By Henry Kanyanta Sosala
Preamble
There was an ideological tug of war to dominate their influences over the emerging African states between the western countries and the Communist states i.e. The Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics (USSR) or popularly known as Russia. In fact Africa has had five great Marxists: Sekou Toure of Guinea, Samora Machel of Mozambique, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, M. Babu of Tanzania and a lawyer Henry Chilufya Chanda of Zambia.
Professor P. B. Harris in his book, Studies in African Politics wrote:
‘’President Sekou Toure the most radical Marxist in West Africa rejected the referendum when President Charles de Gaulle of France came to power. The new French President decided that since the Guineans rejected the referendum, then they chose disengagement and should therefore have it. And within days, French civil servants withdrew and out of 4,000 all but 15 had gone in three weeks. Cash registers were ripped out, the weapons of the police were withdrawn and even the library at the Ministry of Justice was removed. The Governor was ordered to remove the furniture from Government House and strip all fittings movable and immovable and ship them back to France. Fruit trees were cut, walls were torn down, gardens decimated, telephone wires were cut and a ship bringing 5,000 tons of rice was re-routed.’’
And to President Sekou Toure this was a chance to turn openly to the Communists and it was not long that the French President realized his terrible political blunder. And here is what Professor Harris wrote:
‘’As far as Guinea was concerned this was an unprofitable exercise. De Gaulle agreed to resume technical and financial aid to Guinea complete with grants-in-aid.’’
The Consequences After the End of the Cold war.
The fall of the USSR has had detrimental consequences on Africa. The end of the cold war has strengthened western nations’ dominance in Africa. The best example is Zimbabwe and how the greatest true son of Africa and the barometer of the African consciousness, President Robert Mugabe and the great people of Zimbabwe have been subjected to all kinds of abuses by the capitalist-exploiters and their African parasites and puppets. Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade bemoaned the fact that Africa had not done enough to assist Zimbabwe in its hour of need.
’’African leaders left President Mugabe alone to resolve the imbalance of land ownership and we should have been collectively more involved.’’ (New African magazine winter 2008).
It is a matter of record that in a land of more than 11 million people the whites who made up less than 2 per cent of the population, controlled more than 60 per cent of the arable land. Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe is an Ndebele word for ‘’slaughter’’ and it refers to the savagery of the white settlers who crushed the attempt by the indigenes to fight back and leading king Lobengula to swallow poison rather than be captured.
And what had really happened to king Lobengula? Historian Cyril Dunn in his book, Central African Witness wrote that Cecil John Rhodes’ agents signed the Rudd concession with King Lobengula. The Rudd Concession was signed in 1888 by King Lobengula of the Matabele, under various and considerable pressures and with the encouragement of British missionary advice. He believed that he was selling to an organization of white men no more than the right to dig holes in the ground for gold. In return for which he got sterling 100 pounds, one thousand Martini-Henry rifles and the promise, never discharged, of a steamer for royal jaunts on the Zambezi.
Who was John Cecil Rhodes? Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher, mathematician and historian who described Rhodes as ‘’a bad man in Africa’’ wrote in Freedom and Organization:
“Cecil Rhocldes created a vast system of political corruption both in England and in South Africa. The British South African Company obtained a Charter from the British government which was secured by means of support in high quarters and among them was the Duke of Fife (King Edward VII’s son-in-law) and through him the British Royal Family became implicated in Rhodes’ doings.”
We find the same slippery tricks by Her Majesty’s Government with the Rudd Concession as Mr. Bertrand Russell wrote:
‘’Meanwhile Lobengula discovered that the document to which he had set his mark was more far-reaching in its effects than he had supposed. He dictated a letter to Queen Victoria, saying among other things:
’A group of white men came to see me and the leader called himself Rudd. They asked me for a place to dig gold and said they would give me something in exchange. I told them to bring what they would give and a document was written and given to me for signature. I asked what it contained and was told in it were my words and the words of those men. Although three months later, I heard from other sources that I had given by document the right to all the minerals of my country. I called a meeting of my indunas and also of the white men and demanded a copy of the document. It was proved to me that I had signed away the mineral rights of my whole country to Rudd and his friends. I have since had a meeting of my indunas and they will not recognize the paper, as it contains neither my words nor the words of those who got it….I write to you that you may know the truth about everything,’
‘’A few months later, King Lobengula sent another letter, in which he complained that ‘the white people are troubling me much about gold. If the Queen hears that I have given away the whole country, it is not so.’ The Queen, through her colonial secretary, replied that it was impossible for him to exclude white men, and that, having made inquiries as to the persons concerned, she was satisfied that they ‘may be trusted to carry out the working for gold in the king’s country without molesting his people, or in any way interfering with their kraals, gardens or cattle’,’’
In 1949, Roy Welensky became Member of Legislative Council or Parliament for Broken Hill (now Kabwe), and he became the political Supremo in the North. He was later knighted and became the Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (i.e., Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
He told Parliament ‘’Now I ask the House in all seriousness ___ was it possible, __ does the House believe that it was possible for an African king, sixty years ago to have understood the delicate differences when he was negotiating with a Company, and when he was negotiating with a King__ because if the House is prepared to believe that then I think the House will believe anything.
In support of his argument, he cited a judgement given by Lord Summer in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the question of land rights in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe):
‘’Their Lordships cannot accept this argument, as well might it be said that a savage who sold ten bullocks, being the highest number up to which he knew how to count, had thereby sold his whole herd, numbering, in fact many hundreds…’’
In The Northward Trek, Stanley Portal Hyatt summed up king Lobengula’s disaster and pointed out that he was betrayed by the British:
‘’Lobengula was never sufficiently civilized to break his word. He was a native gentleman and because he tried to live up to the faith that was in him, trusting white men who appeared to be gentle too, his career ended in disaster both to himself and to his tribe. And even if Lobengula was ‘an unmitigated savage,’ he was under the protection of the United Kingdom Government when these events occurred.’’
The capitalist-exploiters have declared total war on President Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwean people. They have mounted a special radio programme to denounce Zimbabwean leadership on Studio 7 of the Voice of America. This is because the Zimbabwean issue has affected the superior race, otherwise if this was a matter of principle they could have done the same thing when the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin confiscated the properties and expelled Indians from that country.
It was reported in New African magazine that Britain’s chief of staff, General Charles Guthrie told Cole Moreton in an interview
‘’how Britain’s Prime minister, Tony Blair came close to invading Zimbabwe in a bid to restore white privilege.’’
It was also reported in the same issue:
‘’As part of the regime change in Zimbabwe, the American embassy in Harare has been deliberately engineering the mushrooming of NGOs and CSOS which are hostile to the government, by offering to finance them, according to a document unearthed from the archives.’’
President Mugabe has declared:
‘’Political power alone is meaningless unless people have land. The ill-fated sanctions against the innocent people of Zimbabwe can never subdue our resilience and inner propulsion to succeed.’’
And hence a new concept in the ideological armoury of imperialism known as ‘’statecraft’’ has been created, which is the art of aggressively wielding state power in the interests of the local elites and imperialism.
‘’Statecraft’’ is a concept and a practice that consciously aims to demobilize the people as a motive force for change and treats them as objects. ‘’Statecraft’’ is a ‘’craft’’ precisely because it is both an art and a set of particular outcomes in which control over state power is cleverly taken away from both and above the heads of the poor to attain class objectives and domestic compradorial and parasitic elites under the tutelage, protection and for the ultimate benefit of the capitalist-exploiter.
We have been taught never to see beyond the white man.
The Brenthurst foundation is the brain-child of the powerful and multi-billionaire Oppenheimer family and is the founder of the Anglo American group of companies which serves foreign business interests in various African countries. The company is based in South Africa and that is where all the regime changes in Africa originate and South Africa has contributed so greatly to the mercenaries that fought in Nigeria during the Biafra session; in Congo; in Angola etc. And it was through South African contacts that the Chiluba regime came to power. It is important at this juncture to let you know the events that contributed to the regime change in Zambia. According to the CIA-trained career intelligence officer, Dr. Kamoyo Mwale, the coordinated intelligence exchanges between Zambia and South Africa at that time, the regime change in Zambia was initiated by the western nations who didn’t want the future ANC government in South Africa to be influenced by UNIP and Dr. Kaunda. Dr. Chiluba and his colleagues were given US$ 600 million, which was deposited at some embassy in Pretoria, from where they drew their campaign funds.(Sunday Post 26th March 2006). In this case the MMD was obligated to its source of existence and power. The English say, ‘’who pays the piper calls for the tune.’’
And in this respect, Ronald Sinyangwe will never forget how Professor Akuffo described the deception beneath the colonial education system:
‘’When a fool becomes wise, then the game is over since there is no one to play the game of a fool.’’
We have been taught never to see beyond the white man. This hypnotizing mentality has subverted the African personality like no other ideology since you can never outperform the self-portrait you have of yourself.
In fact we were done for, when Chiluba and his visionless and corrupt technocrats surrendered Zambia’s sovereignty to the capitalist-exploiters. The University of Zambia Development Studies lecturer, Frederick Mutesa wrote:
‘’The cold war African leaders that succeeded the founding fathers surrendered sovereignty in national policy-making to the Bretton Woods Institutions…..whereas the Nyereres, Kaundas and the Machels resisted the repulsive encroachment of foreign forces on the nations’ sovereignty, the Chilubas that replaced them chose to kiss neo-liberal policies in the morning, afternoon and at night.’’ (The Post 24th April 2004).