The ManicaPost
Vladimir Nyikahairovi Mutongadzimwe Mukada
WORLD outrage has grown at the fate suffered by an African-American, George Floyd, whose heart stopped on May 25 as a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Coincidently, on that day Africa was celebrating its day — Africa Day.
Demonstrations in the USA during the past week have resonated around the world, with solidarity protests being held in other countries.
Last weekend, the US national security advisor, Mr Robert O’Brien listed Zimbabwe among the countries seeking to take advantage of widespread protests in the US and beyond following the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of a white police officer last week.
Zimbabwe has since dismissed the characterisation of Zimbabwe as an adversary of the United States seeking to take advantage of the current unrest in that country to sow discord and damage their democracy.
The way Floyd was murdered in broad daylight in front of passersby who were begging the officers to let him go shows the depth of hatred against blacks in the upbringing and training of white people in America.
It shows how deep the denigration of black people is within the American national justice system.
The police officer would not have done what he did if he really knew what the consequences were.
He was very confident that he was on the right track according to the policies of his employer, the American government.
His colleagues even protected him from the passersby who were trying to restrain him.
If that officer killed Floyd in such a cruel manner in public, how many other black people has he and his team killed in prison?
That nation’s criminal justice system was built on the master-slave platform, a reason why its justice system cannot generate protection of rights and liberties of black people since the government and all its state systems consider blacks as inferior and not worth living.
Had such a situation happened elsewhere in the world, USA would be on the forefront to reprimand that country.
Now they are accusing Zimbabwe and China of influencing the riots that erupted after Floyd’s murder because the American government still believes that their black population is so docile that they alone cannot see that they are being murdered by the government without being told by foreign authorities.
This shows how inhumane the USA government is to its black citizens.
For us to understand why USA, Britain and their allies imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe when we reclaimed our land through land reform, we need to know what is called NSSM39.
The USA’s National Security Study Memorandum No39 (NSSM 39) of April 16, 1969 states that, “Whatever will be done in the five Southern African countries, namely Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), South Africa, Namibia (then South West Africa), Mozambique and Angola will be done only and only in the interests of the white communities there.”
Every new American president signs this law which was drafted by Zbigniev Brizezinski and Henry Kissinger before being presented to the then president of the USA Richard Nixon on 16 April, 1969.
Up to this day, this law exists in the USA.
What they are punishing us for is for breaking a standing USA law. That is why they had the guts of passing the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act.
This in itself was and still is a violation of the international law which does not permit a sovereign state to unilaterally debate in its parliament and impose sanctions against another sovereign state which is a member of the UN.
Our crime is that we repossessed land from the white community. Yet the whites had illegally possessed it.
Drawing parallels to the Guatemalan Situation in 1951, the Red Indian (indigenous) people of Guatemala took a brave stand and took their land, which had been shared among a few white families and USA and Anglo-American conglomerates.
This move by the Red Indians who are the indigenous people of that country did not go down well with the Americans and their allies. They started demonising Jacobo Arbenz, the revolutionary leader of that country as a dictator and communist.
Sanctions were later imposed like what is happening in our country.
After 10 long years of sanctions and suffering, the Guatemalan army ousted their president under the instigation of USA and their conglomerates.
The Guatemalan army thought that only their president was the problem and after eliminating him, they believed that sanctions would be removed, but USA told them that the embargo could not be removed since the army was part and parcel of the old regime (the same old Taxi with a new driver).
They were then told to hold so-called free and fair elections in which they could contest with an opposition party, which was being sponsored by the USA.
This opposition party was recruited from the indigenous Red Indians, but directed by the CIA under Dulles and George Bush Senior.
The opposition won the elections, but still sanctions were not removed. The reason given by USA was that this party was a Red Indian party and it was the indigenous people who had robed the whites and the USA conglomerates of their land.
So what they needed to do was to reverse the land ownership rights to what they were on December 31, 1950. This meant returning their land to the whites, before the sanctions could be removed.
They agreed to that, but still sanctions were not removed. The next condition was that the USA would give money to white farm owners so that they could revive their farms that had been vandalised by the Red Indians, but this money would be paid back by the Red Indian government through taxation of their indigenous people.
They also agreed to that, but still sanctions were not removed.
The last but most brutal condition was that the Guatemalan government had to cut the reserves where indigenous people were congested by 75 percent and give that land to whites as compensation because the whites had to cover up for the 10-year loss of production caused by the land reform.
Also all communities whose land had been included in this 75 percent had to automatically become compulsory farm labourers of the new white owners. This was agreed upon and up to today the indigenous people are living on 25 percent of their land while a few white families, the United Fruit Company and other European conglomerates occupy 75 percent of the land.
Guatemala today is the biggest producer of the so-called Euro banana, the standard banana which is shipped to Europe at the cheapest price.
The money from these products goes to USA and Europe, living the Guatemalan indigenous people being one of the poorest communities on the planet.
The same situation prevails in Zimbabwe.
The USA and its allies made it clear that no sanctions will be removed as long as the land ownership rights in this country have not been reversed to what they were in 1999.
The Loan Zimbabwe Document (Zimbabwe after Cde Robert Mugabe) states that the new government will be given $3,5 billion over a period of 10 years.
Its disbursement is subject to conditions pertaining to land ownership and the rule of law, while sanctions will remain in place for that 10-year period.
They also said they will give title deeds to new black farmers, but these farmers will then have to give 99-year leases to white farmers who will then help the black farmers while they go back to live in their former rural homes. This came after Europe realised that the reason why Africans fought as a united front against them was because they had taken our land as a united group.
But if every individual family signs away its portion of land, in future no one will be able to gather the whole nation together to defend the common land rights of the blacks since each and every family would have given away its portion of land as an individual family.
This is a tactic of trying to divide and rule us forever.
Cde Vladimir Nyikahairovi Mutongadzimwe Mukada is a veteran of the country’s liberation struggle and writes in his personal capacity.
