The Hindu : International : Defiant Mugabe comes down on Western nations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 20, 2005

International

International

Defiant Mugabe comes down on Western nations

Andrew Meldrum

"Zimbabwe will never again be colonised"

PRETORIA: President Robert Mugabe marked Zimbabwe's 25th anniversary of independence on Monday by an attack on the west and a defence of his land-grab policy.

In a 35-minute speech in the national sports stadium in Harare broadcast on national television, he repeatedly harked back to colonialism and white minority rule.

``To this day we bear the lasting scars of that dark encounter with colonialism, often described in the west as civilising,'' he said.

Newly acquired Chinese jet fighters screamed over the Chinese-built stadium to emphasise his policy of friendship with Asian powers. ``We have turned east, where the sun rises, and given our back to the west, where the sun sets,'' he told the crowd, reported to be between 8,000 and 40,000. It had brought new economic partnerships with the ``Asian tigers''.

Poll rigging denied

Scorning the accusation that the March 31 parliamentary elections had been rigged, he said: ``We made our democracy and we owe it to ourselves, not to anyone, least of all Europeans. Until we beat them at the battlefield, Britain and her kith and kin here would not concede voting rights to Africans. Let it be forever remembered that it was the bullet that brought the ballot. Our ballots have not needed Anglo-American validation.''

The 81-year-old President, who has ruled since overthrowing the white regime which severed Southern Rhodesia from Britain in 1965, spoke of the ``strangled shrieks of brave guerilla fighters facing execution'' in the bush war. He described his land seizures as one of the greatest achievements since independence. ``We have resolved the long-outstanding land question and the land has now come to its rightful owners''.

Mr. Mugabe awarded state honours to past Presidents of Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, saying: ``We proclaim our pan-African spirit, stressing we shall never be a colony again.''

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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