From The World Tonight written by Rob Breakenridge
Posted 7/4/2008 1:00:00 PM
Mugabe was trying to implement a land reform; to redistribute the land of about 5,000 white farmers to his country’s poor black people. And that is a great sin. So he was and still is in the West called a dictator, an arrogant, aging autocrat who has run the economy into the ground, fanned racial hatred and abused his power to suppress political foes, the courts and media, etc. etc.
Western media seldom report that Mugabe was and still is popular especially in the rural areas; his land reform has won him support among his own people. When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, 70 per cent of the country’s farm land was in the hand of 5,000 European settler landowners.
In a 2004 poll conducted by the popular monthly magazine New African, for the most influential African leaders of the 20th century, Mugabe came third after Nelson Mandela and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah.
Following the presidential elections in March this year the opposition claimed Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change was the winner with 50.1 per cent of the votes. The government claimed it was a tie.
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Mugabe is no worse than many leaders in the developing world. Because he is challenging 100 years of soical injustice in his county (albeit, in a clumsy way) sanctions are imposed on his country by the rich and powerful nations including Canada, so the poor African blacks suffer some more.
Fresh from his rigged election victory, Robert Mugabe and his military backers plan to assassinate or frame dozens of opposition MPs in an attempt to consolidate power and take back control of Parliament.
The Zanu (PF) party of Mr Mugabe lost its grip on the legislature for the first time since independence when the Movement for Democratic Change took control of the Lower House and drew level in the Senate after the March elections.
Having overturned Morgan Tsvangirai’s victory in the first round of the presidential vote with a brutal campaign of terror, President Mugabe’s henchmen believe that they can retake Parliament using violence or trumped-up criminal charges to drive out elected opposition MPs.
Naison Nemadizwa, the newly elected MDC MP for Buhera South, was abducted in daylight on Tuesday as he emerged from the High Court in Harare having seen off a legal challenge by the losing Zanu (PF) candidate.
