Robert Mugabe, 1997 - BBC HARDtalk

[Music] during a decade of war 20 years ago the white swarm that he was the devil incarnate a black guerrilla leader who would destroy their country and kick out the whites 17 years since independence from Britain and a sweeping election victory my guest on HARDtalk remains firmly in power to firmly say an increasing number of white and black voices question his aloof style and his method of government you've been in power now for 17 years only now you say is Africa pulling itself out of the Dark Age of what you call unreason cruelty and irrationality you blame the colonialists of Europe for the legacy they left leaders like you in Africa you complain that Africa is being dubbed no hope and a dark continent and is really being misrepresented by the international community what do you therefore see happening now in your continent of Africa particularly here in southern Africa well I see quite a lot happening there has been a kind of transformation transformation in the thinking of Africa and a transformation that has been assisted to a very great extent by the thinking elsewhere in terms of the concepts that should govern good society very much of stereotypes about Africa yes are you breaking those stereotypes yes I think so I think I think we are having emerged from a system of colonialism obviously and there was a limited scope you know that that one found in a situation in which people were poor and people had not had the legacy of democracy and they had to make a fresh start so now that fresh start has been made and we know the mistakes that have been made also by the first generation of leaders and those are being corrected along the way there is talk of democracy everywhere and thank heavens that talk is has become international his talk throughout the world and and so what the world says in one part of the world is repeated elsewhere you complain particularly recently and I'm quoting your words here about the image of conflict of violence of even witchcraft you've caught it disease grinding poverty and hunger that you say is the image still of Africa how much is really changing this model world well quite a lot has been changing a lot has been done in various societies and especially in what you might call the emerging societies of Africa and a lot has happened through education through the creation of communities that are well United and that can now see the way things are going and that are united in their efforts to bring about improvement improvement in various ways intellectually improvement in terms of the lives of people as they affected by good health and eradication of disease although we are still haunted by quite a number of maladies and poverty and poverty well I'm not saying that all is now well all is perfect mistakes are still being made in some some areas we still have dictatorships that must go dictatorships that won't listen to the the call for democracy and which which have got to be made to listen which dictated ships do you believe you should go well they are still dictatorships in Africa I don't want to offend anyone but I'm glad that there is so much pressure so much pressure within countries so much pressure from outside and outside within Africa outside of Africa which all of these pressures go towards obviously influencing the individuals who are in these despotic positions to change their course mr. president how long there do you think you can keep blaming the past and the history of colonialism for the problems you now face particularly the forms of the slave trade in the past and so on because you have taught have been in power now for 17 years do you feel frustrated at the levers you've pulled and the problems you still see no I'm not frustrated at all I think I'm one of the happiest persons in Africa but what one must never forget that the effects of colonialism or new we still have some vestiges of colonialism here and there our society is not perfect yet there are people who still think non-racial in racial terms like Ian Smith is in our midst and recently published a book as it were reiterating exactly what he used to do what he he desired and this is still the kind of life he lives he wants to live but things have changed the only any whites in your country are still thinking in a colonial way they're thinking forward privatisation so yes there's some of them are still thinking not many but there are others were still thinking in in that same Rhodesian way in fact they're their roadies Rodie organized I mean groups that that knit together and are responsible for part of the bad image that is portrayed abroad through propaganda but really the majority of of the whites are forthcoming especially the younger ones one of the things you are trying to introduce here is privatization your mantra you keep saying is privatization but there are many complaints that I hear that from businessman they wish it would work much better in other words a sense that maybe you're not galvanizing it forward at the kind of speed you would learn but when you talk of privatization in this country really you're talking of just a small and insignificant area that is still controlled by government and you're talking of a handful of parastatals privatization took place long ago in this country we never nationalized a single industry in this country when we took over but of course there are these parastatals most of them we inherited from Ian Smith a few others we created ourselves and it is ROS which people are talking about when they refer to our privatization program you are in your 17 years have moved ahead very substantially on education and health but still there are many who is saying 17 years they're still rising unemployment they're still high inflation there's still poverty which is rising there's a rising of infant mortality a feeling that really you haven't managed to achieve those great aspirations with which you came to power in which you were elected 17 years ago do you feel a sense of frustration now you haven't achieved what you would have liked to achieve so far I've I feel really I have a sense of of joy that we have achieved much more than we have not achieved in other words some of our goals have been achieved still analysts are yet to be achieved it all boils down to the resources that are available and the times haven't been good as I said earlier on we have had the successive droughts which have had a new effects and a very serious impact on our programs and we had to reverse some of our programs but many others were allowed to continue were facilitated and and I want to say that there has been a greater achievement than failure really but they having said that I must admit that we have not been able to create the levels of employment that we set out to create and that's why we came up with the economic reform program which is now beginning to work one of the interesting things talking to you mr. president is about what you think your paradigm your model is now for a southern African state both economically and politically you came to power 17 years having fought in the bush having been through the Lancaster House negotiations you came to power freely elected but your your principles were Marxist now your party's our new PF several years ago dropped the Marxist that idea you generated the idea of what you called scientific socialism with all this talk about private sector development here in your country of Zimbabwe is there socialism here still or are you a different kind of president now true we had to accept that change should come and change in various ways we had to revise our own ideology and that was done in the party and sadly we we had to shed off some of our Maxis Apple in your heart used to feel a Marxist in my heart Phyllis socialist we were never maddest to the extent that the Soviet Union was in in in our ideological beliefs we didn't believe in a regimentation and we carried out no regimentation we didn't believe the nationalization and we carried out no nationalization in theory no we in fact we were more magnets in theory than we were in practice and and so when time came for us to review the situation including our ideology we had this history for our performance and we say to ourselves yes we in theory be being named exist but what Muggs ISM every practiced since 1980 hardly any so what is Amir self-criticism but we did accept that in regard to our socialist thrust we had brought up the level of education and there was now education an education program that was accessible to every child and in that regard and also in regard to health we had succeeded but we hadn't succeeded in promoting industry and its development and so let's open up let's remove those breaks which prevented the expansion of industry who kept out investment and that's how we did it so on the one hand we will be capitalistic in our thrust but we know we have to retain a socialist thrust in regard to social services well in regard to the poor the poor we shall always have and in regard to the development of of the peasantry and and of course taking care of the people in times of hardship says in times of droughts but on the other hand here you you talk time and time again about democracy we have democracy here democracy is about the future of southern Africa in a sense do you instinctively mr. president wonder if actually a form of authoritarian democracy is what is going to generate economic development because after all your parties are new p f has a 147 of 150 seats here yes sure that is because one the people's have I've continued to regard us as the party responsible for the new dispensation that they now have in the country by way of a free society democracy etc - because of our unity the two parties came together and that then or v8 the possibility of another party emerging you know in in in those circumstances as an opposition party it will take time for an opposition party to to grow here but a divergence of views has started to show itself even within the party and it's for the better if at the end of the day you are accept there is that divergence of viewpoint and the view the various views are expressed but as all so long as they end up by except through an acceptance that those whose view is preponderance carry the day then there is nothing wrong with a dive ancient divergence of viewpoints what do you say to those who say it's still very much an authoritarian system here despite the way you always talk about democracy and pluralism I don't know what you call authoritarianism the decisions of the party virtually single party the decisions of the party they find expression obviously in government through policies and if you can call that authoritarianism well there it is but how else do you do it you feel soft able if there is an opposition there is almost no opposition no no I don't feel there I don't feel uncomfortable at all and there is room for an opposition to grow but unfortunately there hasn't been people with real views you can call progessive sufficiently progressive more progressive than your own which they can command support I take it as time goes on that that's bound to happen and when it has happened you can't lament it has happened is if the people who have wanted it but having said that may I say we cherish our unity and we believe that without unity you can't succeed at all and then hence we would want to keep united as a people we will always preach the the gospel of unity and that even those with different viewpoints should continue to hold that we have one destiny as a people we must be tolerant we must accept the viewpoints that our posture own but at the end of the day we have won one flag one national anthem and therefore one goal as in Babli but we speak at a moment when your party's on opf appears to be having serious problems over the issue of the airport when at the moment quite a large number of MPs are refusing to even adhere to the whip of your party to even come and discuss it in a caucus now does this leave you despite the fact you say there is unity with a sense that something is now changing here within your know this has happened in the past is not happening for the first time a sometimes really it happens because there is dereliction of duty people do not take their their tasks seriously and you need the whip to read so whip them into criticizing you at the moment say they say this is actually symptomatic of a of a more deep felt sense of social unrest now here no I don't think so I don't think so IIIi don't see any real basis for for social unrest in a country like this there is growth and that growth is I mean the growth of the economy is translating itself now into higher incomes on the part of the people there is business developing and enterprise new enterprises are are coming up and those which have existed all along are expanding and there is greater employment every year now rather than retrenchments which we extremely experienced some 2-3 years ago nevertheless there are those political observers who are saying that something is happening within zanu-pf a sense that something is changing particularly the the anxiety there is over certain contracts which have been issued lately and contracts which some people are now calling into question and well it's good it's good to call them into question when when they don't see them being transparent you had the easy about some of these contracts the way they've been awarded no I don't at all yeah I think in some cases it's just wrong suspicions I think they have been discussed discussed well first there is there is a tender board and the tender board makes a decision and the decision then comes to us we look at it we see whether it was fairly reached if we see it was fairly reached for fine the winner takes it but there there has been just one instance where we wanted tenders to establish what participants they were but government had to take a decision and a decision in also in political terms we have had participants from Europe who have had participants from America in our economy let's give this one to a participant in Malaysia and that that's the only area which some say has given consent and they say there was no transparency but we're talking about the principles here of an economy of politics of governance yes and you will be aware of some of the voices who expressed deep concern that there is a level of corruption which is now creeping in which is actually potentially destabilizing the system you have set up how do you see it mr. president from your position do you accept that this is actually something which is now a serious problem that isn't bad way or not I don't think it's a serious problem as it is in some countries but in any corruption at any level is something we must fight against and in Zimbabwe it is in the area where persons are asked to be given something for them to perform what is really their duty to perform if for example the police at a border post asked to be rewarded for performing their duty and immigration officers for him to issue a visa asks for something for a tip that's wrong and I think we're talking about bigger deals that kind of thing a sense that the government is not necessarily as you know they're they that that I haven't heard about deals are awarded with the consent of government and I do not know of a deal where government has received Commission they may be and the tendency on the part of some of the contractors or those who participate in tenders you know on the government side as well there to give commissions and a talk to some influential person and tip them off that perhaps has happened we we only go by suspicion and by what people say but hearsay is not always the truth but do you feel comfortable with the idea of Commission's to investigate this because there yes I hit at at times the the government has backed away from Commission's fearful of what those no this is what the the so-called opposition prayer says there is nothing that we have a far away from or shied away from and that needs investigation there is reference for example to to the issue of the war victims compensation and that people who should not have applied for it did apply for it and we asked the Ministry of Public Service labor and social welfare to go into it and they're going into it they produced a list which I think does show precisely that that yes some people who should not have applied did apply including some high standing people in government mr. president we started off discussing today Africa could I return to Africa we have had an extraordinary upheaval recently in Zion now the Democratic Republic of Congo what has this told you about the future of Africa and the future of people like mr. Mobutu president Mobutu who tried to cling to power I've learned nothing I've only seen the the experience elsewhere being repeated in in Ziya the continuation of what you started we did it here they have done it in South Africa they did it in Namibia did it in Mozambique and Angola and what has happened in Aiea has only this difference that the oppressor has been an indigenous person is the israelian or Congolese if you want but in our own situation the presence where we're foreigners and had been foreigners we had established themselves here do you see now a new model emerging for these kind of nascent democracies like in the Democratic Republic of Congo well we we see democracy being redefined in Africa but of course the parameters are going to be the same and there is no greater parameter than that any system of government must be an expression of the will of the people and however the people are organized President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe thank you very much indeed for talking this thank you very much indeed [Music]

Channel: BBC HARDtalk

Views: 647,111

Keywords: BBC Hardtalk, politics, interview BBC, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe

Id: Fj3KAV0ZPfI

Length: 24min 40sec (1480 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 06 2019