The ANC has decided on yet another attack against the people of Zimbabwe. From the moment it came to power, the ANC has done everything it could to help the brutal tyrants of Zanu-PF to murder, terrorise, and impoverish black Zimbabweans. The 90% unemployment in Zimbabwe and its systematic state-sponsored terror are in considerable part due to the ANC.
But when thousands of terrified, hungry Zimbabweans seek refuge in South Africa, the ANC tries to expel them. At the end of last month, the ANC Government announced the end of Special Zimbabwean Exemption Permits, which means that Zimbabweans fleeing from oppression and poverty will no longer be allowed to live and work in South Africa.
President Ramaphosa rightly condemned the British Government’s disgraceful recent ban on flights from South Africa. But now his own government has ordered a far more disgraceful ban on Zimbabweans trying to come here.
Tyranny
Since independence in 1980, Zimbabweans have suffered under two blood-soaked tyrants, Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa. There is nothing to choose between them, except that Mugabe was a better speaker. Coming to power in 1980, Mugabe made an early start to his reign of terror. In 1983, he began Operation Gukurahundi, the systematic slaughter of over 20 000 black people in Matabeleland in the south of the country. The pretended reason was some acts of terrorism; the real reason was to crush his tribal enemy, the Ndebele. Helped by military advisors from Communist North Korea, the Zanu-PF death squads entered Ndebele villages. The death sentence was pronounced on anybody speaking isiNdebele (language is a good marker for ethnicity in much of Africa). Pregnant Ndebele women had their stomachs ripped open and their unborn babies torn out. Mnangagwa, the Minister of Intelligence, directed the butchery. The ANC, then in exile, didn’t utter a peep of protest.
I once personally heard from Ronnie Kasrils, who became senior minister in the ANC Government, that the reason he joined ANC politics was his horror at the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, when 69 black people were killed by panicking white policemen. The systematic slaughter of over 20 000 black people by Robert Mugabe didn’t seem to bother him at all.
Robert Mugabe lost a referendum in 2000 and never won any election since. This defeat prompted his decision to implement his version of Expropriation Without Compensation (EWC) of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe, most of which were bought under his government. This is surely the inspiration behind the ANC’s own EWC.
Mugabe’s stormtroopers seized the farms with force, killing about 20 white farmers and their families, and kicking out about 750,000 black farm workers and their families into destitution and starvation. The ANC clapped and cheered! They thought this was wonderful! Many in the ANC regarded Mugabe as a bigger hero than Nelson Mandela. (Julius Malema agrees with them.) Mugabe got standing ovations from ANC audiences whenever he visited South Africa. EWC plunged the Zimbabwean economy into ruin, changing the country from a food exporter to a hungry beggar, but it gave huge farms to Mugabe’s family and friends, making his wife very rich, giving his son a Rolls Royce. All this very much in line with the ANC’s own National Democratic Revolution (NDR).
In February 2003, the ANC foreign minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, stated, ‘We will never criticise Zimbabwe”. She was obviously referring to Gukurahundi, Mugabe’s most infamous act, but probably included his EWC as well.
Losing elections
After losing successive elections, and then crooking the results, Mugabe lost the 2008 election by a landslide. In desperation he turned to the ANC for help. President Thabo Mbeki, supported by Ronnie Kasrils and other ministers, was pleased to oblige. The ANC was delighted to smash democracy in Zimbabwe, using every means they could muster, diplomatic and otherwise. Mugabe’s terror groups, cheered on by the ANC, sought out anybody who had voted against Zanu-PF and broke their bones and tortured them and murdered them. The hospitals were overflowing with broken bodies. More cheering and clapping from the ANC.
Zimbabwe continued to starve and fear. Millions of black Zimbabweans fled or tried to flee from their country – something that never happened under Ian Smith. In 2017, Mnangagwa overthrew Mugabe in a military coup. This had nothing to do with policy, since their policies are identical, and everything to do with Mnangagwa’s anxiety that Mugabe’s ghastly new wife, Grace, might succeed him. The ANC, which had grovelled and cringed before Mugabe, now grovelled and cringed before Mnangagwa.
In South Africa, black Zimbabweans do splendid work in our schools, transport systems, shops and restaurants, and stimulate our economy. White South Africans get on well with them. But many black South Africans hate them. The idea of black African solidarity is a bad joke, since black xenophobia towards other black races is the dominating feature of the real Africa (although maybe we are not allowed to say this). The ANC did badly in the recent local elections. It knows it can always increase it popularity by playing to black xenophobia. Black Zimbabweans are the easiest victims for this. It was an easy and logical move by the ANC to persecute them yet again.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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