Public meeting and discussion

bristol | miscellaneous | news report Thursday January 06, 2005 23:12 by Katherine

AFRICA: IMPERIALIST MEDDLING AND ANTI-IMPERIALIST RESISTANCE The Congo and Zimbabwe 7.30pm Friday 14th January Malcolm X Community Centre, 141 City Road, St Pauls, Bristol Zimbabwe is a thorn in the side of imperialism and as such has faced a ceaseless campaign of lies, slander and innuendo with the aim of maligning and demonising the Zimbabwean regime in general and ZANU(PF) and President Robert Mugabe in particular. This meeting aims at dispelling these lies and setting out the reasons for supporting the Zimbabwean regime and making the connections with the war being waged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by imperialist stooge forces from Rwanda and Uganda. Speaker – Harpal Brar, Editor of new book 'Chimurenga! The liberation struggle in Zimbabwe' All welcome. Organised by CPGB-ML Contact information: info@cpgb-ml.org www.cpgb-ml.org

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Under the leadership of Comrade Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean people's Chimurenga continues to go from strength to strength

Over the past six years imperialist backed forces from Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi have been waging a genocidal war of plunder against the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has the 'fortune' of being rich in coltan (used for the manufacture of electronic items), diamond, copper and cobalt. Little news of this war has been published in the British media, in contrast to the blanket coverage of the situation in Sudan, another country found to have oil reserves, but where imperialism is trying to justify its intervention.

The military support given to the Democratic Republic of Congo by Zimbabwe, thus scuppering imperialist plans of gaining complete control over Congo's huge wealth, is one of the reasons Zimbabwe is vilified by imperialism. Alongside this act of fraternal support to the Kabila regime of the DRC, Zimbabwe has also rejected IMF and World Bank diktat by refusing to implement a Structural Adjustment Programme. To add insult to injury for the imperialists ZANU-PF and President Robert Mugabe have had the temerity to give Zimbabwean land back to the people it was stolen from at gunpoint over the past 100 years.

Zimbabwe government has successfully expropriated the colonial settlers who had stolen the land from the people of Zimbabwe and returned it to its rightful owners, the Zimbabwean people. For this, the Zimbabwean regime and the people of Zimbabwe deserve credit and appreciation by the whole of progressive humanity – not the condemnation that imperialism seeks to heap on them.

In sharp contrast to the CPGB-ML's internationalist attitude towards the just struggle of the Zimbabwean people for land and the completion of their liberation struggle, the fake 'left' – Trotskyites, revisionists and social democrats – hang on the coat tails of imperialism and repeat the chauvinist lies vilifying ZANU-PF in general and Comrade Mugabe in particular. By way of illustration, we reproduce below an excellent letter from a member of the CPGB-ML that was printed in the Morning Star on 7 October 2004.

"Where can I apply to join up with Mugabe?
In his column of 30 September the Morning Star's David Floyd calls Robert Mugabe a "crusty old tyrant" and accuses him of leading his people "headlong into the economic abyss".

Dr Samuel Johnson once said that one could always tell when a leader was a true champion of the people and defender of the least well-off by the chorus sent up by the rich of 'Tyrant! Tyrant!'

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, every measure taken by government to improve the lives of working people, from the banning of child labour in the mines, the introduction of health and safety regulations and paid holidays, up to and including the minimum wage, has been accused by the bosses of "wrecking the economy".

According to a recent article in the Guardian, among Mugabe's many crimes is "forcing businesses that had laid workers off to take them back and backdate their wages".

If this is 'tyranny' and 'wrecking the economy', it's a pity we can't have some here.

Where can one apply to join Comrade Mugabe's party ZANU-PF?

Keith J Ackermann"




"For our part we support the revolutionary measures of your [ZANU-PF] government, for we believe that the defence of the revolutionary gains of the Zimbabwean people are no private concern of the masses of Zimbabwe alone. They are the concern of the whole of progressive humanity. We have always believed firmly that the struggle of the proletariat of the imperialist countries for its own emancipation would be nothing but a fraud if in its struggle against capital it was not united with the hundreds upon hundreds of millions of colonial and neo-colonial slaves oppressed by its 'own' bourgeoisie."
Harpal Brar, Chair of the CPGB-ML, part of speech to the 4th Congress of ZANU-PF, December 2004



quick reminder of the meeting:

7.30pm Friday 14th January

Malcolm X Community Centre, 141 City Road, St Pauls, Bristol