SA xenophobic attacks ; A product of betrayal
Zimbabwe’s political independence did not come easily. It was a result of bitter and bloody fights that cumulated in the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, which paved the way for independence in 1980.
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The Lancaster House negotiations were protracted and Robert Gabriel Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, who were key players at the nationalists’ front, threatened several times to pull out. This was because negotiators were not able to reach an agreement on the crucial issue of land redistribution, which was at the centre of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.
It is very important to place on record the fact that in Rhodesia, or colonial Zimbabwe, the whites, who constituted five per cent of the total population, owned 80 per cent of the land. Not just any land. The fertile, juicy and arable land very suitable for agriculture and any negotiation for independence without addressing this issue was bound to fail.
In the end, an agreement was reached which stipulated that Britain, the colonial power, would provide funds to compensate white farmers who would lose their lands in the redistribution process. The arrangement went on smoothly in the first eight years after independence till 1988 when the British government declined to release more funds for the exercise.
The agitations that followed from the veterans especially, and other local people resulted in the high-handed land reforms introduced by President Mugabe and forcible occupations of white lands in 2000 with serious consequences for all parties involved.
Whites supported by Britain and its western allies were quick to blame Mugabe for the turn of events and chose the path of inhuman sanctions to snuff life out of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, several blacks who failed to follow the history of the independence struggle or who did not know the issues at stake threw their support behind the whites in condemnation of Mugabe.
Mugabe might have thrown caution to the wind or acted excessively in trying to attain the primary goal of independence but curiously, very few are making any reference to the betrayal by the British government in reneging on the Lancaster House Agreement.
If Mugabe had gone to bed with the colonialists and ignored the plight of the majority of Zimbabweans, who knows, we might have witnessed something on a bigger scale than we are seeing in South Africa today.
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South Africa should have picked useful notes from the Zimbabwean experience but either out of ignorance of the forces of human frustration or deliberately trying to appease the powerful white population which is still in firm control of South Africa , the African National Congress (ANC) Administration in Pretoria has failed to respond to the aspirations of the majority black population who rightly anticipated a major shift in their social and economic conditions after the end of apartheid.
We do not know what went into the negotiation of Nelson Mandela’s release and South Africa’s independence, but we can guess that protecting white interests was a key factor. In fact, we can also guess that the whites took that bold decision to release Mandela to pre-empt the fall of the regime into the hands of radicals who would dismantle apartheid in a ruthless manner leading to the collapse of the business empire built by the whites.
Mandela’s divorce from Winnie Mandela, the woman who kept the torch of the anti-apartheid ablaze, is still a mystery. Some said Mandela did not want to associate with people whose hands were tainted with the blood of fellow blacks in the name of the struggle and that included Winnie. Others made reference to marital infidelity.
There were some who said, and with some high degree of reasonableness, that the whites engineered the divorce as a way of making sure that Mandela was not in any way contaminated with the radicalism of Winnie and many other such people in the ANC. And that was how the deal for the release and the rise of Mandela to become the first leader of post-apartheid South Africa was sealed.
If that is the case, the black population have a long way to wait to attain the real benefits of political independence and racial tolerance. We may condemn the rampaging blacks who are on the streets attacking their fellow blacks from other countries but the truth is that, the South African blacks and their unwanted guests are all victims of betrayal. Most of independent Africa are suffering the same fate. Why should people abandon their countries for survival in other places? The South African economy was better and healthier thanks to an apartheid policy which ensured that the whites managed everything and made sure that they worked. The blacks have taken over and the signs of coming events have started to show.
“Give them political independence if that is what they want. Or remove the racial laws and prejudices if that will satisfy them and watch as they mess themselves up,” the colonialists or white supremacists seem to say as they watch with glee, corrupt and irresponsible leaders take charge and mortgage the interest of their countries for personal glory. The worst is yet to come.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk