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PRESIDENT MUGABE

Felex Share Senior Reporter
President Mugabe yesterday said African revolutionary parties should fight for independence that lead to the total emancipation of their people.

The President said South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe had “stupidly” reacted to his recent statement that anti-apartheid revolutionaries like Nelson Mandela prioritised their freedom over the total emancipation of their people.

Addressing members of the private sector at State House in Harare, President Mugabe said Sadc liberation movements did not just fight for freedom, but total control of their resources. The situation, he said, was different in South Africa as the country’s oppressors were still in control of the resources.

“We did not fight just for freedom,” President Mugabe said.

“I made this remark in regard to South Africa and what do they call him? Gwede, stupidly reacted. Yes, they only fought to remove apartheid. This was it. We talked to them.

“I remember TG Silundika and myself talking to (Oliver) Tambo to say aah you are just fighting for the removal of apartheid not for independence and freedom as we were doing and they said independence was given to us by Britain in 1910 on May 31.

“It is a legal thing we cannot change. What? You can’t change it? (If) a revolutionary party says it cannot change it then all our efforts will be in vain if we can’t change the laws that our oppressors made.”

President Mugabe added: “They went that way, it was an easy way. You would get even some of the whites supporting that apartheid, yes, it’s not democratic, it’s a sinister policy, it must not obtain. They could only go that far.

“Ours was not just freedom. We wanted freedom of the nature that gave us independence and the right of ownership of our country. That was the difference and that’s why we now have the difference in our systems.

“Mozambique, Namibia, Angola systems, on one side, are different from South Africa. They left the very persons they said had imposed apartheid on them in control of the resources. Praise God if the future will yield for them true independence.” President Mugabe said South Africa was not as free as other Sadc countries.

“Gwede was foolishly reacting to what I had said,” he said. “That’s it. It is true. South Africa is not as free as other countries. There is greater freedom for the whites than there is for the blacks.

“The whites have the industries, they can pride themselves, (saying) this is my company, that is my company, farm. How far can the Africans go in doing the same in South Africa?” President Mugabe said as a revolutionary, he would continue making the remarks because Zimbabwe also fought against apartheid.

“They don’t want it said,” he said. “We must say it because we went to war together. We assisted also in the fight against apartheid as indeed they also assisted us. We were assisting each other. We were in the same trenches, then our revolutionary objectives were different.”

Mantashe viewed President Mugabe’s remarks as an attack on President Mandela’s legacy. He said he had lodged a formal complaint in a telephonic conversation with his counterpart, Zanu-PF secretary for Administration Cde Ignatius Chombo. President Mugabe urged members of the private sector never to depend on whites to establish companies locally.