The purpose of this Summit was, to quote Luis da Silva the Brazilian president, to construct a new alliance, discover opportunities and help ourselves mutually, In reality, this Summit was another opportunity for the anti-western and anti-imperialist rhetoric that we have become familiar with over the years from the likes of Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, Luis da Silva and the mercurial Libyan leader, Gadaffi. While its not difficult to understand why former colonised countries feel resentment at the wests world domination, it is not so easy to see what real benefit there is to their people on the ground from all this hot air issuing from the leaders mouths. Hugo Chavez, with his countrys massive oil revenues, claimed, Africa and South America are rich lands, yet the people are poor because they have been exploited. Lets not allow them to keep exploiting and ransacking our lands. For the outsider who may know little of South American politics, it is difficult to judge the accuracy of this statement. By them and they we assume that Chavez is referring to global oil companies who have moved in presumably at his invitation – to exploit his oil wealth.
Zimbabweans are better able to judge when we hear Robert Mugabe speak. In Africa, he said, greater industrial development has been difficult because of a reliance on the very powers that industrialised us. They do not want us to see us industrialised. What evidence does Mugabe have for such a claim? How does it serve the wests interests to have Africa permanently poor? As with his ludicrous claims at the UN General Assembly that western sanctions are ruining his country, Mugabe offers no hard evidence for such irrational statements. It is merely populist rhetoric designed to earn him more kudos with his anti-western audience whose attitude was summed up by Gadaffi when he described the western powers as a small club of major powers still trying to run the world on their terms. It was Mugabes remarks about his countrys natural resources that told us the real reasons for being there in Venezuela; Zimbabwe could offer minerals and agricultural products for oil and technology, he said. Zimbabweans must have reacted with hollow laughter when they heard that their country had agricultural products to offer! In a week when figures revealed that his Gushungo Company owns as many as a dozen farms, many of them seized from their former white owners, and the agricultural sector is daily under attack by Mugabes own cronies, its difficult to understand what agricultural products he could be referring to. Grace Mugabes dairy farms too have been in the spotlight all week for profiting from milk sales illegally purchased by the Swiss owned Nestles Company. What Zimbabweans know only too well is that offers of agricultural products in exchange for oil and technology are more likely to benefit Gushungo and his cronies than the masses of Zimbabwean people.
While Mugabe was enjoying his time in the limelight with like-minded populist leaders in Venezuala, back home in Zimbabwe there was the usual mixture of good, bad and not-so-bad news. In an astonishing development, Jestina Mukoko was released from the threat of any further prosecution on Banditry charges. She no longer has that threat hanging over her and that is good news but it needs to be remembered that the judgement by the Supreme Court refers only to Jestina Mukoko and not to her co-accused. The Supreme Courts judgement appears on the surface to be an assurance that an individuals constitutional rights are protected by law but on the ground there is little evidence that this is the case. The police continue to ignore court orders as top army officers seize farms and prevent the legal owners from entering their properties despite court orders to the contrary. And with the appointment of the new Media Board there is worrying evidence of military involvement at every level of media management. All the new Media board are Zanu PF loyalists and unbelievably, it is the hapless and hopeless Tafataona Mahosa who now heads the Broadcasting authority of Zimbabwe in charge of issuing licences. There is little hope that the media in Zimbabwe will be free any time soon from political interference. It remains firmly in Zanu PF hands and the military are present in force to ensure that Mugabes Zimbabwe
remains his own personal fiefdom. With no real power, as the MDCs designate Deputy Minister of Agriculture admitted this week, it is hard to see where real change will come from.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.aka Pauline Henson author of Case Closed published in Zimbabwe by Mambo Press, Going Home and Countdown, political detective stories set in Zimbabwe and available form Lulu.com.
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Post published in: Opinions