Harare, ZIMBABWE––Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe said in March 2016 that his government would take possession of all diamond operations because existing miners had robbed the country of its wealth.
This came as a shock for the white settlers who have been occupying the colony they call Zimbabwe for 500 years.
This statement created a lot of conflict and confusion––not just between the business community and current would-be investors––but also between the ministers in the government of Zimbabwe, as they were not in unity with the statement.
As a result, this statement was followed up with a cabinet meeting.
Zimbabwe enacts new policy
After the cabinet meeting on April 5th, president Robert Mugabe announced a major shift in his government’s controversial empowerment policy, indicating the law could be amended to reflect softening local empowerment demands on foreign mines and banks.
President Mugabe said that the conflicting positions between the ministers had a negative effect on the economy in Zimbabwe.
Now it’s said that the government will have the right to 51 percent ownership of new mining businesses, and this would allow the mining companies to operate only if they keep 75 percent of their profit in Zimbabwe.
Shortly said, President Mugabe does not seem to have a problem with foreign mining companies retaining control and ownership anymore, as long as they ”retain the bulk of their profit in Zimbabwe.”
President Mugabe claims that he enacted the law in 2008 in the first place because foreign miners did not contribute enough to the growth of the economy in Zimbabwe, as they were only expropriating value from the country and keeping the profit unto themselves.
Of course, this was not economically beneficial enough for the State of Zimbabwe.
It is now stated that the value coming from the different mining companies will fund facilities for key economic sectors and projects, linkage programs and among other things.
Like many other African countries, Zimbabwe is one of the largest diamond producers in the world.
In 2014, the country produced 4.7 million carats, according to the industry group Kimberly Process.
Mugabe is a neocolonialist
African Internationalism is the ideology of the African working class. It teaches us that our primary contradiction is vertical violence, meaning violence from the imperialist State and white power.
The prerequisite for making a revolution and changing the world, however, is that the African working class must lead the struggle for self-reliance and self-determination––not the petty bourgeoisie.
The sellout leadership in Africa will not solve the problems of colonialism since their leadership represents white power in black face, or neocolonialism.
Their so-called leadership represents a compromise with white power, which took place after the defeat of the Black Power struggle in the 60s, supporting the murder of our African heroes such as Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and many more.
Unlike Mugabe, these heroes stood up for the masses which was the reason they were killed by white power.
Mugabe does not represent that type of threat, even though he claims that he is struggling for for more value to be kept inside the colonial borders of Zimbabwe.
We realize that Robert Mugabe represents the African petty bourgeoisie.
He does not stand up for the African working class, the people who are actually digging gold in every mine in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa.
At the same time, Mugabe does not say that the African working class should lead the struggle. He leaves the poor peasants out of the equation.
The situation for the majority of the people in Zimbabwe will therefore remain the same.
This has led to poor Africans in Zimbabwe being forced to flee the country.
This is why there are so many poor so-called Zimbabweans in Occupied Azania (South Africa) today.
The African working class must lead the revolution
We support the African workers in Zimbabwe.
The African workers in Zimbabwe, however, and the rest of the African world need to join the African Socialist International (ASI). This is the only way Africans will know true freedom.
All the wealth we see in the world is produced by the poor African working class but we don’t own what we ourselves produce.
This relationship that we have with the State and the African petty bourgeoisie will only change when we organize in a worldwide movement for our own interest and not in the interest of anybody else!
Join the African Socialist International!
Izwe Lethu i Afrika!
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