The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), South Africa 2002

Ten years ago, we gathered in Rio de Janeiro, in the same numbers and were moved by the same developmental anxieties that many of us have today. We worried about our troubled Earth and its dangerously diminishing flora and fauna. We worried about the variegated poor of our societies, in their swelling numbers and ever deepening, distressful social conditions. We complained about the unequal economic power that existed and still exists between the North and South and had historically reposed itself in our international institutions, including the United Nations. Indeed, we denounced the debt burden by which the rich North continued to take away from the impoverished South even that little which they still had. We must examine why, 10 years after Rio, the poor remain very much with us, poorer and far more exposed and vulnerable than ever before. Our children suffer from malnutrition, hunger and diseases, compounded now by the deadly HIV-AIDS pandemic. The betrayal of the collective agenda we set at Rio is a compelling manifestation of bad global governance, lack of real political will by the North and a total absence of just rule of law in international affairs. Institutionally, we have relied for much too long on structures originally set to recover and rebuild Europe after a devastating war against Nazism. Over the years, these outdated institutions have unilaterally transformed to dominate the world for the realization of the strategic national goals of the rich North. That is why, for example, the International Monetary Fund has never been a fund for the poor peasants seeking sustainable development. Even the United Nations, a body that is supposed to give us equal voices, remains unreformed. For this reasons, we join our brothers and sisters in Third World in rejecting completely manipulative and intimadatory attempts by some countries and regional blocks that are bent on subordinating our sovereignty to their hegemonic ambitions and imperialist interests, falsely presented as matters of rule of law, democracy and good governance. The real objective is interference in our domestic affairs. The rule of law, democracy and governance are indeed values that we cherish because we fought for them against the very same people who today seek to preach them to us. The poor should be able to use their sovereignty to fight poverty and preserve their heritage in their corner of the earth without interference. That is why we, in Zimbabwe, understand only too well that sustainable development is not possible without agrarian reforms that acknowledge in our case, that land comes first before all else, and that all else grows from and off the land. This is one asset that not only defines the Zimbabwean personality and demarcates sovereignty but also an asset that has a direct bearing on the fortunes of the poor and prospects for their immediate empowerment and sustainable development. In deed, ours is an agrarian economy, an imperative that renders the issue of access to land paramount. In our situation this fundamental question has pitted the black majority who are the right-holders, and, therefore, primary stakeholders to our land against an obdurate and internationally well-connected racial minority, largely of British descent and brought in and sustained by British descent and brought in and sustained by British colonialism now being supported and manipulated by the Blair government. We have said even as we acquire our land we shall not deprive the white farmers of land completely. Every one of them is entitled to at least one farm bur they would want to continue to have more than one farm. More than one farm indeed, fifteen, twenty, thirty-five farms, one person. These are not figures I am just getting out of my mind. They are real figures. So no farmer is being left without land and there is no one who would want to leave Zimbabwe any way. So, those operations, which are underway of how to uplift those who are threatened in Zimbabwe by the regime of Mugabe as it is said, really are underserved. We are threatening no one and therefore the operations by Mr. Blair are artificial, completely uncalled for and interference in our domestic affairs. But, we say this as Zimbabweans that have fought for their land. We have fought for our sovereignty. Small as we are, we have won our independence and we are prepared to shed our blood in sustenance and maintenance and protection of that independence. Having said that, may I say, we wish no harm to anyone. We are Zimbabweans. We are Africans. We are not English, we are not Europeans. We love Africa, we love Zimbabwe. We love our independence. We are working together in our region to improve the lot of our people. Let no one interfere with our processes. Let no one who is negative want to spoil what we are doing for ourselves in order to unite Africa. We belong to this continent. We don't mind having and bearing sanctions, banning us from Europe. We are not Europeans. We have not asked for an inch of Europe, any square inch of that territory. So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe. We are happy that in our region, through SADC, through COMESA and through ECOWAS, we are doing our best to sustain our environment in everyway possible. We keep even our reptiles plus insects. We look after our elephants and ivory. We look after our lions as they roar everywhere. They attract those who would want to see them. We sustain our environment and are committed to doing that not just now but in the future because we want a heritage as a legacy. We want that to pass on to future generations. We want to be friends and not enemies of other regions. We want to work together and that is why the theme of this conference is very important to us. Not only has it brought us together but we hope that at the end of it, will have cemented our relations, our oneness to work for this globe, which is ours together. As we look at the next decade we must honestly acknowledge those of our actions, which have saved mankind and those many others, which have undermined our collective well being. Clearly there has to be a paradigm shift from the global corporate model to a people-centred paradigm that reaffirms that people must always come first in any process of sustainable development. And let our Africans come first in the development of Africa, not as beggars or puppets but as a sovereign people. I thank you.