Folks,
I love this article.
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> http://www.nationaudio.com/News/EastAfrican/Current/Opinion/
>
> The East African
>
> Monday, April 24, 2000
>
> Opinion
>
> Mugabe is Right, Whites Must Give Up the Land
>
> By Koigi Wamwere
>
> Today, Europeans own almost all the land in the Americas,
> almost all the good land in Australia, New Zealand and
> Tasmania and most of the best land in many African countries
> like South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. To acquire this land
> outside Europe, Europeans did not use law, justice or money.
>
> They took it with the gun.
>
> But the West does not want Africans to mention either this
> fact or the fact that white people are wrong in wanting to
> own all the land and everything else in Africa.
>
> And the West is the champion of free speech in the world!
>
> When Africans in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and elsewhere
> fought for their independence, it meant two things to them -
> land and freedom. But when Europe conceded independence to
> African countries in London and Paris, it was self-rule
> without land and freedom.
>
> And so most Africans continue to be landless while Europeans
> continue to own millions and millions of hectares of the
> best land in Africa.
>
> In Kenya, 10 per cent of the population, both black and
> white farmers, owns 73 per cent of all arable land. In South
> Africa, 16 per cent of the population, made up of whites,
> owns 87 per cent of all arable land. And in Zimbabwe, 4,500
> white farmers - or a mere .03 per cent of a population of 13
> million Africans - own 12 million hectares or 73 per cent of
> all arable land.
>
> The African majority in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya
> live under this situation not because they like it or
> because it is right, moral, fair or just, but only because
> they are powerless to change it.
>
> There can be no greater proof of lack of independence for,
> say, Zimbabwe, than this situation where a mere .03 per cent
> is allowed to own 73 per cent of all arable land, totally
> control the nation's agriculture and own half the country's
> economy.
>
> Mugabe is a great freedom fighter who fought for the
> independence of his country but at the behest of the West
> turned his back on socialism and stayed too long in power.
> At last, Mugabe has realised that he too is a victim of
> neo-colonialism and has decided not just to say "no" to the
> West but to redistribute land in his own country.
>
> Whatever Mugabe's past mistakes, we must agree that on this
> one question of finally redistributing African land to
> African people, he is 100 per cent right. Mugabe's only
> fault is that he took too long to do it. But now that he is
> finally doing it, all people who believe in fairness and
> justice must support him.
>
> From what one hears from CNN, BBC and other Western news
> media, the West stands as one against Mugabe. They accuse
> him of violating the spirit of reconciliation and
> perpetrating racism against white people in Zimbabwe. Rather
> than prove anything against Mugabe, the West's accusations
> only prove how little it thinks of Africans' right to own
> anything or have meaningful independence.
>
> Could one even imagine a situation in which 4,500 Zimbabwean
> Africans were allowed to own 12 million hectares of land in
> Britain, France or any other country in Europe?
>
> The West also accuses Mugabe of violating the spirit of
> reconciliation between white colonisers and black colonised
> that was agreed upon at the time of independence. But did
> this reconciliation mean that colonisers would continue to
> own everything they had grabbed before independence and that
> the Africans who had been robbed of everything would
> continue to own nothing?
>
> Finally, the very West that is restoring all the money,
> properties and works of art that it stole from the Jewish
> people and paying reparations for all the slave labour
> Jewish people did during the Second World War, is asking
> that colonial white farmers be paid compensation by
> Africans.
>
> The British government admits that at the time of
> independence it made a promise which it never kept, to
> provide the money necessary to buy out the white farmers.
> Now it claims that the reason for its failure to keep its
> own promise is Mugabe's mismanagement of Zimbabwean economy.
> But the real reason is the British desire that the
> Zimbabwean and African economies be controlled by British
> companies and British citizens. What then must Africans do?
> Starve to death until the British agree to keep their
> promises?
>
> I am truly surprised at the clamour that I hear for British
> farmers to be compensated for any loss of land in Zimbabwe.
> Between Africans who have been working for starvation wages
> on white farms and white farmers who have made millions of
> pounds out of their colonial ownership of land in Zimbabwe,
> it is the white farmers who should compensate Africans.
>
> Africans are entitled to recover their stolen lands from
> white farmers. And the West has a moral duty to pay not just
> compensation to white farmers who will lose land but to pay
> reparations to Africans now for all the millions of people
> they killed and kidnapped from Africa during the slave
> trade. What is good for the Jewish goose is good for the
> African gander.
>
> Rule of law must mean rule of just law.
>
> Sooner or later, colonial wrongs must be corrected all over
> Africa. And they will not be corrected by substituting white
> robbers with black robbers. Colonial injustice will be
> corrected by giving land and freedom not only to Africans in
> power and government, but to all the people to whom God gave
> land.
>
> Whether leaders like Moi like it or not, today it is
> Zimbabwe, tomorrow it will be Kenya, the day after it will
> be South Africa and after that it will be the entire
> continent. The river of freedom and justice is unstoppable.
>
> If white and black people of Africa are to live peacefully
> in future, the West must stop imposing white people as
> saviours of black people using arguments that in effect
> paint white citizens of Africa as either more able
> technically or less corrupt morally.
>
> Going by the opposition from the West, Mugabe may not
> survive this war against neo-colonialism. But he is right
> and he is bearing the standard for all Africans. Should he
> fall, other Africans must take up the mantle and fight on to
> victory.
>
>
> *Koigi Wamwere, a Kenyan political activist and former
> presidential candidate, now lives in Norway.
>
> Copyright (c) 2000 The East African.
>
>
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