How US Poll Results Relate to Zim

By Obi Egbuna

MANY people living in the United States, who believe that the right to vote is the most effective political expression, consider the leverage that the Democratic Party recently gained in both Congress and the Senate as the strongest statement sent to the Bush administration since 2000.
Civil/human rights organisations, churches, and other grassroots efforts serving as eyes and ears of democracy inside the African (American) community cited Iraq, George W. Bush’s negligence around Hurricane Katrina, and corruption associated with presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 as their main ammunition in voter registration and education nationwide.
These three issues played a major role in determining the outcome of the mid-term elections and made Democrats confident about their chances to reclaim the White House in the forthcoming presidential elections in 2008.
While the common sentiment of African (American) organisations aligned with Democrats is that they have some breathing room and much-needed momentum to deal with issues Africans face inside US borders, it would be naive to ignore that there is little change for Africans and other oppressed people worldwide, who are targets of US imperialist aggression, in military or diplomatic form.
The Government and people of Zimbabwe, under the courageous leadership of President Mugabe, will gain absolutely no sympathy as a result of a Democratic majority in the House or Senate.
Malcolm X once said Democrats were foxes and Republicans were wolves and in the final analysis both belonged to the canine family.
On July 28, a resolution (HR 409) condemning Operation Murambatsvina was introduced in the House of Representatives by Democrat Tom Lanton (California).
The resolution called on President Mugabe to recognise that the absence of meaningful corrective actions on his part would taint his legacy as a freedom fighter.
It also accused President Mugabe of harassing, and threatening to expel US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell.
While Lantos serves on the Committee for International Relations which is headed by two Republicans, Henry Hyde of Arizona and Christopher Smith of New Jersey, this resolution was co-sponsored by 43 Congressional representatives, 27 of whom are Democrats.
Some of the names that stood out were Congressman Jesse Jackson (son of civil/human rights pioneer Reverend Jesse Jackson), Dennis Kuchinich of Ohio, and Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) member Albert Wynn of Maryland.
The resolution was endorsed by all members of the International Relations Committee of which four are CBC members — Gregory Meeks, Diane Watson, Barbara Lee and, lastly, the chair of the African brain trust of the CBC Donald Payne.
This September at the CBC, Congressman Payne invited Condoleezza Rice’s mouthpiece on African Affairs, Jendayi Frazier, to participate in the second panel.
While she didn’t mention Zimbabwe (Frazier doesn’t speak in public if there is going to be a question-and-answer session), she admitted to the African Ambassadors’ Group that the decision not to have dialogue with Sadc countries was because they refused to support Washington on Zimbabwe.
Congressman Payne is seen by his CBC colleagues as an expert on African affairs, which is why they all sat by and allowed him to co-sponsor House Resolution 2601 calling for action to authorise appropriations for the Department of State’s budget for the years 2006 and 2007.
This resolution contains section 903 which calls for US$12 million to be designated annually to provide the logistical framework to implement the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act whose main focal points are:

1. The restoration of democratic legitimacy and fostering a free and fair electoral process in Zimbabwe, particularly through legislative process training for Members of Parliament;
2. Capacity building for civil society organisations to effectively provide information on the political process to citizens and to defend the legal rights of minorities, women and youths;
3. Document the level of adherence by the Government of Zimbabwe to civil and human rights standards and monitor and report on the entire electoral process in Zimbabwe;
4. Organisational capacity building training in Zimbabwe;
5. Poll watcher training for party and civil society election observers in Zimbabwe; and
6. The re-establishment of "independent" media through overseas broadcasts and Internet sites.

The sponsor of the Bill was vice chairman of the Committee on International Relations Christopher Smith.
This should explain to Africans worldwide why the majority CBC members endorse the illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe while the two who abstained in the original vote in 2001, Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard, didn’t feel comfortable enough to vote against it.
Congressman Lantos must be a big admirer of British Prime Minister Tony Blair because his track record shows he is hell-bent on overthrowing President Mugabe and Zanu-PF. There is a resolution — 4319 — that focuses on action to improve trade between sub-Saharan African countries and the US.
The sixth section of the resolution focuses on the State Department and Congress noting that sustained economic growth and development in sub-Saharan Africa will depend on building strong, effective enforcement of international standards and democratic trade unions that can reasonably represent workers’ interests.
This is where ZCTU leader Wellington Chibebe received the go-ahead to try to disrupt the normal flow of things in Zimbabwe and why MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai recently said he would mobilise people around civic issues like high water charges, uncollected garbage and general economic hardships.
This piece of legislation was co-sponsored by three Democrats — Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia, CBC member Albert Wynn, and Congressman McDermott from Seattle — and once again International Relations vice chair Smith from New Jersey.
While the main focus of this article is to expose the hypocrisy of the Democrats in relationship to Zimbabwe, the Republicans, who share the convictions of Bush, have to be revealed.
There is Resolution 5476 that condemns the old United Nations Commission on Human Rights for allowing countries who are, in their opinion, the "worst abusers" of human rights, cited as Zimbabwe, Cuba, Sudan, Libya, Belarus and China, to be part of the commission.
The resolution was drafted by five Republicans — Congressmen and Congresswomen Stearns from Florida, Norwood from Georgia, Westmoreland from Georgia, Cubin of Wyoming and Otter from Idaho.
There is also Resolution 3057 that has section 6078 which states that the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the US executive director to each international financial institution to vote against any extension of loans to Zimbabwe unless the Secretary of State (who, ironically, has already listed Zimbabwe among the so-called outposts of tyranny) determines to committees on appropriations that the rule of law has been restored in Zimbabwe.
Republican Jim Kolbe of Arizona sponsored this resolution.
In short, Africans in the US must understand that Bush got the US involved in Zimbabwe to ensure that Blair was his partner to the very end in Iraq.
Therefore, if the elected officials who represent African (Americans) appear to be working hand in hand with the White House in their attempt to overthrow Cde Mugabe and Zanu-PF, then they will have a very difficult time over the next two years.
When African (Americans) talk about the blood shed to have the right to vote in the US and how the Bush administration was trying to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1964, there comes a responsibility to use these positions to defend our brothers and sisters all over the world.
This means that helping Bush and Blair in Zimbabwe is a betrayal of this fundamental right all CBC members would swear on a stack of Bibles the size of Mt Kilimanjaro, they would never betray.
The Pan-African Parliament of the African Union, Non Aligned Movement, and United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva must be urged to take a stand on this issue.
The writing is not on the wall; Zimbabwe has done nothing wrong.

How Kwame Ture Would Have Helped Zimbabwe

By Obi Egbuna

AS African people throughout the world prepare to pay tribute to Kwame Ture (formerly known as Stokely Carmichael) on the eighth anniversary of his death, many may wonder what he would be saying and doing about the attempted siege on Zimbabwe. Kwame Ture succumbed to prostate cancer on November 15 1998. Throughout his political life, whether in the Student Non Violent Co-ordinating Committee, Black Panther Party, the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and the Democratic Party of Guinee, Kwame Ture always felt educating black people about political developments in the world was his historical responsibility. During the Vietnam War as SNCC’s National Chairman, Kwame helped coin two slogans, "Hell no we won’t go" and "Victory to Ho Chi Minh". This militant stance helped Dr. Martin Luther King JR and SCLC understand they had to speak out against the war and follow the courageous example of the youths of the civil rights movement. It also provided a safety net for Muhammad Ali when he followed the wishes of the Hon Elijah Muhammad not to enter the draft to fight in Vietnam. Kwame Ture went on to support Gamel Abdel Nasser then president of Egypt during the 1967 six-day war with the Israelis.

Kwame represented SNCC in Cuba in 1967 at the Latin American Solidarity Conference. At this historic gathering, a young Commandante Fidel Castro boldly proclaimed, "If US imperialism touched one grain on his head there would be immediate and maximum retaliation." Kwame was one of the first spokespeople of a national organisation in the African (American) Community, to declare that Africans in the US should give the Palestinians their unconditional support against Zionist Israeli aggression.
He used the example of Fatima Bernawi, an African woman who fought side by side with the Palestinians of Al Fatah. While the moderate forces in our community spoke only about the efforts of the African National Congress during the struggle against apartheid, Kwame urged Africans worldwide to equally embrace the other two liberation movements fighting on the ground, the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania and the Azania People’s Organisation.

When the Reagan administration bombed Libya on April 15 1986, it was Kwame who coined the slogan "Bombs in Africa could get you Bombs in America." When George Bush Sr. invaded Iraq in the early 1990’s Kwame said, "if I’m the Imam of Mecca and American imperialism declares war on Satan then I’m Satan’s comrade in arms." Kwame’s connection to the struggle in Zimbabwe goes back to his days as the Black Panther Party’s honorary prime minister, when he condemned Cecil John Rhodes for colonising Zimbabwe and naming it after himself. While there were others who made people think they had to choose between Cdes Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, Kwame urged people to champion the Patriotic Front because Zimbabweans were best qualified to determine their own political direction. President Mugabe and Kwame have some similar liberation experiences; both consider Ghana’s founding president Dr Kwame Nkrumah as their biggest influence. Cde Mugabe taught in Ghana at the time Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party ruled that country with courage, honour and dignity, and there he met his first wife, the late Amai Sally Mugabe and together they became one of the foremost Pan African revolutionary husband and wife team.

Kwame had the honour of being invited to Guinea Conakry by his namesake, Nkrumah, who was exiled there after Africa’s most infamous coup deposed him in 1966.
Kwame was under the Osagyefo’s tutelage until his death in Romania in 1972, and remained there until he passed away in 1998; he was buried in Guinea next to Ahmed Seku Ture the country’s founding president. The courage President Mugabe has shown standing up to western powers reminds people of the resilience Nkrumah demonstrated by overthrowing the settler regime in Ghana on March 6 1957.
These comrades also made great contributions to African-Asian anti-imperialist solidarity, President Mugabe by building and maintaining a strong bond to China during the Second Chimurenga and today through the innovative Look East policy that could break US imperialism’s monstrous grip on the African continent.
Kwame did this by showing the African (American) community that they must support the Vietnamese in the war against the administration of Lyndon Johnson because president Ho Chi Minh was a student of Marcus Garvey, and he told members of SNCC who visited him in Hanoi that Garvey’s love for Africa, inspired his own patriotism for Vietnam.

As Zimbabwe celebrates 26 years of independence and democracy, the Blair and Bush administrations have worked around the clock trying to isolate and demonise the country. They have tried to dismiss the land reform programme, which is now the model people all over the world are following, be they from South Africa or Namibia, or as far away as Venezuela or Bolivia. While it can be argued that Latin America has emerged as the vanguard of anti-imperialist resistance, the world’s boldest voice on the issue of land reclamation and self-determination belongs to Cde Robert Mugabe. While Zimbabwe has over 1,6 million Aids orphans, humanitarian groups like the Global Fund continue to allow Blair and Bush to deny Zimbabwe access to resources even though the country has recorded the biggest success in the fight against the pandemic in Southern Africa.
As we celebrate the 52nd anniversary of the Brown vs the Board of Education of Topeka and the legal genius of Thurgood Marshall, let us salute the Government and people of Zimbabwe for having Africa’s most educated nation. Brother Kwame always said that Africans in the Democratic Party were an example of visible powerlessness, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus who supported the illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe under the guise of the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act validate his assertion.

The Congressional Black Caucus also refused to observe the 2002 presidential elections in Zimbabwe, or the parliamentary elections that took place on March 31 last year. Kwame would have raised the question, how could we be against the war in Iraq but support the US and British imperialist campaign to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe? Raising such a shameful contradiction would only have been second nature from a comrade who always reminded us, Africans in the Diaspora that Africa was home, and we had just us much of obligation to defend it as those born on African soil.
Let us remember Kwame’s last written statement to the world was titled "Hell, yes, we’re going to Libya" where he called for the lifting of US-imposed sanctions on Libya and the blockade on Cuba.

Kwame had the misfortune of witnessing firsthand the CIA orchestrated coup that overthrew the PDG in Guinea Conakry in 1984 after the death of the Pan African giant Ahmed Seku Ture, the nation’s first president and leader of the revolution against French colonialism. This enables us to know that Kwame would never have sat idly and let Condolezza Rice call Zimbabwe an outpost of tyranny, just like he called former US secretary of state and joint chief of staff Colin Powell who grew up in the same neighbourhood with him a traitor and an embarrassment to the African-American community.
Kwame even challenged Powell to debate on the Gulf War, which of course the General could not accept.

He would have asked the NAACP to publicise the positive report on Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential elections, and stand strong like one of their founding members the great Pan Africanist WEB DuBois. Gone are the days when the US State Department thought they could tell our organisations how to view and analyse African Affairs at home or abroad. This would have shown the African community in the US that even though we could not prevent the Bush administration from imposing its political will in the White House, we can stop them from taking their dog and pony show to Africa.
Kwame would also have reminded those in our community who have openly criticised Zimbabwe recently that serving as extended mouthpieces of an administration they claim to oppose makes them look confused, opportunistic and cowardly in the eyes of the masses.

Brother Kwame would also have urged African Women worldwide to rally behind Vice President Amai Joice Mujuru, a Zimbabwean warrior from the time she went to fight in the bush to depose Ian Smith’s regime, in the same manner he used various platforms to educate our sisters about the bravery of Cde Assata Shakur while she has been in exile in Cuba, our home away from home.The African (Americans) in the US must welcome the challenge of continuing to defend the integrity of the Zimbabwean revolution.

Brother Kwame would also have urged all organisations in the African (American) community who have promised to defend Zimbabwe to honour the commitments they have made to its Government and people, Africans all over the world must stand behind Zimbabwe.