Back to Index

Mugabe: We won't go back to the Commonwealth
African Business
June 2005

Zimbabwe celebrates 25 years of independence with an uncompromising message for all who want to hear: "We won’t go back to the Commonwealth. It is a useless body to start with, and it has treated us in a dishonourable manner," says President Mugabe in this wide-ranging and exclusive interview with New African

NA: Because of the huge improvements in every sphere of national life since independence, 25 years appear to be such a long time ago. Do you sometimes pinch yourself to remember that this was the same country where no African was allowed to keep more than a herd of six cattle, where no African was allowed in a supermarket, or even to vote?

Mugabe: Yes, 25 years is a very long time, but a long time of memories as well, and memories do pile up, but the most remote ones, especially those which saw us suffer and the times when we were under real bondage, under colonial rule, those can never fade away, they remain forever.

But as you remember them, the only sorry part of it is that the present generation has not come through it all, and that perhaps when we are critical of them and say, "come on, don't you know that we suffered for this country", we perhaps forget that they never went through it all. That is the regret we have. We ask why do they not actually feel as we felt, and go over it, over the bridge, to independence, just emotionally? But, of course, they can't do that. And you know, Mao Zedong had to try to replay it with his Cultural Revolution. It happens in every society. And so when we criticise our youngsters here, we should bear in mind that actually it's all history and perhaps we should blame ourselves for not making the history real. It's only now that we are trying to re-live those moments in the classrooms and give our students their true history.

NA: Are they forgetting because they have it so good, today?

Mugabe: Yes, we've done our best to look after this country and make it good. We could have done much more really if the times had been as helpful as we had anticipated they would. These droughts which are quite a real phenomenon, I don't know its cycles in history, perhaps in the past they had these cycles, one doesn't know but they are a phenomenon. We've had really more droughts than good seasons.

But in spite of it, we've done our best; we've fed our people. We've tried as much as possible to give them a living, to give them also the sense of belonging, and not just belonging but the sense of ownership. That the country is theirs, and the opportunities thereof are theirs. That they need not hanker now after being employed. They must be able to employ themselves. That's the new education we must develop - that these resources are our resources.

But unfortunately, in order for them to have this sense of ownership, they want immediately also to derive from it those means and benefits that can make their lives real. And that is where we have the problem; because it is not that easy to have resources at the disposal of the majority of the people that can make them feel truly that their lives are now better.

But, of course, they are better much more in the collective sense than the individual sense. The schools that belong to them all, their children can go to school - all of them. We did not have to impose education on our communities by way of enacting laws and compelling parents to send their children to school. They have that in them. It's in every parent actually. And so, all we do is to facilitate the communities. In fact, when we started, the communities themselves built most of the schools in the rural areas, with only little financial help from the government.

Then you have the area of health. Again, we have health facilities, they are not yet as adequate as we would want them to be, but you have hospitals in all provinces and most districts. Our policy was to have a hospital in every district. The largest province in the country has eight districts, and we started by building two district hospitals in every province in Phase One. But when we got to Phase Three and we were now thinking of Phase Four, we had immense problems which have slowed our pace.

Then we have areas like transport, the roads...

NA: ...Your roads are wonderful, I have travelled around the country and your roads are superb.

Mugabe: Yeah, but they are killers at the moment, very narrow; people have so many cars...

NA: ...Yes, they are narrow but...

Mugabe: ...They are OK. Then you have the feeder roads that feed into these roads and which enable us to move farm produce, and the people as well.

Then, of course, you have also the fact of agriculture itself. Here, agriculture requires land; you don't do agriculture in the air. So we had to get the land back to the people, the best of the gains from the liberation struggle - land, land, land; and it was the main grievance during the struggle. We built our struggle virtually on that grievance, but of course the right of ownership, the sovereignty of the people, all these aspects were built around the fact of our having been deprived of our land.

Well, our people are now very happy, they are very happy; but we are yet to make full use of the land. You see, we've had a drought this year again, but winter is coming, we have a lot of water masses, perhaps we are the country with the most dams in Africa, but many large dams have no in the rivers as well. So, we are working have the inputs and sometimes help them with tillage as well. Of course, in the urban areas, the cry is for employment. Yes, we've established factories since independence, but the hard times have seen a lot of closures, a lot of shrinkage of some of the factories, and we are now on a campaign to revive them. And with the new governor of the Reserve Bank who is quite alert and aware of government policies, we've gone quite some distance. We've looked at the situation in Bulawayo where there were a lot of closures as well as Harare, Kadoma and other places; and we are getting some of them back to viability.

So there will be great employment, but nowadays factories really should not be the greater employer than agriculture. It is so in developed countries but in developing countries agriculture should see a lot of self-employment, because a mere half acre can do wonders. You can build your horticulture on a piece of land less than a hectare, and things such as growing mushrooms are catching on.

But in spite of it all, we would want to see the peasants grow their own food and move out of the subsistence level and have cash. They are a hardworking people, they like their soil, they like their cattle and other animals. That is the life in the rural areas, and that is the life of the people.

Yes, perhaps in the future, with greater agricultural reform and more development of the manufacturing sector, there may be a drift from the land to the cities, but that must be well guided, or you may end up with the situation we have in South Africa which was caused by the Boers there. They take all the land or most of the land and leave the people with little land, so they are forced into urban areas where they become labour reservoirs. You get huge townships but people without employment. And then you have the great incidence of crime.

No, we don't want to get to that situation at all. We want people to love their land, to do as much with their land as they can, and produce for themselves, for the region, and even for the markets outside Africa.

NA: Talking about the benefits of the liberation struggle and the national good, do you ever meet, informally, behind the scenes, say over tea, with the opposition, the MDC leadership, and talk about some of these things that matter to the nation, the national good?

Mugabe: Have they the minds to comprehend? They act as if they don't have the same mental abilities as ourselves. When people really have to abandon their own beings and subject themselves to influences from others, and only listen to those others, then you begin to wonder whether you can ever be at one with them. And this is our worry. They have not yet started thinking nationally. No, they are still thinking of linking themselves with colonial powers to be facilitated by outsiders, and that is the point that really unnerves some of us.

And they appear to be the only people who are doing that in the whole of Africa, at least the extent they are going cannot be found anywhere in Africa. I know that in some situations, some opposition parties have sought some assistance, usually financial from outside. Well, that is not as much as to say politically please be our mentors. And actually you beg them to assist you into power, haaah!

So we regard them as anathema, really. And yes, we've talked to them but only on political matters, constitutional matters, especially when we were working on that infamous constitution, the draft that never saw the light of day, which was submitted to the people in February 2000. We regarded the referendum as a national one but we did not ask our people to vote for the party as such.

But naturally, the MDC - because the draft constitution had provisions that affected the rights of the white commercial farmers, and affected them in a sense which they did not approve - they voted against it! And what was that? The main provision in regard to the land issue was to lay the burden or obligation of providing compensation for land on the British.

It was for that reason that they voted against the draft constitution; otherwise it was the best they could ever have got, with lots of their views in it - and for the white man too. I think it was very foolish for the whites to reject that. I thought the best thing the white farmers could have done was to join us so we could be a joint force, not petitioning the British but rather persuading them and pressuring them that they accept the burden of paying compensation in accordance with our understanding at Lancaster House.

But no, the whites didn't want that because if that facility was made available, it would have then implied that they were going to lose their land; that we were going to be facilitated in purchasing their land. But as it happened, they have lost both!

NA: And now the opposition is saying let's go for a new constitution. The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) is campaigning for a new constitution.

Mugabe: Well, what's wrong with our current constitution? Now we are saying well and good - you rejected the draft constitution that we presented in 2000, and we can't go back to it. We will now amend the constitution in accordance with what we regard as the necessary amendments to be made - the two Houses of Parliament, the Senate; and also increasing the composition of parliament as it is. For example, if we have a Senate, what will be the standing of the chiefs appointed to parliament? Will they continue to be accommodated in the lower house which is currently the national assembly, or will they go to the upper house? And of course the governors as well, what numbers are we talking about?

The draft constitution, I think, had a composition of 200 members for the lower house and 60 for the upper house. Whether we will come to that, I don't know.

Yes, the opposition can express their views in parliament or outside parliament on those issues, and we can discuss them. But at the same time, we will naturally be asking them to sever their current relations with the British and look home, because this is where they derive their power, not from the British.

They should think African, and not think white. Their respect for the white man should be proportional to his being a human being. But other than that, the white man is not superior to the black man. In fact, as things are, he is quite inferior. And his moral norms leave a lot to be desired.

There they are, a community like the British, which says: "You are a man but you can be the wife of someone else and we can marry you; and you here are a woman but you can turn into a husband." Haaaaah! I mean you just try to comprehend it. In our own societies in Africa, when a man turns into a woman or a woman into a man, we say "aaah, there is something wrong, he or she is abnormal", and we accept abnormality.

But for a community, and even the Church of England, to accept that a man can marry a man, I don't know whether they accept that the two can produce a child. [Laughs]. What is the world becoming? It's terrible. That kind of mentality or culture is quite foreign to us.

And the lies that Bush and Blair have been telling, OK, we are not all above reproach, but for them to really lead the world on the basis of lies, and tell blatant lies, still tell lies about Zimbabwe just now, ignore completely what the Africans are saying, and even ironically say "whats wrong with the Africans? They are that close to the situation and they don't see what we can see from afar"

Just imagine? They see better than we who are on the spot and can judge that a thing is right or wrong. Now what mentality is that? What people are we dealing with? Are those people really fit to be international leaders? They don't tell the truth! And what paths are they now charting for the rest of the world? So these are the people, the likes of Tsvangirai, well, pray for him, he was not exposed to the amenities that some of us were exposed. Although he has the ambition, but it is a hollow ambition, which is not clothed in any greater understanding and intellectual appreciation of some of these things.

But there are people like Welshman Ncube [the MDC secretary general], who was a lecturer at the university and knows better. Therefore, sometimes you can see that his statements are watered down, they are not as emotional as those of the primitive mind of my brother who wants my seat. [Laughs].

NA: You and your party went out during the recent elections to campaign for a two-thirds majority in parliament. Now that you have it, what are you going to do with it?

Mugabe: Well, this is what I was talking about - those amendments to the constitution and any others we might desire to make.

NA: Yet you announced during your recent trip to the Far East that you would retire when your current term expires in 2008 - three years down the road. But you say you don't want to be drawn into anointing a successor. Some of your citizens are worried that, without a clear candidate to take over from you, your retirement might lead to a power struggle in the party that could destabilise the country.

Mugabe: But let the president also anoint someone and there would be an outcry - "why this, why not give a chance to this and that?" The democratic way is the best one, really. Yesterday, people were wondering who was going to succeed the late vice president, Simon Muzenda. It was very clear who was going to succeed Joshua Nkomo because the number two on the former ZAPU side was bound to step into the shoes of Joshua Nkomo as first vice president.

You see, the understanding between ZANU and ZAPU at the Unity Accord in 1987 was that there would be two vice presidents, one drawn from ZAPU and the other from ZANU. So it was very clear who was going to step into the shoes of Joshua Nkomo when he died. It wasn't as clear who was going to step into the shoes of Muzenda on the ZANU side. And there would have been no real problems such as we experienced if the people had done it in a straight-forward way. But others wanted to do it in a clandestine way and in a way that was unconstitutional and completely threatening to the unity of the party. And so we took action against them.

But the women in the party, at the same time also presented a principle that wherever there are three persons appointed in the same area, either in government or in the party, one must be a woman. They wanted 33% female representation in every situation of that nature. So they brought in this principle and they wanted it to apply immediately.

And it was done, even though some of our people were disappointed. But there it is, we have a vice president in the party and government who is a lady, and one does not know what will happen when it comes to the succession of President Mugabe. The people will make their choice.

If I anoint somebody... even in the Catholic Church there is some voting. The Pope, holy as he is, is not anointed from above. He is first chosen by the people and anointed by the Lord Almighty afterwards. [Laughter all round].

NA: Your critics at home and abroad say you have put a soft female vice president in a strategic position to take over from you, so that she will look after your back when you are gone. Is that the case?

Mugabe: Well, it is the women in the party who actually wanted it. We had to comply with the women's wishes. Yeah, we supported them because constitutionally we had accepted it in the party, that the quota - the 33% female representation - was necessary. And the women wanted it to start there and then. And they were serious. Yeah, I went along, and the presidium -1 was with Msika only [the first vice president], and we accepted the principle.

But the choice was done by the women themselves; they chose Teurai Mujuru and we accepted the choice. She is a strong-willed person, she has the stature, good character and is very committed. We were with her in the struggle in the bush. So she has all that it takes to be a vice president. But the people will make the choice in the future as to who they desire to be president, to take over from me. But really, if the people think I have already anointed her, why are they worried?

NA: In fact, to be fair, the criticisms are coming more from abroad, they are saying you have manoeuvred to get a soft woman in that strategic position, so she can look after your back when you are gone?

Mugabe: Soft?

NA: So they say.

Mugabe: Eeeeeiiiii! She is one of the strongest ladies you can ever have. Very firm! Uuuugh! Not Teurai. She is not soft!

NA: In your Sky News interview last year, you talked about sanctions imposed by the West on Zimbabwe without giving any details. Could you tell us more by being specific? What type of sanctions have they imposed?

Mugabe: Blair again, and that's why we call him B-liar. He asked member countries of the European Union to impose personal sanctions on the top leadership of our party, on government ministers and other outstanding people who are supporters of the party. That was done.

That is the overt part of his actions. The covert part was for him now to appeal to the EU members and the Americans who wanted very much Blair's support on Iraq, not to have economic links with us. He discouraged investment in Zimbabwe. I told Sky-News all this.

NA: They edited it out of the interview.

Mugabe: Well, but a lot of countries in Europe responded to Blair's approach, and started either not proceeding with whatever investment agreements or proposals they had put in place for Zimbabwe, or reducing their grants and soft loans to Zimbabwe.

The British and the Americans also applied the same influence on the IMF and the World Bank. Not long ago, I attended a meeting held jointly by the World Bank and IMF in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We explained to them the position - the land situation at the time, what we had managed to do in the country in spite of sometimes the interference from the IMF, and they were very impressed.

The presidents of both the IMF and World Bank - James Wolfershon and Horst Kohler were there. And they said: "Yes, certainly, we think you deserve help and we would want to help you." And I said: "What are you going to do?" And Kohler replied, giggling: "I must pass first through Europe and then Washington, and Europe and Washington would say no."

That is it! And Europe and Washington have been ensuring that we don't get assistance that would go towards supporting our own economic programmes here. And this is what has happened, and of course the effect of it is to reduce the amounts of foreign currency we have here, and also to reduce trade as much as possible, although certain agreed forms of trade with Europe have continued. Well, they like our beef and they still call it Rhodesian Beef instead of Zimbabwean Beef. We have a beef quota to Europe of 9,200 tonnes. Then there is sugar, we do export some sugar -1 think the quota to America might have been abolished. But we continue to send our flowers to Amsterdam like anyone else.

But Britain has imposed sanctions. For example, we bought some Hawks (military jets) from Britain and we now need spare parts for them but Britain has said no, that's why we have now grounded all our Hawks. And Britain is losing because we have resorted to a "Look East Policy" and we now have similar planes from China. We are even proceeding now with our civil aviation to acquire planes from China.

NA: Is it right to say that the massive implosion of your economy in 2002 and 2003 was due largely to these sanctions?

Mugabe: Yes, of course. Yes! The sanctions have led to lack of investments and so on, and we had to adjust...

NA: ...And yet they accuse you of being a bad manager of the economy although the same person has been managing the economy for the past 25 years, and they don't say how he became a bad manager overnight?

Mugabe: Well, this is the issue, and if I am a bad manager, why is the economy still going in the manner in which it is, and sustaining the country in spite of their sanctions? The people whose sanctions have failed to get my government to collapse, to get the economy to collapse, are the ones who are saying so; it's ironical, isn't it?

NA: Which leads me to another ironic situation where countries with worse human rights and democratic records are still members of the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe was suspended, leading to your quitting the organisation. If Zimbabwe is invited back into the Commonwealth, will you rejoin?

Mugabe: No, no. It's a useless body to start with, and it has treated us in a dishonourable manner. No, we can't - and I want it written into the constitution, no I'm joking [laughter all round] -1 want it written really in the hearts of the people that we will not go back. We will establish relations with individual members of the Commonwealth; there is nothing wrong with that. And even if we get a Britain, which is not run in the same way in regard to our relations as the Britain of Blair, fine. We will mend our relations - this is what I told Prince Charles when we met in Rome recently at the Pope's funeral, but please don't put him into trouble.

We discussed relations and we said we have tremendous respect for the Queen, every member of the Royal Family has been to Zimbabwe, and we have tremendous respect for every member of that family We have souvenirs of their visits here, all of them - to the man, they have been here. We respect them and we continue to respect them.

But not so their man, Mr Blair. I don't know whether the Labour Party in the future without Blair will mend its relations with us. If they do, well and good; we've been open, we've never refused to talk to any member of Blair's government. But let me show him my hand, he runs away [Laughter all round].

NA: Which incidentally leads to the next question on my list, your meeting with Prince Charles in Rome. You said in your Independence Day speech three weeks ago that Prince Charles came here on 17 April 1980 to see the lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of Zimbabwe's new flag at independence. Tell us, what actually happened when you met him in Rome recently. Did you deliberately go out of your way to shake his hand for political purposes?

Mugabe: No, I was just greeting him the normal way, really I couldn't sit there next to him - there was of course Herbert Murerwa, our finance minister, on Blair's seat, and he was between me and Prince Charles, and we were chatting, chatting, chatting, chatting.

Murerwa was talking about his days as our high commissioner in Britain, and when he was invited to visit Highgrove, Prince Charles' palace, where he was received by Prince Charles. Murerwa still remembers those days. And Prince Charles said he was the one sent to Zimbabwe by Britain to lower the British flag on 17 April 1980 midnight, and we had good relations. In fact, we discussed a lot of things at that meeting in Rome, which cannot be talked about in this interview.

NA: Tony Blair has just won a third term in office and all the reporting is saying it is "historic" - historic third term. But if an African president had gone for a third term, he would be called an autocrat, wouldn't he?

Mugabe: Well, as far as the British are concerned, they would go for a third, even a fourth term; Margaret Thatcher tried to do that. Their unwritten constitution allows it, and I don't see any reason why if your constitution allows it, you cannot go for a third term.

NA: So after the two recent elections - in Zimbabwe and Britain - do you see any improvement on the horizon in the relations between your two countries, and by extension the West?

Mugabe: Well, it depends on Mr Blair. If he continues to maintain this don't-touch-me, I-am-untouchable attitude, well and good; we won't extend our hand to him. But if he wants to open his doors or wants us to open our doors, fine. His people can come here, my people can go to London and discuss relations, and mend our relations.

But of course he is a bully, and bullies are not known to change their ways until they get someone who can actually knock them into submission. The bully continues to be a bully Blair wants to continue to maintain this headmaster type of attitude - you must submit, after all you are a black nigger. And we say, "Come on, small as we are, we have that sense of pride which exudes all the time. We are African and we are proud to be African.

NA: Talking about Blair reminds me of Condoleezza Rice. I guess you don't expect a Christmas card from her this year, do you?

Mugabe: Oh no, no. I wouldn't have her even for a girlfriend, would I? [Laughter all round].

NA: And people say by calling her "that girl born out of the slave ancestry", you were in effect being offensive to all African-Americans.

Mugabe: No, I was actually reminding her that we had suffered in the past, that all of us blacks were turned into slaves - those who went to America and those who remained on the continent, we all became slaves. They became slaves away from home and we became slaves right at home. And has she forgotten it? This was the message I wanted to drive into her mind - let's not forget how the white man has treated us in the past. Pure and simple.

But of course, if they want to narrow it into that kind of thinking, they are free to do so. But this is the message, and it is a message we continually give to our own people - don't allow the whites once again to turn us into colonial slaves. Zimbabwe will never be a colony again. And that is precisely what we mean. We don't want to be turned into slaves or semi- slaves once again.

NA: Let's finish, Mr President, by talking a bit about our continent. Is the African Union on course?

Mugabe: Yes, it's on course, but we must be African, have a sense of independence really, and accept that lots of things must be done by us without resorting to Europe. That, when we interact with Europe or America, we do so on the basis of equality and not on the master-servant kind of relationship.

And if we get aid, that aid must not subject us to the will of the donors, no. It must be aid given on the understanding that we are equals, that it will be used to develop our own environment, our own people. And that it must be well given, given with a view to assisting either friends or a nation that the donors would want to help to develop.

And please, the leadership must never, never accept that aid can ever buy or undermine their independence. It should never undermine the independence that cost us so many lives in Africa to win. Of course, not every country went to war like Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique, but still those who got their independence after political negotiations, still lost quite a lot - their people were treated as colonial subjects and their resources were exploited for years.

Now we can't allow that situation to come about once again merely because of our economic relations with the West, and Africa must stand proud and be free, a free Africa.

That's why I like and admire Nkrumah and those after him - Nyerere and others. They said we had to retain our independence, and that is still the message. And then we must develop an African personality and an African culture, and be able to withstand the machinations of the West. That's why Nkrumah lost his seat through the coup d'etat in February 1966, but the message he gave us is all there for us to follow.

But of course, some latter day presidents in Africa get us worried a lot. Zimbabwe is a young country and independence came to us in an environment in which the whole of Africa under the OAU, using its arm called the Liberation Committee, supported us. It did the same to the Mozambicans, the Angolans, the Namibians and the South Africans.

And so we think of Africa and African leaders as people who have a high national consciousness, people we expect to continue in the same political frame as that in which Nkrumah was, in which Nyerere was, in which Sekou Toure was, and Nasser was; and Ben Bellah who is still alive, was - that of not yielding to colonialism or neo-colonialism as Nkrumah used to call it, you see it was Nkrumah who gave us all those words - neo-colonialism and so on.

And so we remain faithful to these leaders who assisted us to liberate ourselves. And we remain faithful to the principles they enunciated so clearly - that we must be free, we must be independent, we must be sovereign, and we must have the right of self determination as enshrined in the UN Charter. NA

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP