Muckraker: You don’t have to be racist to be a patriot

Indepdendent

6 October 2011

How many readers have heard of the “Cuban Five”? It would be surprising if you haven’t because the state media in Zimbabwe has given them an inordinate amount of publicity.

The five were arrested in Miami in 1998 and charged with espionage. The five claim they were helpful to the US authorities. Whatever the case, they remain incarcerated in Miami.

According to the Cuban government: “In September 1998 five Cubans were arrested in Miami by FBI agents. Their mission in the US was to monitor activities of groups and organisations responsible for terrorist activities against Cuba.”

The Herald, which carried a sympathetic account of their ordeal last month, reminds us of Cuba’s contribution to Zimbabwe’s “revolutionary principles” and the assistance rendered at the time of Independence in the field of education and medicine.

We will not controvert any of this. Cuba has been generous in its assistance to Southern Africa over the years since the 1960s. But what strikes us as extraordinary is the way states like Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique have done nothing to express solidarity with journalists, writers and civic activists who have been incarcerated in Cuba and left to rot.

There was a brief episode when a handful of writers were released following Pope John Paul’s visit to the island, but the beneficiaries were obliged to seek exile in Spain.

Meanwhile, the Cuban Five’s supporters here complain bitterly that if the five are released they will have to remain in Miami.

The other dimension to this is that supporters of the Cuban Five have never bothered to tell us what they think of activists held in Zimbabwe’s jails. What about the MDC officials who were accused of involvement in killing Cain Nkala, who was suspected of kidnapping David Coltart’s election agent, Patrick Nabanyama.

President Mugabe went to Bulawayo and branded them terrorists. They were subsequently locked up for 21 months after Justice George Chiweshe reversed an order by Justice Lawrence Kamocha who had ruled that the accused could not be indicted for trial. They were, after a marathon trial, acquitted by Justice Sandra Mungwira in August 2004. Fletcher Dulini-Ncube lost the sight of an eye during his detention.

Surely the supporters of the Cuban Five have something to say about this lest the world thinks them hypocrites.

It was amusing to witness the turn of events in Zambia last week. Zanu PF was celebrating what they considered a great victory. This was a kick in the teeth for imperialism. Acres of forests were being chopped down to produce the pulp necessary to send the word that Michael Sata was a friend of Mugabe and an enemy of the MDC. Columnists like Reason Wafawarova were ecstatic.

“Closer home, Michael Sata of Zambia just won an election against the West’s favourite MMD and the win is an emphatic message that indeed imperialism is not invincible,” he crowed.

Life isn’t that simple. One of Sata’s first moves was to tell the Chinese they could do business in Zambia on the same terms as everybody else. They would not receive any favoured treatment from his government, he made clear. And let’s hope the appointment of veteran nationalist Guy Scott as VP sends a clear message to Zimbabwe’s delinquent nationalists that you don’t have to be a racist to be a good patriot!