Mugabe exports corporate violence

IT WAS in the thick of party conflict in 1800, that Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and the drafter of the Declaration of Independence wrote in a private letter, "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
This is a significant statement whose meaning is as valid today as it was in 1800 and has implications for countries and institutions in conflict. If Africans should agree on anything it is that they should eternally be hostile to the proposition that tyranny over the mind of man can be justified in the national interest. In fact many minds in Africa have been imprisoned and tortured and consequently reduced to a level where citizens are even afraid to speak their minds and contribute constructively to nation building.
Two weeks ago, I attended a court hearing in South Africa where the legality of the expropriation of my assets by the government of Zimbabwe using state of emergency laws was an issue. In question was whether South Africa should recognize the draconian measures taken by the government of Zimbabwe to seize control of my assets in manner that offends the constitution of South Africa.
The government of Zimbabwe was represented by a team of six advocates and lawyers led by Frans Odendaal SC that argued that the court should disregard how the government of Zimbabwe came to unlawfully violate my property rights.
Over the last two years, I have been shocked to discover that while President Mugabe purports to be the champion of black rights, in practice, the government prefers to use white service providers in the form of legal counsel. In the litigation in South Africa and the United Kingdom, the government of Zimbabwe is using the most expensive white legal service providers. I have come to accept that because my case involves corporate violence rather than physical, many people have not appreciated the essence of the series of draconian measures taken by the government of Zimbabwe in its pursuit to gain control over my assets.
The matter is not only complex but involves a number of jurisdictions and a litany of cases. However, what is at the heart of my case as well as a number of cases where the government of Zimbabwe has seen it fit to manufacture new laws to interfere with private property rights under the guise of national interest is the role of the state in undermining democracy and constitutionalism. If Jefferson was Zimbabwean, what would he make of the actions of the government of Zimbabwe on me and other corporate and individual victims? I also read with concern the comments made by Zambian presidential aspirant Michael Sata justifying the expropriation of private property by the government of Zimbabwe.
I was encouraged that my case caught the attention of an organization called, Friends of Zimbabwe Coalition (FOZC), whose representatives found time to attend the hearing on 22 September at the High Court of South Africa in Johannesburg. They, like many, could not believe that the government of Zimbabwe was represented by a high powered team of white lawyers whose daily cost exceeds about R100,000 at a time when the people of Zimbabwe are exposed to extreme poverty and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) representatives were beneficiaries of state violence for demanding an improvement of the standard of living for the working people. It is ironic that the firm representing the government of Zimbabwe, Brink Cohen Le Roux (BCLR) does not have to wait for any payment having been given a carte blanche to spare no cost in my case.
The question is why the government of Zimbabwe would be prepared to spend a fortune defending the expropriation of my assets in foreign jurisdictions unless there is something fundamentally wrong in the construction of the expropriation? I was only told after the court hearing that representatives of FOCZ took some pictures of Mugabe’s legal team with a view to exposing the racial twist to the hypocrisy of the government of Zimbabwe. However, during the hearing, Mugabe’s legal team raised their concern about the photographing by FOZC and the fact that they were being intimidated for representing Mugabe in South Africa. While Zimbabweans are subjected to tyranny every day, it was interesting to note that Mugabe’s legal team was afraid of being exposed. What was strange was that the client was missing in action (MIA) and the legal team was being instructed by Mr. Odendaal who told the judge that he was the leader of the team.
I attach (CLICK HERE TO READ) herewith a copy of a letter written to Mugabe’s lawyers subsequent to the hearing that I strongly feel people should read to better understand what is at play. It is instructive that the government of Zimbabwe has accepted the jurisdiction of foreign countries in my case and this provides a unique opportunity of exposing the manner in which the government is now functioning. For the first time, it is not a white farmer’s rights at stake but the rights of black man in Africa. While it is acceptable that many Zimbabweans and foreigners alike have chosen to trivialize my case using political and patronage language, what is real is that the laws that led the government to interfere with my property rights as well as the rights of others now exist and the same laws can be used against anyone. We now have a precedent where if the government wants something, legality becomes luxury, for the ruling party in power can use its majority to pass unjust laws to achieve illegal and immoral ends.
The human mind is the most powerful instrument of nature. If properly armed and informed it can overcome any tyranny. Using my case as an example the government of Zimbabwe has succeeded in concealing the facts of the matter from the public preferring to use expensive lawyers as a buffer. The intervention of FOCZ who I believe are planning to have a demonstration at the offices of BCLR on October 4, 2006, is a welcome development for it will for the first time expose the duplicity and hypocrisy of the government of Zimbabwe and its agents in dealing with the business of the state. The manner in which the organs of government have been hijacked by individuals like Gideon Gono, Afraz Gwaradzimba, Edwin Manikai, Simplisius Chihambakwe and others needs to be exposed, not only because I have an interest in the matter, but future generations of entrepreneurs need to be protected from an abusive and manipulated government.
In discussing my case and that of others whose property rights have been violated, it is important that we enhance the debate in Africa and Zimbabwe to go beyond human rights but also to include private property rights. To the extent that political actors in Zimbabwe have not focused on property rights as a struggle issue, it is not surprising that even President Mbeki may not be fully briefed on the unacceptable behaviour of the government of Zimbabwe and the attempt to export corporate violence beyond the borders of Zimbabwe as is evident in my case.
I do appreciate that those that are ideologically inclined to find private property rights as objectionable for Africans may see this article as self serving civic capitalist rubbish. This school of thought may choose to diminish the importance of the case to the nation building project because fundamentally, they have a problem with the market system and are suspicious of the role of big business. It is important that Africans enlarge the envelope of debate to include the ideological question and the kind of system that should capture the imagination of citizens to contribute towards the development of the continent while promoting and protecting the self interest of the citizens.
I do believe that the right to procure property and to use it for one's own enjoyment is essential to the freedom of every person, and our other rights would mean little without these rights of property ownership. It is also for these reasons that the government's power to tax property is placed in those representatives most frequently and directly responsible to the people, since it is the people themselves who must pay those taxes out of their holdings of property. I am sure that we all would agree that the true foundation of any republican government based on common citizenship is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management as observed by Jefferson.
Africans should entertain in due sense of their equal right to the acquisitions of their own industry. In a letter to Edward Bancroft in 1788, Jefferson said "He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force."
With respect to the right of citizens to own property, Jefferson’s writings provide profound statements that should be as relevant today for Africa and Zimbabwe in particular as they were when they were written. I quote hereunder some of Jefferson’s thoughts on this subject:
"The political institutions of America, its various soils and climates, opened a certain resource to the unfortunate and to the enterprising of every country and insured to them the acquisition and free possession of property." -- Thomas Jefferson: Declaration on Taking Up Arms, 1775. Papers 1:199.
"The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed... It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785. ME 19:18, Papers 8:682.
"[The] unequal division of property... occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which... is to be observed all over Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785. ME 19:17, Papers 8:681.
"I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785. ME 19:17, Papers 8:682
With respect of the protection of private property rights, Jefferson had this to say: "[The] rights [of the people] to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816.
"I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33. --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805.
"Our wish... is that... equality of rights [be] maintained, and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers." ME 3:382.
"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy's "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:466.
"If the overgrown wealth of an individual is deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates it." --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy's "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:466
On the question of rights associated with ownership, Jefferson wrote: "By nature's law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force his own property taken from him by another by force or fraud. Nor is this natural right among the first which is taken into the hands of regular government after it is instituted. It was long retained by our ancestors. It was a part of their common law, laid down in their books, recognized by all the authorities, and regulated as to circumstances of practice." --Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:104.
"Charged with the care of the general interest of the nation, and among these with the preservation of their lands from intrusion, I exercised, on their behalf, a right given by nature to all men, individual or associated, that of rescuing their own property wrongfully taken." --Thomas Jefferson to W. C. C. Claiborne, 1810. ME 12:383.
"Nothing is ours, which another may deprive us of." --Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:440.
"[If government have] a right of demanding ad libitum and of taxing us themselves to the full amount of their demand if we do not comply with it, [this would leave] us without anything we can call property." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Lord North, 1775. Papers 1:233.
"The first foundations of the social compact would be broken up were we definitely to refuse to its members the protection of their persons and property while in their lawful pursuits." --Thomas Jefferson to James Maury, 1812. ME 13:145.
"Persons and property make the sum of the objects of government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:459, Papers 15:396.
"The right to sell is one of the rights of property." --Thomas Jefferson to Handsome Lake, 1802. ME 16:395.
As we grope for solutions for not only Zimbabwe but the continent, it is important that we locate the conversations of those who came before us and who were seized with similar issues and challenges about how nationalism could be constructively used to enhance the capacity and capability of individuals to contribute towards collective ends in their own self interest. We need to ask the question whether the post-colonial state in Africa has been an enabler or disabler of the African mind. Is there tyranny over the mind of man in Africa and how does it manifest itself? Who has been responsible for terrorizing the African mind to accept lesser standards than other nations? Is it the case that the Zimbabwean mind has been eternally poisoned by the virtues of the liberation struggle to the extent that it cannot see through misplaced policies and the criminality of the state? How can citizens reclaim their minds from spin doctors?
I have often argued that it is misplaced to blame African leaders for the plight of the continent and the drought that characterizes the solution market for Africa’s problems. For how could leaders be the only culpable persons when even our scribes and counter elites have chosen to turn a blind eye to the real defining issues that can make or break a people. I have chosen the issue of property rights because I am one of the fortunate one to have been privileged to have a different relations to property than those who came before me. I am conscious that no white administration would have allowed me to own property and even challenge a colonial state over any violation of my property rights. I am equally conscious that I am a beneficiary of the liberation struggle that made it possible to own property as a private citizen.
When I left the World Bank in 1995, I had no idea that I would be a victim of the post-colonial state whose leaders came from the womb of the struggle for emancipation and the same leaders would behave in an identical manner to the behavior characteristic of the colonial state. I naively thought that the ascendancy of blacks in economic endeavors was part of the struggle and hence my passion for black economic empowerment and the need for a black corporate heritage informed by our own history and culture. However, the events that have taken place since my emergence into the mainstream business environment in Africa have convinced me that conceptually Africa may not be ready to accept a capitalist construction in which black business plays a central part.
Having created new addresses for blacks and provided inspiration to other aspiring entrepreneurs, I believe that it would be irresponsible for a person like me to keep my experiences to myself. In as much as I was almost thinking that I was alone, I have been encouraged by the intervention of the FOCZ and the proposed demonstration in Johannesburg not only because it broadens the mind but because it will help deepen our business vocabulary in a manner that entrenches the value of private property as an integral part of the nation building project. If the language of business can be popularized in Africa then I am convinced that bad leaders pursuing bad policies will not have any sanctuary in misplaced nationalism.
While the same African leaders want a seat for Africa in the Security Council of the UN with a veto, it is not surprising that they would not even countenance the same right to their citizens. It is important that Africans wake up and organize beyond borders in as much as the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) is trying to do for the unaccountable governments of the developing world who champion the anti-imperialism struggle while at the same time monopolizing the national political and economic space.
I have also used Jefferson’s words only to demonstrate the kind of mind that occupies leaders of a nation determined to make history. I have asked myself the question of how many of our 53 leaders in Africa spent time from their busy schedules to reflect on the African promise and locate property rights in the same trajectory as human rights that they often have no regard for.
It would also be interesting to understand and appreciate whether people like President Mugabe being the founding fathers of Zimbabwe ever reflected on what kind of relationship citizens should have in the post colonial state with property. If we could compare the words of Jefferson with President Mugabe over the last twenty six years would we see any similarities and how would they pair as revolutionaries? Would the level of conversation be comparable and would it be fair to compare the two?