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Herald Reporter
A South African chief has urged African leaders to emulate President Mugabe in empowering the people to achieve total independence on the continent. Chief Phathekile Holomisa of the AmaGebe tribe, who is also the president of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa, said in an article published in that country’s Sunday Independent newspaper that those purporting to oppose President Mugabe secretly admired his stance on natural resource ownership.

“The land reform and economic indigenisation policies of the country fascinate me. My fascination is shared by other Africans.
“There is secretive, envious admiration for those policies. It is secretive because indigenisation is frowned upon by owners of foreign capital. The admiration is envious because (President) Mugabe has the courage to assert the truth that the land and natural resources belong to Zimbabwe — a conviction in dire need of courage in the rest of the African continent. This is the explanation for the resounding applause which Mugabe’s appearance evokes from both fellow heads of state and ordinary Africans at public gatherings.”

Chief Holomisa said critics of the land reform and indigenisation policies were failing to give their considered views on them except that they would scare investors away.  Yet, he said, the anti-colonial and liberation struggles in Zimbabwe, as in other countries, were waged in order to recover land and natural resources which had been stolen by colonial settlers.

“The conclusion of such struggles was the attainment of freedom and the restoration of the land and natural resources to their owners,” Chief Holomisa said.

“The attainment of freedom without the restoration of land and natural resources is not enough. Any liberation movement that decides to rest on its laurels before the achievement of the second goal of the struggle betrays the spirit of its founders.”

Chief Holomisa said Zimbabwe was headed for a major turnaround because it now has “a land-owning peasant community which is putting the land into productive use despite the lack of foreign investment”.

“Were they to partner with foreign investors these Zimbabweans would put established farmers to shame,” he said.
“The indigenisation policies in the mining sector have added to the land-owning middle class by creating mining entrepreneurs.
“Zimbabweans should not merely be employees of foreign companies which exploit their natural resources, but must be co-owners of the wealth – wealth which is used to build schools, clinics, roads and other amenities.

“Zimbabweans are not just partners to these investors, but are senior partners whose equity is their natural resources.’
Chief Holomisa said President Mugabe was different from other leaders in that he managed to simplify issues for the ordinary citizens.
“(President) Mugabe, who has seven degrees, is an unapologetic African who knows the white man’s ways as well as he knows his own,” he said.

“Unlike other educated Africans, whose sophistication serves to confuse matters further, he manages to simplify issues for the understanding of the common man.

“Call me his praise-singer, if you will, but listening to him tell the history of the anti-colonial and liberation struggles, unpacking the machinations of Western nations through their self-serving economic principles and policies, is a pleasure to experience.”
Chief Holomisa said the West should now stop wasting energies by seeking regime change through the suffering of Zimbabweans.