Black Press International |

Date: Feature Week of March 9, 2003
Topic: Black Press Business/Economic
Author: William Reed
Article ID: article_ema030903a

BUSH SLAPS SANCTIONS ON AFRICAN LEADER
Should Mugabe Suffer For Taking Stolen Land Back From Whites?

President Bush has imposed sweeping new sanctions on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and 76 other government officials, saying the longtime African leader is attempting to destroy his country's democratic system. Bush says the government of Zimbabwe has "systematically undermined the nation's democratic institutions". The executive order, similar to the ban on members of the al Qaeda terrorist network, prohibits any commercial transactions or property deals by the named individuals in the U.S.

Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled the southern African country since its independence in 1980, accuses Britain – the former colonial power – and the U.S. of interfering in his country's internal affairs. The standoff is exacerbated by a regional famine and the land redistribution program backed by Mugabe's government that has forced many of the country's white farmers from their large agricultural farms.

Bush's actions toward Zimbabwe fly in the face of fairness and equality. From their days of colonialism, Europeans have possessed most of the best land in the African countries they controlled. In their acquisition of this land, Europeans took it with guns. Now, leaders of the West profess to be the champions of freedom and free speech in the world, but do not want to speak of the fact that white people still keep the most valuable lands in Africa. When Africans in Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe fought for independence, it meant two things to them - land and freedom. But when Europe conceded independence to African countries it was self-rule without land and freedom. And so most Africans continue to be landless while Europeans continue to own millions and millions of acres of the best land in Africa. In South Africa, 16 percent of the population – whites - own 87 percent of all arable land. In Zimbabwe, 4,500 white farmers - or a mere .03 percent of a population of 13 million Africans - own 73 percent of all arable land.

The African majority in South Africa and Zimbabwe live under this situation not because they like it or because it is right, moral, fair or just; but because they are powerless to change it. When Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair speak of "repression" in Africa, they never address the fact that the lack of independence in Zimbabwe can be traced to a situation where a mere .03 percent is allowed to own 73 percent of all arable land, totally control the nation's agriculture and own half the country's economy.

Mugabe is a former freedom fighter who fought for independence, but has stayed in power too long. In only the past few years of a 20-plus year rein has Mugabe has decided not just to say "no" to the West but also to redistribute land in his own country. Whatever his past mistakes, Mugabe is right in redistributing African land to its people. CNN, BBC and other Western news media, accuse Mugabe of violating the spirit of reconciliation and perpetrating racism against white people in Zimbabwe. Their accusations prove how little the West thinks of Africans' right to own their land or have meaningful independence.

The British government admits that at the time of independence it made a promise that it never kept, to provide the money necessary to buy out the white farmers. Now it claims the reason for its failure to keep its promise is Mugabe's mismanagement of Zimbabwean economy. But the real reason is the West's desire that Western companies and citizens control Zimbabwean and African economies.

Africans are entitled to recover their stolen lands from white farmers. And the West has a moral duty to pay not just compensation to white farmers who will lose land but to pay reparations to Africans now for all the millions of people they killed and kidnapped from Africa during the slave trade.

No matter how President Bush couches his statements about "helping bring about democracy" there, all African leaders - including those of the new government in South Africa - oppose the sanctions being used against Mugabe. The West must stop imposing white people as saviors of Black people using arguments that in effect paint white citizens of Africa as either more able technically or less corrupt morally.

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