Dear Friends,
Please find attached information on a march for
Zimbabwe this Sunday 8th June.
We will be sending photos and info on this
march to the opposition in Zimbabwe .
These actions are greatly appreciated and help to lift morale of those opposing the deadly tyranny of the Mugabe regime.
So do put an hour aside on Sunday.
It will have an impact. See you then!
Mitch Thompson
PS bring an appropriate placard !
Hello John,
I received the article you have already made comment on from an E-zine “Black Commentator” that I received today.
I have only just clarified this on BT at #13 i.e that it is not a comment on BT per se. I placed it there because it was germane to the points raised in the discussion above.
Sorry, but this is a pitfall of the immediacy of online editing and responding to emails in the short time available.
To obtain an answer to your questions you will have to go to the Black Commentator website indicated.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Ian Curr
My apologies, Mutambara does not support a GNU but does see SADC, AU as the appropriate intervention to secure a fair election.
SADC and AU are promoting a GNU though.
Also, Tsvangarei has been negotiating with Mugabe (without the Mutambara faction) since before the run off regarding a transitional authority.
Black Commentator,
What is your opinion of MDC(Tsvangarei), MDC(Mutumbara), and the MDC policies for land and agrarian reform?
How do you think the MDC’s land reform will be any different to Mugabe and the ESAP program that entrenched white control of fertile land?
I agree with the perspective on your blog that people need to look beneath nationalistic rhetoric to understand the Mugabe regime, the truth is he and his military advisors who are the real power, not ZANU PF, has blocked land reform for 2 decades and brutally repressed nationalists in his own party.
However, I believe the same is true for looking beneath the democratic rhetoric to understand MDC and its agenda for foreign capital’s dominance of the Zimbabwe economy.
As the Sekai Holland link (above) suggests the seeds of brutality and despotism have already sprouted in the MDC, combined with their foreign funding and policy commitments to foreign capital, it is not as simple as saying Mugabe must go, which by the way, I believe a pre-requisite for anything resembling a step in the right direction. But then what?
MDC(Mutumbara), ZANU PF, SADC and AU are all calling for a government of national unity.
MDC(Tsvangarei) has aligned itself with the E.U. and the U.S. and is essentially calling for a military coup.
Who’s side are you on?
This is an article from an E-Zine Black Commentator that I received today (thanks to Jim Sharp for referring me to that website)
Hmmm.
I posted an excerpt (demand 4) from the May Day message from the General Union of Oil Employees in Basra on their Iraq post.
http://www.basraoilunion.org/2008/05/mayday-message-from-iraqi-trade-unions.html
They removed it and seem to now be blocking my posts.
Check out their perspective on Iraq……
http://strangetimes.lastsuperpower.net/?p=65
Thanks Ian for drawing my attention to that link, I have left a response.
Did you read the “about” page? – puts his imperialism into perspective.
http://strangetimes.lastsuperpower.net/?page_id=2
‘Strange Times‘ calls for ‘military intervention’ in Zimbabwe and yet asserts that it is those who do not support the Movment for Democratic Change [MDC] who are ‘pseudo-leftists’! [See http://strangetimes.lastsuperpower.net/?p=61%5D
Surely socialists should resist imperialism not promote it?
What did happen to socialist organisation in Australia, that we have Leftists calling for military intervention? There can be little doubt that socialist consciousness barely exists, if at all.
A friend who hosts a lunchtime club of public servants has this interesting story to tell about Zimbabwe.
With so much attention on Zimbabwe at the present time, I would like to share with you a story recently released by the Xinhua News Agency which shows a thread stretching from Hainan to Harare.
Dr. Pedzisai Mashiri, Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zimbabwe, has ordered about 100 T-shirts printed with the logo of the Confucius Institute (CI), a Chinese language-teaching institution launched one year ago.
A total of 241 people in Zimbabwe, including President Robert Mugabe’s wife and two children, have learned Chinese language and culture in the institute over the past year.
With the government’s emphasis on the “Look East” policy that promotes and encourages bilateral relations and trade with China, more and more organizations and companies and individuals seek an understanding of China, its language, culture and its people, Dr Mashiri said.
To mark the anniversary of CI, a delegation led by Professor Ji Baocheng, president of Renmin University of China, which is partner of the University of Zimbabwe in running the CI, visited the institute on April 14 and gave a lecture entitled ” The Chinese economic revolution: Lessons for Zimbabwe.”
Later in the year the CI will hold a Chinese speech contest and provide a cookery course in cooperation with a local Chinese restaurant. Dr Mashiri said “The course will start with basics but move up to more complex dishes like Hoinanese Chicken”
An interesting perspective on the democratic culture of MDC by Sekai Holland.
http://zimdialogue.blogspot.com/2007/10/male-chauvinism-betrays-mdc-mrs-sekai.html
A discussion about Zimbabwe and the MDC that some might find interesting, sparked by the link to the CPA history site that Ross and Ian provided above.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/06/18/zimbabwe/
“Expressions of Imperialism within Zimbabwe”
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/expressions-of-imperialism-within-zimbabwe/
Zimbabwe background: Campaign to smash Mugabe— The Guardian March 6, 2002
Editor’s Note: Thanks to Ross Gwyther for finding this article and sending it to BushTelegraph. The article looks at the various political parties that make up the liberation movements in Zimbabwe including ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People’s Union) and ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union).
Contrast this to the role of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) which the article puts in perspective.
Ian Curr
June 2008
Dear Friends,
June 27 (2008 ) is the presidential run-off election.
The Mugabe regime is doing everything to sabotage this historical
event. The attack is two pronged:
1. to violently intimidate the population to stop it voting for the opposition Movement for Democratic Action (MDC).
2. to maim, imprison, intimidate and kill campaigners for the MDC.
This is a ruthless regime. We are doing what we can to save the people of Zimbabwe and bring political change.
To this end our final solidarity action before the 27th June is to hold a candlelight vigil.
BRING A CANDLE – Show your solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in this time of great crisis.
Please let others know.
Mitch Thompson
I will try to answer my own question in comment # 1 above.
Independence in southern Africa was not permitted by colonialist powers like Britain, the USA, France, Holland etc until the threat of Soviet communism had abated.
For example Mandela was not released from Robben Island until after the fall of the Soviet Union. How different might the outcome have been in Zimbabwe if southern Africa had socialist government with leaders like the ANC’s Chris Harney and Steve Biko, and the Congo’s Patrice Lumumber — all assassinated by the colonialists with, in the case of the murder of Lumumber, the help of the CIA .
The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front [ZANU – PF] had fought against white minority rule in Rhodesia since the 1960s. One of its leaders, Robert Mugabe, a school teacher, was at first rejected by Britain to form government in Zimbabwe. After a period of ‘diplomacy’ Britain endorsed Mugabe. Australia’s former PM, Malcolm Fraser, claims to have played a role in obtaining Margaret Thatcher’s acceptance of Mugabe as the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
Promised land reform was held up while the colonialists extracted their wealth from the country and Mugabe consolidated his power largely in rural areas. The ruling party in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front [ZANU-PF], did not contain Mugabe’s grab for more power and what little reform came for the people of Zimbabwe was too little, too late with the suffering of its people that we are witnessing now as the result.
No doubt the Movement for Democratic Change MDC will have a detailed program of social justice and land reform on paper but, like ZANU – PF, it is unlikely to implement it while the capitalist elites both within and without the country have their hands on the shoulders of leaders like Morgan Tsvangirai.
As for John Tracey’s remarks, they pre-suppose the existence of an organised left with the capacity to agree and organise around common objectives in Brisbane. There is no evidence of its existence, quite the contrary. The failure of the Socialist Alliance and the recent split in the main party that formed it [the DSP] is just one example of this. Hopefully something can be done about this situation.
The people who organised the walk above, are likely to be well meaning, and hurriedly scrambled together this protest in concern for the attacks on ordinary people and the the lack of ‘democracy’ in Zimbabwe.
I am told that it was ‘decided to organise the walk in a week’. The urgency was related to raising awareness and encourage support as quickly as possible given the Presidential Run-off on 27 June, 2008.’
Nevertheless, like here, it is hard to see how a focus on parliamentary reform gives power to anyone but a new elite in Zimbabwe.
Ian Curr
June 2008
For those interested there is plenty on Wikipedia about the Movement for Democratic change, ZANU – PF and its precursors.
The MDC wants to abort land reform, has called for a military coup and sees Zimbabwe’s economic future in globalised capitalism and the schemes of the Rockefella foundation and Bill Gates.
They are a British backed organisation, supporting the British economic control and exploitation of Zimbabwe.
Whatever happened to socialism and African sovereignty?
If the left supports land rights and sovereignty for Australian Aborigines, why do they oppose it in Zimbabwe?
Has the left in the first world totally swallowed the British propaganda position? If so, Why?
Earlier in the week I received the email posted above (signed by Mitch Thompson) via Dan O’Neill’s email list for circulation.
This email stated:
The leader of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai, was educated at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University with a diploma in the Executive Leaders In Development Program. For a man from humble beginnings he went to a very elitist university and now appears to have support from both British and American elites.
Which opposition will the photos be sent to and what does that opposition stand for?
For example, does it stand for land reform and how will that land reform benefit farm workers of Zimbabwe?
Ian Curr
4 June 2008