Kaunda, Sata and Chiluba rail at Mugabe's critics

Kaunda, Sata and Chiluba rail at Mugabe's critics

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By Staff Reporter

THREE influential Zambian politicians have differed sharply with President Levy Mwanawasa’s new hard-line stance towards President Robert Mugabe’s regime in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Former Presidents Kenneth Kaunda and Fredrick Chiluba accused Mugabe’s Western critics of lacking a “moral right” to criticise the 83-year-old leader’s policies. And in separate comments, Zambian opposition leader Michael Sata railed at his Zimbabwean opposite number, Morgan Tsvangirai, calling him a Western puppet “financed to cause trouble in Zimbabwe”.

The interventions of the Zambian politicians follow calls by Western governments, led by the United States and Britain, for African countries to find a solution to Zimbabwe’s mounting economic and political problems.

International governments and human rights bodies have expressed their collective horror in recent weeks following police-led attacks on Mugabe’s critics in Zimbabwe.

Mwanawasa, in a rare public rebuke of Mugabe by an African leader, called Zimbabwe a “sinking Titanic” and referred to an “economic meltdown” in his southern neighbour.

But Kaunda, one of the few African statesmen with Mugabe’s liberation war credentials, said Zimbabwe’s economic and political woes had the finger prints of former colonial power, Britain, which he accused of “broken promises” over land reforms.

"Mugabe should not be demonised... he will not accept any humiliation,” Kaunda told the Reuters news agency. “He needs to be talked to see sense in doing something to change things in Zimbabwe because he is a victim of broken promises from Britain.”

"We need to find an answer and not to throw accusations at him."

Kaunda said Zimbabwe required the immediate intervention of African leaders and this would have to be through talks that brought Mugabe and opposition leaders.

Tsvangirai and several other leading opposition figures, including MDC spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, were badly beaten this month in the aftermath of a banned rally, spurring international condemnation of Mugabe's government.

Few African governments have joined in the criticism although Zambia's President Mwanawasa compared Zimbabwe to a "sinking Titanic" on Tuesday and said the region would have to agree on a new approach to Mugabe.

Kaunda said Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Mozambique president Joaquim Chissano and other African leaders should act quickly to guide Mugabe and Tsvangirai towards a negotiated settlement.

"Of course, what is happening in Zimbabwe needs to be solved and African leaders must get involved," he said.

Kaunda accused the British government of failing to honour a 1979 agreement to carry out land reforms in its former colony to rectify post-independence imbalances in land ownership between black and white.

Kaunda played a major role in the independence of Zimbabwe from Britain in 1980.

"I attended a meeting in London where (former British prime minister) Margaret Thatcher agreed to help Zimbabwe to carry out a land redistribution exercise, but when the Labour Party came to power, they withdrew from the programme," Kaunda said.

"I wonder when I hear Tony Blair calling Mugabe names because it is him that caused this problem and the West have no moral right to criticise Mugabe," he said.

Mugabe, Zimbabwe's sole ruler since 1980, has often accused London of backsliding on the "Lancaster House" deal which paved the way for the African country's independence.

The Lancaster House agreement ended a bush war and paved the way for the country's first all-race election and the victory of black majority rule in white Rhodesia. But it left most of the country's best land in white hands.

In 2000, Mugabe launched a programme of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks, a move which critics say gutted the key commercial agriculture sector and launched Zimbabwe on its downward spiral.

Chiluba, who succeeded Kaunda as Zambian president, also entered the fray with an attack on Mugabe’s Western critics and media.

Chiluba said: “Why are these disturbances in Zimbabwe? I am not an expert. When I was in London, I was trapped by a lady called Clare Short (former British International Development Secretary). She asked me to comment on Zimbabwe. She wanted me to condemn.

“But independence is about land. If all of you were squatters, independence will be meaningless.

“President Mugabe has been patiently waiting and they have refused. So he has to take the bull by its horns. Among us we have stooges, they are using the land issue to ostracise (President) Mugabe.

“He has made Zimbabweans to see the meaning of independence.”

Chiluba also accused Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC of puppetry and playing to the whims of its Western backers.

“Cursed be the day their leader and the party were born,” Chiluba said in reference to Tsvangirai.

On the Western media, Chiluba blasted: “CNN have a tendency to distort. They said I was dead because they wanted me dead so how can I believe them?”

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