by Ben J. Hanson

THE latest strategy being imposed by the Europeans on the awakening African states is the idea of a government of national unity.

After all, who can argue with that concept? Don't we all want peace and unity? Are these two not the major prerequisites for stability and development?

But let us examine this in practical terms. Many of us lived in the UK for years, and many more know its history from our academic studies.

It is a fact that even when the winning party had a majority of two, it never considered a government of national unity. Did Mrs Thatcher incorporate the Labour Party, thus forming a government?

Has Tony Blair's Labour Party thought of inviting the Conservatives into government?

Has either the Conservatives or the Labour once invited the Liberals, regardless of the proportion of the votes they secured, to join in a government of national unity? So why impose the concept on African states?

Now, let us look at the unfolding scenarios in Africa and in Southern Africa in particular and see if we can discern a sinister pattern emerging as we are led by the noses, into governments of national unity.

First, we are told by the Europeans that a one-party state is a dictatorship and dictatorships are evil. We must have multi-party democracy. So we agree. However, in strategic states and regions such as ours, it is the Europeans who take the initiative in selecting, organising and strategising the opposition parties.

Case No. 1 Zambia:

The MMD, like the MDC here in Zimbabwe, was created by external forces and interests from the trade union movement.

When it won the elections which ousted the Unip of Kenneth Kaunda, there was no call for, let alone insistence on a government of national unity. Instead, every effort was made to destroy the former ruling party turned-opposition!

However, when the once "darling" party (MMD) awakened to the fact that it was merely a tool of imperialism to destroy the roots of its own existence by selling its assets and sovereignty to the interloper that party was ditched and a new puppet created.

Every effort was made to install it in office. If the MMD had lost, it is clear that there would have been no call for a government of national unity.

Case No. 2. South Africa:

In 1994, the ANC won the first democratically run elections outright. Nelson Mandela, the grand old man of the liberation struggle and a world icon, had been emasculated by 27 years of incarceration and made innocuous and docile by being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Politically, he was doing the right thing. De Clerk was brought in as co-president (who has ever heard of such a ridiculous thing?). He soon realised that the arrangement could not work so he pulled out.

Now, President Mbeki, who is proving to be "wayward" as far as the West is concerned, must be brought back in line.

He has been pressured into accepting the NNP as a partner in a government of national unity.

Did the West at any time during the struggle pressure the National Party to accept the ANC as a partner in government? No!

The real purpose here is to ensure that the ANC is weakened from within and eventually either destroyed or become ineffective in pursuing policies beneficial to the majority of its too-long disadvantaged constituents, particularly with regard to land reform.

Case No. 3. Mozambique:

For over ten years, the US and South Africa sponsored and supported the Renamo bandits to destabilise and create mayhem in that country.

When the Zimbabwean army helped to prevent a take-over by the externally created and sponsored movement, the enemy re-thought its strategy.

Renamo was organised and given a new image as a party with all their atrocities forgiven and forgotten, except by the traumatised people.

When they did not win the elections, they threatened to return to the bush and kill more of their fellow citizens. Now that President Chissano won, will they be persuaded/pressured into forming a government of national unity? I doubt it very much!

Case No. 4 Angola:

Unita rebels conducted the longest running and most brutal war in African history. In this, they were aided and abetted by the Western countries.

When in 1992 they were pressured into contesting a national election, they lost.

Rather than gracefully accepting the vice-president's office he had been offered, power-hungry Jonas Savimbi attempted a military coup.

When that failed he went back to the bush and continued with his destruction of the country and the traumatisation of the ordinary people.

Why was he not further pressured into joining a government of national unity?

He was too dominant a figure for the West to totally control and once he got into office they were not sure he could be depended on.

So now that President Mugabe has changed the dynamics of the region and the thinking of most of its leaders, there is urgent need for a change of strategy on the western front, ie, Angola.

Hence, in my view, Savimbi, having served his purpose, and having become a rabid dog, was clinically eliminated.

Dos Santos and Chissano were summoned to see the Emperor in Washington and told not to seek re-election just in case any of them might have been reconsidering his stated decision to step down.

Dos Santos was ordered to make peace quickly with the former butchers and forgive all the atrocities they had committed on innocent civilians.

There should be no bringing to justice for these African terrorists. Would Emperor Bush have been so magnanimous if a few precious American lives had been taken by those Unita terrorists?

Now it is unlikely that Unita, given its past infamous record and lack of popularity with the people, will win any free and fair elections.

But if the "international community", including the US and the EU, who are experts at ensuring the victory of their preferred candidates, are called in to organise and monitor those elections, who knows? Even the people who were killed may rise up and vote for a ritually cleansed Western-backed Unita.

Case No. 5. The DRC:

Everyone knows how well Mobutu Sese Seko served the interests of the West to the detriment and destruction of his own people.

When Laurent Kabila with Cde Mugabe's assistance took over, the West had him eliminated because he was perceived as being inimical to their interests.

The intention was to get rid of young Joseph at the same time also. I well remember that the first report emanating from Brussels stated that both father and son had been assassinated.

Joseph received his military training in China and not in Brussels, Sandhurst (UK) or West Point (US). He, therefore, cannot be fully trusted to follow instructions from the West.

Now that the peace talks are underway, the Western-backed rebels are pushing for a suspension ofthe young President Kabila's government until elections are held. Why? Because, if he remains in power during the interim, he would be in a position to influence the outcome of the election in some way.

After all, it is common knowledge that everywhere the incumbent government has some advantage, some edge, however small, in an election campaign.

I am sure that if Kabila's party should win the upcoming elections, there will be no call for and no Western insistence on a government of national unity.

Case No. 6. Zimbabwe:

Zanu-PF and politically astute Zimbabweans realise that we do not need another unity accord.

What we need now is a strong opposition (which, as we all know, is already in place) which is patriotic, willing always to make the interests of Zimbabwe paramount.

It does not matter how long a party in a Western country remains in opposition, it is never brought into government.

It may be consulted, but never given a chance to undermine the ruling party from within! That (undermining the Govern-ment), I believe, is the proposed and expected role of the MDC in this country. Because if they had won, I am sure and so are the Zanu-PF Politburo members, the MDC would not have been instructed to form a government of national unity.

The first duty that would have been demanded of them would have been the arrest and utter humiliation of President Mugabe.

I am hoping that the South African and Nigerian teams sent here to facilitate negotiations will not try to be surrogates of the West. We Africans are so good at selling our own into slavery.

I am saying to Zanu-PF, if the facilitators cannot persuade the MDC leadership (with or without Mr Tsvangirai) to accept their defeat gracefully and graciously, and spend some more time as the opposition, organising themselves and learning the ropes of serious politics, then there should be no deal.

The scenario I have outlined so far chronicles a series of African states in this region which are being brought under the hegemony and tutelage of the West through puppet governments.

Already, the MDC parliamentarians are under the tutelage of Canadians, with whom they are officially twinned.

Prof Welshman Ncube should be warned that should he be chosen to replace Mr Tsvangirai, and resist being dictated to by his handlers, he should expect the same fate as that of Zambia's former president Chiluba sooner than later, because he is an astute man, and I hope a real African.

In conclusion, until the West makes a coalition government, like they had made democracy the political norm of the day, we should not be persuaded or coerced into playing their games which will only lead to our destruction and re-enslavement.

We do not need to hear the voice of Jacob but feel the hand of Esau, the hunter.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200204080290.html