OPEN LETTER TO THE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, MR GORDON BROWN!

LINK!!!!!!

Back up rhetoric with actions, Gordon

Friday 14 September 2007


By Tanonoka Joseph Whande

GABORONE - Hello Mr Gordon Brown.

Your Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, is quoted as saying that if Zimbabwe’s notorious President Robert Mugabe attends the Portugal summit, you will not attend.

This is just unbelievable, Gordon. Now I know how the Israelites felt when they received manna from heaven. Say, did John Howard of Australia whisper something to you? I mean, this is really neat and all.

I hope you have told British Airways and those overpaid security people, who were counting on overnight expenses, to unpack. Mugabe should not and must not be seen or allowed to mingle with ‘world leaders’.

Let him have his time with the uninspiring African presidents who continue to applaud him every time he makes those wayward remarks.

Apart from ‘diplomacy’, a word African presidents grossly misunderstand, African presidents lack compassion and accountability, Gordon.

They have their muzzles so deep into the feeding trough that they, unlike you, don’t feel the pain inflicted on fellow Africans.

And I challenge any one of them, just one in all of Africa, to state publicly their revulsion at the unnecessary suffering in Zimbabwe.

Let me hear only one African president express disgust at Mugabe for killing and abusing defenceless people. African presidents want to blend with other world leaders while they ignore the vile they collectively allow to take place at home.

And, Gordon, I have seen them dressed up in tuxedos, looking like penguins in the desert, as you shower them with food, laughter and wine at ‘state functions.’

Oh, my friend, you are just as much to blame.

No more state functions for these men. South Africa, Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique know about state sanctioned violence in Zimbabwe.

They know exactly the type of torture and abuse of civilians taking place in Zimbabwe and yet they don’t seem to care.

You see, Gordon, we are one people who have turned against ourselves. We can only blame you and your ‘friends’ in Europe and America for supporting such inhuman, cruel and insensitive leaders.

Even the serenity of the church is no longer sacred under Mugabe. We can no longer freely preach or attend church services as the language in the Bible flies in the face of Mugabe’s intentions.

He, you will recall, blasphemously accepted the accolade of ‘son of God’ and he rewarded the blasphemer with a cabinet post. Look across Africa and see what your ‘European Union’ did to Africa.

When you partitioned Africa, you were adversaries in Europe. Today, Africa is fragmented and Europe is united. But you now wine and dine African presidents while they abuse their people.

However, I applaud you for declaring that you will not go to Portugal for that meeting if Mugabe is there. But you have to go further.

SADC leaders, who fervently support Mugabe, will be there. Hit the deceitful executives with sanctions too. We cannot send our children to school, Gordon.

We cannot eat because we cannot find the food, the jobs or even the money.

Zimbabwe’s educational system, once the world’s pride, has evaporated as the gluttonous imbeciles feast on state coffers, reducing the education of our children to a senseless, expensive, unaffordable and unproductive exercise.

The University of Zimbabwe is now a ghost edifice. Even students themselves shun it, with only a quarter of those ‘admitted’ showing up this year.

We need not talk about health delivery, for there is none anymore. Gordon, if you and your elite group are going to meet so as to discuss about diamonds from Botswana, gold from South Africa, cocoa from Ghana, oil from Nigeria, cashew nuts from Mozambique . . . and you forget about the people, then you might just as well stay at home.

When you meet, sit down and talk about human rights in all African countries.

But if you boycott the Portugal summit, you will be sending a message to Mugabe, to the African presidents and to fellow European Union members that you can back up your words with action, just like the Australians.

Please, don’t shame us by being ‘talked into it.’ On my part, I feel totally embarrassed that all African leaders tolerate the abuse of African people by African presidents.

I have yet to hear a single African president opposing or criticising the mayhem in Zimbabwe. I feel doubly mortified that the deliverance and emancipation of the African people from the clutches of their African dictators are being championed by foreigners like you and John Howard.

I love my Africa, Gordon, and your African stooges are messing up our continent. Australia is backing up its rhetoric with action, Gordon.

As a parent myself, I find the deportation of young Zimbabwean students from Australia unfortunate. But it should make those children think why such a thing has happened to them. That is very important.

It should show them that they are benefiting from blooded opportunities. Do what the Australians did and send our citizens back to their parents.

Meanwhile, listen to the silence of African presidents. None of them will take a stand and defend their principles because people like you, Gordon, are subsidising their recalcitrant behaviour.

The travel sanctions on Mugabe and his cohorts are working; please tighten the screws and make sure that Mugabe finds no loopholes to sneak into the EU. He is a master at that.

But, Gordon, I do not understand why you should punish Mugabe alone.

Your efforts are being undermined by African presidents, especially those who share a common border with Zimbabwe. They are supporting human rights violations.

They are supporting, in whatever way, the killing of innocent people in Zimbabwe. I am compelled to warn you to look out for a notorious African president who only visits the drinking wells when all of Africa is asleep.

He doesn’t go there to quench his thirst but he always takes toilet paper with him. This man has always succeeded in influencing other so-called leaders into behaving illogically.

Be a man and carry out your threat, Gordon. African dictators will not stay away because they are not paying for the junket. After all, they are coming there for shopping but, most importantly, they are coming there to ask for money.

Let them stay away. African presidents continue to support state sanctioned abuse, human rights violations, electoral fraud and murders in Zimbabwe. If the Portuguese insist on having Mugabe, don’t worry about them.

They have always like that. They were the poorest, most useless and stingiest of all colonisers. Oh, sorry, Zimbabwe will never be a British colony again.

It is already a Chinese colony.

* Tanonoka Joseph Whande is a Botswana-based Zimbabwean writer.