back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." -- John Harington
I almost fell out of my Florida wicker rocker when I read in the London Times that George W. Bush, of all people, and his ace boon coon Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, are criticizing the recent election outcome in Zimbabwe, calling the results unfair.
Bush was quoted by the BBC as saying that he did not recognize the outcome and that the election was "flawed." U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Mr. Mugabe could claim victory but not democratic legitimacy.
Not wanting to further damage my already shattered back, I carefully crept down to the floor of my patio deck where I could more safely convulse in laughter. "You gotta be kidding," I howled, scaring the daylights out of my poor confused cats and my neighbor's talking Macaws.
Bush? Powell? Refusing to recognize the outcome of an election? You gotta be kidding! Once I stopped laughing, I started doing a little serious digging on the election and the history of Zimbabwe.
Formerly known as Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the land of the great warrior Shaka Zulu, earned independence from the United Kingdom when United Nations sanctions and a fierce guerrilla uprising eventually resulted in free elections in 1979 and independence in 1980. Robert Mugabe served as the nation's first prime minister and was elected to the presidency in 1987, the position he will now hold for another six-year term.
The cornerstone of Mugabe's rise to power was his commitment to land reform and resettlement. Besides the critical issue of AIDS, land reform is the most serious socioeconomic imperative in the country.
The country, with a population of approximately 12 million, is about the size of the state of Montana. It is a beautiful country, land-locked with Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa at its borders. Its capital city Harare hosts Zimbabwe University, fine dining, shopping and international travel and tourism facilities in a clean, safe and exciting environment.
The land is rich in natural resources, including gold, platinum, chromium ore, copper, nickel, coal and iron ore. Its industries include mining, steel, wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing and footwear.
Agriculturally, Zimbabwe produces corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugar cane, peanuts, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs.
In 1979, when Zimbabwe won independence, the land was strictly divided along racial lines. Six thousand white, large-scale commercial farmers controlled more than half of the agricultural land, while 840,000 communal area black farmers shared the rest. The commercial farms held the best land. The poor farmers' land was not well suited for agriculture.
Over the past several months, the racially unequal distribution of land has ignited deadly occupation of white-owned commercial farmland by impatient, angry mobs of war veterans and poor peasants, resulting in some deaths and causing instability and international protests.
The economy, badly impacted by its involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is severely weakened by a 60 percent inflation rate and the cost of fighting the high rate of AIDS that plagues the country.
After months of bitter debates and taunting, the British-backed candidate Morgan Tsvangirai's party, known as the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had failed to topple the popular land reformist Mugabe, who is now facing a one-year suspension from the Commonwealth because of "irregularities" alleged by some observers, who are claiming Mugabe "stole" the election.
But observers from the Organization for African Unity (OAU) said the elections were, in general, "transparent, credible, free and fair." Even South African election monitors considered the election legitimate.
The Nigerian observers endorsed Mugabe's victory, saying they had recorded no incidents sufficient to threaten the integrity of the election. Kenya and Tanzania have also endorsed Mugabe's victory.
The MDC says Mugabe is desperate to replace white land-owners with poor blacks, who have been arguing for years that the rich farmland the whites "own" is their land, that it was stolen with military power by British colonialists who then pushed the blacks off their land, forcing them to work as virtual slaves on their plantations.
When it comes to the politics of reparations and retribution, Zimbabwe and the United States have some things in common.
In a move very similar to the knee-jerk reactions of Mississippi Senator Trent Lott -- the Senate Minority Leader who has threatened retaliation against the Democrats for blocking Bush's nomination of his favorite Mississippi judge, Charles Pickering, to the U.S. Court of Appeals -- the British-backed MDC party in Zimbabwe is threatening to destabilize the country by calling for strikes and further economic sanctions against their own country.
The threats have resulted in the indictment of the MDC Secretary General, Welshman Ncube, and the party's "Shadow" Minister for Agriculture, Renson Gasels, and Mr. Tsvagirai, the candidate who has been accused by the Mugabe administration of plotting to assassinate the president.
All three have been freed on bond and are scheduled to appear in court to face a possible death penalty for treason on April 30, 2002.
The MDC says all they want is another election, a fair one without any irregularities, but no new election is likely. Attempts to set up a shared power government have so far also failed.
What is happening in Zimbabwe is not all that different from what is happening in the United States.
As we in the United States continue to confront the economic disparities between blacks and whites caused by 250 years of slavery, Zimbabwe is facing the challenge of economic recovery from a history of colonial slavery.
But we also have something else in common with Zimbabwe, something much more beautiful and enduring than the constant rise and fall of political fortunes. We both have wonders of the world in our backyards.
Victoria Falls, like our Niagara Falls, defies words to express the majesty and the vast natural beauty and power of a mighty river that thunders over the brink into a terrifyingly deep gorge below. Like our Niagara River, the Zambezi forms a natural border with Zambia.
Like ours, Victoria Falls is set in an area designated as park land, theirs a National Park which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1989.
Before David Livingstone "discovered" it, the Lozi tribespeople who lived along the upper river called the waterfall Mosi o Tunya, "the smoke that thunders."
The falls are 5,570 feet wide and 328 feet high, one-and-a-half times as wide and nearly twice as high as Niagara. They are divided into the Devil's Cataract, the Main Falls, the Rainbow Falls and the Eastern Cataract.
We have Niagara Falls and they have Victoria Falls, both wonders of the world, crowning jewels that can symbolize the power of the people who are willing to struggle for the rule of law and equal justice for all.
My neighbor's Macaws, who repeat everything they hear, whenever they see me now, laugh and say, "You gotta be kidding!"
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 26 2002 |