The Sunday Mail
By President Mugabe
Your Excellency President Zuma
Honourable Ministers
Ladies and Gentlemen and Comrades of the Press
I want to express on behalf of my delegation and my own behalf, our appreciation and deep thanks for the invitation extended to us to come to South Africa and join our comrades in discussing how we could improve our relations in socio-economic terms.
Look at the various ways of improving our systems on a daily basis economically, the guerilla wars that we fought together were meant to yield systems of independent governments free from oppression but equipped now with the means for self-determination, means for self-help, means of ownership of resources, it is these resources which are now in our hands, in our free and independent environments that need to be transformed since they are raw resources, transformed from either lying underground or background, we produce some at the primary level and take them up to secondary level and transform them by adding value to them and that is what we call beneficiation of raw resources at primary level.
But do it in an integrated manner that yields greater benefit for us on a joint basis. We of Zimbabwe being of the younger economic partner and President Zuma and South Africans being the elder brother with a more advanced system.
But nevertheless, we look at our resources and see how joint efforts could bring about in that integrated manner better quantitatively more but qualitatively better products, transformed by adding value to them, making them more expensive than they are at a primary level — this is industrialisation. Sure South Africa is more advanced but there is still more to do in transforming those resources and that is why we decided to bring together 10 ministers from President Zuma’s side and 10 from President Mugabe’s side and these are not Bafana Bafana versus Warriors — no — this is a togetherness, working together now in this system. We have plenty of natural resources but they are raw resources, diamonds still lie underground where we just discovered them, we are beginning to work on them and just doing the alluvial production of them. From alluvial we will just be getting the soils, loose soils and see if there are diamonds but that’s not what South Africans have done. This alluvial was done a long time ago by the foreigners Rhodes and others. Mind you, we in Zimbabwe we did not know about someone called Rhodes until South Africa said they had someone called Rhodes in Cape Town, who was the Prime Minister of the Cape and who in a mischievous way wanted our country Zimbabwe also to come under his control and not just his control but British control.
So well, you may have the statue because that’s where he began but he came to us and wanted to be buried and we have him down, down below in Matopos because that’s where he wanted to die but he was a strange man that South Africa forwarded to us when he was already a corpse. So we are looking after the corpse, you have the statue of him; I don’t know what you think we should do — dig him up? Perhaps his spirit might rise again and what shall we do? Anyway, I say to my people, let’s let him down, down there.
That is history now, from Cecil Rhodes, from the lot of the others we have had, from Ian Smith and others and now we have our own people, we have President Zuma here; we have President Mugabe, that’s what you fought for. I say you, all of you, who? Whose parents were with us and you who were born of those parents, I hope you are also freedom fighters by birth and if you are freedom fighters by birth, I hope you will support us. We want . . . have integrated systems, transformed and made highly developed countries.
But systems that are now in your control, in your hands, the hands of Africans.
The African resources belong to Africa. Others may come to assist us as our friends and allies. But no longer as colonisers or oppressors. No. No longer as racists. Apartheid is gone, I hope you buried it down as we did Rhodes. So we want to thank South Africa, we have already South African companies, lots of them. I told you we have lots of natural resources that lie down, down. Diamonds, gold, platinum, chrome, copper, iron ore, coal even asbestos which they say is not wanted here but it’s doing us no harm at all. We have it in plenty, so and South Africa also has lots of platinum.
Diamonds yes, they have been dug out and Rhodes and others had their own share. Gold is still there, we are still mining and several other items but we also have from land agricultural resources and agricultural products. We produce, lots, lots of fruit, for example, sugar, tea, etcetera, beef not as much but tea, coffee also but lots of cotton, tobacco. We don’t smoke much of it. The Chinese smoke most of it. Well, we produce it. WHO, we have our Minister of Health here, he advises us against smoking but he doesn’t advise us against growing.
And we say we will grow for those that want to smoke it. But the ministers of health and WHO will say don’t over smoke, you get nicotine into your body, lungs and so on and eventually it affects you. We say, well they should listen to what the doctor says but we will continue to grow, here it is. Our friends in China smoke as WHO advises. But if you over smoke, we will grow more and don’t blame us and in the name of God we will say, well, we just gave them as our neighbours what they wanted from us. But we didn’t force them, oh Lord, to smoke.
They are our good friends, they are supporting us, they supported us during the struggle, they would support us even today. We are part of Africa but of the region we call SADC, Southern Africa and what we do between us is to the benefit of our SADC and to the benefit our Africa of our people, the benefit of Southern Africa. If we fail, we are failing those people. But in our environment, we also want a political environment of freedom, political environment in which we are not interfered with by outsiders and we become masters of ourselves in Africa but we interact also with the rest of the world, the United Nations and I don’t think what the president was saying this morning. I don’t think that we are getting a fair deal at the United Nations. No. Just five countries there, who are permanent members wield control all of the entire system because the Security Council has greater control, greater power than the General Assembly that we all attend.
But we are not all in the Security Council. We can regionally have two members who alternate, is it every two or three years and we choose others but the five say they are permanent members and if one of them says no to any resolution, that resolution doesn’t pass. So, United States, France, Britain, China and Russia and that’s why the system isn’t functional. We have tried to formulate amendments to the charter, especially Security Council as Africa but no, America, Britain and France will stand against it, against some, only China and Russia are forthcoming and support us.
But we are just wondering must we go on and on sending resolutions that are rejected and it becomes a circus? Are we that foolish? Aren’t we strong enough? And it’s not Africa alone, it’s the Third World as we call ourselves, in the developing world, including Asia, Asian countries, Latin American countries, etcetera. Can’t we bond ourselves and say this, or you don’t have us. That’s where we are getting at. And we want a United Nations in which there is participation by everybody and recognition of each country as an equal member. We don’t have that kind of body yet as I said it’s dominated by the five and it’s the five who are giving us trouble. They disturb the Arab world and leave them torn apart. Look at what they did to Libya.
They said they wanted to prevent Gaddafi from killing civilians. But he wasn’t killing civilians they wanted actually to get rid of him and they went there, had him shot dead. They haunted his family, haunted and hunted, killed even some members of his family to ensure that he was no longer there and they could suck the oil. And so you can see the mess in which Libya is.
The President was telling me that there is not only one government there but two. Two capitals, Benghazi and Tripoli, and each being the centre of one of the two governments. And this they have it also in the Middle East, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, killed again, killed in the same way — oil. Bush and his brother had an oil company there and it is that merciless, reckless, brutal approach of the West. They are the ones who gave Christianity to Africa but look at the things that they are doing.
We are for peace in Africa. We are for peace in Southern Africa. Peace in every part of Africa and that is why we would want peaceful elections wherever they are held. We say to South Africa thanks. We thank you on behalf of Sadc, on behalf of the African Union for having assisted the people of Lesotho to hold these last elections in a peaceful way. With now Prime Minister Mosisidi in power. We have been assisting also the DRC from the time of father of Kabila, we went there to prevent Rwanda and Burundi, Uganda seizing the power of the people of the DRC. And we are glad that they are trying now to be as much as democratic.
They have difficulties because of the rebels arising from some anti-Rwanda who operated from there, some operated from the DRC itself and we are happy that we are represented there by South Africa. South Africa also using Thabo Mbeki in some cases President Zuma has had to intervene personally. So we want a peaceful Africa for our people to peacefully go about their business.
We want to educate our people. There are areas in northern parts of Africa where Africans are still illiterate. Where they have no schools and unless there is an environment of peace, it’s not possible for development to occur. We say we came, we saw and were conquered. It has been a very serious meeting that our people held together.
The cementing of our relations, never to forget that yesterday we stood together against apartheid, against Ian Smith. Today we continue to stay together, there are problems, naturally that must be resolved. People moving without passports into South Africa, for example.
Jumping our borders they think there is lots of work in Johannesburg and so on, moving from our territory, from Zimbabwe, from Mozambique and others. We discussed that we must find ways of controlling movement of people which is not sanctioned.
Labour, people yes, on an official basis, can have workers, trained workers who are improperly employed. Business people moving, fine. We have lots of platinum, gold was being produced by South Africa. And together we stand, and together we fall but I don’t think we shall fall at all. And people of South Africa I would want to thank you for the hospitality we have had, we have been looked after comfortably. And we know that we owe you not just the gesture of forgiveness and thankfulness which we must express.
But we owe you that thankfulness for the tolerance that has been on the part of the government here. As our people have really offended your system by jumping the border and even disturbing the social system here. But where they have come as workers, we say thank you for providing them with. We say, however, that these matters must be discussed. And our relations must be strengthened as much as possible and as strongly as ever. And with that, I say to you journalists, thank you for paying so much attention.
Those of you who write for those papers we read, for paying so much attention to us and to President Mugabe. And for the publicity you have given me as you focused, those of you who focused on me as a real dictator. Yes, a dictator would have cut the throat of Ian Smith the first day we got back but I said, “No, let’s us turn our swords into ploughshares and forget about yesterday. We will work together,” and we worked together with Ian Smith.
We worked together with Ian Smith, we allowed him to have not only his farm but his father’s farm, but then God Almighty called him, the doctors tried but he died a natural death. We would have vowed that those who were guilty of apartheid and guilty of bombing our people, killing our people callously and throwing bodies into disused mines will not get away with it the moment we get home and we have power we will cut off their heads.
We didn’t do that, that is the anger you have when you are waging struggle. But when freedom comes, we all saw what Madiba did, isn’t it? And he is the one who led you into accepting it, that those who were our enemies yesterday let’s have them as our friends and allies and you have that rainbow nation. Where would you send them?
The Afrikaners say they came the moment Van Riebeeck set foot in 1652 at the cliff and they forgot they had a home in Holland and wanted a home in Africa. Well if they are well behaved yes, but if they have apartheid no. But then we want peace, and peace does not mean you must have a lion’s share and others have a baboon’s share, no, we are all together and let’s be equal, and inequality can breed other problems in the future.
We did not send away whites, we took land in accordance with what the British and ourselves had agreed upon during Margaret Thatcher’s government that there shall be a land reform programme.
That land shall be taken from the white farmers and be given to the Zimbabweans, so it was all constitutional, what we didn’t want was that Blair should reverse that. That one President Mugabe said no Mr Blair you can’t do that, so and we were supported, the South Africans said no, he wanted, when we started taking land, he refused to pay compensation, told the farmers to get their compensation from the British and the Americans.
So if Blair said I am no longer willing to pay for the land should we have just folded our hands and say, “Ah oh Lord oh Almighty I pray in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (laughs).” Obviously no. Blair, Blair, who was he? Just a prime minister of Britain, I am President of Zimbabwe so that’s why we said, “Ok it’s your money keep it, it is our land, we will take it.” Balance fair.
We are very happy, let’s be supportive of our governments. Let’s be supportive of our Presidents. And he (President Zuma) has been tarnished in your Press, what for? He is your leader, please write well about him, even when you can tarnish me I don’t care but you must have the national spirit, national consciousness.
We are South Africans, we can’t demolish our President. No we work together, some of our journalists back home do not understand what national unity is. We may differ politically but when it comes to national positions we work together.
And if you want us to support you, Bafana Bafana, we will support you, and we become Bafana Bafana politically. We thank our ministers for the good work they have done. Thank you for listening to me. I can go on and on, that’s what politicians do, it’s a gift of all politicians never to stop speaking until people say we are tired. Okay, you are now tired. I say thank you.
