[Here we go again… stirring up racial hatred, and blaming Whites for things they did not do. The only thing I really find sad is our state of powerlessness… and having to listen to his garbage endlessly… It would have been lovely to have another war against the smug old communist bastard. Jan]

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s minority whites have enjoyed power and wealth and survived war and sanctions.

They have enjoyed relative peace for the past quarter of a century but as the country approaches parliamentary elections on March 31 there is a feeling in the community that President Robert Mugabe has turned whites into a political scapegoat as he struggles with a severe political and economic crisis blamed on his government.

Although whites lost political power in 1980 when Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain, Mugabe has kept “unrepentant” white Zimbabweans in his sights along with enemies ranging from Prime Minister Tony Blair to black “sell-outs” opposed to his ZANU-PF government.

The rhetoric has taken on a fresh virulence ahead of the elections, with white Zimbabweans repeatedly vilified and attacked as Mugabe seeks to firm up the popularity of his party.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is frequently denounced as pawn of white western interests, despite its largely black urban base.

White Zimbabweans — many of whom lost their farms in a violent campaign of land seizures that began in 2000 — are told repeatedly that they survive only on the sufferance of the black majority.

Critics say Mugabe is obsessed with the belief that whites, who number up about 50,000 in a population of 14 million, have never stopped plotting against him since he assumed power from the white government of former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith.

“Mugabe keeps talking about whites, about the British, about imaginary enemies and conspiracies because he has no answers for the problems created by his own government,” said David Coltart, the MDC’s secretary for legal affairs and one of four whites contesting the elections on an MDC ticket.

“Mugabe has been a master in the politics of diversion, but I think his blame-game has run its course. I don’t think even his sycophantic supporters believe we are in this mess because of whites, because of the British, because of the Americans and because of the MDC,” he told
Reuters.

NARROWING WORLD OF PRIVILEGE

Whites in Zimbabwe nevertheless live in an uncomfortable political limbo.

While many retain the luxuries of colonial-era life, including big houses, servants and swimming pools, it is a shrinking world as more whites pull up stakes for Britain, South Africa, Australia or other destinations.

More than 150,000 whites fled Zimbabwe during the liberation struggle and after Mugabe’s 1980 electoral victory, while some 40,000 others have emigrated in the last 20 years.

Mugabe’s current anger against whites was apparently sparked by widespread white support for the MDC in parliamentary elections in 2000, which he saw as a drive by his former Rhodesian enemies to regain power and influence.

The veteran Zimbabwean leader responded by seizing white-owned farms, setting in motion a chaotic land redistribution programme that saw some white farmers killed and left the country’s food production capacity in tatters.

Most of Zimbabwe’s 4,500 white farmers lost their land and moved to big towns, seeking the security of numbers.

Political jitters are not limited to the farming community, however, with even liberal urban whites feeling the chill of Mugabe’s race-based politics.

“Even those of us who were part of the struggle for majority rule are being made to feel guilty and apologetic for being white … and sometimes for holding a different view,” said one white Zimbabwean woman who belonged to a group which opposed Ian Smith’s Rhodesia in the 1960s
and 70s.

“Mugabe’s approach has pushed many of us into a quiet corner … we can’t have our peace because the man is out to scare everyone,” said the woman, frail and in her 70s.

UNGRATEFUL

Mugabe says his white critics remain unwilling to accept black rule and ungrateful for his original policy of racial reconciliation which he maintains saved thousands of Rhodesian war criminals from being tried.

Zimbabwe’s independence war claimed more than 50,000 mostly black lives and Mugabe once said that if he had been a vindictive dictator, his government would have fed his former white enemies to hyenas and hanged Smith.

“If we were tyrannical, the first person to lose his head should have been Ian Smith,” he said recently.

ZANU-PF has some high-profile whites in its ranks, including former health minister Timothy Stamps, and officials say it remains a non-racial party even when under assault from “white racists.”

But that non-racialism is wearing increasingly thin as ZANU-PF ratchets up its attacks on the MDC ahead of the polls, which Mugabe has dubbed the “anti-Blair elections” in reference to the British leader who features chief among his critics.

“Mugabe has developed a very hostile attitude towards some whites because he probably genuinely believes that the MDC was built on white support,” said Brian Kagoro of the civic group Crisis Zimbabwe Coalition.

“But the real truth is that Mugabe has sought to exploit his national liberation credentials by claiming that anyone, black or white, who opposes his policies is opposed to black interests and is a racist or neo-colonialist or puppet,” he said.

Coltart says that while Zimbabwe, like any other country, has some racists, he believes a majority of whites who stayed behind after independence had accepted black rule and regard Zimbabwe as their only home.

From: Reuters
Source: Swiss Info
URL: http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?s…/p>