Zimbabwe and the Steep Road to Vindication
By Netfa Freeman | Black Agenda Report | December 14, 2010
When Zimbabwe initiated fast track land redistribution in 2000 it was big news for corporate media to echo several patented denunciations, characterizing the process as rife with corruption, violence, and inefficiency and doomed to fail. More than eager to join the fray was the liberal left whose pseudo analysis reiterated the same line accompanied by an aversion to anything that seemed even remotely favorable to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party.
Given all that media fanfare, it would be easy to assume an independent study examining results from the last ten years of land reform would get the same attention. Not likely. In fact we can be sure more attention will be given to the dispatches from the U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe publicized by WikiLeaks. One cable by former U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell reveals nothing unexpected or compelling except Dell’s aptitude for writing subjective diatribes that are able to pass for concrete information to the politically uncritical eye. Ambassador Dell’s publicized cable exposes the lack of confidence he has for many of the leaders in their neo-colonial pawn party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that he and the U.S. brazenly support along with the rest of the Western powers. A friend of mine had this to say about the cable “I think it’s funny that they’ve been predicting his [Mugabe’s] imminent demise for so long. I’ve always said that the biggest Achilles’ heel of the imperialists is that they actually believe their own horse****, especially since the aforementioned [the Dell cable] self-delusional horse**** is oftentimes the basis for their actions.”
Dell dispatched the cable in 2007 and at this point most if not all of the assertions in it have been disproved over time, bringing us to the real meat of this article – meat that will be overshadowed in Western press by the recent WikiLeaks release. Not that they would endeavor to report this at all even in the absence of WikiLeaks.
You see, the major study of 10 years of land reform in Zimbabwe actually exists and was released in mid November. As we said, if one assumed it would get big media coverage they would assume wrongly since such a study doesn’t conform with the acceptable and imposed imperial narrative. It appears the study, released by Institute for Development Studies fellow Ian Scoones at Britain’s University of Sussex and detailed in the book Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Myths & Realities, was able to lure the usual Mugabe and ZANU PF detractors into resuming their typical propaganda pot-shots, indicating that something unfavorable to them is afoot. An article by staunch Mugabe critic Patrick Bond in the online magazine Counterpunch, “A New Tyranny: Will Zimbabwe Regress Again?” was published just as the new study evaluating the land redistribution program in Zimbabwe was released. It almost seemed that Bond’s article was meant to serve as damage control from the revelations of the study.
Before assuming the land study is the topic of Bond’s article, revealingly not one mention of the study was in the article. While this was interesting it was not surprising, given that the study contradicts a collection of major narrative myths Bond has been complicit in popularizing. The study “challenges five myths through the examination of the field data from Masvingo province:
“Myth 1 Zimbabwean land reform has been a total failure
“Myth 2 The beneficiaries of Zimbabwean land reform have been largely political ‘cronies’ (specifically, cronies of Robert Mugabe)
“Myth 3 There is no investment in the new resettlements
“Myth 4 Agriculture is in complete ruins creating chronic food insecurity
“Myth 5 The rural economy has collapsed
“By challenging these myths, and suggesting alternative policy narratives, this book presents the story as it has been observed on the ground: warts and all.”
Over the past year or so things had been relatively quiet on the ZANU PF-Mugabe vilifying front, leaving one to wonder about the timing between the land redistribution study and any new ZANU PF-Mugabe vilification resurrecting its ugly head. Even more deafening is the silence over the study by Western media and the Western beholden civil society organizations, right wing or “progressive.” While Bond does deal quite a bit in his article with land redistribution it is mostly to continue the notion that it was a disingenuous exercise that was largely a failure. Just like Ambassador Dell’s cable to the US State Department, Bond backs none of this up with the type of information that can be either proven or disproved.
And even with the wholly inadequate coverage the land study has gotten, like that of the BBC, coverage tries to divert attention to a “process which these farms were seized off white farmers, often very, very violently,” as remarked by the host of BBC News Worldwide while interviewing Ian Scoones. Lacking the sensitivities that come from identifying with the indigenous African’s from which the land was brutally stolen in the first place using methods exponentially more violent than any used to reclaim it by the African descendants who have the only rightful claim to it, Scoones could not articulate the more fitting come-back for such Euro-centrically biased questioning.
The imperialists, along with their pseudo-progressive civil society organizations, must believe that if they just keep repeating the same lies and misrepresentations over and over they will transform them into truths. Like the facts of the 2008 elections whose depiction is another obstacle in Zimbabwe’s road to vindication. In his article Bond repeats the refutable claim that “Since paramilitary violence forced Tsvangirai to pull out of the mid-2008 run-off presidential election (after winning the first round – but, claimed Mugabe’s vote-counters, with less than 50%),…” When one’s purpose is only to generate unsubstantiated assertions it’s easy to pack a lot of misinformation into a single sentence.
The devil, or shall we say the real truth is in the details. While Bond’s assertion follows the standard imperialist propaganda line, facts reveal that the results of that election were not under the control of “Mugabe’s vote-counters” but instead a Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) that included representatives, ballot counters, and poll watchers from all the political parties of the country who each had to sign off on the results during each stage of tallying. Bond also claims his imperialist-backed MDC presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was the winner even though the country’s constitution dictates that there is only a winner when a candidate receives over 50% of the vote. Instead of a claim by “Mugabe’s vote-counters” as Bond put it, it was even according to the figures peddled by the MDC at the time a run off was warranted. Unlike Bond, an April 4, 2008 article in the Zimbabwe Guardian clarified this fairly recent history with more concrete and verifiable information, saying:
“Morgan Tsvangirai might aspire to be president of Zimbabwe, but he has difficulty with simple mathematics. Yesterday, he claimed to have won 50.3 per cent of the vote in Zimbabwe’s election. This figure is vital because it puts him just above the crucial 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a second round against Robert Mugabe.
“But anyone with a calculator can work out that someone got their sums wrong. According to the MDC, Tsvangirai took 1,169,860 votes against Mugabe’s 1,043,451 and Simba Makoni’s 169,636.
“These figures appear in an official statement carried on the MDC’s website today, along with the claim that “President Tsvangirai has 50.3 percent of the total Presidential vote and he has won the election with no need for a run-off.”
Get out your calculator and check the percentages. In fact, the MDC’s voting figures show Tsvangirai with 49.1 per cent, Mugabe with 43.8 per cent and Makoni winning 7.1 per cent.”
So on the MDC’s own figures, a second round is needed.
These weren’t the only shenanigans the MDC attempted during the first round of voting and conveniently overlooked by Bond. Some may recall the long time it took for the results of the first round of voting to be released, emboldening the opposition and Western forces to claim ZANU PF was stalling in order to put in the fix. And the pitiful Christopher Dell cable released by WikiLeaks actually adds to misleading the public about the real context of that time. For example, that some ZEC officials were “arrested on allegations of tampering with election results and prejudicing ZANU-PF presidential candidate President Mugabe of 4,993 votes cast in four constituencies in the just-ended harmonized elections” as reported in an April 8th 2008 article in Zimbabwe’s The Herald. The article went on to detail that investigations around the same improprieties where taking place in “two other constituencies in Manicaland where the Zanu-PF presidential candidate was also allegedly prejudiced of 1,392 votes.
“In Mashonaland Central, it is alleged, the same candidate was prejudiced of 773 votes while investigations also revealed that the same candidate lost 1,000 votes in two Matabeleland North constituencies and 1,828 votes in Masvingo…
“…The anomalies were detected following a close scrutiny of V11 and V23 forms.
“A V11 form is an original document carrying results at polling stations and is signed by all agents of contesting parties.
After the signing of the V11 form, information is then recorded on the V23 forms that collate polling station results within a ward.
“These forms also show the results of the council elections.
“The Sunday Mail reported at the weekend that at Rimbi Primary School in Manicaland Province, the V11 form showed that President Mugabe got 612 votes but the V23 form that was forwarded to the National Command Centre shows that the President received 187 votes.
“This anomaly was detected in a number of constituencies.”
Instead of believing the false, typical and unsubstantiated claim that paramilitary violence forced Tsvangirai to withdraw from the 2008 run-off that followed the first round of voting, a real and more plausible explanation is detailed here.
So while it is easy to foster confusion with grandiose, albeit brief, assertions barren of concretely verifiable information, it often takes pages of critically assembled information to unravel it. To properly digest the WikiLeaks released cable of Dell we can learn from CISPES, Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. In looking at the WikiLeaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador, CISPES has made some very astute observations. It would be wise for us to consider that much may be similar regarding Zimbabwe and El Salvador: “While Wikileaks’ release of leaked diplomatic cables provides an unprecedented opportunity to reveal the workings and motives of U.S. foreign policy, the process grants large international news agencies the decision-making power as to which cables to release and the opportunity to craft the first analysis that the public will hear.”
CISPES continues: “Considering more than 1,000 cables about El Salvador were reportedly leaked, we must ask what criteria were used to select these particular cables for first publication; cables that right-wing Salvadoran news sources are now using in a continued attempt to undermine new government.” … “Overall, the cables reveal an Embassy that is out of touch with the leading role played by the FMLN in El Salvador’s current political reality.”
The IDS land study in Zimbabwe does provide what could be considered an unbiased account of land reform in Zimbabwe. However, much of what it reveals had already been documented by anti-imperialist author Gregory Elich and in many ways more comprehensively. IDS fellow Ian Scoones insists that his study focused only on the results of land reform over time, occasionally seeming to accept the Western narrative on the means by which the redistribution took place. Zimbabwe’s land issue is consistently characterized by unprecedentedly and indiscriminately violent takeovers from white landowners deliberately instigated by Mugabe and ZANU PF. Elich refutes this in his meticulously researched and referenced book Strange Liberators; Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit, showing that farm “invasions” involved “temporary visits of a few days and sporadic repeat visits. They [did] not entail the extended stays” and that the farms targeted tended to be those of landowners who “had mistreated workers, paid excessively low wages or exhibited overt racism.” Regarding the use of violence Elich also showed that “…compared to rural and urban violence in South Africa, Ireland or Brazil, the level in Zimbabwe has been quite low.” Incidents perpetrated by those who were legitimately dissatisfied with what had been inadequate land delivery were curtailed by the ZANU PF fast track land redistribution program.
The IDS study merely validates Elich’s job of disproving the myth that beneficiaries of the land reform had been political “cronies” of Mugabe and that the process was largely corrupt. Elich also pointed out that land confiscated by the Zimbabwe government for redistribution was “unused land, underutilized land, land owned by absentee owners, land owned by a person possessing multiple farms, land exceeding size limits (which varied by region), and land contiguous with communal lands.” Rather than Mugabe being in cahoots with what in reality was a minuscule 0.3 percent of cases where the process was abused (5% according to the IDS study), Elich demonstrates something different. The investigation that uncovered such abuse and corruption in the process by government and party officials was actually initiated by the President’s Land Resettlement Committee. (Elich, p. 343-344)
While Patrick Bond’s writings and WikiLeaks documents might seem a compelling source of truth, such truth is unfortunately harder to come by. One “wiki-leaked” cable indicates that because “many MDC-T local councilors and parliamentarians elected in 2008 had no independent income…they were now turning to graft.” Such disclosures don’t tell the relevant complicity of the World Bank in secretly bankrolling MDC-T officials. While the IDS study on the land reform pushes Zimbabwe further down the road to vindication an anti-imperialist and revolutionary perspective of Zimbabwe’s struggles will continue to require a very scrutinizing and critical approach.
Netfa Freeman is the Director of IPS’ Social Action & Leadership School for Activists and an activist in the internationalist and Pan-African liberation movements. He can be reached at netfa@hotsalsa.org.
Preliminary results for the CERN CLOUD cosmic ray experiment
Nature.com | December 15, 2010
An experiment designed to investigate the link between solar activity and the climate has its first results in the bag. At the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco today, Joachim Curtius presented data from the first runs of the CLOUD (‘cosmics leaving outdoor droplets’) experiment at CERN – the European particle physics lab outside of Geneva.
The experiment has a long and bumpy history. The idea is to test the theory that cosmic rays spur the formation of particles in the air that nucleate clouds, in turn making skies cloudier and the planet cooler. Researchers have noted a dearth of sunspots (which is linked to more cosmic rays) during the ‘little ice age’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a peak in sunspots (linked to a drop in cosmic rays) during the late 1980s, when global cloudiness dropped by about 3% (see Nature‘s feature on the project). No one knows how big this effect might be, and the idea that it might account for a big chunk of the warming over the last century is highly controversial.
CLOUD uses a particle beam from CERN as a stand-in for cosmic rays, and fires them through an ultra-clean steel chamber filled with select atmospheric gases, to see if and how particles that could nucleate clouds are formed. Project head Jasper Kirkby proposed the experiment back in 1998. But it had a hard time getting off the ground – perhaps in part because Kirkby received bad press for emphasizing the importance of cosmic rays to climate change (see this story from the National Post). CLOUD finally got going in 2006, and they started work with the full kit in November 2009 (here’s a CERN video update about that).
The results haven’t yet been published, so Curtius declined to discuss the details. But the important thing is that the project is working – they have seen sulphuric acid and water combine to make particles when blasted by the CERN beam, for example, in a way that matches predictions of the most recent models. The data should help the team to quantify how much of an impact the Sun is having on climate within 2-3 years, Curtius says – though there are a lot more pieces of the puzzle to fill in.
Dr. Roy Spencer has mentioned that it doesn’t take much in the way of cloud cover changes to add up to the “global warming signal” that has been observed. He writes in The Great Global Warming Blunder:
The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.
See also: Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes
In A Letter Sent To Turkish PM; Likud MK Says Israel Should Have Killed All Marmara Passengers
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – December 15, 2010
Israeli sources reported Wednesday that Israeli Member of Knesset of the Likud Party, Dani Dannon, sent a sarcastic letter to Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, telling him that Israeli soldiers should have killed all of the passengers of the Marmara Ship that was heading to Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies.
During the attack that took place on May 31, Israeli soldiers who boarded the ship before towing it to Ashdod, shot and killed nine Turkish activists and wounded several others.
In his letter, Dannon said that he is sorry the soldiers “had lots of discipline and only killed nine activists”.
He added that “should Israel had a prior knowledge that terrorist were on board, the soldiers would have received orders to kill everyone who threatened their safety”.
Dannon also stated that he is sorry because Israel did not conduct a security check on all passengers of the Turkish ship before it sailed, in addition to “being sorry” because Israel “did not prevent the passengers from arming themselves”.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denied reports stating that Israel intends to pay compensation to the families of the nine Turkish peace activists who were killed when the Israeli army attacked the Turkish Mavi Marmara solidarity ship that was heading to Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies.
During a Monday session with his Likud Party, Netanyahu said that Israel is holding talks with Turkey to drop all charges against the soldiers who took part in the attack, and added that any official apology or compensation will make it easier for Ankara to file lawsuits against the soldiers.
Featured Video
The Treblinka Archaeology Hoax
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
6 MAJOR US foreign policy failures of the post-Cold War era
By Adam Garrie | The Duran | September 14, 2017
In the 1990s, US officials, all of whom would go on to serve in the George W. Bush White House, authored two short, but deeply important policy documents that have subsequently been the guiding force behind every major US foreign policy decision taken since the year 2000 and particularly since 9/11.
These documents include the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (more commonly known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine). This document, as the name implies was authored by George W. Bush’s deeply influential Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as well as I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who served as an advisor to former US Vice President Dick Cheney.
The other major document, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, from 1996 was authored by former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee in the administration of George W. Bush, Richard Norman Perle.
Both documents provide a simplistic but highly unambiguous blueprint for US foreign police in the Middle East, Russia’s near abroad and East Asia. The contents of the Wolfowitz Doctrine were first published by the New York Times in 1992 after they were leaked to the media. Shortly thereafter, many of the specific threats made in the document were re-written using broader language. In this sense, when comparing the official version with the leaked version, it reads in the manner of the proverbial ‘what I said versus what I meant’ adage.
By contrast, A Clean Break was written in 1996 as a kind of gift to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who apparently was not impressed with the document at the time. In spite of this, the US has implemented many of the recommendations in the document in spite of who was/is in power in Tel Aviv.
While many of the recommendations in both documents have indeed been implemented, their overall success rate has been staggeringly bad.
Below are major points from the documents followed by an assessment of their success or failure. … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
traducteur on Washington’s obsession with cr… Julia Tighe on Doctors are Paid Massive Bonus… roberthstiver on Washington’s obsession with cr… Thomas Lee Simpson on FBI defies subpoena on Biden c… Thomas Lee Simpson on It’s Good News Week papasha408 on Zelensky wants to sanction Ira… papasha408 on Washington’s obsession with cr… Thomas Lee Simpson on British special forces deploye… papasha408 on Professors: The Entire Fossil… jbthring on America Has a Political Assass… charles allan on BMJ: “We need RCT gold standar… Buddy on Cardiologist on the Over-Presc…
Aletho News- Zelensky wants to sanction Iran ‘for 50 years’
- Iran to unveil hypersonic missile ‘soon’: IRGC commander
- Washington’s obsession with crushing Russia has dismantled its Middle East agenda
- What Are Anti-Drone Systems and How Do They Work?
- Ukraine’s prized drone fleet almost grounded
- Cataloging a tsunami of Covid scandals
- Fake Scientific Studies by Nobel Prize Winner and Johns Hopkins Prof. Gregg Semenza
- BMJ: “We need RCT gold standard to study misinformation & vaccine hesitancy on social media”
- GOP Lawmakers Demand FBI Briefing on Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Investigation Following Whistleblower Disclosures
- Government report claims pandemic as a precedent for ‘environmental’ policy
- If Americans Knew
- New 3rd political party “No Labels” seeks middle ground – except on Israel
- Is the United States Moving Its Capital to Jerusalem?
- NYT downplays Palestinian civilian deaths, political motivation for Gaza attack
- What is behind the latest Israel-Gaza violence?
- What’s standing in the way of an Israel-Gaza ceasefire? Israel wants to keep breaking int’l law
- Israeli Missiles Kill Eight Palestinians, Including A Child, In Gaza
- Israel closes Gaza crossings; possible serious deterioration of humanitarian conditions
- Israel has killed 20 journalists with impunity since 2000
- Israel attacks Gaza, killing 15 Palestinians, including women and children
- Khader Adnan’s death & Israel’s decades of despotic military orders
- Brownstone Institute
- The Struggle for Free Speech: More Reporting on Missouri v. Biden from Tracy Beanz
- A Threat Is Not an Incentive
- Downton Abbey, the Corruption of the Great Families, and the Future of Freedom
- The Censors are Exposed: Major Update to Missouri v. Biden from Tracy Beanz
- Kids Need the Opportunity to Take Risks, Learn from Mistakes, and Succeed on Their Own
- The Vax-Gene Files: An Accidental Discovery
- How Lockdowns Bolstered an Industrial Cartel
- The Best Life Lesson for a Teen Is a Job
- Media Complicity in Policing the Opinion Corridor
- And Just Like That, Your Rights are Gone
- Richie Allen
- Jail The White Men Who Caused The Climate Crisis Says Jane Fonda
- Pensioner Forced To Quit Tennis After Leisure Centre Goes Cashless
- Everest Base Camp Stays Where It Is As Sherpas Say “Bollox To Climate Change!”
- Nick Cave: “Don’t Boycott Songs Because Of The Artist’s Behaviour!”
- Retailers Claim Food Price Cap Will Make No Difference
- Climate Doom-Monger Has No Answers When Confronted With Facts
- Kathleen Stock Warns Oxford Uni To Value Free Speech
- “Arm Trans Kids” Poster Seen At Rally
- Talk To Richie On Today’s Show
- “Bollocks To Wokeism In Acting” Says Succession Star Brian Cox
- Not A Lot Of People Know That
- Labour Will Block New North Sea Oil & Gas
- Britain’s Weather A Hundred Years Ago
- EVs Will Increase Tyre Toxin Pollution
- BBC Verify
- New Energy Price Cap
- Record World Cereal Outputs Forecast for 2023/24
- The inconvenient truth about heat pumps
- Tom Burke
- Europe can achieve Net Zero by demolishing historic buildings and starting again, Central Bank claims
- King Charles backed these care homes for 40 years – now Net Zero is forcing them to close
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Destroys ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Narrative…Today’s Ice 8 Times 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳 Than Last 8000 Years
- Cold Grips Globally: Alaska’s 4th Cold Winter… Record Cold Down Under…UK’s Delayed Spring…
- Aarhus University Researchers Find Arctic Warmer, Ice-Free In Summertime 10,000 Years Ago!
- Professors: The Entire Fossil Fuel Industry Must Be ‘Euthanized’ To Save Humanity From Warmth
- German Green Parliamentarian Shocks The Nation…Couldn’t Even Name First German Empire Chancellor!
- Another New Study Shows The Siberian Arctic Is Warmer When CO2 Is Low And Colder As CO2 Rises
- German Greens In Crisis, Plummet 40% In Opinion Polls As Anger Mounts Over Bans, Scandals
- Germany’s Growing List Of Bans: Next Up: Wood Stoves And Heating With Wood!
- New Study: The Lowest Tibetan Plateau Glacial Temps Were Still 3°C Warmer Than Today
- Germany’s Federal Network Agency Plans To Ration Electricity As Electric Power Crisis Heightens
Aletho News 