Mugabe is responsible for his woes

Mar 12, 2002

THE stand taken by the Parliamentary Committee on Presidential and Foreign Affairs in favour of the embattled Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is unwise and unfortunate.

With John KakandeTHE stand taken by the Parliamentary Committee on Presidential and Foreign Affairs in favour of the embattled Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is unwise and unfortunate. It is even more intriguing that the two members of the Committee, Aggrey Awori (Samia Bugwe North) and Ronald Reagan Okumu (Aswa) also stood by President Mugabe, a man who has publicly vowed to ‘crush’ the opposition in his country through undemocratic means. If Awori and Okumu have chosen to cheer Mugabe, what moral right do they have to question the Movement’s democratic credentials? How can Awori defend Mugabe who does not feel any remorse to charge his main challenger with treason in the midst of an election campaign? In my view it was a mistake for the African leaders at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Australia not to support tough action against President Mugabe as proposed by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They sent out the wrong message to the international community, and this would undermine investor confidence in this continent. It is true that there is a very delicate land question in Zimbabwe. Colonial policies of expropriation gave white farmers huge, free tracts of fertile land while the black people were restricted to crowded “tribal reserves” of little agricultural value. However, forceful seizure of land from the white farmers is not the right way to redress this colonial injustice. The Zimbabwe land question is somewhat similar to the Kibaale land issue. Forceful eviction of white farmers is as unjustified as would be the seizure of the mailoland owned by the Baganda in Kibaale district. The Zimbabwean land problem has been politically orchestrated by Mugabe to cling on to the presidency. It is Mugabe’s ruinous economic policies which have aggravated the land issue. How is it that for 20 years there was no invasion of the farms by the so-called bush war veterans? It is the collapse of the economy that has partly prompted the desperate unemployed and landless Zimbabweans, with the instigation of the ruling party, to turn to the white farms. Unfortunately, the farm invaders have no capacity to put the farmland to commercial farming. It is tragic for a government in this 21st century to replace commercial farming with peasant subsistence farming!The economic crisis in Zimbabwe, which has eroded Mugabe’s support, is due to his reckless policies that have caused economic ruin to a once prosperous country. Zimbabwe and Kenya were considered the economic giants in the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). But Mugabe’s bad policies, the economy is in tatters with inflation rates nearing 120%, 60% unemployment and chronic food shortages. Four in five Zimbabweans live below the poverty level. ends

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