In These New Times

By Mukanya Makwira

The summit of the African union heads of state currently under way at the Egyptian resort of Sharma El Sheik presents a make-or-break situation for the organisation in light of the unprecedented pressure being put on it by the West over the Zimbabwean political situation.

For an organisation, very much in its infancy, being a product of the decades old Organisation of African Unity, their task is well cut. At the end of the summit, the organisation should be in a position to define where it stands in relation to the principles of its founding fathers.

As the summit starts, the Nkrumahs and Lumumbas must be following the proceedings of the summit together with the rest of Africans whose idea of independence has been the quest for total empowerment Article 11 of the OAU charter spells that; one of the major aims of the organisation is to eradicate all forms of colonialism in Africa.

The fall of the apartheid wall in South Africa signaled a new chapter in African politics in as much as it was a sad reality that the job for total decolonisation of the continent was only halfway through. Beyond lifting of the flags, the economy across the continent has largely remained in the hands of the former colonial masters.

“As in the rest of Africa, colonialism in Zimbabwe was a system of arbitrary, capricious power exercised by a distant colonial office and delegated to local white settlers who wielded it as agents of the imperial power”. Thus the restoration of the land seized during colonialism to the indigenous people was a central plank of the quest for independence.

Far from neither being a revolution turned awry nor the lack of respect for democratic tenets, the so-called Zimbabwean political impasse is a determination by a formerly oppressed people to attain full independence through the restoration of the means of production to the indigenous people. This has been against a shrewd former colonial master who has sought to maintain his stranglehold on the economy through proxy.

Behold, the Ghost of Sharma El Sheik is likely to haunt generations of Africans to come if the continent’s leaders do not stand up to a new wave of neo colonialism disguised as some mild form of liberal interventionism by the self appointed policemen of the world.

With the equally gullible Western controlled media ratcheting up the pressure, the leaders ought to approach the issue with very clear minds. As they deliberate about Harare, a few questions need answers

Could the British, the former coloniser explain its spirited attempts to push through the United Nations security council a resolution for the recognition of Tsvangirai despite the fact that he had not won an outright majority in the first round?

Why did the UK and the USA rush back to the UN to have the run-off elections declared that they “could have no credibility or legitimacy” despite them having been carried out according to the Zimbabwean constitution?

Why has the so-called international community been eager to condemn the Zimbabwean election process and some how ignored the blood letting that characterised the Kenyan, Nigerian, Iraq and Pakistan elections that took place in the recent past.

The elections in the aforementioned countries were virtually “certified” using thousands of innocent souls’ blood.

Instead of trying to appease the neo coloniser by “bashing and vilifying” Zimbabwe, a bold statement has to be sent. They should know that the continent has the full capacity to solve its issues and would not brood any interference from the Dutch or who so ever from outside.

Sadly, there has been a growing tendency amongst some of our brothers to sing Whitehall and Whitehouse tunes as a means of maintaining the parasitic relationship and remaining perpetual beggars. Otherwise how could one explain the antics of the Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga?

Some leaders have of late been behaving like a Chihuahua, perfecting the art of parrotry in a bid to mask the Western imperialist drive with an African face.

Otherwise, how could one describe Odinga’s antics, himself a Western of Western shenanigans taking every opportunity to exude his not so diplomatic vomit at every given opportunity?

An embarrassed Kenyan foreign minister had to take the shame of trying to put straight his country’s position as opposed to that “had been taken by the Prime minister and civic organisations”. What a first?

Also talk of bilateral “troikas”, all in the service of the “master”.

The African leadership risk becoming impotent and irrelevant in an era whereby other regions like the Asian bloc are asserting control over the control of their individual countries and the region.

Is it not that at the moment only African countries have to have their elections “certified” by an external pseudo authority in order to legitimise the process.

Talk of the dark old ages when an African was still considered to be an animal incapable of being rational.

Rather than it being a Presidnt Mugabe issue, the so-called “Zimbabwean crisis” is about asserting full control over a country’s resources as opposed to renewed colonial domination.

The Southern Africa region is especially seating on a powder keg. The unresolved burning land question in South Africa and Namibia’s fate largely rests on the summit’s way forward. The leaders cannot afford not to see behind the Western offensive to put President Mugabe on the wall.

The continent cannot turn the wheel back if it dreams of competing with the rest of the world on equal economic and political; footing.

Succumbing to the Western machinations would spell doom for the future generations.

The underlying slogan should be motherland or death.

The heightened Western calls and media frenzy in the build up to the summit has been done as a way of putting undue pressure and canvassing an “African” ultimatum to Zimbabwe.

With the mild threats of an African led military invasion, ironically being made by non-Africans, the plot even gets thicker. According to an editorial in a British tabloid “The Times” of 28 June 2008, Whitehall was just blunt of what it wants. “It is possible that a mix of international moral exhortation, and private cajolery, development aid and bribery threats could secure an apparently African initiative”

No wonder why some of the African leaders have literally sweating for media space to express “condemnation” so as to remain beneficiaries of Uncle Sam’s crumbs.

As President Thabo Mbeki has remarked, Zimbabwe’s issues are best solved by Zimbabweans for we have the internal capacity to do so.

The people of Zimbabwe would not entertain any interference by outside forces through proxy. The best the British can do would be to honour their commitment to pay compensation to the affected white farmers whose land was repossessed for the land reform exercise.

Zimbabwe Herald