Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-07-Speech-4-187"
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"en.20050707.28.4-187"2
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".
Mr President, in expressing its concerns about Zimbabwe, my group is not primarily thinking of the white farmers who became rich during colonial times, but of the large, black, majority who still have much lower incomes.
President Mugabe played a major role in the fight for independence, both against colonialism and Ian Smith’s white minority regime. During and after that struggle, he always presented himself as the hero of the black majority. In practice, for many years, he did far too little to improve their lot. He seemed to have become a moderate ruler, radical only in his aversion to homosexuality. He was hardly recognisable as the former leader of the fight for an independence that gave the poor hope for a much-changed society, one that would make equality for all people its key priority. Only long after he came into power did he become very radical, particularly towards anyone who threatens, or could threaten, his absolute rule.
The political opposition, the rich farmers, the poor slums and the market traders became in turn the victims of his activities aimed at intimidating and destroying them. In a previous debate on Zimbabwe, on 16 December 2004, I expressed the assumption that Mugabe had started campaigns of this kind in order to make up for his loss of popularity, trying, through his unexpectedly decisive action, to acquire and mobilise new followers. We now see that his approach can no longer be attributed to clever tactics but rather to the behaviour of someone who is losing his mind.
Instead of providing better housing for the poor, he is driving them away from the cities by demolishing their dwellings. In this, he is starting to show much likeness to the demented regime that Pol Pot sought to introduce in Cambodia 30 years ago. My group finds it regrettable that this resolution levels exhaustive criticism at Zimbabwe’s neighbour, South Africa, and the African Union, while no attempt is being made to help them solve the problems.
As long as Europe gives Africans cause to see it as the coloniser that it once was, we will lack the moral authority to be able to contribute to improvement."@en1
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