UK Company registration no 6248305
The World Office, Communities Point, 108 St Thomas Road, Derby, DE23 8SW, United Kingdom phone
0044 7988292795 email: ethnicrecords@yahoo.co.uk
______________________________________________________________________________
COMMUNITIES POINT COMMENT ON EXCERPTS OF TONY BLAIR’S BOOK “A JOURNEY”
PRESS STATEMENT: 02 SEPTEMBER 2010
Communities Point would like to take this opportunity to comment on excerpts from former British Prime Minister Antony Blair’s book “A Journey”: http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6863&cat=1.
Like everyone else we were shocked that he even contemplated invading Zimbabwe militarily during the tenure of his office. Whilst we do not have the locus standii to speak for opposition forces in Zimbabwe as a pressure group that is also mainly opposed to the status quo in Zimbabwe we would like to take exception of the fact that he even thought of such an evil project. Coming from a person who was rejected by more than 4 million of his own people during the 2005 UK Parliamentary Elections we would not be surprised if in fact Mr Blair is “Speaking for Himself” and such evil thoughts do not represent anyone not only in Zimbabwe but also in his own Labour Party and the British people who first voted against him in their millions and rejected his party in the 2010 Parliamentary Elections.
Whilst Communities Point does not rule out the possibility that continued repression and anger may turn Zimbabweans towards an inclination for an armed struggle which may turn out to be legitimate in the face of endless repression, we have never as an organisation or as individuals making up the organisation accepted military invasion by a foreign country as a way of ending the problems in Zimbabwe. Everyone now knows that Mr Anthony Blair has a strange way of saying sorry and coming from a person who has not denied having patted President Mugabe and his government and praised him for being a unifying force in Africa regardless of the atrocities that his government had committed during Gukurahundi and which Mr Blair had full knowledge of the excerpt and the timing of its release must be seen as a joke in bad taste and not aimed at solving things in Zimbabwe http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-secretly-courted-mugabe-to-boost-trade-2065557.html. Communities Point did not support the involvement of Angolan militias in the post-2008 Elections butchering of Zimbabweans and we again oppose any military intervention by any foreign force and in support of whoever politician in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are capable of freeing themselves and this is the reason why they have been able to form political parties and groups to oppose the repression in their country.
The fallacies of the Blair mindset continues to baffle many because if at all the evidence on the ground actually shows that if the former British Prime Minister ever wanted to invade Zimbabwe it was surely at the aid of President Mugabe against opposition forces. The following are the facts; (i) during the tenure of his premiership Mr Anthony Blair regarded President Robert Mugabe as a progressive leader and a unifying force in Africa; (ii) it was Mr Anthony Blair’s government that delivered “defender” trucks and anti-riot gear that is still being used in suppressing opposition in Zimbabwe and (iii) and it was Mr Blair and his government who wanted sell F-11 fighter jets [popularly known as tom-cats] to Zimbabwe. Ironically the deal was blocked NOT BY MR BLAIR BUT by the then President of South Africa Nelson Rolinhlanhla Mandela and his Government who argued that Zimbabwe was not safe to have such equipment as they could be used irresponsibly. This makes it clear where Mr Anthony Blair’s sympathies were; not with the opposition, not with the people of Zimbabwe and but with the people who were repressing them. His attempt to assume sentry is an insult on our collective consciences and intelligence.
Zimbabweans do not need friends like these who claim heroics that we never saw and that are in fact detrimental to the aim of having a free, fair and just society. This pursuit predates the assumption of British premiership by Mr Anthony Blair. Even in post independent Zimbabwe the repression by President Mugabe has always been there and opposition to it was led by political parties such as ZAPU, UANC and ZANU Ndonga which all had opposed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith and his racist regime. The emergence of other opposition political parties in the 1990s was led by Edgar Tekere a veteran of the liberation struggle, Washington Sansole another veteran and Margaret Dongo, an ex-combatant and all these predated the ascendancy to power of Mr Blair. Contrary to what other sections of our society would want to believe no role has ever been played by Mr Blair in shaping the Zimbabwe opposition as it has always been there. Those political parties that emerged after his ascendancy to power were a mindset in continuum and represent the Zimbabwean culture of opposing what is not right. Opposition is not a novel project to Zimbabwe that was manufactured in Blair’s Britain and exported to the country via willing vectors as what ZANU PF says. It is a present phenomenon in Zimbabwe which even predates our own colonisation.
In concluding we again reiterate that Mr Blair’s views should not be taken to mean the views of Zimbabwean opposition but an element of his own waywardness which has already been rejected by his own people in the United Kingdom. To Mr Blair himself we encourage him to reflect and not to pull the Zimbabwe opposition into the murky waters that his “reputation” has sunk. Instead he should find a legitimate way of apologising to his own people for lying to them on the premise for which he was invading Iraq and to Iraqis for the untold chaos he caused to their country.
CHAIRMAN: JULIUS SAI MUTYAMBIZI-DEWA
mutyambizidewa@yahoo.co.uk or 07529705413
No comments:
Post a Comment