Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Interesting perspective from President Mugabe of Zimbabwe


Bullying Leaders a Threat to Third World

The Herald (Harare)

February 28, 2004
Posted to the web March 1, 2004

Innocent Gore
Caracas, Venezuela

The international situation has changed for the worst in political and economic terms and Third World countries stand threatened by the arrogant and bullying leaders of the North, President Mugabe said yesterday.

Addressing the 12th summit of the G15 on behalf of African countries which are members of the grouping, President Mugabe said the amity that the Third World countries were told would follow the destruction of communism had proved to be a mirage and had created a new and dangerous situation in which civilisations confront and seek to annihilate each other with disastrous consequences for mankind.

"We see unjust wars such as those of Iraq and Yugoslavia waged against innocent societies made culpable through blatant lies and propaganda chanted on the CNN, BBC and other media to sharpen the insatiable appetites of greedy neo-imperialists for aggression and aggrandisement.

"We see societies being destroyed and occupied merely because God gave them rich resources coveted by the powerful nations of the North. This is the tragedy of Iraq; this is the curse of Simon Bolivars Venezuela. This is also the basis and cause of the current aggressive British imperialism against my own country Zimbabwe. We are surely back to those colonial times of unmitigated plunder. This is the environment within which we exist as the Third World, indeed as members of the G15," the President said.

In such circumstances, he said, the need for meaningful solidarity could not be overemphasised because Third World countries needed to believe in their collective means and capacities.

They needed to stand together and not against each other and the more each one of them sought Western or Northern accommodation or ingratiated themselves with the North, the weaker and more divided the countries of the South would become.

"It would appear that our fear of the North is causing us to retreat from our pledge to multilateralism as the North gets the better of us through the politics and economics of divide and rule effected through bilateralism.

"Why have we lost confidence in ourselves? We surely need to go back to the basics of the vision of the founders of the G15, nay, of the Third World and Non-Aligned Movement," Cde Mugabe said.

He said the debt burden continued to cripple Third World countries, with diminishing earnings from the marginalised economies going to the North, and not to the starving and ignorant children of the South.

"Across countries of the South, poverty balloons, begrimes and devours the poor as our nations battle for credit-worthiness. More policies, wrought through the World Trade Organisation, are mortgaging our economies and our societies to the rich North."

President Mugabe said the challenges of the Aids pandemic were manifold and the disease was increasingly becoming an epidemic of the poor as cartelised economics and politics of anti-retroviral drug manufacture and distribution bite deeper.

Many economies of the South suffered the double tragedy of losing vital skills as well as the ability and capacity to import drugs to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

As if the misfortune of HIV/Aids was not enough, President Mugabe said, several Third World countries were constantly afflicted by other devastating natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes, in addition to the ravages of droughts.

"Yes we may get sympathies and aid from the international community. But what are our own united efforts and measures of the blocs of the Third World?"

Cde Mugabe said for Africa, the New Partnership for Africas Development provided a vehicle for South-South co-operation and interaction.

Nepad provided means for economic growth through trade, economic development through joint investments and infrastructural development, through shared skills and skills development and through technology transfers with other regions of the South.

Above all, President Mugabe said, Nepad focused on collective self-reliance, itself a hallmark of the G15.

He said there was need to utilise Nepad and some such initiatives in the South so that the developing countries could take forward the spirit of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where the G15 was formed in 1989, for the benefit of their peoples and societies.

He said the 12th G15 summit, which was officially opened by Venezuelas President Hugo Chavez here yesterday afternoon under the theme "Energy and Development", was a very important event and should focus its attention on the modalities of facilitating development in the Third World countries through the ready availability of energy without interference from those who seek to control their resources.

"In international relations, we need to insist on the authority of the United Nations being recognised in international conflicts. Indeed, we need to persist in our demand for a restructured Security Council so we can secure our world, which today stands threatened by warrior states and kingdoms. This is the challenge for we dare not shirk our responsibilities," Cde Mugabe said. He paid tribute to the people of Venezuela for their determination and perseverance to host the summit against all odds.

"Indeed, let us emulate the courageous leadership President Chavez continues to show in seeking better prospects for the Venezuelan people who deserve to enjoy the full benefits of the resources God gave them and their country," President Mugabe said.

"I am only too aware of the many challenges and impediments that have been put in your way by counter-revolutionary forces in the hope of shaking your commitment to the G15 and solidarity with fellow Third World peoples. We in Zimbabwe are no strangers to such wiles of imperialism and can only salute you and your people for standing up to such bullying tactics that have come to characterise international relations, particularly as defined by some powerful nations of the rich North."

Now comprising 19 countries, the G15 was born out of a realisation of the asymmetrical relations between the rich, powerful and dominant countries of the North and impoverished, weak and marginalised countries of the South.

President Mugabe said these relations were by and large, an unwholesome legacy of the imperial interface between most Third World countries and the dominant North.

The relations have mutated over the years and even centuries but without improving the South "and thus proceeding clearly in ways that have been detrimental to all of us", the President said.

"Collectively, we of the South are the underdogs of a world shooed by the powerful North and our relative and contrasting fortunes as members of the surbodinate and constellating South must be cause enough for us in uniting our efforts in shaping our own socio-economic destiny," he said.

The G15 was founded out of a realisation that interaction between countries of the South as collective victims of a cruel history of imperial dominance and exploitation, was quite insignificant as compared to rival interaction between the countries of the South and their erstwhile colonisers of the North, President Mugabe said.

The G15 comprises Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Jamaica, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Sri Lanka, Senegal, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

Seven leaders from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Iran, Jamaica and Zimbabwe had by yesterday arrived for the summit.

President Mugabe and his delegation were last night scheduled to attend a dinner hosted by President Chavez.



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