New York, NY – A crowd of over 50 people gathered in front of the United Nations on Saturday, September 24 to rally in solidarity with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who spoke at the UN a couple days before. The group was also protesting the U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe, which they stated are illegal. Despite the sanctions, President Mnangagwa has started making progress toward ending poverty and hunger, as well as implementing various infrastructure projects to help build Zimbabwe and maintain independence from U.S. influence.

The action was called for by the December 12th Movement and included speakers from Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, as well as other anti-imperialist movements standing up against the United States. All speakers emphasized the importance of independence for Zimbabwe and all African countries that have been colonized by Britain and subjected to U.S. imperialism. A small group of counter-protesters tried to disrupt the rally, but the crowd maintained focus and out-chanted the detractors.

After the rally, the crowd marched down the streets of New York, demanding U.S. hands off Zimbabwe.

#NewYorkCityNY #AntiwarMovement #InternationalSolidarity #antiimperialism #Zimbabwe #Africa

New York, NY – A crowd of over 50 people gathered in front of the United Nations on Saturday, September 24 to rally in solidarity with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who spoke at the UN a couple days before. The group was also protesting the U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe, which they stated are illegal. Despite the sanctions, President Mnangagwa has started making progress toward ending poverty and hunger, as well as implementing various infrastructure projects to help build Zimbabwe and maintain independence from U.S. influence.

The action was called for by the December 12th Movement and included speakers from Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, as well as other anti-imperialist movements standing up against the United States. All speakers emphasized the importance of independence for Zimbabwe and all African countries that have been colonized by Britain and subjected to U.S. imperialism. A small group of counter-protesters tried to disrupt the rally, but the crowd maintained focus and out-chanted the detractors.

After the rally, the crowd marched down the streets of New York, demanding U.S. hands off Zimbabwe.

#AntiwarMovement #InternationalSolidarity #antiimperialism #Zimbabwe #NewYorkCity #Africa

New York, NY – A crowd of over 50 people gathered in front of the United Nations on Saturday, September 24 to rally in solidarity with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who spoke at the UN a couple days before. The group was also protesting the U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe, which they stated are illegal. Despite the sanctions, President Mnangagwa has started making progress toward ending poverty and hunger, as well as implementing various infrastructure projects to help build Zimbabwe and maintain independence from U.S. influence.

The action was called for by the December 12th Movement and included speakers from Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, as well as other anti-imperialist movements standing up against the United States. All speakers emphasized the importance of independence for Zimbabwe and all African countries that have been colonized by Britain and subjected to U.S. imperialism. A small group of counter-protesters tried to disrupt the rally, but the crowd maintained focus and out-chanted the detractors.

After the rally, the crowd marched down the streets of New York, demanding U.S. hands off Zimbabwe.

#AntiwarMovement #InternationalSolidarity #antiimperialism #Zimbabwe #NewYorkCity #Africa

New York, NY – A crowd of over 50 people gathered in front of the United Nations on Saturday, September 24 to rally in solidarity with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who spoke at the UN a couple days before. The group was also protesting the U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe, which they stated are illegal. Despite the sanctions, President Mnangagwa has started making progress toward ending poverty and hunger, as well as implementing various infrastructure projects to help build Zimbabwe and maintain independence from U.S. influence.

The action was called for by the December 12th Movement and included speakers from Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, as well as other anti-imperialist movements standing up against the United States. All speakers emphasized the importance of independence for Zimbabwe and all African countries that have been colonized by Britain and subjected to U.S. imperialism. A small group of counter-protesters tried to disrupt the rally, but the crowd maintained focus and out-chanted the detractors.

After the rally, the crowd marched down the streets of New York, demanding U.S. hands off Zimbabwe.

#NewYorkNY #InternationalSolidarity #Zimbabwe #Africa

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for some socialists in the United States last year when Robert Mugabe resigned as president of Zimbabwe. Far from celebrating the achievements of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, or even just taking an even-handed look at the successes and challenges facing the Southern African nation, a number of voices on the U.S. left seized the opportunity to smear the 93 year-old liberation leader’s legacy.

Zimbabwe underwent a tense but peaceful transition of power in November 2017 that saw Mugabe leave office after 37 years as head of state. Though the usual denunciations of Mugabe as a ‘tyrant’ came from the U.S. and British press, the left-wing journal Jacobin joined in the chorus, publishing some of the sorriest articles on Zimbabwe ever.

Jacobin is a social democratic publication that sometimes carries insightful articles about the U.S. economy and the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party. But for all their talk of socialism, they’re remarkably comfortable parroting the State Department’s line on many international issues.

So it is with Zimbabwe.

Writing in Jacobin on December 5, 2017, Benjamin Fogel asks “Why do so many Western leftists defend Robert Mugabe?” According to Fogel, Mugabe did absolutely nothing right. The charges made by Fogel are all familiar to anyone who has read a BBC or CNN article on Zimbabwe in the last 20 years: rampant corruption, opulent wealth, eliminating political opponents and using the nation’s fast-track land reform to enrich his “cronies.” But Fogel takes it one step further claiming “that Mugabe and ZANU-PF betrayed the national liberation struggle” in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle

Let’s look at the facts. In Mugabe’s 37 years as head of state, Zimbabwe transitioned from decades of white-minority rule to an independent Black-majority republic. Under British colonial rule, Zimbabwe – then known as Southern Rhodesia, named after the genocidal imperialist Cecil Rhodes – existed as an apartheid state, where a tiny class of white plantation owners possessed most of the nation’s land and natural resources. A 1962 survey by the Rhodesian government found that while Europeans comprised just 1/16th of the population, they owned more than half of the country’s land—and 82% of the fertile land!

Land hunger by the indigenous Black population fueled the nation’s liberation struggle. Led by the Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwean African People’s Union (ZAPU), a popular insurgency of workers, peasants and farmers defeated the Rhodesian Army – and its apartheid South African backers – in 1979.

Mugabe, one of the founders of ZANU, played an instrumental role in the liberation war’s victory, suffering 12 years of imprisonment by Rhodesian president Ian Smith, training guerrilla fighters in neighboring Mozambique, and crafting political and battlefield strategy. It’s hard for many activists in the U.S. to grasp the level of sacrifice it takes to spend 12 years in prison fighting for liberation, but it doesn’t excuse Fogel or Jacobin’s trite dismissal.

ZANU and ZAPU signed the Lancaster House Agreement with Britain and the U.S. in 1979, bringing an end to the liberation war and bringing majority-rule democracy to Zimbabwe. According to the terms of Lancaster House, the newly formed government of Zimbabwe agreed to a gradual land reform, whereby Britain and the U.S. would subsidize the purchase of land from white settlers and its redistribution to the indigenous black population. In total, both countries pledged around $1 billion in aid to Zimbabwe.

The people elected Mugabe prime minister in 1980 because of his revolutionary leadership. But while victorious, Mugabe inherited enormous economic damage inflicted by the white-minority Rhodesian government and severe underdevelopment in the countryside. Worse yet, Britain paid only a fraction of its obligation and the U.S. paid nothing at all. White landowners took advantage of the agreement, only selling fallow land to the government – at a markup! Fogel pays only lip-service to these obstacles, treating them as an after-thought rather than the set of concrete conditions that Mugabe’s government faced.

More tellingly, Fogel completely ignores the devastating foreign intervention by apartheid South Africa in the 1980s aimed at crushing independent African governments, Zimbabwe included. South Africa sent troops to back Ian Smith’s white minority regime as it terrorized indigenous Black Zimbabweans during the liberation struggle, but even after independence, South African destabilization cost Zimbabwe a staggering $10 billion – more than 14 times the total debt left by the deposed Rhodesian government – according to a 1998 study by Joseph Hanlon of the London School of Economics. The disturbances in Mtebeleland during the 1980s, which Fogel also cites, trace back to South African-backed death squads and arms shipments to anti-government rebels in the countryside.

In the 1990s, a series of the worst droughts in modern Zimbabwean history added fuel to the fire of Western betrayal. These challenges forced the government to take loans from international creditors in order to pay workers’ wages, finance future land reform efforts, and continue funding successful social programs, like the public education system. Like countless oppressed nations have experienced though, the IMF and World Bank never loan money without strings attached.

Fast-Track Land Reform

Mugabe’s government found itself between a rock and a hard place, as international creditors pushed for austerity measures while the U.S. and Britain continued to ignore their obligations. War veterans launched protests demanding more radical measures, and trade unions struck government services demanding raises. Something had to give – and it did in 1999, when liberation war veterans began directly organizing peasants, workers, and the urban poor to seize land from white owners.

While initially concerned that the land occupations would worsen the nation’s economic situation, Mugabe’s government came to embrace these actions. In the year 2000, the ruling ZANU-PF party, led by Mugabe, codified these land occupations in the constitution as the ‘Fast Track Land Reform Program’.

This is where the Jacobin drive-by of Mugabe really hits the skids. Fogel offers some mealy-mouthed praise for the “popular movement performing actual land reform” while also making the tired claim that Mugabe “hijacked the land reform project, ensuring his family and their cronies made off with the prime land.”

But that’s just a bald-faced lie. According to a study of Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform published in 2013 by Joseph Hanlon, J. M. Manjengwa and Teresa Smart, “less than 5% of new farmers with under 10% of the land are ‘cronies’ [of the government]” – a term they heavily criticize as a vague political slur.

In actuality, the vast majority of the land reform recipients were workers, peasants, and farmers. Ian Scoones’ groundbreaking 2010 study of Zimbabwe’s land reform found that 54% of recipients of individual land plots were peasants and farmers, 12% were workers or urban poor people, 17% were civil service workers, ranging from teachers to public sector workers, 4% were security services personnel, 5% were business people, and 8% were former farm workers. For the larger commercial farms, 12% of land recipients were peasants/farmers, 44% were workers or urban poor, 26% were civil service, 2% were security service personnel, 10% were business people, and 5% were former farmworkers.

From 2000 to 2013, 169,000 Black Zimbabwean farmers and their families received land, making it the single-largest and most progressive land reform in the history of Africa. Compare this to South Africa, where white landowners still possess over 73% of the nation’s land 14 years after the end of apartheid, and its clear that Zimbabwe’s example is something to celebrate.

For years, the State Department and the British government churned out this garbage of land reform “cronyism,” which wasn’t backed up by any data, and the corporate media was more than willing to publish it. But by 2009, study after study disproved the claim that the land reform had only benefitted Mugabe’s “cronies.” With so much data at their disposal, Fogel and Jacobin are either stuck in the mid-2000s or just willingly ignorant.

Socialism and National Democratic Revolution

The weirdest part of Fogel’s article is how much time he spends denouncing the idea of “Mugabe as a socialist revolutionary” – an idea I’ve only seen published in the Wall Street Journal.

While Marxism heavily influenced both ZANU and Mugabe during the liberation struggle, Zimbabwe did not pursue a socialist path after independence. Like many oppressed nations that overthrew colonialism in the post-WWII period, Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle was a national democratic revolution, which brought together all classes opposed to imperialism. The government led by Mugabe and ZANU-PF was national democratic, not socialist.

But as socialists living in the United States – the largest and most violent imperialist country on earth – it’s our duty to support the struggles of oppressed nations to win their freedom, whether they’re socialist or not. Workers in the U.S. have a common interest with all people around the world fighting the same class of billionaires, banks and corporations that we do. That’s part of the material basis for international solidarity and Jacobin just doesn’t do that.

Fogel’s opportunism reaches new heights when he compares Mugabe’s government to two other national democratic projects: the socialist-led government in Venezuela, and Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya. While acknowledging that “Venezuela suffers from serious economic problems,” he quickly adds that the oil-rich Latin American nation “reached heights far beyond those in Zimbabwe.” Incredibly, he also writes that Qaddafi “at least built a semi-decent welfare state for Libyans.”

Oh my! What a stunning reversal for Jacobin, which published a disgraceful hit-piece on Venezuela just five months earlier (see: “ Being Honest About Venezuela” by Mike Gonzalez) and gave hand-wringing support for the NATO-backed Libyan rebels in 2011, who now operate open-air slave markets along the Mediterranean (see: “ Libya and the Left” by Peter Frase).

One wonders what kind of outcome Fogel and the editors at Jacobin would like to see for Zimbabwe. Is it one where the U.S. and British-backed Movement for a Democratic Change (MDC) come to power? MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a sell-out opportunist trade union leader, regularly meets with U.S. and British officials and lobbies for more devastating sanctions on his own nation. Would his pro-West party better advance Jacobin’s misguided concept of ‘socialism’? Or would they like an imaginary, non-existent clique of perfect socialist revolutionaries, with well-worn copies of Jacobin’ s holiday issue tucked in their coat pockets, coming to power like they wanted for Libya in 2011?

Liberation from Zimbabwe to the U.S.A.

While this issue may seem abstract to a lot of socialists in the U.S., some of the implications hit closer to home than many realize. For one, Zimbabwe still suffers far-reaching sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Britain for taking back its land – under Mugabe’s government, no less. Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s promise of financial support in the Lancaster House Agreement goes unfulfilled, as does Britain’s obligations. The enormous economic challenges that Zimbabwe indeed faces today – from inflation to high unemployment – principally come from these outside factors. Socialists in the U.S. owe our support and international solidarity to the people of Zimbabwe as they continue struggling against imperialism.

But beyond the immediate economic struggles, there are many striking parallels between Zimbabwe’s ongoing liberation struggle and the struggle for Black liberation in the U.S.

These parallels weren’t lost on then-Rhodesian president Ian Smith, who looked to another former British colony ruled by a white minority when he issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. Smith saw a kinship with slaveowners like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who issued their own “UDI” in 1776. Indeed, Rhodesia’s UDI drew its textual inspiration from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, hoping to stave off the international pressures of decolonization.

Zimbabwe’s ‘civil war’ from 1966 to 1979 brought a majority-Black government to power, just as following the U.S. Civil War – the second American Revolution – the formerly enslaved Black population elected majority Republican state legislatures committed to equal rights, including a Black-majority legislature in South Carolina.

Reconstruction in the U.S. wasn’t a socialist revolution. It was a democratic revolution, whose aim was to bring the political and economic gains made under capitalist democracy to a section of the people – African Americans – that remained in literal slavery after the Revolution of 1776.

But in the U.S., the second revolution didn’t solve the land question. The guarantee of redistribution to the freed Black population – “40 acres and a mule,” promised in General Sherman’s Field Order 15 – went unfulfilled, and the white plantation class was allowed to keep their land and wealth. With their economic power intact, they used paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize the Black population and restore their political power by 1877.

Zimbabwe faced a similar dilemma in the late 1990s. The land question remained largely unresolved, with the white landowning class retaining most of their wealth and angling to restore their political power.

But the Zimbabwean people wrote their own history and took back their land. President Mugabe and ZANU-PF supported these efforts and codified them in the constitution – and they paid an enormous price for this, ranging from sanctions to foreign-backed destabilization. Whatever Mugabe’s shortcomings and mistakes – and he had plenty – his government represented the people’s continued national democratic struggle against imperialism.

Jacobin’s attacks on Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s national democratic revolution are just another sorry example of the chauvinism far too common in the U.S. Thankfully there are better examples of international solidarity we can look to, like the 1,000-plus crowd of African Americans who packed into Mount Olive Baptist Church in New York to hear Mugabe speak in 2000. While discussing land reform in his own nation, Mugabe expressed his solidarity for the fight against racism and white supremacy in the U.S.

Fogel’s piece seems preoccupied with the fate of ex-patriot intellectuals in Zimbabwe, and he seems very offended by the criticism of Jacobin’s position on social media. He doesn’t seem very concerned with the masses of ordinary Black Zimbabweans who, for the first time in a century, own their own land and control their own nation. He should probably spend less time on Facebook and Twitter, and more time organizing against the U.S. government’s imperialist designs for nations like Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Libya.

Jacobin, too, should consider that workers in the United States need every ally we can get in the fight against our own ruling class of billionaires, bankers and corporations. We should put our time and energy towards helping to break the shackles on independent nations, like Zimbabwe, rather than echoing the talking points of the rich and powerful.

#UnitedStates #OpEd #Zimbabwe #RobertMugabe #Jacobin #Africa

Editor’s note: Fight Back! is publishing this informative analysis by Dave Schneider on the recent events in Zimbabwe. It contains the views of the author, and Fight Back! editors welcome commentary and responses from readers.

On Nov. 21, Robert Gabriel Mugabe resigned as president of the Republic of Zimbabwe. The resignation came amid impeachment proceedings in the Parliament of Zimbabwe initiated by Mugabe’s own party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). In a letter read by Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda to lawmakers, Mugabe tendered his resignation effective immediately.

Mugabe is succeeded by his former vice president and longtime liberation war leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was sworn in as interim president on Nov. 24. Mnangagwa, 75, was sacked as vice president earlier this month, sparking a dramatic military intervention that led to Mugabe’s resignation.

These explosive events mark the latest chapter in an intense political struggle within the ruling ZANU-PF party, which boiled over onto the whole nation on Nov. 15. A week after the sacking of Mnangagwa, the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) moved into Harare, the capital, and secured Mugabe in his home in order to target “criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country,” according to a ZDF statement.

In the days that followed, First Lady Grace Mugabe, who at one time seemed poised to succeed Robert as president, left the country and had her party membership stripped by ZANU-PF. Several government officials closely tied to the Mugabes were removed from their posts. Most significantly, the ZANU-PF Central Committee and all ten party provinces voted unanimously to downgrade Robert Mugabe from First General Secretary of the party to a rank-and-file member on Nov. 19, setting the stage for his resignation two days later.

Many observers and authorities have labeled the ZDF’s intervention a ‘coup.’ Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Western-backed opposition Movement for a Democratic Change (MDC), jumped on the bandwagon, along with most of the Western media.

Notably, however, neither ZANU-PF, nor the military, nor Robert Mugabe himself have referred to the events as a coup. Indeed, while the military intervened in Zimbabwean politics, no unconstitutional change in government took place. Mugabe was not removed from power at any point until his resignation, which he called “voluntary.”

The dramatic events in Zimbabwe that led to this change in leadership were not a coup d’etat. Instead, they were the product of an intense struggle within ZANU-PF over succession and the direction of the country. With Mnangagwa as president, Zimbabwe enters a new chapter in its history marked with challenges and opportunities to build on the legacy of Mugabe.

ZANU-PF, Mugabe and the Liberation War Veterans

ZANU-PF is a revolutionary party that comes out of Zimbabwe’s national liberation struggle, known as the Second Chimurenga, which overthrew white-minority rule in 1979. Two parties led the 15-year liberation war: the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), which had its social base among black peasants and farmworkers, and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). The two parties would later merge in 1988 to become the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

Land and freedom were the driving issues of the Second Chimurenga. White British settlers led by infamous mass murderer Cecil Rhodes colonized Zimbabwe and most of southern Africa in the 1880s. Calling it ‘Rhodesia’, the white settlers created a horrific racist state built on removing black peasants from their land and enforcing racial inequalities. A 1962 survey of land in Rhodesia found that white settlers – never more than 1/16th of the population – owned 51% of the land and 82% of the best land in the country, although by 1976, only 15% of their land was actively used.

This monstrous colonialism sparked resistance. Influenced by Marxism-Leninism and socialist guerrilla movements across Africa, ZANU and ZAPU waged an insurgency against Rhodesian President Ian Smith’s racist regime from 1966 to 1979. Thousands of black revolutionaries faced incarceration or death at the hands of white Rhodesian troops and their apartheid South African counterparts. Among those locked up was ZANU founder Robert Mugabe, a former school teacher incarcerated by Smith from 1963 to 1974.

ZANU and ZAPU signed the Lancaster House Agreement with Britain and the U.S. in 1979, ending decades of white-minority rule and transferring political power to the indigenous black majority. As part of the agreement, the newly formed government of Zimbabwe agreed to a gradual land reform, whereby Britain and the U.S. would subsidize the purchase of land from white settlers and its redistribution to the indigenous black population. In total, both countries pledged around $1 billion in aid to Zimbabwe toward this effort and redevelopment.

Robert Mugabe was elected prime minister in 1980, but he quickly encountered obstacles. Britain paid only a fraction of its obligation under the Lancaster Agreement, and the U.S. paid nothing at all. Worse yet, white farmers refused to sell the best farmland to the government, even land that they didn’t use. When these white farmers did sell land, it was over-tilled and priced much higher than its actual worth to the point where less than 19% of redistributed land from 1980 to 1992 was of prime value. Land hunger for the black majority continued.

By the late 1990s, war veterans of the liberation struggle became enraged at how little had changed in terms of land ownership. The influential Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association has worked closely with ZANU-PF throughout its history, but Zimbabwean war veterans also see themselves as guardians of the liberation struggle. Amidst a deteriorating economy, they began directly organizing peasants, workers and the urban poor to seize land from white owners – a campaign known as jambanja.

Under massive pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Mugabe initially opposed these land occupations. However, war veterans inside ZANU-PF called massive rallies, mobilized popular support and convinced Mugabe to back the process. In 2000, ZANU-PF and President Mugabe approved a constitutional amendment to enshrine the “Fast-Track Land Reform Program” into law. In the years that followed, Zimbabwe undertook the largest, most progressive land reform in the history of Africa. Among the leaders of this enormous land reform program was current Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Most Western reporting on the recent military intervention in Zimbabwe has neglected this historical context. ZANU-PF is a revolutionary party whose commitment to national liberation goes beyond any single leader. Importantly too, war veterans and the military have played a unique, revolutionary and sometimes corrective role in Zimbabwe’s post-independence politics.

Power struggle in ZANU-PF sparks intervention by military

The Zimbabwe Defence Forces maintain that they have not executed a coup d’etat. Instead they claim to have targeted “corrupt elements” seeking to destabilize the government and take power within ZANU-PF. These “elements” loosely organized themselves as a faction within the party known as Generation 40, or G40.

G40 is a collection of middle-aged intellectuals who did not fight in the liberation war. These members view the continued prominence of war veterans in Zimbabwean political life as stifling their opportunities at self-advancement, and many have disturbing ties to the West. Jonathan Moyo, the brains behind G40, is a liberal professor who fled Zimbabwe during the Second Chimurenga. He worked for the multi-billion-dollar Ford Foundation in Kenya before returning to Harare in the early 2000s. Others have similar ties to massive non-profits in Europe and the U.S., which have often advocated for regime change in Zimbabwe. Although the G40 claimed to have support among the ZANU-PF youth, its actual leaders were much older and the faction lacked any real mass base.

After Mugabe’s re-election in 2013, ZANU-PF began to talk internally about a successor to the president, whose old age made another term unlikely. War veterans like Mnangagwa and then-Vice President Joice Mujuru emerged as leading candidates, much to the dismay of G40. Needing a contender of their own, the faction united behind First Lady Grace Mugabe and advocated making her the next president.

Grace Mugabe’s extravagant luxury spending in Europe and her ties to rampant corruption in the diamond industry made her wildly unpopular among ordinary Zimbabweans. Beyond this, Grace Mugabe also lacked any credentials as a liberation war veteran. Her proximity to Mugabe gave G40 great influence to purge potential rivals and long-time ZANU-PF leaders, which began in 2014. As Mugabe’s age increasingly forced him to take a step back from governance, Grace Mugabe’s role became more pronounced, culminating in the sacking of Mnangagwa on Nov. 6, 2017.

G40’s accumulation of power greatly disturbed Zimbabwe’s war veterans, who held protests against Mugabe’s government in 2016. According to ZDF General Constantino Chiwenga after the military intervention, the G40 had captured state authority by manipulating Robert Mugabe and targeting opponents within ZANU-PF. By extension, many of the newly resettled black farmers, whose land acquisition was organized largely by liberation war veterans, feared the prospect of a G40 takeover of ZANU-PF. Factional infighting in the ruling party risked opening the door to the reversal of fast-track land reform.

Mnangagwa’s removal proved the last straw in this intra-party struggle. With the full backing of the Liberation War Veterans Association, the ZDF targeted G40 members, secured Mugabe in his home, and responded to assassination threats against Mnangagwa and other ZANU-PF leaders. They arrested Moyo and others, while Grace Mugabe fled the country.

Importantly, they did not force Robert Mugabe to resign, nor did they prevent him from speaking at a graduation ceremony days later or calling a cabinet meeting. Mugabe was not forced to resign – in fact, he defied expectations that he would leave office in his Nov. 19 speech – and was neither arrested nor forced to leave the country. The goal of the intervention was to stabilize ZANU-PF and ensure an orderly transition of power within the party.

Mugabe himself affirmed this in his resignation letter to Parliament. The 93-year-old liberation leader, who sources say was “relieved” to finally resign, cited two reasons for his resignation: first, his “concern for the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe,” and second, his “desire to ensure a smooth, peaceful and non-violent transfer of power that underpins national security, peace and stability.”

Mugabe, ZANU-PF reject the ‘coup’ label

While the Western media and their darlings, like MDC opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, describe the military’s intervention as a ‘coup’, this is not an opinion shared in most of Zimbabwe or southern Africa in general. ZANU-PF declared that the military was playing a “patriotic” role in protecting the “national democratic project” of the country. The party’s Youth League – once considered a bastion of support for G40 – echoed the same sentiments and praised the ZDF.

Mugabe also refused to call the military intervention a coup and united with the criticisms issued by the war veterans, ZANU-PF and other sectors of Zimbabwean society. In a nationally televised address on Nov. 19, he said the ZDF’s actions “did not amount to a threat to our well cherished constitutional order, nor was it a challenge to my authority as head of state of government, not even as commander in chief of the ZDF,” adding that “the command element remained respectful with the dictates of constitutionalism.”

“Whatever the pros and cons, where they went about registering those concerns,” continued Mugabe, “I as the president of Zimbabwe and their commander in chief do acknowledge the issues they have drawn my attention to and do believe these were raised in the spirit of honesty and out of deep patriotic concern for the stability of the nation and welfare of our people.”

Far from denouncing the military’s actions – as one would expect during a coup – Mugabe instead acknowledged the underlying issues behind the military intervention, namely disunity and factionalism within ZANU-PF and the country’s worsening economic conditions.

Later in his speech, Mugabe offered words of self-criticism. “Of greater concern to our commanders are the well-founded fears that the lack of unity and commonness of purpose in both party and government was translating into perceptions of inattentiveness to the economy, open public spats between high ranking officials in the party and government, exacerbated by multiple conflicting messages from both the party and government, [which] made the criticism leveled against us inescapable.”

Speaking to the sidelining of war veterans and liberation leaders in ZANU-PF by the G40 faction, Mugabe said, “the current criticism raised against it [party disunity within ZANU-PF] by the command element and some of its members, have arisen from a well-founded perception that the party was stretching or even failing in its own rules and procedures.” In response, he acknowledged, “the war of liberation exacted life-long costs, which whilst hardly repayable may still be ameliorated,” and “have to be attended to with a great sense of urgency.”

Members of Southern African Development Commission (SADC), which mediated talks between Mugabe and the military, likewise refused to call the events a coup. In neighboring South Africa – Zimbabwe’s largest trading partner – neither the ruling African National Congress, nor the South African Communist Party, nor the Economic Freedom Fighters attached that label to the ZDF’s actions. All three parties instead praised the peaceful transition of power.

Some observers argue the question of whether or not to call these events a ‘coup’ is just semantics. In actuality, this question of ‘coup’ or ‘not a coup’ has incredibly significant consequences. The African Union and important regional bodies like SADC are charter-bound to expel any member state that experiences a coup d’etat or unconstitutional change in government.

Similarly, laws in the U.S. and other major countries suspend diplomatic relations and aid to countries deemed to have undergone a coup. However inconsistently the U.S. applies the label, the allegation of a ‘coup’ has often served as a pretext for foreign intervention.

Zimbabwe continues to undergo massive changes, the effects of which will become clearer overtime. However, it’s important to seek truth from facts, and the fact is that a ‘coup’ did not oust Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe’s legacy and moving forward

While Mugabe’s resignation letter brought cheers from the MDC opposition, members of ZANU-PF did not share their reaction.

ZANU PF Member of Parliament Terrance Mkupe said in an interview with the BBC on Nov. 11, “What was quite interesting was that when the letter was read out, only half of the House [of Parliament] was actually celebrating. Almost every ZANU-PF MP was actually almost in tears.” He continued, “A lot of guys were crying. We didn’t want this for our leader. We still love our leader. We didn’t want our leader to go out this way, because it felt like things could have been done in a much better way.”

For ZANU-PF, the military intervention and Mugabe’s resignation were necessary steps to protect the future of the party and the ongoing struggle for national liberation from enemies. G40 factionalists have taken advantage of Mugabe in his old age and jeopardized the party. The threat of impeachment came as a last resort to ensure a smooth transition of power to new leadership, namely Emmerson Mnangagwa. It was not intended to destroy or reverse the tremendous revolutionary gains made under Mugabe.

In his inauguration speech, Mnangagwa opened with a moving tribute to Mugabe, who he called “my leader” and praised for his leadership in the liberation war. He also declared in no uncertain terms that the fast-track land reform was “irreversible,” and called on the U.S. and Europe to lift its barbaric sanctions on Zimbabwe. True to Mugabe’s anti-imperialism, Mnangagwa also pledged the nation’s continued support for the Palestinian liberation struggle.

Mugabe’s revolutionary legacy continues in the 169,000 indigenous black farmers – most of whom were peasants, farmworkers, and the urban poor – who received 7 million hectares land under the fast-track land reform program. It continues in the majority-black ownership of major Zimbabwean companies and industries achieved through the indigenization program, and the nationalization of the nation’s diamond mines. Zimbabwe’s incredible achievements in the field of public education has virtually wiped out illiteracy and created one of the most educated nations on the continent.

The achievements of Mugabe’s 37-year tenure brought harsh reprisal from the Western imperialist powers. Devastating economic sanctions, political destabilization and predatory loan schemes by the IMF and World Bank have wreaked havoc on the people of Zimbabwe, leaving an economy with high unemployment and inflation. As president, Mnangagwa will have to confront these challenges and more.

But if the history of ZANU-PF proves anything, it’s that no challenge is insurmountable. The party remains in power and stands poised to win next year’s presidential election. Socialist China, a long-time ally of ZANU-PF dating back to the liberation war, offered its congratulations to Mnangagwa and pledged its continued economic support for the nation. Opportunities abound as Zimbabwe begins writing its next chapter.

#Zimbabwe #RobertMugabe #ZANUPF #Africa

Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist, lured Cecil into an area where it was illegal to kill lions and killed him. The beloved Cecil had long been tracked by both researchers and the public, and the world responded with outrage at the animal's death. Rightfully so: Yet another arrogant, well-to-do white man took something that did not belong to him for no other reason than it brought him pleasure.

This is, in a certain sense, the story of Western imperialism in Africa that continues still. The rich and powerful pillaged a continent and decimated countless peoples, all for their own enrichment.

The world cries out for an African lion, but before dentists were hunting lions, capitalists were hunting actual people in Africa. The U.S. was built on the backs of African slaves, kidnapped and killed for profit. That legacy is still felt every day by oppressed nationalities in the U.S., especially African Americans, with every racist death and every unjust imprisonment.

Be it minerals or oil, U.S. corporations roam Africa in order to keep Western coffers filled, and there are factors like IMF loans and imperialist foreign investment that force African nations to the very bottom of world hierarchy, stifling the freedom of millions of people.

Yes, Walter Palmer should be condemned and held accountable for his crime. But while one weeps for a lion, millions of Africans suffer and die in order that the rich in the West can lead a life of luxury.

Perhaps the best thing we can do in the wake of Cecil's untimely death is to rally against U.S. imperialism Africa and build support for the forces who are fighting to liberate Africa from it.

#SaltLakeCityUT #Imperialism #Africa #Zimbabwe #CecilTheLion #WalterPalmer

Chicago, IL – Federal charges were unsealed against two Chicago men, Aug. 6, for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe. The charges claim that Ben Israel and Greg Turner assisted Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and others in an effort to lift the unjust economic sanctions. The government claims that Israel and Tuner were promised payment for their lobbying and consulting work in 2008 and 2009.

The men have been charged with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which carries up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

An affidavit from FBI agent Steven Noldin claims the two lobbied congress people and Illinois state politicians.

Starting under the Bush administration, Zimbabwe and its leaders have faced devastating sanctions for charting a course of development independent of Western domination. U.S. politicians have also condemned Zimbabwe’s land reform efforts.

A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago indicates the FBI investigation started in late 2008. According to the statement, “a scheduler for President-Elect Obama’s transition team sent an email to another transition team member stating that State Representative A ‘wants a phone call from [transition team officials] regarding a meeting he had last week in Zimbabwe. I am not sure who to pass this on to but it’s the second time they have called.’ The transition team forwarded this email to the FBI based on its concerns that State Representative A may have violated sanctions by traveling to Zimbabwe.”

One of the prosecutors pursuing the case is civil liberties opponent Barry Jonas. Jonas is well known for his prosecution of the Holy Land 5. Accused of material support for terrorism, the five are now doing long prison sentences for the ‘crime’ of providing charity to Palestinians.

Jonas is also working on the case of Midwest anti-war and international solidarity activists who were raided by the FBI in September 2010 and subpoenaed to a Chicago grand jury investigating material support of terrorism. The peace activists demand an end to the investigation.

#ChicagoIL #sanctions #USImperialism #AssistantUSAttorneyBarryJonas #InjusticeSystem #Zimbabwe

To: Comrade Robert Mugabe, President and First Secretary of Zanu PF

From: Freedom Road Socialist Organization, USA

Dear Comrade,

We send our warmest greetings and congratulations on the occasion of your re-election to the Presidency of Zimbabwe. We see this victory of ZANU-PF as an historical victory for the cause of African liberation, and a blow against neo-colonialism and imperialism. We condemn the attempts by the government of the United States to discredit Zimbabwe’s free and fair electoral process.

The long struggle of the people of Zimbabwe, under the leadership of ZANU-PF, to smash the Western-backed white minority rulers was a great inspiration to people in the United States and around the world. We continue to be impressed by the heroic efforts of ZANU-PF to press forward the revolutionary process and to build a country that is self-reliant and independent of Western imperialism.

We salute you, the leadership of ZANU-PF and people of Zimbabwe and we wish you every success in the future.

Fraternally,

Freedom Road Socialist Organization, USA

#UnitedStates #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #RobertMugabe #ZANUPF #Zimbabwe #Africa

Although official vote totals in the July 31 election are still coming in, the people of Zimbabwe voted overwhelmingly to reelect President Robert Mugabe to another five-year term. Mugabe’s party, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), also won the parliamentary election in a landslide, making gains and solidifying their majority. Despite claims by Mugabe’s opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), that the elections were rigged, monitors from the African Union called the elections “peaceful, orderly, free and fair.”

Mugabe’s victory is a mandate for the ZANU-PF manifesto, which calls for over $1.8 trillion in idle mining assets and $7.3 billion in foreign-owned assets to be turned over to Zimbabweans. Voters similarly favor the ZANU-PF plan for “education for all,” “housing for all,” and gender equality “through laws, empowerment programs and promotion of women in sectors and positions previously held by men only,” according to the ZANU-PF 2013 election manifesto.

This is the third and latest defeat of MDC candidate Tsvangirai, who ran against Mugabe for President in 2002 and 2008. Although Tsvangirai led the 2008 presidential election, he failed to garner a majority vote and lost decisively in the runoff to Mugabe. Wikileaks cables from 2010 revealed collaboration between Tsvangirai with his MDC party and the U.S. Tsvangirai called on the Western countries to toughen the economic sanctions on his own country and people after he lost the election. Since that time, more and more Zimbabweans disapprove of the MDC in opinion polls.

In February 2013, Zimbabweans approved a new constitution, ending a power-sharing deal between ZANU-PF and the MDC. A decisive election victory for ZANU-PF provides a mandate and curbs outsider meddling in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe.

Indigenization Program central to election

Zimbabwe’s election comes at a time of profound revolutionary changes in the nation. In May 2012, ZANU-PF announced the implementation of the Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Program, to transfer ownership of the major national industries to Zimbabweans and workers. According to the ZANU-PF’s election manifesto, called “Taking Back the Economy,” the indigenization “seeks to enforce the transfer to local entities of at least 51% controlling equity in all existing foreign owned businesses.” The aim is to “create dignified employment especially for the youth, distribute wealth amongst citizens more equitably, cause a general improvement in the quality of life of every Zimbabwean and bring about sustainable national development which is homegrown.”

ZANU-PF’s campaign focused on strengthening the nation’s land reform – which redistributed more than 7 million hectares of land, mostly to African peasants and farmworkers – and deepening the indigenization policies. In a preface to the manifesto, Robert Mugabe and his wife, Grace, write, “The essence of ZANU-PF’s ideology is to economically empower the indigenous people of Zimbabwe by enabling them to fully own their country’s God-given natural resources and the means of production to unlock or create value from those resources.”

Indigenization policies already distributed more than 120 mining companies to black Zimbabweans, organized into employee ownership trusts. These trusts allow working people in Zimbabwe to share in their nation’s resources, rather than Western companies taking profits out of Zimbabwe. ZANU-PF also aims to transition the current stock exchange into an indigenized market owned by Zimbabweans called the Harare Stock Exchange. They claim that shares will be distributed to at least 500,000 people in the first year, with the greatest beneficiaries being women, youth, and disabled people.

Zimbabwe’s struggle against colonialism and imperialism

ZANU-PF’s victory demonstrates the continued importance of Zimbabwe’s revolutionary history. British Imperialists, led by infamous mass murderer Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company, invaded and colonized Zimbabwe around 1880. Rhodes named the country after himself as white colonists seized the best land. With most of the land and the government in white hands, the whites ruled the country despite never being more than 4.3% of the population. In 1966, Zimbabweans waged a 13-year liberation war against white minority rule that ended the racist Ian Smith regime in 1980.

Mugabe’s continued popularity and re-election as President comes from his leadership during the liberation war, called the ‘Second Chimurenga’ by Zimbabweans. Influenced by the Chinese communist revolutionary Mao Zedong, Mugabe founded ZANU along with other black revolutionaries in Zimbabwe. Ian Smith imprisoned Mugabe for more than a decade, and then he was elected President of ZANU in 1974 shortly before his release.

After winning majority rule, most black Zimbabweans remained dispossessed and poor while white colonizers kept the best farmland. After a series of austerity measures forced upon Zimbabwe by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the people of Zimbabwe began occupying large farms and taking control of their own resources in 2000. Almost 75% of the beneficiaries of the land reform were poor peasants, former farmworkers and urban workers – many of whom were women – making it one of the most progressive land reforms in the history of Africa.

By stripping wealthy whites of their land and political power, Zimbabwe angered the U.S. and Britain, who responded with economic sanctions that sent Zimbabwe down a destructive path of hyperinflation and economic turmoil. However, with new investment from socialist countries like the People’s Republic of China, Zimbabwe’s economy began to recover, with their gross domestic product growing by 11% in 2011 alone.

Unemployment remains a persistent struggle in Zimbabwe, caused by the continued sanctions placed on Zimbabwe by the U.S. and Britain. However, ZANU-PF designed the indigenization program to create dignified jobs for Zimbabwean workers and allow them greater ownership of the nation’s resources.

At 89, Mugabe is the oldest African head of state, and constitutionally this will be his final term as president. ZANU-PF spent the past five years, after the 2008 election, holding party cadre schools to train activists to continue the revolution. With a new victory on the horizon, the days ahead shine bright for Zimbabweans.

#Zimbabwe #RobertMugabe #ZANUPF #Africa

Following the agreement, President Robert Mugabe, of ZANU-PF, called for peaceful presidential elections as early as March 2013. Fearing defeat, the unpopular MDC immediately came out against holding elections.

Most analysts believe that Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, will handily defeat Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC at the polls. An August 2012 survey by Freedom House, a pro-imperialist Western think-tank, found that more than 31% of people support ZANU-PF compared to the 20% who support MDC in the upcoming elections. The study found that the MDC had lost 18% support since 2010 while ZANU-PF had gained 17% support in the same period. Even Zimbabwe Vigil, a pro-MDC firm based in Britain, predicted in September 2012 that ZANU-PF would win the upcoming elections because of corruption in the MDC.

The draft constitution comes amid the profound revolutionary changes taking place in Zimbabwe. White colonists, never more than 4.3% of the population, ruled Zimbabwe for many decades. Then Zimbabweans waged a 15-year liberation war against white minority rule that led to negotiations and ended Ian Smith’s racist regime in 1980. This victory established African majority rule and most whites left the country. Still, wealthy whites continued controlling most of Zimbabwe's good farmland and resources. Former colonial power Britain claimed to support land reform and resettlement, but failed to fund it. Britain ignored their agreements with Zimbabwe’s government and stirred up trouble.

After a series of austerity measures forced upon Zimbabwe by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the people of Zimbabwe began occupying large farms and taking control of their own resources in 2000. President Mugabe and ZANU-PF supported these farm occupations through the Fast Track Land Reform Program. The reform redistributed 7 million hectares of Zimbabwe's land to more than a million small farmers. Many large landowners were dispossessed and their land given to the rightful owners.

The land reform drastically changed ownership and power relations in Zimbabwe. The U.S. and Britain responded with economic sanctions, sending Zimbabwe down a destructive path of hyperinflation and economic turmoil. In the 2008 presidential election, Britain and the U.S. tried to use Zimbabwe's economic crisis to violently destabilize the country and oust Mugabe, trying to replace him with the puppets of the MDC.

Although the MDC won a plurality of the votes in the first round of the 2008 presidential election, they withdrew from the runoff in an attempt to delegitimize the democratic process. In the runoff, Mugabe defeated the MDC candidate Tsvangirai in a landslide. Mugabe nearly doubled his absolute vote total from the first round of elections – 1.1 million in the first round to 2.2 million in the runoff. Shortly after the election, Mugabe and ZANU-PF formed a power-sharing government with the MDC that included Tsvangirai as prime minister.

Land reform is not the only area of Zimbabwe's economy experiencing serious progressive change. In 2012, the Zimbabwean government began enforcing the Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Bill, which requires at least 50% black local ownership of all businesses and companies. This policy is extremely popular among the Zimbabwean people, who see it as means of exercising their right to control over their own resources. By November 2012, Zimbabwe had indigenized 120 major mining companies and created 400 Employee Share Ownership Trusts to better redistribute the nation's wealth to the people.

In spite of the continued sanctions and economic warfare from the U.S. and Britain, Zimbabwe's economy continues to recover and has grown at a remarkable rate since 2009. According to Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti, the country saw 8.1% growth in 2010 and 9.3% growth in 2011. Agricultural production experienced growth from the land reform as well, with tobacco production expanding from 2008's record low of 105 million pounds to 330 million pounds in 2012. As Zimbabwe recovers, more black Zimbabweans will share in their nation's wealth than in the 33 years since the end of white minority rule, leading to a more balanced, collective economy.

As Zimbabwe approaches its 2013 elections, the danger of imperialist meddling in southern Africa runs high. Wikileaks revealed in August last year that Tsvangirai, of the MDC, had used his 2009 visit to U.S. President Barack Obama to lobby for greater sanctions on Zimbabwe in order to bring down Mugabe and ZANU-PF. Banks and corporations in the U.S. and Britain have a vested commercial interest in seeing an end to ZANU-PF's progressive, national democratic policies and anti-imperialism. True to form, the MDC showed their loyalty to their foreign masters by unveiling the Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and Environment Plan on Nov. 29 of 2012. This scheme proposes to reverse ZANU-PF's indigenization policy, facilitating U.S. and British corporate domination.

It's no surprise that the people of Zimbabwe have turned against the MDC, given the party's allegiance to Britain and the U.S., at the expense of the people. However, the US, Britain, France and other Western European powers are waging a campaign to re-colonize Africa, most recently seen in the U.S.-backed French military intervention in Mali.

Military interventions by imperialist powers in Somalia, Ivory Coast, Libya, Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and now Mali demonstrate the willingness of the U.S. and Western Europe to use military force against governments or people that resist their dominance.

Progressive activists, organizers and revolutionaries in the U.S. must resolutely oppose any attempt by Western powers to intervene in Zimbabwe, especially with elections on the horizon. People in the U.S. should support the right of the Zimbabwean people to determine their own destiny, as expressed through the policies of ZANU-PF, and they should fight moves for the re-colonization of Africa.

#Zimbabwe #Africa #USImperialism #RobertMugabe #ZANUPF #MDC #constitutionalReferendum