Robert Mugabe Speech 26th Independence Celebrations, 18th April 2006

I welcome you warmly to these Celebrations which mark yet another chapter in our twenty-six years of Independence and Sovereignty. As I do so, I say thank you to all our people who have stood firm in the defence of our country, in different capacities, and resisted the enemy's repeated attempts to reverse our Independence. Today's Celebrations also have an enhanced resonance from the good rain season, which should give us improved harvests this year. Further, the Celebrations carry the echoes of the September 2005 landmark, when through Constitutional Amendment No. 17, Government removed the legal hurdles that had inhibited the speedy and conclusive implementation of the Land Reform Programme. As we are aware, the Amendment designates all the land acquired for resettlement purposes as State land. Consequently, the historic milestone has already facilitated the transfer of 5 256 commercial farms, measuring over 8 million hectares to the State as owner. Because agriculture is a vital cog in the overall turnaround of the country's economy, Government has provided several measures to strengthen and enhance the sector, which include financial support schemes, seed, fertilizer and tillage equipment in respect of cropping. In the area of livestock, there has been the provision of bulls and heifers to the smallholder farmers. To enhance the availability of trained agricultural experts, Government has increased the number of agricultural colleges and institutes offering both diplomas and certificates. The process has transformed former Youth Training Centers into full-fledged training centers with the first intake enrolling this year. Our economy has over the last three years suffered from the effects of both a spate of devastating droughts and an evil programme of unjustified sanctions resulting in various shortages of food, drugs in hospitals and clinics, electricity supply and steep rises in prices of essential commodities. In response to these challenges, Government has adopted the National Economic Development Priority Programme [NEDPP] stabilize the economy in the next 6-9 months by focusing on food security and increased agricultural production; foreign exchange generation and moblization through the full utilization of the idle capacity in all sectors of the economy, to be accompanied by aggressive marketing of Zimbabwe as a conducive investment destination. Consequently, the economy is expected to grow by between 1-2 per cent this year, underpinned by agriculture with a forecast growth rate of 9 per cent. Government is examining several strategic alliances and joint ventures that can facilitate injection of additional capital and access to modern technology, and hence address the underutilization of capacity at most parastatals. Already, Ziscosteel has benefited from this new thrust through a management contract with Global Steel Holdings of India. Tourism remains one of the pillars of our economic recovery. In this context, the "Look East Policy" is undergoing refinement in order to achieve a rewarding diversification of tourism markets. To ensure self-sufficiency in energy and power generation, Government has engaged potential investors, again, under the "Look East Policy", to expand Hwange and Kariba power stations by an additional 300 and 600 Megawatts, respectively. In order to improve efficiency in the sector, a Regulatory Commission has been established to regulate the electricity industry and to promote private sector participation in power generation. The provision of good infrastructure and social services remains a sine qua non of any economic turnaround programme. Government has thus continued with the improvement and maintenance of both rural and urban road networks. In addition, a number of bridges were contracted and completed in all the country's 10 provinces last year. Similarly, the goal of affordable shelter is another major priority for Government. In this context, in May last year, Government embarked on Operation Restore Oder [ Murambatsvina], which was immediately followed by Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle, in order to achieve the twin objectives of storing order and cleanless to our cities, while also addressing the housing needs of our people. Additionally, we are, through the same programme, providing better-planned and more hygienic operating places for vendors. I am pleased to note that of the 7 478 planned units for Phase One of Operation Garikai/ Hlalani Kuhle, 3325 were completed last year, and have been allocated to deserving beneficiaries. Operation Garikai/ hlalani Kuhle will continue, albeit with a shift towards now providing infrastructure and services to project sites and stands for beneficiaries who can construct their own houses on Aided Self-Help basis. In addition, Government disbursed grants of $1.1 trillion to local authorities for further expansion and maintenance of critical infrastructure. To ensure access to safe clean drinking water by communal and resettled communities, a total of 68 new water points were established, while 8 700 boreholes and 4 200 deep wells underwent various levels of maintenance. Further, 48 dams are under repair and 21 small to medium-sized irrigation schemes are being rehabilitated in communal resettlement areas. Over the last twelve months, Government has remained steadfast and focused on poverty reduction and alleviation of the current economic hardships being borne by vulnerable social groups. Thus, Government allocated $160 billion towards the drought relief programme last year. We are happy that no one anywhere in the drought stricken areas was allowed to die of hunger. We thank the arms of Government, which were put in charge of drought relief and the Church and other organizations that offered complementary efforts. My Government values the youth as future leaders and protectors of our revolution who should be empowered and correctly oriented towards nation building. To this end, in 2005, Government supported twenty-eight projects worth $1.165 billion and used a further $1 billion to support commercial farming projects at five vocational training centers through the Employment Creation Fund. The creation of the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development in April last year was a clear demonstration of our commitment to gender parity, unity and the empowerment of women. The Cassava Growing Programme, which is receiving assistance from neighbouring and other regional countries, the resuscitation of women's clubs, and the promotion of village banks are some of the grassroots activities designed to help women play a useful role in the economic life of our country. Given the global advancements in Information and Communication Technology, Government has strengthened the teaching of computer studies in schools, by stepping up the provision of computers and computer software in schools, colleges and universities. As part of this initiative, various institutions have so far received more than 7 295 computers under the President's computer programme. Efforts to consolidate the National HIV and AIDS fight have, however, started to pay off, with a drop in the HIV prevalence rate, although more still needs to be done in the area of behaviour change. The local manufacture of anti-retroviral drugs [ARVs] has seen their cost dropping to near affordable levels. In foreign relations, I am pleased to inform you that our enhanced diplomatic presence in China, Iran, Indonesia, India and Malaysia has given a large boost to our efforts in exploring business opportunities in that region. The rationalization of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection agreements [BIPPAS] is a clear commitment by the Government to bolster investor confidence. It should be clearly stated however that Foreign Investment should take cognizance of our Indigenisation and Empowerment policy and programmes under which the equity balances as between foreigners and Zimbabweans are regulated. Zimbabwe's active participation in various international for a, including the Southern African Development Community, African Union, United Nations and Non Aligned Movement Summits, has helped to safeguard our national interests and to cement support for our policies. We have, at these international for a, highlighted our principled stance on the issue of empowering our people through the Land Reform Programme and also clarified how our detractors have sought to vilify, isolate and punish us for implementing that programme. It is encouraging to note that we have, as a result, strengthened old friendships and established new ones, particularly in the context of our " Look East Policy" as well as South South Cooperation. Attempts by our detractors to nefariously put Zimbabwe on the agenda of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the United Nations Commission for Human Rights dismally failed because the progressive members of the international Community were able to see beyond the façade of those who have sought to falsely tarnish our image. We know that these evil forces have not given up on their designs and hence we should remain vigilant while also counting on the support we have so far received from our friends in the region and beyond. The Independence whose 26th Anniversary we are celebrating today was achieved first and foremost through the gallant efforts of our sons and daughters, the freedom fighters or liberation veterans, many of whom are serving in our defence and police forces and other arms of Government. Our Arms of Defence, Police and Security have, through their high level of loyalty, commitment and discipline, continued to display an equally high level of vigilance in safeguarding our security, law and order. Any one, therefore, who dares lead any group of persons to embark on a campaign of violence or terrorist activities, will be inviting the full wrath of the law to descend mercilessly on him or those who follow him. We thank and praise our Security Forces for continuing to sustain our Independence and securing our national Sovereignty against saboteurs, conspirators and criminals. We wish also to praise our Forces for participating in the Garikai and Maguta/Inala programmes. Finally, I would like to thank the Nation for understanding the real nature of our present challenges. This indeed is a clear demonstration of the resolute spirit of Zimbabweans in defending their national Sovereignty. Hence as we celebrate 26 years of our Independence and Sovereignty, let us do so in the knowledge that the unity and oneness of our efforts as Zimbabweans is crucial, especially in the face of the present hard challenges. Zimbabwe is the one and only country we have. Let us make it great with unity in peace because we are a great, peaceful and progressive people. Enjoy yourselves because Zimbabwe is yours forever. Amhlope, Makorokoto and Congratulations!! I thank you.

Robert Mugabe Speech: 25th Independence Silver Jubilee Celebrations, 18th April 2005

Twenty-five years have gone by since that eventful midnight of 18th April, 1980 when our country was born, proudly taking up her place among members of the community of nations as a full, independent and sovereign State. This birth followed bitter struggles and wars of resistance waged by our people for nearly a century, struggles meant to dislodge British settler colonialism, which in 1890, had planted itself on our soil through force of arms. When this day finally arrived, we had paid the price of British bondage for ninety long and arduous years of systematic assault and injury to our body and soul as a Nation under occupation. To this day, we bear the lasting scars of that dark encounter with colonialism, often described as civilising. Important as it is, this magic day of 18th April did not mark our destination or herald the end of our struggles. April 18 announced the beginning of new and even more demanding struggles ahead. We had to secure peace; we had to integrate three previously warring armies; we had to resettle thousands of displaced persons and refuges from the war; and we had to rehabilitate a war-ravaged countryside. The challenge was daunting, a real matter of faith. Twenty-five years later, we have an opportunity to look at how we have lived as a Nation since then. But we do so having achieved the landmark of 25 years, which this day, the 18th of April represents, for it was the day on which, in 1980, we proclaimed our birth and presence to the world with a collective voice. The emotion-laden visual of that proclamation was the lowering of the Union Jack - the British flag - and its subsequent replacement by our own. Comrades when we ascended to full sovereignty and freedom, we clearly communicated our resolve never again to be in bondage. The new flag represented the wealth we carry as a Nation, although, sadly, it was wealth we were not able to control or take over quickly. That, of course, included our land, all that grows on it, and all that which is embedded deep within its bowels. The new flag also expressed our deep compassion, our wish and offer of peace to the world. As a war-weary people, we badly needed it, both at home and abroad. And the circumstances were most delicate, for the embittered Rhodesians were plotting the reversal of the people's revolution. The same flag, yes, carried our dreams, our hopes, and our lofty and boundless ambitions. It represented our colour and our past, both combining to give identity to a young and achieving African Nation steeped in proud history. We hoisted all these things on the 18th April, the day we joyously mark today. We thus struck a covenant with our selves and those to come after us. We are the living, the independent, and an African people firmly rooted. In celebrating our coming into being, we acknowledge the founding struggles waged by our forbears. Their brave resistance started from the last decade of the 19th Century and went into the first decade of the 20th Century. From that historical experience, we have gleaned life-long lessons for building this Nation, which has turned twenty-five today. Our Chimurenga or liberation struggle was "a people's war" and thus demonstration the imperative need for national unity not in winning and defending our sovereignty but also in pursuing the post-war struggles against poverty, hunger, disease and ignorance. A united people can never be really defeated. This reckoning thus impels us to be on a tireless search for unity even as we uphold the Unity Accord of 1987. Our people are, indeed, united and we therefore dare not undermine the Accord. Above all, our struggles have taught us that sacrifices are an integral part and signify the element of bravery and courage. For Africa, freedom has never come cheap and easy. Colonisers do not freely let go of nations they occupy. Their hold has to be broken through bitter and bloody struggles by the oppressed. Such struggles have always demanded sacrifices. Today, we tell our children that the joys of 18th April emanate from the hapless villager slaughtered in cold blood only yesterday, for supporting the struggle. We tell them and sacrifices, which have provided a firm foundation for our pan-African spirit and character. But we also recall and take pride in the fact that we opened our Independence with a demonstration of compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation, unexampled in European history. Confounding all expectations and fears of retributive justice against Rhodesian war criminals, we, in March 1980 proclaimed a Policy of National Reconciliation by which we forgave their heinous sins and atrocities against our people. By this policy, their war crimes stood forgiven, expiated not by restitution or even a show of contrition on their part, but simply by our own forgiving consciences. Against that biter history, we still gave our hand, gave ours hearts and our love to the erstwhile oppressor, in clear demonstration of African humanity. Today, Ian Smith, himself racist Rhodesia incarnate, still lives a free man. Out of this policy, we built peace, healed weeping wounds, pacified restless souls of all those disconsolately bitter and deeply injured. Yes, we freed the oppressor. Who, in the Anglo-Saxon West would have done what we did? Democracy has come during the same twenty-five years, not as a hand-down from Europe, but as a natural offshoot of our struggle. We made our democracy and owe it to no one, least of all Europeans. Until we beat them on the battlefield, Britain and her kith and kin here would not concede voting rights to Africans. The one-person-one-vote we have enjoyed since 1980 is a gain from our liberation struggle. Let it be forever remembered it was the bullet that brought the ballot. The twenty-five years we celebrate today have been years of regular elections in 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2002, and, just slightly over two weeks ago, in March 2005. Our polls have not needed Anglo-American validation. Fellow Africans and friendly countries from the Third World validated them. That is our humane universe, not Europe, not America. We never agitate to observe their elections, and, therefore, let them keep away from our affairs. We thank Africa for her support as we prepared for our polls. We thank all the political players and their supporters for heeding the call for peace. We thank our people for ensuring peace throughout the entire election period. Indeed, this is as it should always be. The twenty-five years that have gone by the taught us democracy cannot grow well on the soil of racial poverty and inequality. Genuine democracy cannot co-exist with structural deprivation and racial inequality. It cannot be an escape from addressing the national question. Such a model of democracy we reject for it is meant to give the oppressed an illusion of power and control. The historical fact of land, at the heart of our liberation struggle, necessarily forges this vital connection in our political circumstances. In Zimbabwe, land governs the ballot. It is a symbol of sovereignty, it is the economy, indeed, the source of our welfare as Africans. It remains the core social question of our time, as, indeed, it was the main grievance on which our liberation struggle was based. Today, twenty-five years later, we rejoice that this fundamental goal our struggle has been achieved. We have resolved the long outstanding national land question, and the land has now come to its rightful owners, and with it, our sovereignty. Our people are happy and fulfilled, and this is all that maters to us. Let the grief and bitterness that has visited Europe following the repossession of our land heals on its own, in its time. Zimbabwe is in Africa, not Europe! We have done much more in the 25 years, which have gone by. We have built schools, colleges, polytechnics and universities. We have trained teachers and expanded education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. We have educated our children and with a literacy rate of well over 86 percent, Zimbabwe far surpasses most nations of the world in education, which is why our skilled people are much sought after in most parts of the world. The coming years will see resolute steps taken to review and overhaul certain aspects of the current education system, placing emphasis on development-related education, Information Technology, vocationalisation and entrepreneurship for self-job creation. We have also built health institutions throughout the country and have stepped up the training of health personnel, albeit against the challenges of induced skills flight. Today, every community has a clinic or health center on the basis of which our national primary health care programme has been an example to, and the envy of the developing world. However, the biggest challenge we face as a Nation is HIV/ AIDS pandemic which has really strained our health delivery system. Definitive steps are being undertaken to address the challenge, including greater local manufacturing of anti-retroviral, as well as significant subsidies for HIV- related drugs and treatments. But the achievements in the health sector have been enormous and we can only improve in the years ahead. Dramatic gains have been registered in opening up rural areas through greater infrastructural development. From a road and rail network designed to serve white interests, we have expanded the road network to bring hitherto to neglected rural areas within the national developmental grid. We have built an effective system of feeder roads, overcoming natural barriers through a network of bridges. However, a lot more still needs to be done. We have expanded rural electrification, covering the far reaches of our country. We have lit up rural service centers, rural schools, offices and homestead s of traditional and community leaders. With electric power in place, it is now possible to attract meaningful small to medium scale investments into rural areas, in the process, tackling rural unemployment. Complementary to rural electrification programme has been the provision of rural telecommunication services. Our water sector has also enjoyed huge investments during the same period. We have built many dams of all sizes in all provinces, especially the drought prone provinces of Matebeleland, Midlands and Masvingo. But not all has been rosy in these twenty-five years that we are taking stock of today. The spectre of drought has repeatedly visited us, seemingly increasing in frequency in the new millennium. And although we have invested heavily in harvesting water, not much has been done to harness that water for irrigation purposes. We thus suffer repeated "wet" droughts. Increasing irrigable land is the surest insurance and no effort will be spread from this very year. While out detractors claim that our economy has not done that well, we are happy that it has delivered spectacularly on our social goals, thereby laying a firm foundation for our future growth policies. It has delivered on education, health, infrastructure, water, energy and communication. These happen to be prerequisites for an economic take-off. And we now have them in place. True, business has not expanded as fast as we would have wished, and much remains to be for that to happen. Until recently, the economy had suffered a general rise in inflation and price instability. Businesses either closed or contracted. Wages were eroded, while unemployment rose quite markedly. Pushing interest rates have also dissuaded investments or business expansions. Our experiments with the ruinous economic structural adjustment programme appear to have unleashed mayhem in the economy. We are a lot wiser now. We are clear and definite on the way forward in the years ahead. We need to protect our people from the ravages of drought that have afflicted us for years. We shall continue to organize ourselves in order to resist droughts and when they occur to be in a position to prevent hunger. The responsibility of sustaining our people during challenging periods is primarily that of Government. We shall always live up to this responsibility. All these efforts naturally must unfold within the framework of our Economic Turnaround Programme, which has already, register dramatic gains restoring macroeconomic balance. While these gains have been generated by reforms championed by our Reserve Bank, they need an emphatic supply response to remain sustainable. Agriculture must grow and expand. Industry and mining must respond positively to the turnaround, as indeed should commerce and the service sector. The hostility we have faced from western countries in response to our Land Reform has taught us to diversify our sources and export markets. We have turned East; we have turned to region and other sub-regions on our continent. With this support, we have started building mutually beneficial partnerships that will help us build a strong national economy, our ultimate goal. Let me conclude by thanking leaders from our neighbouring countries who have agreed to grace our Silver Jubilee Celebrations. Some of them lead countries that produced heroes we honoured just yesterday. We hold them in great affection and cherish this deep relationship forged through shared struggles and sacrifices. I also thank friends and supporters of Zimbabwe, friends and supporters who have stood by us through thick and thin. They are friends indeed and we shall not fail them. Gone are the days when Africa produced tragic revolutions. We have to defend our own space by any means necessary. We have to defend our policies and pursue the unhindered. Africa for Africans! Long live the African Union! Long Live Zimbabwe! Long Live the People of Zimbabwe! Long Live our Independence! Long Live Africa!

Robert Mugabe Speech: 59th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, 22nd September 2004

Mr. President, I am delighted to congratulate you, a distinguished son o Africa, upon your election as President of the 59th Session of the General Assembly. Indeed, at a time when the community of nations has committed itself to paying due attention to issues that relate to development in Africa, through support for NEPAD and other mechanisms, your Presidency gives us the hope and confidence that our concerns and aspirations and those of others will remain high on the agenda of this august body. Mr President, at the 58th Session, I spoke about the need to reform the United Nations and its related bodies so as to make them more democratic. I stressed the perils inherent in the status quo, particularly, with regard to the dominance of global politics by one superpower and its closest allies. While we welcome the current debate on enhancing the authority and role of the United Nations, we wish to stress the need to address the core issue of democratization of international governance. Debate on the reform of the Security Council has been too long-drawn because of attempts calculated to protect those whose interests are best served by the status quo. Ironically, it is some of the same forces that, since last year, have been raining bombs and hell-fire on innocent Iraqis purportedly in the name of democracy. Iraq today has become a vast inferno created by blatant and completely illegal and defiant acts of aggression by United States, Britain and their allies, in the full trail of which the world has witnessed mass destruction of both human lives and property, and with them our human rights, values, morality and the norms of international law as enshrined in our Charter. We are now being coerced to accept and believe that a new political cum religious doctrine has risen, namely that "There is but one political god, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair is his prophet". Mr. President, the UN Charter remains the only most sacred document and proponent of relations of our Nations. Anything else is political heresy! Mr. President, Zimbabwe welcomes the continuing efforts by this community of nations to find solutions to the scourge of HIV and AIDS that has ravaged our peoples and economies. At the national level, we have taken measures, within our limited means, to combat the pandemic. We are also coordinating our efforts at the Southern African Development Community [SADC] level. Regrettably, we continue to see the unfortunate and futile tendency to use assistance in this area as a reward for political compliance and malleability, making it available to countries whose governments are deemed "inconvenient". Let it be realized that the pandemic does not respect boundaries, and these self-serving, selective approaches will have little or no meaningful results. Zimbabwe has also had to withstand unprovoked, declared and undeclared sanctions, imposed by Britain and its allies who are bent on bringing down our legitimately elected Government. Mr. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister has arrogantly and unashamedly announced in his Parliament that his government was working with Zimbabwe's Opposition Party to bring about regime change. Once again, the lawless nature of this man who along his Washington master, believes he is God-ordained to rule our world, has shown itself. Regime Change is an inalienable right of our Zimbabwean people who, through their sovereign vote, can make and unmake our governments. In any case, we reject completely the pretended assertions of democracy by our former colonial masters, whose undemocratic regimes we taught the lesson of one man or one woman one vote through our liberation struggles. Here in the United States we remain aware of the plight of the Black American of both yesterday and today and of the semi slave and half citizen status that has been his burden. Have the Black in the USA got equal politics, social and economic rights and status as their white counterparts. I wish to take this opportunity to express the appreciation of my Government and that of the people of Zimbabwe for the humanitarian assistance we received from the international community during our period of need. Without such support, we would not have been able to avert a major catastrophe. I am pleased to inform you Mr. President that we have, inspite of the sanctions and evil wishes of Britain and its allies, now emerged from that difficult phase. We had a relatively good agricultural season this year and our Land Reform Programme has began to make a significant contribution towards the turn around of our economy. Despite the partial drought at the beginning of the season, we have managed this year to realize a good harvest, certainly, one good enough to ensure that we meet our food requirements until the next season. We plead with the IMF to stop its strange political mouthing, lies and fabrications about our situation. Our own regional organizations know the truth about Zimbabwe. Mr. President, in March next year, Zimbabwe will be holding its sixth democratic parliamentary elections since Independence in 1980. These elections, like others before them, will be conducted in accordance with our national laws, and the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections recently adopted by our sub region. Zimbabwe will indeed welcome to these elections those observers whose sole and undivided purpose will be to observe the process and not to meddle in the politics of the country. Mr. President, the fight against international terrorism has exposed the duplicity and insincerity of erstwhile leading democracies and human rights monitors with regard to the question of the observance of human rights. We have seen established international conventions being thrown to the dogs; resolutions of the General Assembly and other UN bodies on this issue come to naught. We are seriously concerned that the United Nations, the pre-eminent instrument for the maintenance of international peace and security, watched helplessly while Iraq was plundered by the USA and UK led so called coalition of the willing. Such belligerent gun-slinging diplomacy and illegitimate territorial occupation of the state of Iraq are blemishes on the fair play image of the UN. While the sadistic scenes from Abu Ghraib remain vivid in our minds, other places in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay have provided useful samples of the Western concept of respect for human rights. Let me say once again that the West should spare us their lessons on human rights. They do not have moral authority to speak about, let alone, parade themselves, as torchbearers of human rights. Mr. President, Zimbabwe remains deeply concerned about the situation in the Middle East. We continue to be revulsed by a situation where the collective decisions and authority of the UN are disregarded with impunity on account of big brother support. We demand an immediate lifting of all restrictions illegally imposed on the Palestinian people, which have seen President Yasser Arafat remain a virtual prisoner of foreign occupation. We welcome the recent opinion given by the International Court of Justice that found the construction of the Israel wall to be in contravention of international law, and the subsequent General Assembly Resolution that demand the immediate halt to that monstrosity. Let me conclude, Mr. President, by assuring you of my country's support during the period you will preside over the work of this Session of the General Assembly. I also wish to reiterate my country's commitment to positively contribute to the fulfillment of the aims and purpose of the United Nations. I thank you.

Robert Mugabe Speech: 24th Independence Anniversary, 18 April 2004

Today, we once again celebrate, as free and proud Zimbabweans, our country's anniversary of Independence. We celebrate this 24th anniversary of our freedom with a stronger sense of unity and cohesion at home, and a strong sense of place and identity internationally. We face the future with confidence, hope and dignity. The last four years presented us a number of challenges and real trials for our country. Yet they have years also of break-throughs arising from our firm and indomitable stand on matters of national sovereignty and economic freedom, the high point being the fulfillment of our liberation war goal of recovering and regaining the ownership and control of our land, and distributing it to our people. Expectedly, this far reaching policy has not endeared us to those countries of the West, led by Britain and America, forcibly linked to us by cruel history of colonial occupation and other forms of imperial plunder. We will not compromise our principles of freedom and national sovereignty, no matter who gets upset. Zimbabwe is not for the convenience and pleasure of any country, less still of adventurous, bloodthirsty and domineering neo-colonialists. Zimbabwe will never be a colony again! While we continue to fine-tune the results of the Land Reform Programme, the focus is now clearly on the utilization of that land which is ours to work on, feed and prosper from. This, we must address with the same sense of urgency and resoluteness that characterized the four defining years that have gone by. The new Ministry of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement will expedite the land delivery process, once other outstanding matters, which include the acquisition programme, are resolved. Repossession of excess land from greedy multiple owners and re-distributing it to the needy and landless must be accelerated. Land must genuinely and irreversibly change hands in favour of the formerly landless indigenous population. It must never go back to the white settler community. The gray areas of our land policy, including land allocated to conservancies, should be resolved during this mop-up phase. The same also applies to agro-industrial concerns, particularly those belonging to owners and companies, who continue to show contempt for our people and our land policy. Such landowners must have their resistance broken once and for all. The financial support Government has extended to agriculture has been growing over the years, with the $150 billion made available through Agribank in the current Budget, bearing testimony to Government commitment to agrarian reform. This is over and above the billions that have been channeled to agriculture and irrigation through the Productive Sector Finance Facility and other instruments, including those availed to farmers by the private sector. A part from providing financial support for agriculture, it is clear that agrarian reform needs complementary extension and information services, an efficient input supply machinery and satisfactory provision of tillage. Happly, the bilateral agreements we have concluded with friendly countries like China, Malaysia, Egypt, Indonesia and Iran should facilitate greater mechanization in agriculture for enhanced output. Within the context of the National Economic Revival Programme, the 2004 National Budget and the December 2003 Monetary Policy Statement, Government is determined to tame inflation and grow the economy, relying of course, on the impulse from agriculture. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's pointed support for the productive and export sector facilities is expected to increase output in the manufacturing, agriculture, mining, tourism, construction and transport sectors. This positive outlook, which will benefit also from the deregulation of the oil industry, is expected to lead to an improved GDP out-turn, compared to the originally projected negative out-turn of 8.5 per cent. To ensure the country's self-sufficiency in electricity, Government has embarked on a process of opening up electricity generation to private participants. The electrification of rural areas continues at a satisfactory pace with assistance from friendly countries. Since the start of the Expanded Rural Electrification Programme, 2 125 institutions have been electrified countrywide, rendering true, the mission of " Taking Power to the People". Indeed, rural communities can contribute significantly to the economy if only they have electricity to drive their business. In the past year, Government continued to implement rural development projects, especially in the newly resettled areas. Throughout the country's fifty-eight districts, the Rural Development Fund implemented micro-scale rural infrastructure projects that included clinics, schools, and such water supply facilities as boreholes and piped water schemes. Work was also carried out on small-scale irrigation facilities, access roads, bridges and bakeries. Given the success of the programmes, a total of $16 billion has been allocated to the Rural Development Fund this financial year. Investor confidence in mineral exploration has improved significantly as demonstrated by the increase in the number of Exclusive Prospecting Orders which, this year, already stands at 179 for diamonds compared to 136 for all minerals in 2003 and only forty-six in 2002. The success story of Rio Tinto's Murowa diamond project in Zvishavane and the strengthening of investments at Ngezi, Mimosa and Unki platinum mines, also point to increased investor confidence. Further, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a Chinese company, which will lead to exploration for ferrochrome and other minerals. As part of Government's continued support for mining development, the sector has accessed $85, 8 billion from the Productive Sector Finance Facility. This should go some way in resourcing this crucial sector as principal earner of foreign exchange, and thus advancing our empowerment goals. The newly created Indigenisation and Empowerment Department in my Office will ensure that indigenisation and empowerment policies, including the takeovers and mergers that are being proposed in various, but principally, the financial sector, are consistent with our indigenisation thrust and benefit the majority of our people. Unless and until we commit ourselves to clean business practices, the billions of dollars we have made available for growth of our economy will not yield desired results. We have millions of youngsters without employment, who depend on Government safety nets for survival, education and general sustenance. All these want to work and the many facilities made available through banks, led by our Reserve Bank, are meant to bring about greater employment through an expanding economy. The National Housing Delivery Programme launched in November last year has seen the allocation of stands to housing co-operatives, land developers and individuals in Harare and other towns. Government hopes that by the end of this year, 250 000 Zimbabweans will have stands which will become their future homes. In addition, new housing arrangements to facilitate cheaper and faster housing delivery, using new technologies have been made. The Rural Housing Programme, which will assist people in resettlement and communal areas acquire descent housing, has also been revived. To this end, $400 million has been disbursed to Provincial Governors who will identify the beneficiaries. Government is deeply concerned about the escalating costs of education, which have the potential of undermining our proud record as Africa's most literate society. Government will soon come up with arrangements, which will continue to make education accessible to each and every child regardless of his status or family background. The HIV and AIDS pandemic continues to be, by far, the biggest challenge facing the country. Its devastating effects on the lives of individuals, families and communities have become known to all of us. Public education and awareness programmes continue to be intensified while the decentralized structures for the management and distribution of funds from the National Aids Levy also continue to be strengthened. Our security forces have continued to effectively and efficiently discharge their core function of safeguarding and guaranteeing our national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The country enjoyed peace and tranquility in the year 2003. These fine men and women performed exceptionally well by intercepting mercenary terrorists who would have wreaked real havoc in sister African republics. We thank them heartily for their alertness, and urge them to remain even more vigilant. In realm of foreign relations, we have continued to consolidate and broaden our excellent relations with our partners in SADC. We are grateful that SADC has remained firm in its support for Zimbabwe. The support we enjoy in the African Union, our continental organization, is similarly solid and unwavering. We are most grateful for it. Zimbabwe remains an African country whose obligations are to the continent of Africa. Our membership to other organizations outside our continent and the United Nations will strictly be on principles of equality and mutual respect. We will not allow our membership to be used against our interests or those of our neighbours, allies and friends. This is why we left the Commonwealth once it became apparent that some racist countries were using that colonial Club for selfish policy ends that were clearly detrimental to our national interest. For us in Zimbabwe, our challenge is to clearly join hands in unity and work selfishly for our country. We always aim at unity of purpose with those who share our salient principles and ideals and not with those align themselves with our enemies. We are Zimbabweans and will never, never ever, aspire to be Britons! I thank you.

Robert Mugabe Speech: 23rd Independence Anniversary, 18 April 2003

Today, the 18th of April 2003, is a special day for our country, marking the twenty-three years we have travelled as an independent and sovereign people. I say hearty congratulations Zimbabwe, and may this precious day forever remain with the children of this land. Long live our Freedom! Long live our Independence! In commemorating this day, we remain ever conscious of the fact that, behind it, is a whole history of painful struggle and huge sacrifice by our people. We use the day to affirm to them that the same spirit of patriotism, which propelled their valiant sons and daughters to battle, today immanently pervades and guards this nation, quick to chastise any of its citizens who dare betray the cause by pawning our hard-won Independence. Dear Zimbabweans, it gives me immeasurable pleasure to be able to tell you that the land which, for over a century and a decade we yearned to recover, has indeed finally come back. It has been delivered back to you who are its rightful owners. It has come back, notwithstanding the obstacles presented at every step of the way, by powerful western interests. Through our Land Reform Programme, we have now set a new concrete benchmark to our Independence. We have fore-grounded the question of decolonisation, the central question of the rights and conditions of the neo-colonially occupied and oppressed. The so-called unipolar world would like us to accept deprivation and, because we have asserted the right of our sovereignty, we are regarded as a great threat to powerful nations of the western hemisphere. In exercising the right of ownership to our resources, we designed our land reform, funded and implemented it with only that foreign assistance that came from a few friendly countries, most of them in the non-western world. We thank them immensely for their support and co-operation. The milestone we have achieved through our land reform is not the only important achievement of our twenty-three years of Independence. Even our own detractors grudgingly acknowledge the strides we have made in education and manpower development, health and child welfare, horticulture and forestry, mining and infrastructural development. Indeed, we have educated our children like no other nation on the sub-continent has done. Our literacy level is uniquely high, well over eighty percent, and quite a far cry from the low literacy levels under the British settler colonialism. Our products excel wherever they are and are in great demand throughout the world, including Britain. Our goal of universal primary education has largely borne fruit, as has also the vastly improved access to secondary education. Tertiary education has significantly expanded, underpinned by a good secondary educational base, numerous colleges, polytechnics, vocational schools or centres, and more than half a dozen universities, all except one, founded after Independence. I would like also to refer to our Electrification Programme, which is set to transform the life and economy of our countryside, again setting another benchmark of post-Independence progress. Given another two years, we shall certainly have electrified most of our rural areas. Our efforts at reviving the economy and improving the general welfare of our people can only take place in an environment of peace. As already noted, Zimbabwe has enjoyed continual peace, especially so after the landmark Unity Accord of 22 December 1987. This environment of peace has been the envy of many nations who have had the misfortune of losing their peace through fratricidal conflict. Let us maintain it through our national unity and complete rejection of violence. Those who reject democracy and choose the road of violence to achieve their political goals are the evil enemies of Zimbabwe and will not be allowed to succeed. Zimbabwe continues to seek interaction with other nations. Zimbabwe is an African country, which is part of the Third World. It belongs to a number of African and Third World organizations. We are a member of SADC, COMESA and the African Union and accordingly we shall continue to work towards greater integration of our region. This is more vital now than ever before, given the imperialist attempts by powerful nations to divide and subject us to their will. We abhor imperialistic machinations and iniquitous efforts by Britain and its ally, the United States, to recognize us and we stand ready to resist such attempts. Africa is far for Africans and Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans! Let us remain united in defence of our sovereignty, and in seeking a better future for our people. Let us believe in our future, an African future, shaped and driven by our ideals and efforts. We have already made a start to the turnaround of our economy and are beginning to break the economic shackles imposed by imperialism on our country. Our land, our dear Zimbabwe, will never again fall into foreign hands. Never, never, never! Long live our Freedom. Long live our Independence.

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.