Short films about Zimbabwe

The BBC History hour program/podcast today includes a discussion of Mugabe's massacres of his opponants:




and this is a BAFTA winning documentary on Zimbabwe's forgotten children:

History books on Rhodesia on line

Some history books on Rhodesia (written by Europeans, of course) are on line.

BOOK 1:1,000 miles in a machilla: travel and sport in Nyasaland, Angoniland, and Rhodesia, with some account of the resources of these countries; and chapters on sport by Colonel Colville, C.B (1911)

Book2:Resources in Rhodesia, implications for U.S. policy : hearings before the Subcommittee on International Resources, Food, and Energy of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session, April 13 and May 6, 1976 (1976)


Book 3: Rhodesia and its government (1898)

Book 4:Southern Rhodesia. Despatch to the high commissioner for South Africa, transmitting draft letters patent providing for the constitution of resposible government in the colony of Southern Rhodesia, and other draft instruments connected therewith .. (1922)

Book 5: Sunshine and storm in Rhodesia; being a narrative of events in Matabeleland both before and during the recent native insurrection up to the date of the disbandment of the Bulawayo field force (1896)

I haven't read any of these...but link to them for those interested in the subject..

Remember Nkomo

BBC: Nkomo's ghost haunts talks

....The talks are haunted by the spirit of the late Joshua Nkomo, whose fate stands as a warning to anyone trying to strike a deal with President Robert Mugabe.

Joshua Nkomo was, broadly, Mr Mugabe's contemporary, and a Zimbabwean liberation leader of impeccable credentials.

In 1980, at independence, he emerged as an alternative leader to Mr Mugabe.

His support base was in Matabeleland in the south and west of the country.

Ruthless campaign

Mr Mugabe fought him for five years.

He destroyed him in two ways. First he sent into Matabeleland the ruthless, North Korea-trained Fifth brigade.

Thousands of Mr Nkomo's supporters were murdered and their bodies dumped in mass graves in a two-year operation known as Gukurahundi.

Mr Mugabe used what, on the face of it, was sold to the world as a power-sharing agreement to consolidate his own one party state

Then - and this was a master stroke - Mr Mugabe reached an agreement with Mr Nkomo: a power-sharing agreement.

Mr Nkomo was brought into the government as vice-president.

Officially, the two political parties merged to form Zanu-PF, but in reality Mr Mugabe's party swallowed Mr Nkomo's Zapu party whole.

Mr Nkomo was neutralised, destroyed.

Mr Mugabe used what, on the face of it, was sold to the world as a power-sharing agreement to consolidate his own one-party state....

Ex Rhodesian sees irony in west's love of Mugabe

"...Throughout the Rhodesian Civil War, Western Media supported Mugabe’s so called “Freedom Fighters”, as did the World Council of Churches and many other Christian Organisations… and most Western Governments; they provided both moral and financial support to Mugabe and his terrorists. Everyone wanted Democracy for Africa. Sound familiar? (Because it is oil rich, it is unlikely that Iraq will end up with millions starving, but will “democracy” ever bring peace to the place?)
In Zimbabwe, no opposition has ever been allowed to win an election – everyone knows that the elections are rigged. People who are known to support Mugabe’s opposition are killed, or beaten and starved – their homes destroyed – unless they learn to vote for Mugabe’s party...."

Blame Jimmy Carter

Long history of how the politically correct essentially let Mugabe take over

When a crockodile eats the sun

book review

.. In When a Crocodile Eats the Sun-- a reference to solar eclipses, the most apocalyptic of African omens -- Peter Godwin, an acclaimed Zimbabwean journalist now living in Manhattan, masterfully weaves the political and the highly personal. An eyewitness account of that cataclysmic time, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is also a tribute to Godwin's aging parents and a searing exploration of the author's own soul.,,,

the frantic author risks slipping into Zimbabwe on frequent magazine assignments despite his exile status. He finds himself on the front line as Mugabe's murderous, pillaging mobs invade farms and smash agricultural infrastructure. An interview with an opposition candidate evolves into a nightlong ordeal fending off goons. Incognito at a political rally, Peter watches farm workers get selected for "re-education" while sullen armed teenagers prowl the remaining crowd, prodding people to raise fists higher, to cheer louder.

.... Peter, entertaining his parents with an outing to gawk at McMansions being built by political favorites, takes a wrong turn and finds himself on the prohibited dead end street leading to Robert Mugabe's new palace:

"As we round the bend . . . we see that the soldiers have been reinforced by a dozen more. These new ones carry machine guns, and the brass bullets in their bandoliers shimmer with menace as they catch the sun. At least ten weapons are now pointed directly at us....

Reclaiming the legacy of the Liberation war

"... No single individual delivered us from bondage. It was a collective effort. Across the length and breath of this country and in neighbouring countries such as Zambia , Mozambique and Tanzania , our sons and daughters came together, with a single purpose- to free Zimbabwe . For the record; Yes, Robert Mugabe was part of the liberation war effort. He was involved in the nationalist struggle. However, in that war he was a spineless coward who could not even fire a pistol. To this day he does not even know how to return a soldier’s salute. Those who fought in that war can attest to this characterization. He was the lucky coward of the liberation war.

As matter of principle we have no problem with spineless wimps, neither do we fault lucky cowards. What becomes problematic is when such shameless morons then appropriate the entire liberation war legacy as theirs, to the exclusion of those who actually fought in that struggle. That is what offends us as Zimbabweans. We take strong exception to that. We fought for our country as a people and freed ourselves as a united collective. We want to put it on record today, on our Independence Day, that the people of Zimbabwe do not owe Robert Mugabe anything. We owe ourselves as a people. We were masters of our own destiny.

Furthermore, let us reflect on the basis and foundation of the liberation struggle. The war of liberation was an all-inclusive, anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist protracted armed struggle. The principles and values of that struggle included democracy, freedom, liberty, equality, universal suffrage, justice, equity, socio-economic justice, and prosperity. When we look at the state of our nation today, the question is: Have we achieved these aspirations? The unequivocal response is NO. ...

Maybe because of the marxist groups who terrorized innocent people were allowed to run the government, instead of marginalizing them.
That is the dirty lesson of all "liberation wars".

Zimbabwe is at the crossroads where to advance forward requires nation builders, visionaries, statesmen and stateswomen; those skilled in the art of crafting states. Statecraft speaks to the expertise and wisdom in the effective management of public affairs. We refer here to leaders in the genre of Lee Quan Yew of Singapore, Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Indira Gandhi of India, Angela Merkel of Germany, Ernesto Che Guevara in Cuba, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. These were (are) men and women of immense talent, resolve, vision, and strategy. More importantly they were (are) masters of the art of execution and implementation.

Nation builders are able to unite and mobilize people for a national cause. They channel national energy and synergy towards the growth and development of a country. Unfortunately, Robert Mugabe does not belong to this group of nation builders. Great and significant leaders go beyond the limited scope of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that ends with self-actualization. They thrive to self-transcend, go beyond self and leave a legacy. Presumably, Mugabe’s favorite political text is that classic by Machiavelli, The Prince, where it is argued that the prince (leader) must pursue, obtain, and maintain power at any cost. However, Machiavelli also wrote a second book; The Discourses, where it is explained that the prince (leader) must also care about his legacy and judgment by history. This means the prince (leader) must be a state crafter. I guess our learned President has not read this insightful text, or if he did come across it, he never understood its import. What a shame.

The skills required for nation building are very different from those required to fight colonialism and imperialism. A new generation of leaders is required to take our country to the next level. The time has come to pass the baton from liberation struggle leaders to globalization savvy nation builders. The issues of technocratic capacity and technical solutions have never been more critical. Zimbabwe needs accomplished business practitioners, business thought leaders, management and economic thinkers, financial engineers, public policy thinkers, master entrepreneurs, technologists and scientists to drive our economy. Zimbabwe must become a globally competitive economy that rivals such nations like Singapore , Malaysia and Japan . We need creative dreamers and parallel thinkers who do not fear globalization, but rather thrive on chaos and uncertainty. Only freedom can allow our citizens to attain their full potential and take our nation forward.

Zimbabwe struggles for freedom

Last week there was hope in Zimbabwe.

For years after independence, there was hope. After all, despite the wish of small farmers to obtain land taken years before and sold to white farmers, the fact was that the larger farms could produce a surplus that fed the cities. In the meanwhile, export from farms and the various mining industries fed the economy, and with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, it was hoped that Zimbabwe would become a modern society like South Africa.

Then things changed. HIV began to decimate the population, partly spread because many young men worked away from home to earn a “bride price”, but also spread through the breakdown of traditional restraints on sexuality that came with urbanization. And HIV tended to hit the young, the educated urban dwellers, and the workers and families. The result is young people being cared for by the extended families in the villages, often by grandparents as father then the mother die of HIV.

The second disaster has been periodic droughts. Like Kansas, which was once dubbed the “Great American desert” but is now recognized as part of America’s breadbasket, so too Zimbabwe has potential to feed Africa. The need is for irrigation and specialized crops, fertilizer, and tractors or handplows. Although there are many productive small farms, the country tended to have two type of farms: The small communal fields owned by clans, using traditional methods and producing only enough to feed the farmers, and the large commercial farmers, mainly white from Europe or South Africa.

There was a need for land reform, but instead of selling part of the excess land from large farms to the workers, as Mugabe became less popular, he decided to throw out the white farmers and “redistribute the land”. Alas, he often redistributed it to cronies who didn’t know how to run larger farms, and often the workers, without the organization or capital to get fertilizer etc. merely ended up again as small traditional farmers, able to feed only their own families.

The confiscation of the farms resulted in economic collapse and the unwillingness of outside (mainly South African) investors to invest in other sectors such as mines, for fear that they too would be confiscated, or that with inflation that they could not rely on electricity and basic needs to run factories.

As the economy collapsed, instead of changing economic policies, the Mugabe government merely printed more money, which of course quickly became worthless. This week the inflation rate is 1700 percent.

As Mugabe became less popular, he became more dictatorial. So the last election was won by Mugabe, and indeed even if it was fair he would have won. But Mugabe essentially went out of his way to get votes with a combination of intimidation of voters by youth squads and threats of withholding food aid to villages that voted wrong resulted in repeat elections of Mugabe.

This intimidation worked in rural areas, where people tend to bend with the wind and survive. But some urban areas voted for the opposition.

To “punish” them, Mugabe ordered “Operation Clean up”, which he claimed was slum clearance. But in reality many of the houses and shops were middle class housing, and many displaced had no other place to go. It has been estimated 70 000 people were displaced by the operation, which continued despite protests from the UN, NGO’s and most western countries.

The opposition to that point remained divided and squabbling. However, despite a ban on political gatherings, the churches sponsored a prayer rally. The rally was broken up by Mugabe’s police, but photos of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangarai, face swollen from being beaten and denied medical care in jail for several days, resulted in publicity on international networks and outcry from western nations.

Alas, the only one in position to force Mugabe to change is the South African president, but despite pressure from churches and trade unions, he refused to do so, and Mugabe emerged triumphant from a meeting of local African states.

Since then, Mugabe has pressured his own party to let him run again for president. Those who hoped to succeed Mugabe had opposed it, and the latest rumor is that the vice president might resign.

In the next few weeks, look for more protests and strikes, but also for increased intimidation and jailing of opposition leaders on trumped up charges of arranging bombings or owing weapons.

Where this leads it is unsure. Several scenerios come to mind.

One: Bishop Ncube takes a page from Cardinal Sin and mounts a “people power” revolution. Like Marcos’ thugs, one doubts even Zimbabwean police could stop a peaceful march of tens of thousands of people praying and singing hymns.

Two: Mugabe is assasinated. Traditionally in Africa when kings or tribal elders oppress their people, they are poisoned by persons unknown. Even the great Shaka Zulu was killed when he became delusional. I do not support such an outcome, both because it is wrong but also because it would likely lead to anarchy or civil war as various factions fight for power, as happened in Liberia.

Three; South Africa sends in some troops and removes Mugabe. This is what has just happened in Somalia, and is how the notorious Idi Amin was removed from power.

Four: Mugabe is pressured by Mbeki of South Africa and his own party to resign and allow someone else from the ZANU PF to take over. This would be the best result, but has become less likely in the last week.

The real danger is that Mugabe is aging, and without a clear successor, when he dies, the power vaccum could result in anarchy.

When people say: What could be worse than Mugabe? I say: Charles Taylor of Liberia, or Idi Amin of Uganda, or the civil wars of the central African lake region.

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Memoirs of a former ZANU-PF Cadre

A long interview that tells the story of how one man joined to liberate his people, and what is going on now...too long for me to exerpt...