'The West must leave us alone'
Tuesday April 19, 2005 07:38 - (SA)
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe marked 25 years of independence for his country yesterday by telling the West to mind their own elections and leave Zimbabwe alone.
"Our elections have not needed Anglo-American validation. They are validated by fellow Africans, and friendly countries from the Third World," Mugabe told thousands gathered at a sports stadium for the independence celebrations.
"That is where we get justice, not from Europe neither indeed from America."
"We never agitate to observe their elections and therefore let them keep away from our affairs," Mugabe told thousands who thronged Zimbabwe's main stadium on the western fringes of Harare.
Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party won victory in elections last month that the opposition said was rigged while the United States, Britain and other western governments declared that the parliamentary vote was neither free nor fair.
At independence from British colonial rule in 1980, Mugabe was the darling of the West, which responded to his pledges to promote reconciliation with offers of financial aid and other forms of assistance.
But elections in 2000 and 2002 that were tainted with violence and allegations of vote-rigging, coupled with a land reform programme that led to the seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms prompted the European Union and the United States to slap a travel ban on Mugabe and his inner circle.
Zimbabwe also broke away from the Commonwealth club of former colonies in 2003 after it voted to renew its suspension from the group.
In his independence day address, Mugabe defended his land reform programme, saying that it was a necessary step to redress racial imbalances and ensure democracy.
The flag-waving crowd broke into loud cheers as scores of pigeons, symbolising peace and freedom, were released from a cage and fluttered over the football pitch before flying away.
A group of schoolchildren, popularly referred to as "Generation 25", born after independence in 1980, drew whistles and cheers as they played soldiers, reliving scenes from the seven-year liberation struggle against the white minority regime of what was then called Rhodesia.
"The 25 years that have gone by have taught us democracy cannot grow well on the soil of racial poverty and inequality. Genuine democracy cannot co-exist with structural depravation and racial inequality," Mugabe said.
"In Zimbabwe land governs the ballot, it is a symbol of sovereignty, it is the economy, indeed the source of our wealth as Africans," he declared before a coterie of African leaders including Namibia's Hifikepunye Pohamba and Botswana's President Festus Mogae.
Mugabe said the land issue "remains the core social question of our time as it was the main grievance on which our whole liberation struggle was built."
He said he was unperturbed by the west's reaction to the reforms that have been partly blamed for the worsening economic woes and food shortages that critics say have left Zimbabwe worse off than at independence.
"Let the grief and bitterness that has visited Europe following the repossession of our land heal on its own, in its own time. Zimbabwe is in Africa not Europe," Mugabe said.
Joining in the celebrations along with Mogae and Pohamba were regional leaders Presidents Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi and prime ministers of Angola, Mozambique and Lesotho.
South Africa and other regional countries were represented by cabinet ministers.
Former president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda was also present at the ceremony held at the 60,000-seater giant Chinese-built National Stadium decorated in Zimbabwe's signature green, yellow and red colours.
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