inspiration for the African People to stand up!
Chimurenga will continue!