[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Mugabe's Biggest Sin

[Bill Totten]

Anglo-American and Chinese interests clash over Zimbabwe's strategic
mineral wealth

by F William Engdahl

Global Research (July 30 2008)


Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, presides over one of the
world's richest minerals treasures, the Great Dyke region, which cuts a
geological swath across the entire land from northeast to southwest. The
real background to the pious concerns of the Bush Administration for
human rights in Zimbabwe in the past several years is not Mugabe's
possible election fraud or his expropriation of white settler farms. It
is the fact that Mr Mugabe has been quietly doing business, a lot of it,
with the one country which has virtually unlimited need of strategic raw
materials Zimbabwe can provide - China. Mugabe's Zimbabwe is, along with
Sudan, on the central stage of the new war over control of strategic
minerals of Africa between Washington and Beijing, with Moscow playing a
supporting role in the drama. The stakes are huge.

Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe is a very very bad man. This we all
know from reading the newspapers or hearing the pronouncements of George
W Bush, earlier Britain's Tony Blair and more recently Gordon Brown. In
their eyes he has sinned badly. They charge that he is a dictator; that
he has expropriated, often with violence, the farms of whites as part of
land reform; they claim he rigged his re-election by vote fraud and
violence; that he has ruined the economy of Zimbabwe.

Whether Robert Mugabe deserves to be in Washington's honor roll of
villains alongside Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Ahmadinejad,
and Adolf Hitler, however, it is not the reason Washington and London
have made Zimbabwe regime change priority number one for their Africa
policy.

What his sin is seems to have more to do with his attempts to get out
from under Anglo-American neo-colonial serfdom dependency and to pursue
a national economic development independent of the International
Monetary Fund and World Bank. His real sin seems to be the fact that he
has turned to the one nation that offers his government credits and soft
loans for economic development with no strings attached - The Peoples'
Republic of China.

Western media accounts conveniently tend to omit the second major party
to what is a huge tug of war between Anglo-American interests and China
to get control of Zimbabwe's vast mineral wealth. We should keep in mind
that for Washington there are always "good dictators" and "bad
dictators". The difference is whether the given dictator serves US
national interests or not. Mugabe clearly is in the latter category.

Cecil Rhodes' legacy

Zimbabwe is the name of what under the era of British Imperialism a
century ago was named Rhodesia. The name Rhodesia came from the British
imperial strategist and miner, Cecil Rhodes, founder of the Rhodes
scholarships to Oxford, and author of a plan for a vast private African
zone, to be chartered from the Queen of England, from Egypt to South
Africa. Cecil Rhodes created the British South Africa Company, modeled
on the East India Company, along with his partner, L Starr Jameson of
Jameson Raid notoriety, to exploit the mineral riches of Rhodesia. It
controlled what was later named Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern
Rhodesia - Nyasaland. The model was that the British Government would
assume all risks to militarily defend Rhodes' looting while Rhodes and
his London bankers, above all Lord Rothschild, who was a close
associate, would assume all the gains of the business.

Rhodes, a seasoned geologist, knew well that there was a remarkable
geological fault running from the mouth of the Nile at the Gulf of Suez
south through Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, down through today's Zimbabwe on
to South Africa. Rhodes had already instigated several wars to gain
control of the diamonds of Kimberly and the gold of Witwatersrand in
South Africa. This geological phenomenon he, as well as enterprising
German explorers, had discovered in the 1880's. They named it the Great
Rift Valley.

Rhodesia, like South Africa after the bloody Boer wars, was settled by
white settlers to secure future minerals gains for allied interests of
the City of London, mainly those of the powerful Oppenheimer family and
their gold and diamond enterprises in the region.

In 1962 when Africa was undergoing the wave of national liberation from
colonial rule, a wave calculatedly supported by "non-colonial power"
Washington, Rhodesia was one of the last bastions, along with former
British colony South Africa, of white Apartheid rule. Whites in Rhodesia
constituted only one to two percent of the total population so their
methods of holding on to power were rather ruthless.

White supremacist Prime Minister, Ian Smith, declared Rhodesian
independence from Britain in 1965 rather than agree to the slightest
compromise on race or power sharing with black nationalists. Britain got
UN trade sanctions imposed to force Smith to buckle under. Despite
sanctions, there was considerable support from conservative business
interests in London. Britain's Tiny Rowland, head of the Lonrho mining
conglomerate, secured the bulk of his African profits from Rhodesian
copper mining and related ventures under the Smith regime. The City of
London knew very well what riches lay in Rhodesia. The question was how
to secure enduring control. Smith's Rhodesian backers had little
interest in giving it all to London.

Following a long and bloody struggle, in 1980 the leader of the black
African Popular Front coalition, Robert Mugabe, overwhelmingly won
election as the first Prime Minister of a new Zimbabwe. Twenty eight
years later, the same Robert Mugabe is under escalating attack from the
West, especially Zimbabwe's former colonial master, England, including
strong economic sanctions designed to bring the country to the brink of
collapse, to force him to open the economy to foreign (read
Anglo-American and allied) investment. Ironically, the issue seems not
all that different from the Ian Smith era: London and US control of the
resources of the rich land, and Zimbabwean efforts to resist that control.

The Great Dyke

Within Zimbabwe, a portion of the rich Great Rift is called the Great
Dyke, an intrusive geological treasure zone running over 530 kilometers
from the northeast to the southwest of the country, in places up to
twelve kilometers wide. A river runs along the fault and the region is
volcanically active. Here also lie vast deposits of chromium, of copper,
platinum and other metals.

The US State Department, as well as London, is aware of the vast
minerals and other riches of Zimbabwe. It states in a recent report on
Zimbabwe,

"Zimbabwe is endowed with rich mineral resources. Exports of gold,
asbestos, chrome, coal, platinum, nickel, and copper could lead to an
economic recovery one day ... The country is richly endowed with
coal-bed methane gas that has yet to be exploited.

"With international attractions such as Victoria Falls, the Great
Zimbabwe stone ruins, Lake Kariba, and extensive wildlife, tourism
historically has been a significant segment of the economy and
contributor of foreign exchange. The sector has contracted sharply since
1999, however, due to the country's declining international image. (sic)

"Energy Resources

"With considerable hydroelectric power potential and plentiful coal
deposits for thermal power station, Zimbabwe is less dependent on oil as
an energy source than most other comparably industrialized countries,
but it still imports forty percent of its electric power needs from
surrounding countries - primarily Mozambique. Only about fifteen percent
of Zimbabwe's total energy consumption is accounted for by oil, all of
which is imported. Zimbabwe imports about 1.2 billion liters of oil per
year. Zimbabwe also has substantial coal reserves that are utilized for
power generation, and coal-bed methane deposits recently discovered in
Matabeleland province are greater than any known natural gas field in
Southern or Eastern Africa. In recent years, poor economic management
and low foreign currency reserves have led to serious fuel shortages."


In short, chrome, copper, gold, platinum, huge hydroelectric power
potential and vast coal reserves are what is at stake for Washington and
London in Zimbabwe. The country also has unverified reserves of uranium,
something in big demand today for nuclear power generation.

It is clear of late that so long as the tenacious Mugabe is running
things, not the Anglo-Americans, but rather the Chinese, are Zimbabwe's
preferred business partners. This seems to be Mugabe's greatest sin.
He's not reading from the right program as George W Bush's friends see
it. His real sin seems to be turning East not West for economic and
investment help.

The Chinese connection

During the Cold War China recognized and supported Robert Mugabe. In
recent years as China's search for secure raw materials escalated its
foreign diplomacy, relations have become stronger. According to the
Chinese media, China has invested more in Zimbabwe than any other nation.

Already back in July 2005 as Tony Blair turned the sanctions screws
tighter on Zimbabwe, Mugabe flew to Beijing to meet with the top Chinese
leadership, where he reportedly sought an emergency loan of US$1 billion
and asked increased Chinese involvement in the economy.

It began to bear fruit. In June 2006 state- owned Zimbabwean businesses
signed a number of energy, mining and farming deals worth billions of
dollars with Chinese companies. The largest was with China
Machine-Building International Corporation, for a $1.3 billion contract
to mine coal and build thermal-power generators in Zimbabwe, to reduce
Zimbabwe's electricity shortage. The Chinese company had already built
thermal-power stations in Nigeria and Sudan, and had been involved in
mining projects in Gabon.

In 2007 the Chinese government donated farm machinery worth $25 million
to Zimbabwe, including 424 tractors and fifty trucks, as part of a $58
million loan to the Zimbabwean government. The Mugabe administration had
previously seized white-owned farms and gave them to blacks, damaging
machinery in the process. In return for the equipment and the loan the
Zimbabwean government will ship thirty million kilograms of tobacco to
the People's Republic of China.

Other Zimbabwe-China agreements included a deal between the Zimbabwe
Mining Development and China's Star Communications, forming a joint
venture to mine chrome, with funding from the China Development Bank.
Zimbabwe also agreed to import road-building, irrigation and farming
equipment from the China National Construction and Agricultural
Machinery Import and Export Corporation and China Poly Group. Zimbabwe
also relies on China for imports of telecommunications equipment,
military hardware and many other critical items it can no longer import
from the west because of the British-led sanctions.

Relations have become so important that Zimbabwe's police have a
dedicated "China desk" to protect Chinese interests in the country.

In April 2007 the chairman of China's top political advisory body, Jia
Qinglin, head of the National Committee of the Chinese Peoples'
Political Consultative Conference, flew to Harare to meet with Mugabe.
It was a follow-up to the 2006 Beijing China-Africa Cooperation Summit
where the Chinese government invited the heads of more than forty
African states to discuss relations. Africa has become a diplomatic and
economic priority for China and its economy.

At that time, Beijing got an open invitation to help develop dormant
mines in the country. The deputy speaker of Zimbabwe's parliament called
for more Chinese investment in the country's mining sector, according to
China's Xinhua news agency. Zimbabwe's mining laws were changed to allow
the government to reallocate mining claims that were not being exploited.

Mining generates half of Zimbabwe's export revenue. It is the only
sector in the country that still has foreign investors after the
collapse of the main agricultural sector. Western companies with mining
claims in Zimbabwe were not exploiting them. "We would appeal to the
Chinese government to come in full force to exploit these minerals",
Zimbabwean Deputy Parliamentary Speaker, Kumbirai Kangai said to the
official Xinhua.

Kangai assured potential Chinese investors that they would not expose
themselves to legal action if they took over claims held by Western
companies.

A few months after, in December 2007, Chinese company, Sinosteel
Corporation, acquired 67 percent stake in Zimbabwe's leading ferrochrome
producer and exporter Zimasco Holdings. Zimasco Holdings is the fifth
largest high carbonated ferrochrome producer in the world. It used to
produce 210,000 tons of high-carbon ferrochrome per year, nearly all of
it along the mineral-rich Great Dyke, accounting for four percent of
global ferrochrome production.

Zimasco has also the world's second largest reserves of chrome, after
South Africa. It was formerly owned by Union Carbide Corporation, now
part of Dow Chemicals Corp.

Oh, oh! Alarm bells went ringing in London and in Washington at that news.

China clearly views Africa as a central part of its strategic plan, most
notably for its oil reserves and vital raw materials such as copper,
chrome, nickel. The continent is also at the same time becoming an
important region for Chinese manufactured exports. But the raw materials
battle is at the heart, and the real reason by all accounts, why
Washington recently decided to form a separate Africa Command in the
Pentagon.

Controlling China's economic emergence is an un-stated strategic
priority of United States foreign and military policy and has been since
before September 11 2001. The only delicate point in the business is the
fact that China, with well over $1.7 trillions of foreign exchange
reserves, most believed in form of US Treasury securities, could trigger
a complete dollar panic and further collapse of the US economy should
she decide for political reasons it were too risky to continue holding
its hundreds of billions of US dollar debt. In effect, by buying US
Government debt with its trade surpluses, China has been indirectly
financing US policies counter to Chinese national interest such as the
Iraq war, or even the $100 million or so annually that Condi Rice's
State Department spends on Tibet.

China is refusing to play by the rules of the Anglo-American
neo-colonial game. It does not seek IMF or World Bank approval before
dealing with African countries. It makes soft loans, regardless who
might be running the country. In this it does nothing different from
Washington or London. The Chinese see American influence in Africa less
entrenched than in the rest of the world, thus offering unique
opportunities for China to pursue its economic interests.

It may or may not be cynical. It may be Realpolitik. If it results in
the ability of certain African countries to use China as a political
counterweight to the one-sided Anglo-American domination of the
Continent, that itself could be a major benefit to Africans depending on
how they use it.

Clearly, it has been extremely positive for Chinese access to vital
economic minerals for its economy as well as oil from places such as
Darfur and southern Sudan, or Nigeria.

Mineral wealth has once more put Africa on center stage of a battle for
mineral riches between East and West. This time, unlike during the Cold
War era, however, Beijing is playing with far more assets, and
Washington with far less.

_____

F William Engdahl is a leading analyst of the New World Order, author of
the best-selling book on oil and geopolitics, A Century of War:
Anglo-American Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press), and Seeds
of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
(www.globalresearch.ca). His writings have been translated into more
than a dozen languages.
He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net .

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(c) Copyright F William Engdahl, Global Research, 2008

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