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Morally
Disgusting Madness 22nd
August 2002 Washington
has felt driven to deliver a judgment on President Robert Mugabe far stronger
than anyone at Westminster has yet felt able to muster. "America,"
declares Walter Kansteiner, the US government's Africa policy chief, "does
not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the
country". It is a timely reminder. Because
Zimbabwe is constantly in crisis, we tend to forget the lawless tactics which
Mugabe employed in the presidential election to come out on top. But America is
right. Though many in Europe and Africa prefer to look the other way, Mugabe is
not the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe. The election he fought was invalid. His
return as president was a swindle which his own courts are powerless to redress. His
seizure of white-owned farms is condemned by America as "morally disgusting
madness, set to trigger a wholly avoidable famine". It is not even if as
the land held by Zimbabwe's 5,000 white farmers was going to ease Africans' land
hunger. As the world can plainly see, much of it is being handed over to
Mugabe's family and supporters. His wife has just chosen her own farm and told
its occupants to get packing. Talk of land reform turns out to be sheer hypocrisy. During yesterday's outburst, Mr Kansteiner was joined by Andrew Natsios, administrator of USAid, America's aid agency. Called on to deliver another dollop of relief to repair Mugabe's blunders, he too was outspoken. "It is a disgusting grab, where you're just basically stealing land from one group to another. The distinction here is, the group that's being stolen from are very good farmers, and the people they're giving the land to cannot farm anything." Aware that
Mugabe is striving to restrict the distribution of food to his own supporters,
so that his political opponents starve, America will deliver relief through
independent agencies and charities and keep it out of the hands of the
Zimbabwean government. Such food, America insists, will not be used for
political or economic purposes. Mugabe's decision to use food as an instrument
for starving his political opponents seems to have been a turning point for
America. This
outburst of anger from Washington is hardly surprising. President Bush has an
agenda for Africa which Mugabe's conduct is making ever harder to implement. The
only nations that can deal effectively with someone such as Mugabe are African
nations. For deep-seated reasons they are reluctant to condemn him. South
Africa's government, in particular, seems unwilling to lift a finger to check
Mugabe's inhuman conduct against his own people. Observing this, much of the
world is running out of sympathy for the continent. That great emotional stream
that poured help into Africa at the time of the Ethiopian famine in 1984-85 has
dried up. Some of the charities that serve Africa are finding it hard to attract
public sympathy. In short, Mugabe is poisoning the wells of goodwill. He has not
only ruined his own country but is on the way to turning much of the world
against Africa. America shows us she has a firmer grasp of that sad truth than
we do. Daily Telegraph UK |