By Obi Egbuna, Jr., US Correspondent to the Zimbabwe Herald
WHILE Africans at home and abroad in conjunction are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Universal Improvement Association-African Communities League, and the indomitable legacy of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey,US President Barack Obama and his cabinet decided to exclude President Mugabe and the Government of Zimbabwe from the recent US-Africa Summit, that took place in Washington DC.
Whatever our feelings are as a people about this diplomatic maneuver, let the record show the same US president who refuses to pardon the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey of the trumped mail fraud charges that led to his deportation from the US, is the same individual who excluded President Mugabe from this gathering, which confirms President Obama’s fear and disdain for true African warriors truly transcends time and historical boundaries. Because President Obama is the face of an era where political leadership depends primarily on shock value and public relations, the ramifications of this tasteless stunt actually end up a feather in President Mugabe and the Government of Zimbabwe’s cap.
This gesture is the historical equivalent of George Washington refusing to extend an invite to Sitting Bull or Geronimo from a summit with Native American chiefs, or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu excluding Hamas and the PLO from a summit with Arab leaders from all over North Africa and what is commonly referred to in the Western World as the Middle East.
For so- called African Americans who have courageously struggled inside US borders from the moment the first slave ship arrived on shore, having access to the White House whether we’re talking about Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr. Dorothy Height or the gentleman whose life story Hollywood producer Lee Daniels brought to the attention of the world in his film the Butler, is viewed as nothing more than a feeble attempt to manipulate the annals of history at our expense. During his administration former US president Harry Truman created a Civil Rights Committee which stemmed from dialogue with Mary Church Terrell, Walter White, and Ralph Bunche, while at the same time began sending aid to South Africa, created the CIA and desegregated the US Military that has resulted in politically misguided daughters and sons of Africa fighting for the maintenance of genocide and white supremacy. It took Dr. Martin Luther King Jr under pressure from the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, to let former US President Lyndon Johnson know legislation concerning Civil Rights and Voting Rights, are by no means a reason to ignore the slaughtering of Women Children and Men in Vietnam.
Many Africans have arrived at the conclusion that the 14- year struggle in Zimbabwe to prevent a regime change was just as impacting as the Second Chimurenga which coincidentally took the exact amount of time, the reason being it demonstrated exactly what Malcolm X told us whether it’s the ballot or the bullet, Zimbabweans are ready to defend what belongs to them.
The manner in which Obama praises leaders in Africa whom he claims to respect, has been nothing to write home about. When Nelson Mandela became gravely ill last year, President Obama compared him to the 1st US President George Washington a war criminal rapist and plunderer of land, with a compliment like that why bother with an insult? Based on the disrespect President Obama has shown President Mugabe and ZANU-PF, it appears as though he wanted Tsvangirai to become the President of Zimbabwe almost as much as he wanted to be re-elected President of the United States.
As Africans we are grateful to SADC as a collective body for not wavering on the Zimbabwe question, it would have been powerful to see them tell President Obama the same thing they conveyed to former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he threatened to boycott the EU Africa Summit back in 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal no Zimbabwe no SADC.
If this political saga was indeed a novel this chapter would be called “the attempted political bribery of SADC”. Why else would the Corporate Council On Africa go beyond the call of duty to roll out the red carpet of SADC leaders all week long? The CCC held working breakfast sessions for President Guebuza of Mozambique, President Kikwete for Tanzania and President Pohamba of Namibia, and finally Vice President Guy Scott of Zambia. In their description of their daily function they identify both reliable partners for US firms seeking to market products and services and US buyers who wish to work to enhance the agenda of AGOA(The African Growth and Opportunity Act). If this is not intriguing enough, the US-Africa Business Center at CCA is financed by none other than USAID, that is even more amusing than when it was discovered that the watchdog for blood diamonds Global Witness is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy. The fact that at the exact minute this summit is being held in Washington, it was exposed that the Obama administration for using USAID to engage in espionage related activities in Cuba.
When this was discovered one wonders how President Obama’s remark “The entire world has a stake in the success of peacekeeping in Africa”
When President Obama stated US Imperialism is less focused on Africa’s resources and more interested in trade and investment relations, President Mugabe refusal to compromise one inch on the empowerment of the indigenous people sends shock waves throughout the Western world. We also must shine the political spotlight on
On the world stage it was none other than President Mugabe who informed President Obama, that while no African nation celebrated the death of the late US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, his life will never be equivalent to the thousands of innocent people who died in Libya three years ago due to seven months of malicious attacks by the US NATO Alliance. This was followed up last year by President Mugabe summing up the US-EU alliance trying to sabotage both the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe and the inclusive government during the four years it lasted with three simple words shame shame shame.
Because our rich and illustrious history of frontline resistance it would be completely understandable if the African Union had not appealed to the Libyan Government if they could be granted permission to bring the corpse of Colonel Muammar Qadaffi f to Washington and lay it on the stairs of the White House, the way the Pan Africanist Fela Ankilapo Kuti laid the corpse of his mother the Revolutionary Icon Fumilayo Kuti at the doorstep of President Obasanjo after she was murdered in cold blood.
We know President Obama has always calculated is how President Mugabe’s steadfast approach to Zimbabwe’s affairs will resonate with so-called African Americans, be it Homeland Security murdering us every 28 hours, or our relationship to the Prison Industrial Complex, or the alarming contradiction that reveals at 12% of the general population we are 41% of the homeless population
The question is, is it President Mugabe’s fault US Imperialism provides Africans with so much bulletin board material? To feel that President Obama thinks of the Revolutionary Prisoner at War Mumia-Abu Jamal who has been falsely imprisoned for over thirty years, whenever he hears President Mugabe blast the US-EU alliance for meddling in Zimbabwe’s Sovereign affairs does hold merit especially since President Mugabe was imprisoned by the Rhodesians without a trial.
The challenge is to let President Obama know that bickering back and forth with racist Republicans and Democrats is one thing, but cowardly attacks on President Mugabe is something altogether different.
Obi Egbuna Jr Is The US Correspondent to The Herald and a US based member of the Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship Association. Obi is also a founding member of the Pan African Collective for Advocacy & Action
He can be reached at obiegbuna15@gmail.com
