Plot to assassinate Mugabe exposed

A 60-minute film shown on SBS TV last week, has exposed a conspiracy by 
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change 
(MDC) to assassinate President Robert Mugabe before the elections due in 
March.

Tsvangirai had approached the Canadian firm of political consultants, 
Dickens and Madsen, and arranged to pay them almost one million dollars on 
completion of the assassination. The firm was also offered lucrative 
contracts with a new government to be formed by Tsvangirai after Mugabe had 
been "eliminated".

The secretly filmed discussion was part of the SBS "Dateline" program put 
together by SBS journalist Mark Davis. This program also featured an 
interview with Robert Mugabe who calmly explained the reasons for 
Zimbabwe's land reform program and the reasons behind the attempts of the 
British and other Western governments to demonise him.

Money from Europe

In the filmed discussions, Tsvangirai also revealed that his 
Movement was being financed by European governments and 
corporations, with the money being channelled through BSMG, a well-known 
British firm of political consultants.

During the meeting, Mr Tsvangirai admits that he has no hope of winning the 
upcoming Presidential elections at the ballot box.

As Mark Davis pointed out, "It would seem that Mr Tsvangirai may have the 
overwhelming support of Whitehall, Canberra, Brussels and Washington, but 
not that of his own people.

"It appears that Mr Mugabe is to be killed, not because he is a threat to 
democracy, but because the democratic process threatens to reinstall him."

Mr Mugabe is considered a hero in African countries where the land question 
is a burning issue. The European powers seized the land of African 
countries during colonial occupation, and it has not yet been returned to 
its rightful owners.

A point made in the SBS film was that if the Mugabe Government succeeded in 
bringing about an effective redistribution of land, their example could 
rapidly spread to other African countries.

Not surprisingly supporters of the campaign against Mugabe have gone into 
overdrive in an attempt to discredit the expose that reveals their pin-up 
hero, Tsvangirai, as a conspirator with the enemies of the African people, 
a paid supporter of imperialist interests and as a potential assassin.

The allegations were dismissed as "preposterous", by BSMG through which 
money was channelled and as "obvious propaganda" by a spokesperson for MDC. 
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, that waged an unsuccessful 
campaign to have Zimbabwe expelled as a member of the Commonwealth of 
Nations, weakly declared that "We're sceptical ... We are not sure what we 
are seeing is the full story."

The Australian, that ran a story based on the Dateline report 
under the headline "Spy tells of plot to kill Mugabe", ran another article 
the next day with the headline, "TV man duped on Mugabe".

However, the film clearly shows Tsvangirai, his identity confirmed, 
plotting to assassinate Mugabe. He discusses taking power with the support 
of some sections of the Zimbabwean army, overriding the Parliament and the 
Constitution, and indefinitely postponing the elections.

He also established that he would pay the US$500,000 assassination fee 
using European donations made to his party.

However, the Canadian political consultancy firm had no intention of 
carrying out the proposed assassination, and instead notified Mr Mugabe of 
the meeting.

The Australian Government has been among the most virulent in its campaign 
against the Zimbabwean Government which nonetheless was re-elected at the 
last elections. In these same elections Tsvangirai's MDC party won less 
than half the parliamentary seats.

The Australian media — including the ABC — also supports the campaign, 
which is obviously aimed to bring an end the redistribution of land to the 
African people.

Other newspapers that have added their voice to the virulent anti-Mugabe 
campaign and promoted the Movement for Democratic Change as the preferred 
alternative, include Green Left Weekly. In an article dated February 
6, 2002, GLW writes that "the need for the MDC to ratchet up the 
pressure on Mugabe is obvious ..."

The land reform program is said to be "chaotic" and the introduction of 
price controls last year are dismissed as "vote-buying".

The author of the GLW article, Patrick Bond, also comes out in 
favour of sanctions, which have been loudly called for by the European 
Union, the British and Australian Governments.

He writes: "...at some stage in a struggle for political justice, a people 
must decide what kind of pressure they are willing to ask those acting in 
solidarity to impose upon their enemy, even if there are detrimental side-
effects."

In another GLW article (23/1/02) Norm Dixon, using the sort of 
epithets one has come to expect from the bourgeois media in their campaigns 
against those who stand up to them, writes of ZANU-PF "thugs" and ZANU-PF 
"goons", a term used to denote sub-human creatures according to Webster's 
dictionary.

That there has been violence on both sides cannot be denied and struggles 
over property — in this case the land — often become particularly 
violent. As with other questions the Zimbabwean situation comes down to 
issues of class.

The central question in the struggle going on in Zimbabwe at the present 
time is whether or not one is on the side of the white settlers and their 
supporters, that is European imperialism, or on the side of the victims of 
imperialism and their efforts to regain what is rightfully theirs and to 
find a way out of the poverty and misery which remains a consequence of 
generations of imperialist domination and exploitation.

It is no suprise that Tsvangirai, a would-be assassin is the preferred 
candidate of influential white landowners and their foreign backers.