ANDREW MELDRUM was deported from Zimbabwe in May 2003 for his brave, but absolutely baseless fabrication that an elderly woman had been decapitated "by Mugabe supporters" in front of her two young children.

He simply concocted the story from thin air.

In 2004 Meldrum went on to win the Schork Award for "courageous international journalism" from Columbia University — a reward for courageously coming up with imaginary horror stories to vilify the person of Robert Mugabe.

This writer incidentally came across a piece recently written by Meldrum in his current role as senior editor of the Global Post.

He was at his usual prodigious self — wallowing in white supremacy as he engaged in a typical pontifical take on how WikiLeaks had carried out what he called "gossip" on African leaders through diplomatic cables.

He started off with a portentous appreciation of the criticism levelled against Nelson Mandela by George W. Bush's senior officials. Meldrum found this criticism acceptable and "expected" because of "Mandela's outspoken opposition to the US invasion of Iraq".

Andrew Meldrum has the illusion that Western aggression is holy and should be acceptable to all people because he is raised to think that his race and genealogy cannot be accused of evil. So he sees the revered Nelson Mandela as errant for daring to criticise a war for the "democratisation" of Iraq. In this sense the whole world must understand the leaked sharp criticism of Mandela by the Bush administration. Mandela has no right to condemn the West, regardless of the excesses of this illegal act of aggression.

The puerile celebrations by Meldrum about the leaked "revelations" that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi "has botox and is dependent upon a voluptuous Ukrainian nurse", are not surprising at all given the man's traditional childish approach to journalism and what constitutes news.

Then there is the ostentatious and supremacist comment where Meldrum outrageously attacked Johnnie Carson for calling the Kenyan government "to say the administration of President Barack Obama is sorry for the undiplomatic remarks", made by Hillary Clinton when she went to Nairobi and described the Kenyan leadership as "so corrupt that they threaten the country's democracy".

So Carson and Obama did the wrong thing correcting Hillary Clinton's supremacist judgments over the leadership of a country she hardly knows anything about? This is the Clinton who ordered US spies to infiltrate the United Nations, according to the same leaks.

So appalled was Meldrum that he wrote: "The most surprising part is that the United States officially apologised to the Kenyan government."

Such a thing is unthinkable in the world Meldrum lives — it is an unimaginable gesture that every self-respecting Westerner must find absolutely appalling. The US should never be apologising to the lesser people — more so the lesser of the lesser from Africa.

The grandiloquent take on the leaked Dell document on Zimbabwe brought the best out of Andrew Meldrum — his very best as an overly illusional son of the imperialistic culture that creates the belief that this planet comprises of superior beings and lesser ones — that superiority has something to do with whiteness and that darker colours are a sign of inadequacy.

He began: "It is hardly news that US officials condemn Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. Washington has been doing that for years. Even Republicans and Democrats can agree that Mugabe is a bad guy who has dismantled Zimbabwe's democracy and reduced its once prosperous economy to penury."

So this world must accept the condemnation of Robert Mugabe because Andrew Meldrum has discovered that the Republicans and the Democrats "can agree that Mugabe is a bad guy"? And Meldrum tells us that this is a reality that cannot be news to anyone.

Well, Robert Mugabe, Sadc and the AU have all agreed that Western sanctions on Zimbabwe have destroyed the economy of Zimbabwe in the last 10 years and yet Meldrum tells us that "it is not news" that Mugabe reduced Zimbabwe's economy "to penury". Such a claim is news to Africa — and that is why Africa is unanimously calling for the lifting of all forms of sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Meldrum went on to provide an interesting quote from Dell's leaked document — a document he described as "fascinating".

He quoted: "Robert Mugabe has survived for so long because he is more clever (sic) and more ruthless than any other politician in Zimbabwe. To give the devil his due he is a brilliant tactician and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalise the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda."

Meldrum reckons that Dell's praises for President Robert Mugabe did not go far enough. He said: "Not only can Mugabe outwit any politician in Zimbabwe, he can outmanoeuvre virtually everyone on the international stage, too."

Many will remember the 2007 EU-Africa Lisbon Summit, the Dar es Salaam Sadc summit of March 2007, the four blocked attempts at having Zimbabwe sanctioned by the UN and many other examples of Robert Mugabe's diplomatic victories over Western aggression.

The EU-Africa Lisbon Summit was attended by Robert Mugabe despite loud protests from some European countries as led by Britain, whose Gordon Brown had to flee his own continent in protest to Mugabe's presence in Italy. Africa had simply said "we are coming with Mugabe or there is no summit".

The Dar es Salaam Sadc summit was held in the aftermath of the March 11 2007 clash between the then opposition MDC and the Zimbabwe police. This was after Morgan Tsvangirai declared that his party was going to disregard the law and to march in order "to remove the regime" through a campaign he called the "Defiance Campaign".

Many warned before March 11 that the move was unwise but Tsvangirai was determined to defying the law — cruising for a bruising that surely came to pass.

The clash with the police was a bloody one and it claimed the life of one youth and Tsvangirai and a few others came out of it with bruises that were widely shown across the world.

The images of a bruised Tsvangirai were seen in the West as strong ammunition to arm-twist Sadc into turning against President Mugabe. The summit was held on March 30 and when it ended the BBC described President Mugabe as having "walked out of the summit with a spring in his step". Sadc had simply seen well beyond the bruises of those who had come second best to the Zimbabwe police.

President Mugabe had every reason to have a spring in his step — he had just scored another major diplomatic victory against his Western adversaries.

The communiqué from the summit read:

l The Extraordinary Summit noted and appreciated the briefing by His Excellency President Robert G. Mugabe on the current political developments in Zimbabwe.

-The Extraordinary Summit recalled that free, fair and democratic presidential election were held in 2002 in Zimbabwe.

-The Extraordinary Summit reaffirmed its solidarity with the Government and people of Zimbabwe.

-The Extraordinary Summit mandated His Excellency President Thabo Mbeki to continue to facilitate dialogue between the opposition and the Government and report back to the Troika on progress.

-The Extraordinary Summit also encouraged enhanced diplomatic contacts which will assist with the resolution of the situation in Zimbabwe.

-The Extraordinary Summit mandated the Sadc Executive Secretary to undertake a study on the economic situation in Zimbabwe and propose measures on how Sadc can assist Zimbabwe recover economically.

-The Extraordinary Summit reiterated the appeal to Britain to honour its compensation obligations with regards to land reform made at the Lancaster House.

-The Extraordinary Summit appealed for the lifting of all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Indeed, Andrew Meldrum is right in his assertion that President Mugabe has managed to outmanoeuvre his political adversaries both within Zimbabwe and at the international stage.

But Sadc was neither outmanoeuvred nor manipulated by President Mugabe. They simply made known their honest observation of the political developments in Zimbabwe then — something so much misinterpreted by many people in the West today, especially those from the Western political community. The West always sees "the dictator" in Zimbabwe and Sadc sees the Western imperialists pushing to oust a nationalist and revolutionary party.

Meldrum is a Westerner and a very bad one at that. He totally believes that his opinion about Robert Mugabe is a matter of fact, and that such an opinion must be respected as the truth. His idea that Mugabe is "a bad guy" is a Western one and it is an idea largely confined to Western boundaries and perhaps stretching a bit to those who are victims of the manufactured consent that comes from the Western propaganda model.

Meldrum outlines a sample list of some Western leaders that have been outwitted by President Mugabe in the past.

He wrote: "Mugabe has run rings around world leaders ranging from George Bush to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. British prime ministers who have been outfoxed by Mugabe include Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. The list goes on. Mugabe is a world-class tactician."

Meldrum very correctly noted that Christopher Dell was completely wrong in his prediction that President Mugabe would lose power because of the country's economic decline. Many thought the calamities brought about by the illegally imposed Western economic sanctions would come with the demise of Zanu-PF and President Mugabe.

Even inflation of over 200 million percent was not good enough to help the Westerners in their bid to oust President Robert Mugabe. When Western sanctions hit hard on the water supplies of Harare there was a cholera outbreak and Meldrum makes the Episcopal claim that the cholera outbreak was "caused by Mugabe's misrule and his willful refusal to provide basic sanitation". Nothing can be more baseless.

One wonders why it should make sense that Robert Mugabe would find it in his political interest to willfully refuse to provide sanitation for the very people he intended to govern, and from whom he was expecting votes. But this is the soaring propaganda emanating from the West so Mugabe can be seen from very bad light. It is all part of the politics of vilification.

Meldrum is quite bitter about the US failure to effect regime change in Zimbabwe.

He wrote: "The WikiLeaks cable shows that the United States has not been farsighted enough to be effective in pressing for an end to Mugabe's rule. Dell said that the best solution to Zimbabwe would be for Mugabe to be voted out of power by free and fair elections under international supervision. Yet he leaves it up to South African President Thabo Mbeki to achieve that goal."

One would think that Dell had power to leave the election up to anyone of his choice. Dell was soundly defeated and humiliated by the Zimbabwean Government and it is an insult to Thabo Mbeki for Meldrum to claim that Dell had anything to do with the former South African president's well respected mediation in Zimbabwe.

Meldrum derided Mbeki's efforts that brought the inclusive Government he described as "the unwieldy Government that exists today and which has only served to keep Mugabe in power".

Of course, Meldrum wants a Government that wields to Western hegemony and he is frustrated that such a thing is just not happening at the moment — with President Mugabe clearly regaining his traditional confidence with each day passing since he swore Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister in his Government — an event Westerners hoped would begin the downfall of Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe.

Meldrum has a suggestion for the US government, albeit a very puerile and hopeless one.

He wrote: "Therefore the United States must be more clever (sic) in its diplomacy in Southern Africa if it wants to successfully deal with Mugabe. Rather than let South Africa mislead it on Mugabe, US diplomats should build a core group of African leaders who will press to restore democracy in Zimbabwe."

Just how do US diplomats build a "core group" of puppet African leaders that would toe the Washington line and do the US bidding on Zimbabwe? From the leaked document, it is quite clear that US diplomats in Harare are not really managing to rein in one of the most known Western puppets from Africa, Morgan Tsvangirai. That is only one puppet to manage.

While Tsvangirai is undoubtedly committed to taking instructions from Washington, Dell complained bitterly that he is an arrogant and obnoxious "flawed figure" who disregards advice from his own colleagues. If the US diplomats cannot get it right in taming Tsvangirai, how does Meldrum think they can build a core group of puppets in Africa?

Then we have the mixed views of the United States over Tsvangirai. Dell wrote that Tsvangirai is the "only player on the scene now with real star quality and the ability to rally the masses. But Tsvangirai is also a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him."

Many Zimbabweans know for a fact that without Western sanctions Morgan Tsvangirai cannot even rally school kids, let alone the masses. And this is precisely because Tsvangirai is "a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him". The masses of Zimbabwe are a highly discerning lot.

Stripped of Western backing and the ruinous leverage provided by the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, Tsvangirai cannot win an election even as a ward councillor. He lost the parliamentary election to his cousin Kenneth Manyonda in 2000, and that was purely because the people of Buhera were far less than impressed by him, all for the very reason noted by Dell.

Meldrum urges his imperial homeland to "restore democracy" in Zimbabwe and he says without irony that such an effort is legitimate and must be acceptable to Africans and Zimbabweans.

This is despite that democracy does not even exist in the US, a country run by the will of corporations as supported by the military and political elites.

Meldrum wrote: "The United States must use all diplomatic skill to build an Africa-wide coalition to restore democracy in Zimbabwe."

It is mind boggling why Africa would need the US to build from it a coalition "to restore democracy in Zimbabwe". Whose democracy? For whose benefit is this democracy? Defined by whom?

Apart from white supremacy, why else would it be incumbent upon the United States to organise Africa in a way that would bring a democracy imported from the United States of America?

Andrew Meldrum still thinks it is legitimate for him to determine what is good for Africans, and he believes that Africa needs structuring and building from Western elites for it to progress. Dell thinks the same, and most of Western politicians subscribe to this very dangerous illusion.

It is scandalous for Meldrum to imagine that US diplomacy can install a Government in Zimbabwe and those who think likewise must be reminded that in Zimbabwe there are too many Mugabes to defeat and the West will never have its way while we stand aside and look. To that this writer declares an unequivocal never!

Zimbabwe we are one and together we shall overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwa fawarova.com or visit www.rawafawarova.com

©  EsinIslam.Com