Re: [Marxism] The Black Scholar Editorial on Zimbabwe

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps Walter can explain how this sanitised account of Zimbabwean 
history explains the Mugabe capitalist regime's continuing, relentless 
assaults on that country's working class, urban poor and farmworkers 
(see the link below from 2005)? Does he really believe that the 
country's vast majority of workers and urban dwellers are simply agents 
of imperialism? If not, is not the Zim workers' movement entitled to 
resist that regime? Should we not heed the views of the Zimbabwean 
socialists and the organised workers' movements in Zim? Should we not 
offer them our solidarity, while at the same exposing the hypocrisy and 
double standards of Western governments seeking to expoit the situation 
for their own ends?

I'd again urge Walter and others to read Dale McKinley's 2000 & 2001 
articles on the true nature of the Mugabe regime at 
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2000/404/23768 & 
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2001/441/26463

Norm.

**********

Zimbabwe’s authoritarian capitalist government, headed by President 
Robert Mugabe, has unleashed a massive wave of police brutality and 
destruction in an attempt to terrorise the country’s fiercely 
anti-government urban working class and other poor city dwellers.

Thousands of riot police have invaded working-class urban townships in 
the dead of night, looting and torching small traders’ market stalls, 
roadside “tuckshops”, carpenters’ workshops, and arresting and fining 
anybody suspected of “informal” economic activities. The wave of 
repression began in mid-May, reached a crescendo in late May and has 
continued into June.

Police are also evicting tens of thousands of backyard lodgers and 
impoverished residents of urban “squatter camps”. Families’ homes and 
meagre personal possessions have been bulldozed, leaving them without 
shelter from southern Africa’s frosty winter nights. According to the 
Combined Harare Residents Association, more than half of Harare’s 3 
million residents live in makeshift housing.

Late on May 26, more than 10,000 people were driven from their homes in 
the informal settlement of Hatcliffe, northern Harare. Many of the 
victims were supporters of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National 
Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), settled there in 2002 by the 
government. As in other raids, huge quantities of merchandise — 
especially scarce staples such as maize, sugar and petrol — as well as 
foreign currency were seized, whether or not the owners had licences to 
operate.

On May 24, Zimbabwe police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka told the 
government-owned daily Herald that the raids had so far netted Z$900 
million (A$120,000) in fines and Z$2.2 billion worth of goods. On June 
1, the Herald, quoted Zimbabwe assistant police commissioner Wayne 
Bvudzijena’s boast, “We have so far arrested a total of 22,735 people 
and recovered 33.5kg of gold ... and 26,000 litres of fuel”.

The official unemployment rate is running at more than 70% and tens of 
thousands of rural workers have sought refuge in the cities after being 
violently driven off farms. As a result, the vast majority of 
working-class Zimbabweans eke out a living in the “informal” economy. 
Even those still in jobs must supplement the wages in the informal 
sector, as their incomes are ravaged by 129% hyperinflation.

There is no love lost between the Mugabe regime and Zimbabwe’s urban 
masses. In the March 31 general election, despite widespread poll 
rigging, ZANU-PF was defeated in all but one of Harare’s 18 electorates. 
Similar result were recorded in other cities.

Dubbed Operation Murambatsvina (translated literally as “drive out the 
rubbish”, or euphemistically as “restore order”), the government claims 
its purpose is to root out “economic saboteurs” and criminals, and rid 
the cities of “illegal structures”.

In truth, Mugabe’s paramilitary invasions are designed to disorganise 
and discourage any resistance to May 28-29 price increases for maize 
meal (up 51%) and bread (up 29%). In the past, such increases have 
triggered massive urban rebellions in Harare.

The Mugabe regime also needs to prevent organised working-class 
resistance to austerity as it embarks on a campaign to win support from 
local big business and foreign capitalists, and eventually repair its 
relations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, has declared 2005 
“the year of investment attraction”. Gono declared soon after the Mugabe 
regime’s March 31 election victory: “we must realise as Zimbabweans that 
we cannot postpone the ‘turnaround’ [in economic policy], we have to 
take the pain like grown-ups and must know that the responsibility to 
turn around this economy squarely lies on our shoulders.”

According to Munyaradzi Gwisai, the former MP for the Harare seat of 
Highfield and a leading member of the International Socialist 
Organisation of Zimbabwe (ISOZ), Mugabe and Gono “are intent on sending 
a clear and unambiguous message to their capitalist paymasters ... that 
the country has turned over a new leaf and is ready to do everything it 
takes to advance and protect private property, and the wealth of the 
capitalists and the rich.”

The government’s attacks have met with some resistance. In the most 
determined response, on May 25 thousands of residents of Glen View and 
Budiriro, in Harare, blockaded streets and, armed only with stones, 
fought running battles with the paramilitary invaders for several hours. 
A protest march to the Glen View council hall was held before the 
residents dispersed.

One resident described the events to Zimbabwe’s Daily Mirror: “The whole 
of Glen View was here. This is a protest ... ZANU-PF, MDC [Movement for 
Democratic Change] ... supporters were all involved, they are fighting 
back. They hit back soon after police had destroyed the vegetable 
markets. People have been driven to the edge by the destruction of the 
... major sources of their livelihood.”

The Zimbabwe Standard on May 29 reported that the cops marched into the 
area singing: “You haven’t had enough of being beaten up. We are famed 
for roughing up people.”

Full:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2005/629/34597

--- In GreenLeft_discussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Walter Lippmann" 
<walterlx@...> wrote:
>
> (Taken in full from PORTSIDE)
> =================================================================
>
> The Black Scholar Editorial on Zimbabwe
>
> Submitted to Portside
> by the Author ===
>
> Dear Moderator,
>
> I think you are off the mark in your April 3 position on Zimbabwe.
> But that is understandable, in view of the massive disinformation
> that Blair, Bush, the EU have been dispersing.
>

Walter Lippmann wrote:

> (Taken in full from PORTSIDE)
> =================================================================
>
> The Black Scholar Editorial on Zimbabwe
>
> Submitted to Portside 
> by the Author ===
>
> Dear Moderator,
>
> I think you are off the mark in your April 3 position on Zimbabwe.
> But that is understandable, in view of the massive disinformation
> that Blair, Bush, the EU have been dispersing.
>
> The simple fact is that Britain welshed on its Lancaster House
> agreement to "buy out" white farmers and compensate them for land
> they had stolen from Zimbabwe some 100 years previously, when the
> country was a fiefdom of Cecil Rhodes and called "Rhodesia." and thus
> permit Zimbabwe to repossess its land and income without
> confrontation. Mugabe/ZANU inherited a nation whose black population
> was impoverished [1 % of the population--whites--owned 70% of the
> arable land.] Zimbabwe then borrowed money from IMF, got into the
> structural adjustment squeeze even though it has met wage demands as
> possible .
>
> At the same time, international capital began the destabilization
> strategy of inflating an opposition, supporting spurious
> demonstrations, and playing the human rights card, strategies already
> deployed in Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Poland to eliminate
> legitimate administrations.
>
> This campaign ignores the fact that Mugabe had been elected
> twice--legitimately--in elections that were deemed fair by
> international agencies. It also dismisses the Africans' right to
> self- determination, and ignores the fact that in late March, the
> leaders at the two-day Southern African Development Community (SADC)
> summit in Dar es Salaam took measures,asking South African President
> Thabo Mbeki to help promote dialogue between ZANU and MDC.
> (AllAfrica.com)
>
> I would suggest that you research a bit more deeply into the roots of
> the Zimbabwe crisis, and the morphing of the front line states into
> SADC, which advocates economic regionalism, political cooperation and
> respects the independence of its members.
>
> Separately, I am sending you an editorial I wrote on this subject
> that will be published in Volume 37 No. 2 of THE BLACK SCHOLAR.
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Robert Chrisman, Ph.D., 
> Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, 
> THE BLACK SCHOLAR
>
> ===
>
> ZIMBABWE: THE LONG STRUGGLE
>
> by Robert Chrisman, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher THE BLACK SCHOLAR,
> VOL. 37 #1
>
> BLACKS IN AMERICA have supported the Zimbabwe Liberation movement,
> both from our ideology of Pan-Africanism as well as from our
> identification with oppressed people in emerging countries. This
> issue of The Black Scholar explores the current crises in Zimbabwe to
> develop deeper understanding of issues within that embattled country.
> We give our thanks to the scholars and activists who have contributed
> their various viewpoints of this complex situation. Upon its
> independence and the ascendancy of ZANU's Robert Mugabe to its
> presidency in 1980, Zimbabwe's main economic resources, particularly
> agriculture, remained in the possession of white farmers who refused
> to release the spoils of Cecil Rhodes' policies: one percent of the
> population owned 70 percent of the arable land. As part of the peace
> settlement negotiated at Lancaster House, 1979-80, which involved the
> US, Britain had promised to subsidize the buy-out of these farmers
> but did not provide funds to pay them and equivocated on terms,
> insisting on 'willing buyer-willing seller,' and 'full-market value'
> for land. White farmers remained in possession of the land. On
> November 6, 1997 British Labour Secretary Clare Short sent a letter
> to Kumbirai Kangai, Minister of Agriculture in Zimbabwe, in which she
> stated that, 'We do not accept that Britain has a special
> responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe.'
>
>
> Structural Adjustment
>
> CORRECTING THE ECONOMIC and social welfare inequities for blacks left
> over by the white Ian Smith regime (temporarily solved by securing
> foreign credits), and a severe drought, forced Zimbabwe to enter a
> structural adjustment program with the International Monetary Fund
> (IMF) in 1990. Structural adjustment typically mandates laissez faire
> capitalism (disingenuously called 'neoliberalism'), privatization,
> and the reduction of social welfare. Since implementing these
> measures Zimbabwe's conditions have deteriorated drastically. Writing
> of this adjustment, political economist Antonia Juhasz states:
>
> In order to radically reduce government spending, the government
> fired tens of thousands of workers, gutted the pay of those who
> remained and drastically reduced spending on social programs. At the
> same time, taxes were reduced (the idea being to encourage both
> increased spending and businesses to locate to Zimbabwe), and the
> country was opened to foreign competition-hitting the manufacturing
> sector particularly hardâ?¦ Both employment and real wages declined
> sharply. During 1991-1996, manufacturing employment fell by 9 percent
> and wages dropped by 26 percent. Public sector employment fell by 23
> percent, with wages dropping by 40 percent. (Juhasz, 'The Tragic Tale
> of the IMF in Zimbabwe,' Daily Mirror of Zimbabwe, March 7, 2004)
>
> The privatization of health care has had disastrous consequences for
> AIDS/HIV treatment in Zimbabwe:
>
> While campaigns to prevent and treat HIV in other African nations
> benefit from international aid, the political situation in Zimbabwe
> has caused most foreign donors either to decrease aid for the country
> or halt it altogether. The United States, Australia and the European
> Union have also imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. The
> neighboring nation of Zambia, which has a similar HIV prevalence
> rate, receives around US $187 per HIV-positive person annually from
> foreign donors; in Zimbabwe, the figure is estimated to be just $4.
> (Graham Pembrey, 'HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe,' Avert.org)
>
> Clinics and individuals cannot afford to buy the needed drugs. Even
> so, on their own initiative, the Zimbabwean government and people
> have reduced incidence from 25 percent to 20 percent.
>
>
> Destabilization
>
> ZIMBABWE HAS BEEN SUBJECT to a two-pronged destabilization program
> led by the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union-1)
> economic sanctions and 2) a relentless propaganda barrage.
> Allegations against Zimbabwe of torture, cruelty, and abuse resemble
> similar Western orchestrations against Cuba, the German Democratic
> Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nicaragua, North Korea,
> Palestine, Poland, and other countries targeted for economic,
> political, or military assault. The goal is not economic justice for
> citizens but the creation of a national bourgeoisie which serves
> Western global interests, not those of its own people. A notable case
> is the Mexican crisis, brought about by the neoliberal polices of
> former president Vicente Fox and NAFTA.
>
> THROUGH ELECTIONS Mugabe has remained in power, but as is often the
> case when an independent or non-Western force prevails, its
> legitimacy is contested by pro-Western international and domestic
> forces. 'Democracy' in this context often means penetration of the
> nation by international capital, which ignores the fact that the
> primary issue is self-determination, not democracy. However, a
> country's cooperation with global capitalism does not mean sharing in
> its profits. As Moamar Gaddafi stated March 2, 2007, the 30th
> anniversary of his declaration of a Jamahiriyah or 'state of the
> masses,' the West has yet to provide economic aid to Libya, despite
> its retreat from nuclear programs:
>
> The prevailing powers today are in the hands of those who have
> economic and military power which puts fear in others. They can make
> you starve. They can close the doors for your exports of raw
> materials such as coffee or oil. . . . This is an international
> dictatorship that is being practiced against people, especially poor
> people. (William MacLean, Reuters, 'Gaddafi Says Fear Drives World
> Economic System,' Reuters.)
>
> For example, with the destruction of the Iraq nation state headed by
> Saddam Hussein-to create 'democracy'-its nationalized oil policy was
> destroyed to permit the plunder of the rich Iraq oil fields, which
> are to be divided among ethnic and religious factions, with the
> global West controlling their markets. Writes Pepe Escobar,
> 'Sixty-five of Iraq's roughly 80 oilfields already known will be
> offered for Big Oil to exploit. Iraq has as many as 70 undeveloped
> fields-â??small' ones hold a minimum of a billion barrels. As desert
> western Iraq has not even been exploited, reserves may reach 300
> billion barrels' (Escobar, 'US's Iraq Oil Grab is a Done Deal,' Asia
> Times Online, February 28, 2007).
>
>
> The Road Ahead
>
> ZIMBABWE'S PROGRESS toward true independence and self-determination
> has been hamstrung by the Draconian measures of economic sanctions,
> IMF schedules, and international demonization. Possessing
> extraordinary mineral and rare earth resources and fertile
> agriculture, Zimbabwe must be permitted to develop and integrate its
> resources with other developing nations in Southern Africa. The
> following measures must be taken immediately:
>
> â?¢ Forgive Zimbabwe's IMF debt. Currently Zimbabwe is 128 million
> dollars in arrears to the IMF. Considering that this amount is about
> five percent of the two billion dollars a week the US spends waging
> war on Iraq, debt forgiveness is a small price for securing peace and
> alleviating poverty and suffering.
>
> â?¢ The US, UK, and European Union should lift their economic
> sanctions on Zimbabwe. These sanctions have served no useful purpose
> but in fact expose the West as a group that will ruthlessly punish an
> emerging nation for reclaiming its patrimony of land, liberty, and
> the pursuit of economic and social justice.
>
> â?¢ The demonization of Zimbabwe must stop. The whirlwind of
> disinformation pouring from Western and pro-Western presses does not
> provide an objective, comparative context for understanding
> Zimbabwe's issues relative to those in other parts of the world,
> particularly the western surrogates in Asia and the Middle East.
>
> â?¢ The West must stop its provocative campaign for regime change and
> respect the national and regional autonomy of Zimbabwe, as Russia,
> China, South Africa, and the African Union have done. The continuing
> escalation of the West's belligerence and sanctions against
> independent, sovereign countries at the same time it offers a bait
> and switch of 'free elections and democracy,' offers a caution for
> blacks in America. The cause of social and economic justice in
> Zimbabwe is best served by the elimination of sanctions, the
> cessation of the propaganda war, and the forgiveness of the IMF debt.
> Such measures will allow Zimbabwe to solve its own problems without
> foreign interference.
>
>
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