By Shepherd Manhambara

SPEAKING on AlJazeera television on November 23 2013 former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, made a stunning revelation—that Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, tried to pressurise him to co-operate in a regime change scheme which would have resulted in the physical removal of President Mugabe from power for alleged human rights abuses!
Although Blair denied he asked anyone to plan or take part in any such military intervention, such a denial sounds hollow because in his own memoirs Blair himself confesses he found Zimbabwe’s neighbours, “for some strange reason”, unwilling to take any stern action against Mugabe!
In other words, Britain solicited for assistance from these neighbours, but found no takers for its military plans against Zimbabwe.
The fact that plans against Zimbabwe were discussed by the British establishment is also confirmed by no other than the then chief of the British armed forces, Sir Guthrie, who also writes in his memoirs that he was asked several times to work out plans for a military attack on Zimbabwe.
In good time, we should also expect similar revelations to come from others of Zimbabwe’s neighbours!
The revelation by Mbeki is not an ordinary matter, which can be treated in a casual manner in the way we routinely report and comment about issues which ordinarily affect our lives.
Blair planned to unleash a devastating war against Zimbabwean people for the simple reason that they had dared to take back their land from about 4 000 British thieves who had stolen it from its indigenous owners in the first place!
The implications of Blair’s war in Zimbabwe would have been far reaching for both sides and it is crucial to examine some of these and learn appropriate lessons.
First, Britain tried hard and for long to enlist the support of other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries in its efforts to effect regime change in Zimbabwe, especially from 2000 right up to the present!
And the reason is simple; being more than 8 000 miles away, Britain desperately needed assistance from Africans themselves in order to achieve its diabolical aim, that is assistance in the form of military bases close to Zimbabwe for operational purposes and in the form of political support in order to legitimise its aggression against Zimbabwe!
This divide and rule tactic has been used by Britain many times before so as to enslave and colonise Africa!
Second, British attempts to enlist African support for its wars of aggression in Africa are based on a racist belief that Africans are gullible and childlike characters easy to manipulate and control; all that is needed is to dangle vague, but tempting financial promises before African leaders and they will do anything to please the British! Put simply British policy towards Africa is more often than not based on its racist contempt for Africans.
Blair must have found it puzzling that Mbeki did not turn out to be a wishy-washy and unprincipled African leader keen to sell out Zimbabwe for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver!
Third, the reason often cited by Blair to justify his hostile policy towards Zimbabwe is that President Mugabe is a dictator violating human rights of his own people and thus should not be allowed to rule Zimbabwe!
It turns out Blair wanted to use the same spurious reason to justify a military attack that would end with the physical elimination of Zimbabwe’s president and the installation of a puppet government led by no other than Tsvangirai.
The fundamental question is: who authorised this British charlatan to pick and choose Zimbabwe’s leaders?
Britain’s record in Africa is well known for its brutality and savagery against natives and not for human rights!
The argument over the violation of human rights by Mugabe is therefore shallow and unconvincing in so far as Zimbabweans themselves continue to love the man and to vote for him, in the process inflicting a humiliating defeat of British policy towards Zimbabwe.
Fourth, the British establishment of which Blair is part is ashamed to confess before the whole world that the human rights they talk about are actually centred on property rights of 4 000 British thieves who were compelled by Mugabe to surrender prime land they stole at the expense of everyone else!
To put it dramatically, where Mugabe was concerned about the economic rights of over 450 000 people, Blair was obsessed with the property rights of 4 000 whites notwithstanding the fact that each of these whites was guaranteed to retain one farm of their choice by the same Mugabe!
It is appalling that in this day and age, the British behave as if Africans are not entitled to any economic rights beyond that of a labourer!
A deeply racist philosophy which justifies ownership of African resources by whites lies at the heart of British policy towards Africa in general.
The crime Mugabe has committed is to challenge successfully such British racism, bigotry and greed and for that Zimbabwe has to be attacked militarily before a new British government with black faces is installed in Harare!
What an irony–that while they are condemning Mugabe ostensibly for being a dictator they are actually planning to install their own colonial version of dictatorship in Harare on the back of the British army!
Fifth, most of us recall that in the 60s and 70s, the British refused to intervene militarily in the then Rhodesia when Ian Smith and his Rhodesian Front party rebelled against the Queen!
The then prime minister, Harold Wilson, made it clear that the British public would not stomach the idea of young English boys from the British military shooting at their kinsmen in Rhodesia!
Now that blacks are in control of the same country Britain is now keen to use its military to resolve its differences with Zimbabwe! Why?
Because the casualties of such a war would be blacks and their deaths would not count for much before the British public!