Hon Speaker, on behalf of the NFP allow me to express our condolences to the wife and children of the former President Robert Mugabe. Hon Speaker, allow me to start off by saying a quote from the
late hon Mugabe which was on the 26 September 2007, I quote:
Let Mr Bush read history correctly. Let him realise that both personally and in his representative capacity as the current president of the United States, he stands for this civilisation, which occupied, which colonised, which incarcerated, which killed. He has much to atone for and very little to lecture us on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His hands drip with innocent blood of many nationalities
The late Robert Mugabe was demonised by the colonialists. They rejected him as a political leader. He was branded a terrorist. He was even jailed for over 10 years. He was not even allowed to bury his son.
Whilst negotiations were taking place in the Lancaster Conference, they went out there together with the help of colonialist South Africa and they targeted and bombed many of the areas in the neighbouring states where there was a planning and preparing onslaught into Rhodesia.
I think, we must admit that under President Mugabe - and I think even South Africa suffers today and has not achieved what Robert Mugabe achieved in Zimbabwe particularly in terms of - and I think hon Malema is correct. If you look at the issue of education and where he took them, it is from 45% right to 80% literacy. I think if you go back to some of the quotations of President Mugabe, he always put emphasis on education because he said that, if you do not have education, you will not be able to succeed in anything in the world.
I think we must be mindful of the fact that, President Robert Mugabe played a pivotal role in the liberation of the people of Zimbabwe from the apartheid Rhodesia in those years. I think he has paid a price for it as he spent many years in jail as we all are aware of. He once said that, your key to success is education. It is better to have education than to be surrounded by poor graduates and rich criminals.
You can see the emphasis that he actually put. One of the reasons why Zimbabwe is in the state that it is today is because of the sanctions; particularly with the role that
the United States and the British have played in ensuring that there is no success in Zimbabwe. Let us not entirely put the blame on Zimbabwe and President Mugabe for the state of it. Let us acknowledge the role that he played in liberating the people in Zimbabwe. Our condolences go to his family, friends and particularly to all those who currently supported him and still believed in his leadership.